Dear Baroness Williams,

I have greatly appreciated your continuing efforts during the debate on the NHS Bill in the House of Lords until recently and that you took the time to send out the group emails that have kept those of us on the outside informed.

I am writing now, however, to say how disheartened I was to learn earlier this week that you have called for the Bill to be amended and passed, as if the entire Bill were not about competition, intended to open the door wide to privatisation and atomisation of the NHS, which is the Government’s strategy not only with the Health Service but with home and social care, with education and indeed almost everything else.

Your Party, as part of the Coalition, is certainly in an untenable position, as you are the ones who will make the passage of the Bill possible. I would not want to be in your shoes with the public when the true nature of the betrayal of the Health Service emerges if the Bill goes forward. Simon Hughes misguidedly believes that removing Andrew Lansley after you pass the Bill will save the situation, but it will not, though indeed Andrew Lansley should go precisely because he tried to sign away responsibility for his own position. But he must go along with the Bill, not after it or instead of it.

No one, from David Cameron on down, can ignore the increasingly articulated views of most health professionals as well as the public, which have grown in strength over the past few months as more and more people come to understand what is at stake. If democracy still means anything, then both Houses of Parliament must bow to the strength of public opinion and withdraw this Bill before it can do any further damage.

If all the Conservatives could find to say in defence of the Bill, e.g. on Question Time, is that the BMA didn’t support the NHS in 1948 either (a misreading of history), and that because it is already being implemented it is too late to turn back, then they (and you) have well and truly lost the argument.

Indeed, I would ask you whether the extent of implementation of the Bill – even before it has been debated fully, let alone voted upon – is unconstitutional. If it isn’t, then it should be.

I urge you from your position of leadership to convince both parties in the Coalition that this Bill is unsalvageable and should be withdrawn – as the only honourable thing left to do.

With kind regards,

Marge Berer

Editor, Reproductive Health Matters