Dorrell attacks Labour Party, challenges Dobson over NHS

He accused the government of "having deliberately stoked up expectations which cannot be met." And he criticised the absence of "more than 200 new Labour MPs who this evening prefer to eat New Labour dinners rather than come to this place and address education, which the Prime Minister regards as his first priority, employment, or, indeed, their concerns about the National Health Service."

Mr Dorrell singled out the Social Security Secretary, Harriet Harman, for condemnation. She had been educated, he said, at the best schools "which she would deny other people's children to go to." She was, said Mr Dorrell, "New Labour of a very old and bitter vintage."

Mr Dorrell challenged the Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, to "come off the fence" and say whether major changes would be introduced to the NHS. He declared: "The government continues to believe that the way you deliver good public services is by empowering well-meaning bureaucrats."

Mr Dobson reiterated Labour's manifesto promises. "We will divert the millions saved on bureaucracy on to treating patients, and in particular to cut waiting time for cancer treatment."

The Health Secretary said that Labour would encourage pilot schemes in the NHS in order to determine what might work. "Then and only then will we move to change the structure of the NHS to start introducing new arrangements all over the country."

When Mr Dorrell demanded to know how much the minimum wage would cost the NHS, Mr Dobson retorted that, because of the "people working in it on poverty level wages, I think it is you that has got the explaining to do, not me."