Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burns]

There is not altogether the same comparison to be made with Monitor and foundation trusts, but I certainly understand and take on board the general principle behind my right hon. Friend’s question. I think that it is important that there is accountability.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Government want to create about 500 new GP commissioning groups and scrap 150 primary care trusts, which the King’s Fund says will cost £3 billion. Yet, last year the current Prime Minister promised that

“there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures… The disruption is terrible, the demoralisation worse—and the waste of money inexcusable.”

Can the Minister tell us when the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) changed his mind?

[Mr Burns]

May I begin by congratulating the hon. Lady on her elevation to this position? I know that in the past she has worked at the Department of Health, so her experience will no doubt help her Front-Bench colleagues who do not share such a background. However, she is factually wrong, although no doubt she will not be wrong in the future, because we have never said that there will be 500 consortiums. It will up to local decision making to determine how many consortiums there will be. The hon. Lady can believe what she reads in the newspapers, but if I were her I would wait to see what actually happens.