Your article, which purports to be a factual account of my remarks, is a travesty of what I actually said (Top Tory wants bigger role for private firms in NHS, 23 December). I was not talking about private firms, but about public-service mutuals, a programme begun under the Labour government, supported by Chris Ham of the King’s Fund and members of all the major political parties. All the healthcare mutuals that have spun out to form new organisations – including Inclusion Healthcare, to which the article refers – have chosen to be not-for-profit, so to describe them as “private firms” gives a misleading impression. These are social enterprises driven by a strong public-service ethos. It is an infantilisation of our political discourse to present my support for this cross-party programme as a “Tories privatising the NHS” story.
Francis Maude MP
Minister for the Cabinet Office
• In an article published in the Lancet on 24 January 1987, my husband, Mikael Grut, pointed out that there were then some 69,000 cold-related deaths a year in England and Wales. This amounted to 12% of all deaths – a much higher percentage than in countries with colder winters, such as Canada (4%) and the then Soviet Union (6%). The percentage is lower in England and Wales today, because of the spread of central heating, but it is still very high.
On Wednesday in prime minister’s questions, the MP Liz McKinnes mentioned a figure for cold-related deaths last year of more than 18,000 (actually 200 more) in England and Wales. Later the prime minister bragged about the £160bn set aside for armaments over the next 10 years, and said Britain had the largest arms budget in the EU and the second largest in Nato. Add that to the ring-fenced aid for use abroad, and one wonders when Britain will realise that it is no longer threatened by anything except terrorism, brought about by Bush and Blair. That needs a different form of fighting. Our money is needed on the home front to fight hunger and death here.
Marina Grut
London
