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I agree with that point entirely. We all love the NHS and respect so much the work of the people who work in that service, so congratulations on the fact that Labour introduced the NHS, but that is not the point. This debate should not be about ideology; it should be about what works.
Just on a point of fact, about two weeks ago it was the anniversary of the first White Paper on a national health service, which was presented to Parliament by the wartime Conservative Health Minister, Willink. The thinking behind much of that came of course from civil servants, of whom Beveridge was undoubtedly one of the more important, and he was a well known Liberal. I therefore suggest to my hon. Friend that before conceding the historical point, which we should accept absolutely, that bringing the national health service into being was a Labour achievement, we should point out that there was in fact a huge amount of cross-party consensus, particularly during the war years, in the lead-up to the birth of the NHS. It is important that we all recognise the contribution of all parties in its origins.
I am very grateful for that historical clarification. One thing I used to say in my business to any people who came to me with new ideas was that ideas are 10 a penny. What matters is how we implement things. What matters is how we implemented things then and how we implement things today. That is what makes the critical difference in whether something will succeed or fail.