22.06.11
MPs vote to reconsider reforms in Parliament
Parts of the Health & Social Care Bill will be “recommitted” to enable fresh scrutiny of the amended NHS reforms.
The procedure, which has not been used since 2003, was backed by MPs with a majority of 73, meaning parts of the Bill will now be sent back to the ‘committee stage’ of the legislative process.
Labour had wanted the whole Bill re-examined, arguing that the original version had changed beyond recognition, but Health Minister Simon Burns said this was unnecessary.
He said: “We feel very strongly that this would unnecessarily delay the progress of the Bill to the ultimate detriment of patients. It is now time to give greater clarity and direction to staff and patients.”
However, only ten days have been set aside for fresh scrutiny: an unusually short amount of time for major legislation.
At his press conference yesterday, David Cameron said that would be enough time, arguing: “I think ten days is a significant amount of time. We have recommitted this Bill so it goes back into the committee stage, it then has a report stage. I think I am right in saying we are going to have two days on report stage. I don’t remember us having two day report stages for many bills under Labour.”
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