The future of the Health and Social Care Bill is a test of Craig Oliver. For months
there has been a steady drip of quiet critiques of the bill; but some Liberal Democrat grandees have suddenly broken cover and burst into open dissent. David Owen and Shirley Williams have called for the bill’s implementation to be
slowed and for consultation to re-open.
Both are especially concerned that private sector involvement will expose the NHS to competition law, which they believe would be detrimental to the NHS. As Williams put it:
“If it looks as if it’s simply part of what’s becoming a private market we’ll be slap-bang in the middle of European Union competition policy, which perfectly correctly for the private sector insists upon an absolutely level playing field all the way across, but that will destroy the NHS without any doubt.
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