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Health Bill [HL]

For the sake of clarity, I did not say that Governments should willy-nilly be able to change principles; I said—I want to be very clear about this—that the circumstances in which Governments govern may change, making it necessary for a Government to respond to those circumstances. I think that that was in the thoughts of the people who wrote the founding legislation for the NHS. That does not mean that there should not be some understanding of principles and that they should be enshrined in the constitution, but I am saying that enshrining them in primary legislation may unreasonably restrict a Government of any political persuasion in the economic circumstances that they face, as happened in 1951 with the Labour Government.