Nick Clegg: Nothing in health and social care bill that threatens NHS

Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, defends the health and social care bill at a speech on schools in south-west London:

"Let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing, nothing, nothing in any of the government's plans which in anyway threaten the basic founding principles of the NHS.

"There is no question, legally or politically, of the secretary of state under these new arrangements being somehow able to wash his or her hands of the NHS."