Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will be aware that we in the Department and across government have invited Will Hutton to examine pay differentials in public services, and we have talked to him about precisely that. In my hon. Friend’s area, the earnings of a qualified member of ambulance staff would be about £37,000 on average, which of course is only about a sixth of the highest pay of an NHS manager.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Past reorganisations of the national health service have taken years to embed and affected performance negatively, and history suggests that, given the scale of the reorganisations in the White Paper, they will be no exception. Can the Secretary of State tell us how much the administrative costs of the changes will be?

[Mr Lansley]

Perhaps I can remind the right hon. Gentleman that the major part of the reorganisation is to eliminate strategic health authorities and primary care trusts, to focus resources on the front line, to get them into the hands of those who are responsible for delivering care and, in the process, to deliver £1.9 billion a year of savings on administration costs.