GPs reassured

Harriet Harman, the opposition health spokeswoman, will today reassure fundholding GPs in a speech in Nottingham that a Labour government would not immediately take away their control over budgets.

She is expected to confirm that Labour will phase out the "two-tier" system under which some GPs are responsible for buying hospital services for their own patients. But she will say that fundholders would operate as they do now until an alternative is set up.