NHS Reinstatement Bill Letter

I wrote the following letter to the Bath Chronicle today:

As I write this on the 1st of July, Green MP Caroline Lucas is presenting the NHS Reinstatement Bill to Parliament. In a nutshell this cross-party bill seeks to reinstate the NHS based on its founding principles and reverse the creeping privatisation and marketisation of our NHS. It would strip away the costly and wasteful market mechanisms and return much-needed funds to treating patients, rather than the massively bureaucratic process of splitting NHS services into tiny parts for handing-out to private companies and NHS organisations - a process reckoned to cost billions per year.

Our new MP Ben Howlett makes much noise about how he is both ‘proud of the NHS’ and happy to rebel against his party in issues where there is clear evidence and public support. Since the huge majority of the public don’t want to see the NHS privatised, will we be able to count on his support for today’s bill, or will he all too predictably ignore the public will and fall into line with his party now that he is elected?

Dominic Tristram 2015 Green Party PPC for Bath

You can read more about the excellent NHS Public Reinstatement Bill here.