Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As it happens, in opposition we continually made the case against an over-centralised NHS that was not responsive enough to the needs of communities and patients, and insufficiently accountable to them. That is why we are giving more power, not less, to local authorities, particularly in the area of public health, and why we are giving more financial authority to GPs, rather than less, because they know patients best—[Interruption.] Hon. Members say “The private sector”, but it was the Labour party that rigged the market through the introduction of independent treatment centres to force private sector providers in the NHS. Through the reforms, we will ensure that there is a level playing field, on which public, voluntary and private providers can compete.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T4. Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my belief that the will of this House to equalise constituency boundaries and reduce the number of MPs should not be frustrated by the grotesque spectacle of former Labour Members, who have been rejected by the electorate, leading a filibuster in the other House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is indeed a spectacle to see on the television that former Members of this House who were virtually monosyllabic here have become so very loquacious in the other place, particularly late at night, to block a simple measure that was one of the great campaigning themes of the Chartists in the century before last—namely that all votes should be of the same value and that all constituencies should be roughly the same size. I think that everyone in the country would agree with that principle, except for Opposition Members.