Speeches by Streeting.

“It is still very much alive. One of the things that is working really well in the health mission is the way in which we are galvanising other Government Departments behind the focus on public health and prevention. The policy I mentioned on supermarkets, for example, would not have been possible without the joint worki…”

“We will keep you updated.”

“In a nutshell.”

“The readiness of the industry to comply and the way in which the regulations would potentially be subject to misinterpretation. It is fair to say that the industry know that it is coming. It is definitely happening—there is no wriggling out of it. You will see widespread compliance in the run-up to Christmas. There was…”

“It is coming in from the new year. There were perfectly reasonable, legitimate concerns about going as fast as we were proposing to.”

“I know that there is a loud campaign in favour of minimum unit pricing. It is not something the Government have chosen to proceed with at this time. I am sure there will be healthy debate on it in Parliament. What we are proposing to do is to give the consumer more health information. It is a bit daft that you can get …”

“That is why, in a speech in Blackpool recently, I announced our determination to change our funding formula for investment in public health: to target those areas with the highest level of need and deprivation. We will take a similar approach to reform of the Carr-Hill formula for general practice. It is a disgrace, fr…”

“Some 85% of our shops come from supermarkets. I take the point you are making about the exceptions in some of the areas with the highest levels of deprivation, but I do not think that we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good—”

“The reporting and the target will be mandatory. We want to work with the industry to get it right; it is not in any of our interests for it to fail. But the data on the food and drink that we buy from supermarkets is already held by them—it is some of the best public health data in the world. They had already been call…”

“Over time, we want to see far less spent on the price of failure. Obesity costs the NHS £7.3 billion a year, alcohol £4.9 billion a year and tobacco still, despite all the progress we have made, £1.9 billion. Economic inactivity due to sickness costs £2 billion in the NHS and costs the economy, so you can see, right ac…”

“I am definitely not going to write the Budget for 10 years down the line.”

“I know the public finances are under pressure, which is why I was sensible enough to bring the Chancellor to the launch of the plan.”

“She is, yes, in the Budget and the spending review.”

“We will keep coming back to you as a Committee as well, but this comes back to the very first line of questioning: there is a way of doing this that is the imposition of change, or a way of doing this that is about taking people with you. On everything, from the new governance arrangements for the reinvigorated foundat…”

“Darzi centres, or polyclinics, as they were known, were effectively strangled at birth. There are still a few around, but it was a source of huge controversy at the time—for something that, as an approach, people agree is a good thing to do: neighbourhood health and population health at scale. That was certainly borne …”

“That is why investment needs to be matched with reform. The economic circumstances were very different for the last Labour Government. This is a Government who have to live within their means. However, as I have argued for some time, the NHS has become more bloated. There is waste in the NHS, and the last Government ar…”

“No, I have not gone that grey in this job yet. I think we said in response to the Chair that the shifts themselves are not new. Delivering them in practice, in this NHS, really would be. Lots of things in the plan are new: models, ways of working, and approaches to innovation, adoption and roll out. There are plenty of…”

“And that plan delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history, so it sounds like we are on the right track. But there is lots of stuff in the plan—”

“I completely agree.”

“That is absolutely right. We are trying to do a few things. One is to shrink the size of the centre, make its focus more strategic, hold the system to account on outcomes, and devolve as much power, resource and responsibility to as close to the frontline and at the frontline as we possibly can. We also want to make su…”