This was the vision at the heart of the Open Public Services White Paper which we published last summer. Since then, we have worked hard to begin to make some of this a reality. In education, 24 free schools opened last year, and another 63 have been approved. By 2015, there will be 100,000 extra school places available. To make that choice more meaningful, parents can now express a preference for any state-funded school, even when they live outside the catchment area – and local authorities have a duty to grant such requests if there is space. Likewise in health, we are opening up patient choice. One of the biggest frustrations for many commuters is that they can only seem to get a GP appointment back home, and yet they are travelling by the time their surgery opens. So from April, in London, Nottingham and Manchester, we are piloting a scheme where people can access GP services where they work, instead of having to take time off whenever they need a routine prescription.