Tories say Nick Clegg is 'carrying out' chancellor's work in amending NHS reforms
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George Osborne's role in amending the NHS reforms has been largely overlooked. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
A cabinet minister made an intriguing point to me on Monday about the politics of the NHS reforms. This is what I quoted the minister as saying in my story on the NHS reforms in Tuesday's paper:
It is fair to say there has been a reduction in our ambitions on the NHS reforms. Nick Clegg is busy claiming all the credit for effectively carrying out George's work.
The minister put his finger on a crucial element of the government's NHS "listening exercise" – the role played by George Osborne in pressing for amendments to the health and social care bill. My good friend Benedict Brogan was one of the first to identify the largely unnoticed role of the chancellor. This is what Benedict wrote on 18 May:
Power seems to sit with Mr Osborne, who has taken on the role of Lord High Executioner for superfluous policies. Cabinet ministers should dread the moment when he leans back in his chair at the crucial 8.30am meeting in Downing Street and asks, "Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?" It's what he asked about Andrew Lansley's NHS changes back in February – with the result that what began as an ambitious plan to help the health service cope with the eye-watering efficiency savings it is being required to deliver year on year is being rapidly unpicked for purely political reasons.
The Tories are likely to have mixed feelings about highlighting the chancellor's role after the government accepted the bulk of the recommendations in the Future Forum report on the NHS reforms today. Will the chancellor want to be associated with a major change of heart? On the other hand David Cameron may want to highlight Osborne's role as the Tories challenge the widely held view that the pause was triggered solely by the Liberal Democrats. The prime minister likes to point out that it was his idea – and not Nick Clegg's – to pause the bill.
The prime minister was on his diplomatic best today when I asked him about the Lib Dems. As he stood next to Nick Clegg at Guy's Hospital, where they were announcing their response to the Future Forum report, I asked Cameron what he would say to the Lib Dem leader if he were tempted in the television debates at the next general election to claim that the Liberal Democrats had saved the NHS in 2011.
Cameron laughed as he told me:
He wouldn't behave like that in a television debate.
The prime minister answered a separate question I had asked about the Clinical Commissioning Groups. He then returned to the Lib Dem question as he told me:
As for the nature of the pause, this was something that the deputy prime minister and I discussed and agreed was the right thing to do. Not right for the Liberal Democrats, not right for the Conservatives – right for the NHS. It was the right thing to do. Because we both care about this organisation and getting it right this was the right step to take. So I am sure that when we have that election it will be wholly reasonable, it will be very boring television to watch as a result.
Lucy Manning, the ITV News political correspondent, tweeted Clegg's reaction:
PM asked by @nicholaswatt what will say to Clegg if in tv debates he claims to saved NHS.PM says hed never behave like that. Clegg pulls face
I was briefly delayed in asking my question after Nick Timmins, the FT's public policy editor, nicked the microphone. I tweeted what an honour it was to be big-footed by such a great authority on the NHS. This prompted queries on Twitter about what Timmins had asked.
So here is his question:
I am a Bear of very little brain so I was wondering if the secretary of state could explain to me that under these amendments how will competition operate any differently than it would have done under his bill. *
The prime minister gave way to Lansley before replying to Timmins:
I am glad you nicked the microphone because it is a very good question. Basically what we are talking about is that competition and diversity come through bottom up choices that are made within the NHS, not from top down dogma. That is one of the key changes in this process.