Hello and welcome to political fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher.

Coming up, the world's largest quango is scrapped.

That's how the government framed the abolition of NHS England's management body this week,

as Stama swings an axe at what he calls the flabby British state.

Plus, a major Labour rebellion is brewing over the

PM's welfare overhaul. And is the Reform Party imploding? To discuss it all, I'm joined in the

studio today by Political Fix Regulars Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen. Hi, Lucy. Robert Schimsley. Hi, Robert.

Hello, Lucy. And Anna Gross. Hi, Anna. Hi, Lucy. So let's kick off with Kirstama's big speech on Thursday about Whitehall reform. He's called for a total rewiring of the state to achieve his program for government. And we got a few more details

about what this means this week. A bonfire of the quangos, fewer civil servants, wholesale

digitisation of the public sector, and more. But Robert, obviously the big announcement was

that he is getting rid of NHS England. So first off, can you just explain for our listeners what this means and why it's a big deal?

Okay, well, as you were saying before we came in,

what it doesn't mean is he's not getting rid of the NHS, which is an easy mistake to make.

Okay, how far back to go on this?

In 2012, the Conservative reforms created an arm's-length body to run the NHS for the government,

so it was taken away from political decision-making, and it was called NHS England.

This obviously is different in other parts of the UK, but called NHS England.

And it was to take oversight of the NHS, decide what was done, send out instructions and orders

to the rest of the NHS as to how it would work.

This reform has generally been considered to be an absolute disaster.

It's been considered a disaster almost even before it was legislated.

And it has no wider support in the country and in Parliament.

...