Health and Social Care Bill

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No.

In the space of under two years, my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department and I have delivered a reduction approaching £2 billion in the cost of the NHS IT programme. That will enable us to empower services right across the country to be better users and deliver better IT systems.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Further to the list of changes to the Bill that the Health Secretary has outlined, will he confirm that it no longer imposes reviews by the Competition Commission on the NHS, therefore ensuring that it is not treated in the same way as any private industry would be?

[Mr Lansley]

That is indeed true, and my hon. Friend will also be aware—the Future Forum was clear about this—that the NHS benefits from the transfer of competition powers. The Bill does not create any new competition powers in the NHS; it transfers the exercise of competition powers from the Office of Fair Trading to Monitor, as a sector-specific regulator, as we agreed in the coalition agreement. That is what the Bill does, and that is a better protection for the NHS compared with what would otherwise be the application of competition rules, and before—[Interruption.] Labour Members mutter, but it has become apparent over recent weeks that in 2006, when the right hon. Member for Leigh was a Health Minister, it was their Government who received legal advice that demonstrated that their changes had introduced the application of EU competition rules into the NHS.