Lady Williams asked to put name to emergency motion calling for changes to controversial bill before party conference
Efforts are being made to enlist Lady Williams to put her name to an emergency motion to the Liberal Democrat conference next weekend supporting changes to the health and social care bill secured by Liberal Democrat peers, and urging the bill to be passed.
Delegates to the party's spring conference in Gateshead would then have to decide whether to back her emergency motion supporting the line adopted by the party leadership, or instead debate an alternative motion calling for the party to oppose the bill altogether.
The procedural battle is probably the last substantial hurdle facing the NHS and social care bill before it becomes law ahead of the local elections in May.
Winchester Liberal Democrats with the support of Social Liberal Forum, an internal party pressure group, have already submitted an emergency motion calling for the party to withdraw its support for the bill.
Supporters of the party leadership position have until next Tuesday to submit an alternative emergency motion arguing the party has improved the bill, and even reduced the threat of NHS privatisation left by the Labour government's 2006 Health Act.
Williams is hugely respected in the party, and led the opposition to the health bill a year ago. She had, until recently, called for the competition sections in part 3 of the health bill to be removed, but in a letter signed jointly with Nick Clegg this week, she claimed enough assurances and changes had been agreed to make the bill acceptable.
An emergency motion supporting the leadership position is expected to be submitted whether it is led by Williams or not.
The party's federal conference committee will on Friday decide whether to allow both motions to go forward to a ballot of conference delegates held on Saturday to decide which is selected for actual debate on Sunday.
The conference committee could select just one of the health emergency motions, raising the possibility that the emergency motion opposing the NHS bill altogether would not even be put into the ballot for conference delegates to select.
Under party custom and practice, precedence is normally given to an emergency motion advanced by someone involved directly in a controversy, making it more likely that a motion from Williams would be debated.
But the party leadership is likely to come under fierce criticism if it does not even given party conference delegates the opportunity to vote in a secret ballot on whether to debate a motion calling for support for the bill to be withdrawn.
Privately, Liberal Democrats recognise there is no good political outcome for the party, and its association with a deeply unpopular bill is going to be damaging.
In a sign of the passions being raised by the issue, Graham Winyard, the former deputy chief medical officer, resigned from the party in protest at the leadership's backing for the bill.
Winyard, who was chairman of Winchester Liberal Democrats until last year, told Clegg in a letter: "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 for the party." He said that he had no option but to resign "with great sadness".
Clegg and Williams claim the amendments to the bill remove reviews by the Competition Commission; retain the independent regulator of foundation trusts, Monitor; introduce measures to protect the NHS from any threat of takeover from US-style healthcare providers by insulating it from the full force of competition law require commissioning group to declare their own financial interests; and put an additional private income cap.
Gareth Epps, one of those campaigning for the party to oppose the bill, claimed that the Clegg/Williams letter had not shifted opinion. He pointed out: "Fewer than one in 10 of those who voted for us in 2010 think the coalition government should continue with these reforms: and although the figure among current Lib Dem voters is somewhat higher (at 17% according to one pollster) that merely indicates that of our 2010 supporters not currently planning to vote Liberal Democrat, there is an almost unanimous desire that this unnecessary and unloved bill be withdrawn."