Labour said it was taking its fight against the Bill directly to the prime minister for ‘writing cheques in opposition that he couldn’t cash in government’.

In a debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham will accuse the prime minister of breaking three personal pledges on the NHS.

He is expected to criticise David Cameron for performing a U-turn on his pre-election promise to end top-down reorganisation in the NHS. He will also say the government’s pledge to increase NHS funding in real terms has not been met, and that the government has broken a pledge to enforce a moratorium on hospital reconfiguration.

It comes as the Health Bill enters the committee stage in the House of Lords, where Labour peer Baroness Thornton has tabled an amendment demanding that the Health Bill should be updated to include a list of ‘principles of the health service in England’.

This would ensure that NHS providers 'must promote quality, equity, integration and accountability, not the market'. She is also demanding an amendment stating that patient care should not be compromised by any NHS re-organisation and that there must be transparency and openness wherever taxpayers’ money is being spent.

The House of Lords will also debate a motion raised by Conservative peer Lord Mackay of Clashfern that says the health secretary must retain 'ultimate responsibility to parliament for the provision of the health service in England'.