Management of the National Health Service

Part of Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 3:52 pm on 9 May 2006.

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Photo of Andrew Lansley Andrew Lansley Shadow Secretary of State for Health 3:52, 9 May 2006

She did . [ Interruption. ]

On 22 February, the Department withdrew the NHS tariff on the basis that it had underlying errors. Hon. Members might wonder what sort of underlying technical errors they might be. They were really complicated things: the Department was supposed to take £140 million from patient transport, but it only took £140. Things like that happened. So the NHS did not get its tariff until 10 working days before the start of the new financial year.

It became clear in February and March, too, that the Government's legislative programme had collapsed. The new Leader of the House is here, and I welcome him to his post. I am sure that he will be interested to know that the Department of Health was given the benefit of three measures in this legislative programme, but the policy on the Health Bill collapsed and the Government had to do a U-turn, the NHS Redress Bill has been radically changed in the Lords from the Government's original proposals and the draft Mental Health Bill has been abandoned. We simply do not know when the Government's new and, I hope, better proposals will arrive.

In March, the trauma got worse. Deficits turned to disasters. On 7 March, Sir Nigel Crisp resigned. The chief executive took responsibility for the problems of the previous months—what a pity Ministers did not.