David Cameron has unveiled plans to allow private companies to run health and social care services.
The Prime Minister said the proposals in his Open Public Services White Paper would herald the end of the state monopoly in “pretty much” every part of the public sector.
As well as the health sector, education and housing would also be opened up to private companies. Only national security, frontline policing and the judiciary would be left in state control.
Mr Cameron said his ideas would ensure Britain becomes a “better, fairer country” where residents have “more freedom, more choice and more local control”.
But Labour dismissed the White Paper as “spin”, saying it contains “few new ideas and even fewer new proposals”.
And the ideas sparked fury from unions, who accused the PM of giving a green light to wholesale privatisation and risking the quality of public services.
Copyright © Press Association 2011