Lib Dem Health Minister Norman Lamb today announced that the Government is backtracking on the controversial regulations that would have forced almost all health services to be opened up to private bidders.

This eleventh hour rewrite is a clear acknowledgment by the Government that its policy in this area is a complete disaster.

Under Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act, Ministers planned to force virtually every part of the NHS to be opened up to “compulsory” competitive markets - open to the private sector.

In order to do this, the secondary legislation needed to be approved by Parliament and would have become law by April 1^st unless enough MPs objected.

I led the effort to stop these regulations in their tracks by putting down a ‘prayer’ against them, which is like an Early Day Motion, that other MPs could sign.

However, the Labour Party asked me to withdraw my version so they could re-table it with Ed Miliband’s name at the top instead. I agreed, since I think that the NHS is too important to allow party politics to get in the way.

Today's announcement shows that these efforts have partly paid off. But although this shambolic backtracking on Section 75 will come as a relief to everyone fighting tooth and nail against NHS privatisation, this is not the end of the story.

The Coalition has shown that it's determined to push ahead with plans for bringing the market into the NHS.

So we must now remain vigilant to all further attempts to put company profits before the health of the British people.