Why Labour are abolishing NHS England

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

It was widely briefed that the main focus of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in Yorkshire today was his plan to do away with Whitehall red tape. What was kept under wraps was the Prime Minister’s plans for the NHS – specifically to scrap NHS England. In a bid to tackle bureaucracy in the health service, the PM this morning told reporters that the ‘arms-length NHS’ needed to go – adding that the move will ‘shift money to the front line’ and free the health service to ‘focus on patients’. What's the point of abolishing NHS England? And are Labour 'doing the things that the Tories only dreamed of'?

Lucy Dunn speaks James Heale and Michael Gove.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Megan McElroy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Coffee House Shots is sponsored by Alliance Witten Investment Trust. From the OPEC
0:06.0	Oil Crisis of the 1970s, the financial crash in 2008, to the COVID epidemic and Liz Truss's
0:13.1	doomed premiership. There has been no shortage of economic crises over the last 58 years. And yet,
0:19.6	throughout that time, every single year, without fail,
0:22.8	we've paid out an increased dividend to our shareholders. In fact, Alliance Witten's history
0:28.3	dates all the way back to 1888. And today, we manage around £5 billion in assets.
0:35.5	If you're looking for a less stressful way to invest in stocks and shares,
0:39.2	learn more about Alliance Witten and find your comfort zone.
0:45.9	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by the spectators
0:50.0	James Hale and Michael Gove. Today's big announcement is that Kier-Starmers Labour government
0:55.0	will be scrapping NHS England.
0:58.0	Here's the clip.
0:59.0	And I can't, in all honesty, explain to the British people
1:03.0	why they should spend their money on two layers of bureaucracy.
1:08.0	That money could and should be spent on nurses, doctors, operation, GP appointments.
1:13.6	So today I can announce, we're going to cut bureaucracy across the state, focus government
1:20.6	on the priorities of working people, shift money to the front line. So I'm bringing
1:26.6	management of the NHS back into democratic
1:30.2	control by abolishing the arm's length body NHS England. It's quite an interesting move,
1:37.4	and particularly with West Streeting and the noises he's been making about his dislike of
1:41.8	managers and certainly reforming the NHS. There's been a lot of
1:45.4	talks that these big changes are coming down the line. We've seen a number of high profile NHS
	...

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