Labour scored a symbolic victory in the historic fight to save the NHS yesterday as MP Clive Efford took a bonesaw to the Con-Dems’ sell-off schemes.

Not a single senior minister turned up to defend the government’s hated Health and Social Care Act in the face of Mr Efford’s back-bench bill.

He landed a terminal blow on coalition competition rules by leading 240 more MPs through the lobbies to ensure his Bill continues its progress through Parliament.

Just 18 MPs voted to keep putting profit before people.

Tireless health workers and activists watching from the public gallery leapt and cheered as deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle revealed the result.

Mr Efford said he was “delighted” but was clear “our fight isn’t over.

“Now we need to pressure the government to make sure that they take the Bill straight to committee and do not use delay tactics to try to stall its passage through Parliament,” he said.

In a firebrand speech to start yesterday’s debate, the Eltham MP admitted that his Bill “will not solve all the problems.”

But he described it as “important block to enforced privatisation,” warning that we won’t have an NHS as we understand it in the future” if the Con-Dem carve-up surges ahead.

The words in Mr Efford’s Bill echoed those used by Anuerin Bevan in the Act that established the NHS in 1946.

If passed it would remove rules that mean NHS contacts must be put out for tender.

It would also stop US privateers snapping up NHS services by exempting Britain’s health sector from the infamous Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said the Bill “restores the right values at the heart of the NHS — collaboration over competition, integration over fragmentation, people before profits.”

It was left to Junior Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter to insist that the government’s top-down reorganisation did not risk the founding principles of the NHS.

But he couldn’t even convince fellow Tory Jeremy Lafroy, who voted to roll back privatisation after witnessing the care scandal at Stafford Hospital in his constituency.

Ukip MP Mark Reckless also voted against a free market in health services.

Health workers and activists who kept a candle-lit vigil outside Parliament on the eve of the vote celebrated the result.

Jos Bell was part of a group who braved freezing weather to maintain the anti-privatisation protest through Thursday evening and Friday morning.

“We weren’t allowed to camp so we couldn’t use sleeping bags,” she told the Star.

“People just spent the night on a bench basically in lots of clothes.

“But it was worth it when we won a resounding victory. You’re not supposed to make noise in the public gallery but we were cheering.”

Unite head of health Rachael Maskell said: “This is a great victory for public opinion and is the first step on the road to restore the NHS to a service free at the point of delivery for all those in need.”

A committee of MPs will now be convened to examine the Bill.