NHS (60th Anniversary)

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on setting out his case. I recognised more of a celebration of the national health service, which is supposed to be the theme of this debate, from the tone of his remarks than from those of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who set out the case for the Conservatives—I heard more carping than celebration from him. May I add to what my right hon. Friend said on the short history of the origins of the NHS? In the 1940s, not only did the Opposition vote against the principle of the national health service, but the Conservative Government, led by Winston Churchill, who took over from the splendid Attlee Government of the 1940s and 1950, were still so dischuffed with the NHS that they set up the Guillebaud committee in the early 1950s. The specific remit of that committee was to review NHS spending and the then Conservative Government hoped it would say that the NHS, as a publicly funded institution free at the point of use, was too expensive. In fact, the Tory Guillebaud committee said that the NHS was very good value for money, and so the Tories, at that stage, were stuck with the NHS. I submit that they have never properly digested that lesson.