Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Colleagues on this side of the House will know that the Secretary of State has a great passion for the health service, and great mastery of his brief. Will he confirm, for the sake of all hon. Members, that the object of getting rid of PCTs and top-down targets is to free a lot of money for patient care? That should be in the interests of all hon. Members and their constituents.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Before the election, the previous Labour Government said that it was necessary to save up to £20 billion in efficiencies in the NHS, but they never said they would reinvest that money in the NHS. We have said that we will reinvest it. In order to deliver those efficiencies, 10% of that gain will be achieved by cutting the costs of bureaucracy and administration. We have set out how we will do that, but the previous Government never did.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.
