Blair attacks 'dogmatic barriers' to services reform

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Tony Blair's Speech: Full text, Part One

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The Prime Minister today made it clear he will reform public services with the help of private companies and warned against "dogmatic barriers" to his plans.

The row over increased use of the private sector has raged since the General Election although most unions decided to temper their anger during this week's Labour conference.

Mr Blair told the conference there were no plans to privatise the National Health Service or schools and no–one was saying that the private sector was the best way forward.

There were good and bad examples of the public service and there were areas where the private sector had worked well and others where there had been a "disaster" such as with parts of the railways.

"But where the private sector can help lever in vital capital investment, where it helps raise standards, where it improves the public service as a public service, then to set up some dogmatic barrier to using it is to let down the very people who most need our public services to improve".

Mr Blair said Labour had a huge programme of reform in the NHS, education, criminal justice and transport.

Reform was not the enemy of public services and part of the programme was partnership with the private or voluntary sector, said Mr Blair.

He warned that a different approach of cutting public spending was "waiting in the wings" which could lead to a "sink" public service.

"That would be a denial of social justice on a massive scale. This is a battle of values. Let's have that battle but not amongst ourselves. The real fight is between those who believe in strong public services and those who don't."

Mr Blair said that poor education was a "national scandal" and suffering by NHS patients "the ultimate social injustice".

The Government was putting in the largest ever increases in spending on the NHS, education, transport and police and this year, for the first time in nearly a decade, public sector pay would rise faster than wages in private companies.

He added: "Without reform, more money and pay won't succeed."