Oral Answers to Questions

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

Ambulance services will be commissioned through the GP consortia at the local level. What I envisage—this is not prescriptive from the Department of Health, but what I think will develop—is that, just as ambulance services are currently commissioned for geographical areas in England through one PCT, the consortia will appoint lead consortia to commission the services for that area.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree with the representations of the Select Committee on Health, chaired by the hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), when it said that it was

“surprised by the change of approach between the Coalition Programme”

in May

“and the White Paper”

in July? The Committee continued:

“The White Paper proposes a disruptive reorganisation of the institutional structure of the NHS which was subject to little prior discussion and not foreshadowed in the Coalition Programme.”

If he cannot convince his hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood, how is he going to convince the rest of us?

[Mr Burns]

Let me begin by congratulating my, in fact, right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood on the report that his Committee produced. The Government will give a full response to it in due course, as is usual. What I would tell the hon. Lady is that what happened in the Bill and the White Paper was what we and our coalition colleagues, the Liberal Democrats, had outlined in our election manifestos, which—[Interruption.] Hon. Members may say that, but I suggest that they look at pages 45 to 47 of the Conservative manifesto, which probably very few of them have bothered to do. GP commissioning, along with “any willing provider” et al, are there, and if one looks at the Liberal Democrat one—[Interruption.]