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Emergency Care

The social chapter—the hon. Gentleman is right to correct me, as the social contract is something completely different, which I well remember from the early '70s. Let us be clear: the Tories got confused about the social chapter and the British taxpayer—[Interruption.] I am asked what this has got to do with it, but the European working time directive is mentioned in the motion. They got confused and spent thousands of millions of taxpayers' money, fighting a case in the European courts, which they lost because it is a health and safety measure and does not come under the social chapter or the social contract. I was also asked in an earlier intervention about the opt-out, which the British Government intend to maintain. In co-decision with the European Parliament, we will maintain the opt-out as we have done for 12 years. The fact is that that argument—Opposition Members should understand this—will make not the slightest difference to the NHS. There is a separate agreement for junior doctors. We have decided—I would be surprised if anyone took a different view—that the national health service will have a 48-hour working week with no opt-out. The reason for that is that with the rotas and flexibility necessary in the NHS, the system cannot be run effectively if we are constantly depending on who opts in or out. Whereas individual doctors can, we are implementing this by having a 48-hour week, which will come about on 1 August 2009. That is not to say that we do not recognise the argument about doctors flogging themselves to death. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who is no longer in his place, raised this issue and said that he is kept awake at night worrying about the working time directive. The point of that directive was to stop clinicians staying awake all night because they were obliged to be at work for horrendously long hours, which adversely affected the quality of care provided.