Lib Dem leader says he wants substantial changes to NHS reform plans and vows to be more assertive within coalition
Nick Clegg has vowed to block the government's planned NHS reforms unless the package put forward by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, is improved.
The deputy prime minister said unless there were "substantial, significant changes" to Lansley's proposals to hand commissioning powers to GPs and extend private provision of NHS services, he would tell Liberal Democrat MPs and peers to join Labour in voting them down.
The warning came as Clegg set out his plans to be more assertive within the coalition government in response to Lib Dem losses in last week's elections.
He told BBC1's Andrew Marr show he would "never, never, never" join the Conservatives, adding: "I will be carried out in my coffin as a card-carrying Liberal Democrat."
Clegg accepted that his party's traditional supporters were anxious about the programme of spending cuts the Lib Dems had signed up to, but insisted the coalition's efforts to reduce the deficit must continue.
Despite the loss of more than 700 English councillors and the bulk of his representation in the Scottish parliament - as well as the overwhelming defeat on electoral reform - Clegg insisted the Lib Dems still had "a platform from which we can recover".
Earlier the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, urged disgruntled Lib Dems to jump ship from the coalition and join him in opposing the Conservatives, a call dismissed as "tactics" by Clegg.
The Lib Dem leader told Marr: "I accept that there is real pressure on us to explain to our traditional voters why we are doing this and why it is good for the country. Of course there are lessons to be learned, and the lesson I have learned listening to people on the doorsteps is that people want a louder Liberal Democrat voice in government."
He insisted the "pause" in the health and social care bill announced by Lansley would not simply amount to a cosmetic consultation. "It is absolutely not just a pause for the sake of it. This is not a cosmetic exercise. There will be substantial, significant changes to the legislation," he said.
"As far as government legislation is concerned, no bill is better than a bad one, and I want to get this right. Protecting the NHS, rather than undermining it, is now my number one priority. I am not going to ask Liberal Democrat MPs and peers to proceed with legislation on something as precious and cherished - particularly for Liberal Democrats - as the NHS unless I personally am satisfied that what these changes do is an evolutionary change in the NHS and not a disruptive revolution."
Clegg said critics of Lansley's plans were right to warn that changes must not be pushed through too fast and GPs should not be forced to take on commissioning roles before they are ready: "What you will see in this legislation are clear guarantees that you are not going to have back-door privatisation of the NHS."
He insisted it was not the time for "tit for tat politics in the government [with] ministers fighting like cats and dogs", and said there would be no rewriting of the coalition agreement.
The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Simon Hughes, echoed Clegg's warning that the party would seek to water down the health reforms. "I don't think we can go ahead with the plans as they are in the bill," he said. "It needs fundamental change."
Hughes accused Lansley of devising proposals that were not included in the coalition agreement struck last May. "The secretary of state for health came up with a plan which wasn't what we agreed in the coalition agreement," he told the BBC's Politics Show. "At the time people argued internally in government that it was a reasonable settlement, but I think everything we have seen shows that it is not. So let's go back to the drawing board."
MPs will discuss the NHS on Monday after Labour forced an opposition day debate in the Commons.
Shadow health secretary, John Healey, said: "For all his tough talk on the NHS, Nick Clegg is up to his neck in the Tory-led government's health bill and the Lib Dems have backed it so far at every stage in parliament.
"I'm glad Lib Dems are starting to make the arguments Labour has been making since the early autumn. This is a bad bill and if Nick Clegg is serious he must spell out exactly what his bottom line is.
"But in truth this is David Cameron's call, not Nick Clegg's. If the prime minister wants to prove to NHS patients and staff that his 'pause' is not just spin, then he must shelve the bill as it stands and make radical changes to his NHS reorganisation plans."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/08/nick-clegg-veto-nhs-reforms
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