Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 4)

Let me deal with both those points. I acknowledge that absolutely. On past occasions, the right hon. Gentleman has been to our party conference, although I do not think he came to the Gateshead conference. [Interruption.] It appears that one of his colleagues did. There were and are concerns in my party about this. My party wrote the plan for the NHS, which the good Labour post-war Government implemented, so of course we think we are as much the proprietors of the NHS as his party and of course there are concerns. There are many concerns—many colleagues are not happy with the Bill—and I am owning up to that. I am absolutely clear about that, but do not let the right hon. Gentleman misrepresent what happened at Gateshead. My party is a democratic party. It is more democratic than his, thank God, and much more democratic than the Tory party. Our party voted to commend the Lords on the work they had done, but to suspend judgment on the Bill. My party neither voted to say that the Bill should not go ahead, nor voted to decide that the Bill should go ahead. That was what the debate, in the end, was about. There was not quite a majority saying, ““Stop the Bill””; that was not the view of the conference, although there are many people in our party, as there are in his—this view is also shared by some in the Tory party and elsewhere—who would want the Bill to be stopped. The Bill is not going to be stopped; it will become law. The Bill contains many good things. My concern now is to reflect what constituents, both health professionals and those who are not health professionals, come to talk to me about. They feel that there is a need to get back to concentrating on the things that really matter, such as making sure the wards are clean; making sure that the staff are of the highest quality; making sure that the waiting times go down; making sure that we can get decent care for the mentally ill; and making sure that our NHS is able to do better on all that it does. That is what the concerns are. I want to make sure that Ministers understand that once the Bill is on the statute book there should be no cause for rejoicing, because this is not a matter for rejoicing. It is a matter of a challenge for Government to go back in humility to the health professionals and say, ““We may not have got it all right—we may have got some of it wrong—but we are willing to listen, to learn and to work with you.”” In the end it is collaboration between local authorities, local councillors, local people, Ministers, parliamentarians and those millions of fantastic people who work in the national health service who will make sure that the health service survives. It will survive and prosper in this country as a public health service—thank God—and we must all work together to respond to concerns, alleviate fears and not fan the flames. We must make sure that from now on we work on the basis of facts, not fiction, and that we work together with those who have the concern, like we do, that the NHS should survive and prosper.