Going back to the beginning cannot save your health bill - bin it,
Unite urges government
27 May 2011
The astonishing admission yesterday (Thursday) from deputy prime
minister Nick Clegg that the deeply controversial Health and Social
Care bill will have to repeat its Commons' committee stages all
over again is nothing short of staggering, says the country's
biggest union, Unite.
The recommittal process is used rarely in the modern era and for
a government to recommit its own bill proves that the coalition
cannot make up its mind about its own proposals.
Plans to send the health bill back to committee stage therefore
confirm health professionals' long-held fears that the proposals
are so ill-thought through that they cannot be redeemed.
The union also warns that the promise of major alterations to
the bill will not be enough to save it while those clauses which
will hasten the demise of the NHS remain in any form.
Rachael Maskell, Unite national officer for health, said: "Nick
Clegg's staggering comments today need urgent clarification.
"The threat of this bill has brought months of uncertainty to
the national health service, so if the government is to send this
bill back to the first base, that is welcome.
"However, it must do so with the bill stripped of its deadly
proposals to put competition before care. Plus those measures that
will impose tremendous financial instability on the health service
must go otherwise this process is but an interlude to
privatisation.
"Health professionals will only be content that quality, stable
and universal patient care comes first.
"All this can be achieved by working with us, and without costly
legislative upheavals.
"That is why the only place for this bill to go is in the
bin."
Unite says that the last time a bill was recommitted was 2003
when the Hunting bill was forced back to parliament.
ENDS
