Clause 6 - Authorisation of NHS foundation trusts

Part of Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:00 pm on 20 May 2003.

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Photo of John Hutton John Hutton Minister of State, Department of Health, Minister of State (Department of Health) (Health) 12:00, 20 May 2003

Briefly, the hon. Gentleman puts forward an interesting proposition. I have not heard any reciprocal response from his Front Bench spokesman. This is a very pertinent issue. He is arguing for something that I did not discern in his amendment. I thought that he wanted to exclude the regulator from interfering with the PCT commissioning process. He is indeed arguing for that, but the reason why is specifically to introduce price competition into the national health service; he was candid about that. The fascinating insight that the hon. Gentleman has given the Committee is that he wants a genuine market. Is that the Opposition's official policy?

We need the discipline in the national health service of greater efficiency, greater productivity and more responsive services. We can achieve that with the new freedoms and the efforts that we are making to improve performance across the NHS, including CHAI and the extra investment in wider reforms.

The hon. Gentleman's prescription is based on classic free market theory. He is applying all the disciplines of what we would call the general activity in the economy to the NHS, including competition on the basis of price. He thinks that that will improve the performance of the NHS, but it will not. If he believes that, he has learned nothing from the experience of the internal market in the 1980s and early 1990s. We will not go down that path. Now that it is clear what the amendment is about, I have absolute confidence that my hon. Friends and I will give it the greatest cold shoulder that collectively we can give.