Lib Dem members oppose NHS reform

Deputy leader Simon Hughes has suggested that more changes to the Health and Social Care Bill could be imminent after rebels at the party’s spring conference voted out a call for peers to back the legislation.

Party officials insisted that was not the case but today’s anti-NHS vote leaves Nick Clegg at odds with his party’s rank and file.

During his keynote conference speech the deputy prime minister conceded that the shake-up was “controversial” and “difficult” but had “proven the value of coalition”.

“The health Bill was stopped in its tracks and rewritten because this is a coalition government,” he said.

“Competition will be the servant of health care not the master, because this is a coalition government.

Read more: Much-amended health bill to be amended again

“This is a Bill for patients not profits.

“It is not a Liberal Democrat health Bill but it is a better Bill because of the Liberal Democrats.”

Activists blocked a bid to make “killing the Bill” party policy yesterday, instead opting to debate today the pro-reform “Shirley Williams motion”.

That saved the party leader from being in the potentially explosive position of pushing through legislation while presiding over a party that formally demanded its withdrawal.

But members voted today to remove a crucial line in the motion that called for peers to back the final-stages Bill.

Although that does not oblige the Lib Dems oppose the legislation, it demonstrates the widespread discontentment among the grassroots.