UCL president Malcolm Grant in line to chair NHS commissioning board

Andrew Lansley has named one of Britain's best-known university heads as his preferred candidate to chair the quango that will run the NHS. Malcolm Grant, a New Zealand-born lawyer and academic, is president and provost of University College London. He is known for taking on ministers and winning; under Tony Blair he chaired a government commission on genetically modified food and rebuffed Margaret Beckett's efforts to shorten a public consultation. If Grant does become chair of the NHS commissioning board he could control £60bn of taxpayers' money.