If she will make a statement on the use of the private sector by the NHS.

The NHS has always made use of the private sector and will continue to do so to provide services when there are clear benefits for NHS patients through faster access, more choice, better services or better value for money for the taxpayer by helping to improve productivity and innovation All those services, however, will be absolutely consistent with the founding principle of the NHS: treatment based on clinical need and not on ability to pay.

In 1997, we promised to end the internal market and restore the NHS as a public service working co-operatively for patients, as opposed to a commercial business driven by profit and competition. Despite an historic level of investment, however, our county of Leicestershire now faces planned hospital cuts, ward closures and a loss of beds. Does the Secretary of State agree that her marketisation plans are going too far and too fast, and that we risk offering illusory patient choices that will widen inequalities in health and access to health care rather than narrowing them?

I do not accept what my hon. Friend has said. As a result of our investment and reforms, we are already delivering substantially improved services to patients—to my hon. Friend's constituents, and to the public throughout the country. But my hon. Friend and I have been re-elected on the 2005 manifesto in which we promised to continue the programme of investment and reform, and to continue selective use of the independent and private sector where that would help us to secure better services for patients. That is what we are doing, and I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to support it.

In the context of the use of the private sector in health care, why has the word "competition" just been changed to "contestability"?

I think that "contestability" implies something considerably wider: the challenge that we need in the system so that where parts of the NHS are underperforming, patients will have a wider choice of providers who can help to raise even further the level of innovation that already exists in the NHS. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that. As a result of the changes that we have made—the granting of more freedom to foundation trusts, for instance, and the selective use of the private and independent sector—waiting lists are falling faster, and services are improving faster, than many people thought possible three or four years ago.

My right hon. Friend's Department is currently market-testing purchasing and supply functions in the NHS, with the laudable aim of seeking additional savings for front-line care by expanding central purchasing. Will she assure me that no private sector bid will be accepted without a clear demonstration, to the satisfaction of Members of Parliament, that it can persuade more trusts and hospitals to purchase centrally, that the agency concerned is as efficient as NHS Logistics, which is currently expanding, and that all the safety issues have been taken fully into account?

As my hon. Friend knows, we are considering how we can continue to improve the performance of NHS Logistics. No decision has been made, and no decision would be made to move to a different provider unless there was a compelling case for that—and there would, of course, be the usual consultation.