Changing man: Dobson

Frank Dobson, the Blairite former health secretary, will has weighed into the debate over reform of schools and hospitals by calling on the government to give public services a fair chance to prove their worth.

Dobson, who stood as Labour's candidate in the London mayoral elections, said on Tuesday that the government must not abandon its core belief in public services.

Coming from the man who began the controversial process of widening the input of private companies into the health service, the comments will prove to be embarrassing for the government at a time when it is fighting to convince unions that PFI deals are the way forward.

Dobson told health workers in his Holborn and St Pancras constituency that the public sector deserves the chance to make the most of new government funds after years of neglect.

"If the public service ethic was good enough to get us through the bad times, we must give it the chance to flourish as extra funding comes through," he said.

His comments followed claims that the government was seeking to back-peddle on its plans to bring the private sector into the delivery of core public services.

According to reports, Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers have softened their line on companies taking over key planks of public services. Both are said to have acknowledged to union leaders that the public is hostile to the plans and conceded that the government had mishandled the issue.

Confidential minutes of a meeting between the ministers and union chiefs, show that the government is adopting a more conciliatory approach in a bid to stave off a rebellion at October's party conference.

Byers is said to have accepted that the "what works" approach adopted by the prime minister has not persuaded the public of the merits of his plans and accepts that the debate over public versus private "could have been handled better".