Forests and NHS: Yew-turn or Change by Stealth

As we read more about Yew-turns on the Forest that we loved we should be careful about what we read about the NHS.

©Am Ang Zhang 2011

 

Independent:

Sale of 15 per cent of English forests to raise £100m

By Margaret Davis

Thursday, 31 March 2011

Sales of a 15 per cent portion of English public forests will go ahead within the next four years, raising an expected £100m, the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, said yesterday.

She expressed concern that terms governing the sale do not allow enough protection for access and public benefits, but told the Commons Environment Select Committee that the sales would go ahead within the spending review, which runs to 2015.

Mrs Spelman also defended a consultation on plans to sell the rest of the public forests, which sparked fierce opposition and was dropped last month. "I simply thought it was right to give the public the chance to be consulted about the future of the forest estate," she told MPs.

Shortly before the consultation was dropped, the previously announced sales of 15 per cent of public forests were suspended over concerns about protecting the benefits they provide. An independent panel has been set up to examine the future of England's forests.

We got it wrong on forests, says Spelman

By Emily Beament, PA

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman told MPs "I am sorry, we got this one wrong" as she abandoned plans to offload England's public forest estate to companies, communities and charities.

As it happened:

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12.39pm: Spelman says she has three announcements to make.

• The consultation on the proposed sell-off will be cancelled.

• The clauses relating to the Forestry Commission will be taken out of the public bodies bill.

• A panel will be set up to advise on the future of forests.

Spelman says that if there is one key lesson from this episode, it is that people "cherish their woodlands and forests."

She apologises.

I am sorry. We got this one wrong.

She thanks her colleagues for their support.

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The Commons was told she was halting the public consultation into the future of the 258,000-hectare estate, just 24 hours after David Cameron admitted he was unhappy with the plans at Prime Minister's Questions.

Pulse:

Cameron puts brake on NHS reforms, bowel cancer ignorance and the 'ladies man who can never make love'

31 Mar 2011

Is the Prime Minister for turning? When it comes to the NHS reforms, he just might be, if the Times' page three lead (paywall) is to be believed.

In a story headed ‘Cameron puts brake on NHS reforms’, it reports that Downing Street want to make the 2013 handover of commissioning responsibility a ‘goal rather than a deadline’.

The embattled Mr Lansley, however, is definitely not for turning, with a ‘Department of Health source’ telling the paper: ‘A clear timetable for implementation has been set out in the bill and we intend to stick to it.’ Watch this space closely.

The Daily Mail reports a Bowel cancer UK survey which found that two-thirds of men and almost half of women could not name a symptom of the disease.

The NHS Confederation report on the NHS reforms – covered by Pulse here – is also in the Guardian, under the headline ‘Health chiefs plead for rethink over NHS shakeup’.

And finally, today’s celebrity health story comes from the Daily Mail, which previews a Piers Morgan interview on the ITV1 Life Stories programme with composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber. The 63-year-old has apparently revealed that treatment for prostate cancer has left him impotent - in rather a lot of detail.

Fans will no doubt rightly admire his courage for speaking out on the aftereffects of prostate cancer treatment, but ‘I’m a ladies man, who can never make love,’ he told Piers Morgan, apparently. Love Never Dies, surely?

 Those were caught by PULSE.

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More in Pulse:

Exclusive: The Government has revealed it plans to table a series of amendments to the health bill in the House of Lords, amid growing calls for a rethink from both within and outside the coalition.

The amendments will clarify plans for the role of private providers, include new details on NHS pricing and add additional rules on the transparency and accountability of GP commissioning groups.

Pulse also understands that the Government is considering a possible stay of execution for some PCT clusters beyond April 2013 - although this will not be directly addressed in the legislation.

The amendments to the bill are intended to stave off rebellion among disaffected Liberal Democrats, but Government sources stressed that this did not amount to a fundamental change in direction.

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Remember Wagner: Ruling Class can do what they like!!!