The Clegg/Williams email to party members on the NHS

Three quick observations:

1. Twice the email says that, if amendments are passed, the NHS Bill “should be allowed to” pass. That’s a rather lukewarm phrase but its repetition makes clear the main point the email is trying to persuade members of – which is that they should not be pressing for the NHS Bill to be dropped (a tough challenge).
2. Oddly there’s no reference to the line about ‘we need to tidy up the privatisation mess left by Labour’ which Liberal Democrat peers have been pushing. Why the inconsistency of message?
3. The email is (unlike many of last year’s emails) up with the news cycle, rather than waiting until after party members have heard a story in the media and formed their views before emailing them the party’s take on them. That’s a good sign.

Dear Mark,

As you know, the Liberal Democrats fought for significant changes to the Government’s original Health & Social Care Bill. We’ve succeeded in making a real difference. Thanks to those efforts, and if we are able to win amendments on competition and Foundation Trusts, the bill now going before the House of Lords should be allowed to be completed.

Today we have written to all of our colleagues in the Commons and Lords. You can read the letter here.

Later this week the House of Lords will debate Liberal Democrat amendments to ensure we rule out any threat of a US-style market in the NHS.

If these amendments pass we are confident that competition and diversity in the NHS will always be done in the interests of patients, not profits.

Next month we will return to where this process all began a year ago when we meet at our party’s Spring Conference. If we secure these necessary changes Conference can be reassured that it has finished the job it started last March and the Bill should be allowed to proceed.

With your support we can build a stronger and better NHS ready to put patients at the centre, working with local communities, and responding to the financial challenges of an ageing population.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby