I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. It is a great sadness and reflects ill on my personal life that I spend many a night browsing through Liberal Democrat and Conservative manifestos. I have searched; I have examined; I have deconstructed; I have applied the principles of Jacques Derrida to those manifestos. Have I found in there any smidgen, any suggestion, any hint or any implication that the NHS was to be fragmented, privatised and ultimately destroyed, and the connection between the people and the NHS to be ripped up, torn into shreds like the integrity of the Liberal Democrats, hurled from the window to flutter in the breeze of history, never, ever to be seen again? Had I found that, I would almost certainly have voted Labour—but as I did so anyway, that is neither here nor there. But the point that my hon. Friend makes is absolutely right. How can the people, who fund the NHS, who are born in the NHS, who live in the NHS and who will ultimately quit this mortal bourn in the NHS—when they depart this vale of tears, it will be with the comforting arm of the NHS about their shoulders—feel that they are best served by this organisation if their voice is not heard?
Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 4)
Proceeding contribution from
Stephen Pound
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 20 March 2012.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Health and Social Care Bill.
About this proceeding contribution
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