Party to say that Liberal Democrat leader 'one of the few people' who can stop reforms to health service
Labour will turn up the pressure on the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg on Thursday by declaring him "one of the few people" who can stop the government's NHS reforms.
The opposition will also attempt to divide the coalition partners in the Lords by making a public offer that Labour and Lib Dems could together table and vote for an amendment to drop the whole third part of the bill – the most incendiary section which would introduce competition into the health service.
The move to personalise the row over the health and social care bill comes as it emerged on Wednesday that ministers are pressing for the bill to become law in less than three weeks time, on 20 March.
The declaration of such a close deadline will add to the pressure on both sides, with campaigners mounting almost daily attacks on the legislation and on the health secretary, Andrew Lansley.
In another sign of Lib Dem strife over the bill, a high-profile senior doctor resigned from the party on Wednesday and warned that its continued backing for the shakeup is risking "slow motion disaster for the NHS and for the party".
Dr Graham Winyard, an ex-deputy chief medical officer and medical director of the NHS in England, told Clegg in a letter that "with great sadness" he was leaving the Lib Dems and that Clegg and Shirley Williams's joint demands for further changes to the bill earlier this week were the final straw.
Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will step up the pressure on Clegg by visiting his constituency in Sheffield on Thursday and pressing voters to tell the deputy prime minister they do not like the bill.
Burnham will also deliver a letter to Clegg's constituency office making his offer that Labour peers would vote for an amendment along the lines of that proposed last week by Lib Dem peer and stalwart critic of the health bill Williams, to drop part three of the bill entirely. The influential Conservative Home blog has called for a similar move as concern mounts in both coalition parties about grassroots anger over the reforms.
Burnham's letter refers directly to a letter jointly written by Clegg and Williams this week in which they promised Lib Dem MPs and peers five new amendments to "rule out beyond any doubt any threat of a US-style market in the NHS". That move to head off a backlash at the Lib Dem spring conference next weekend was undermined by the prime minister's spokesman saying that the changes would be "not significant".
"This amendment would not make the bill acceptable but would deal in the most conclusive way possible with an area that is causing concern," said Burnham, who insisted he would still campaign to have the bill dropped entirely.
"I don't believe there are many if any people in Nick Clegg's constituency who in casting their votes in 2010 thought that they'd be used to prop up the privatisation of the health service," Burnham said.
"I'm going tomorrow to ask them to put pressure on their local MP. He's one of the few people who can stop this bill - like it or not but he is. I'm going there to ask him to put the NHS before his political pride."
Lib Dems, some of whom have voted with Labour and cross-benchers in the Lords to defeat the government on several amendments to the bill, appear increasingly nervous over the mounting opposition. The bill has this week been criticised by more medical bodies, including the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health, and by Lansley's former advisor, who now runs one of the new GP commissioning groups the bill is setting up.
At prime minister's questions Clegg was again pulled into the attack on the bill when Labour leader Ed Miliband turned on the deputy prime minister and referred to the letter with Williams, saying: "It's no good the deputy prime minister smirking. I don't know whether he supports the bill or opposes it."
A senior party source dismissed the latest offer of a joint amendment to drop part three of the bill: "Competition already exists in the health service and should exist as long as it's on the basis of quality not price."
The source also dismissed the personalisation of the row. "We'll continue to do what we have done all along, which is generally not make this about personality or about politics," he said. "Those people who don't like the reforms can level a lot of things at the government and Lib Dems, but the two things they can't level is one that this bill hasn't been given an unprecedented level of scrutiny or that at every stage the Lib Dems haven't engaged with the substance of the policy."
A Lords spokesman said the third and final reading of the bill was scheduled for 19 March, meaning it could be finally signed off by the House of Commons and passed into law the following day – a tight timetable but a date ministers are thought to be pressing for so it is out of the way before the budget on 21 March.
Labour peers later disputed that timetable.
Earlier, Labour peer Lord Patel of Bradford won government agreement for an amendment which would maintain the duty of health bodies to co-operate with local authorities on the aftercare of mental health patients. Lord Patel argued that the bill as it stood could have "opened the backdoor to charging".
Another Labour peer, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, was defeated on a vote to amend the legislation to make sure the new GP clinical commissioning groups – which will be put in charge of managing patients' care – would have independently appointed chairmen and non-executive board members to address concerns that they could take financial advantage from decisions by putting profits before expensive drugs or operations. The government won the vote by 97 votes.
In his letter to Clegg, Winyard said that while he shared Clegg's admiration of Lib Dem peers who "have succeeded in removing many of the threats to the NHS that were in the bill sent to them from the Commons", he added: "I remain of the view, set out in my letter to you a year ago, that it is just not sensible to impose this top-down reorganisation on an NHS struggling to meet the biggest financial challenge in its history.
"To continue to do so in the face of near unanimous opposition from patient, staff and professional organisations simply invites slow motion disaster both for the NHS and the party. Organisational change can only succeed with the support of those involved", he added.
Winyard, a member of the party's health committee, concluded by saying that "Your letter on Monday signalled your determination to soldier on regardless, and the only appropriate course for me is to leave the party, with great regret." In a covering note to colleagues to whom he sent the letter, he added: "I haven't completely given up hope but felt that I wasn't going to get anywhere more from within."
His move may be a sign that rebel Lib Dems behind a hardline anti-bill motion at the party's spring conference in Gateshead next week do not expect to win any vote that is held after Clegg's demands for fresh concessions, which was intended to reassure his party that the NHS would remain intact despite the bill's planned extension of competition.
Winyard was also instrumental in setting up the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence during his time working as deputy CMO inside the Department of Health under the last Labour government.