Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary, today announced a consultation on charging ginger-haired people to visit GPs and A&E departments.

“Why should hard working striving family tax payers pay for ginger haired people to use the NHS? Everyone knows gingers really don’t contribute to the things that make Britain great. This is a National Health Service, not a Ginger Health Service,” Hunt told Radio Four’s Today programme.

Asked whether such moves would actually save money, Hunt said “We have no idea to be honest - probably not. But it’s the principle that matters - Britain should have the right to be mean-spirited towards minority groups.”

Asked about the position of strawberry blondes, Hunt said that a complex testing and administrative system would be set up to separate out the true gingers from those who merely looked suspiciously ginger-like - a further consultation would take place regarding the latter.

A Department of Health spokesperson said “The really expensive Ginger Registration Scheme probably won’t work, but it will make some IT companies bucketloads of money. And once we’ve chucked enough money at it to make it work, it will be really useful at screening out other undeserving NHS scroungers that we might want to pick on next."

A number of highly respected think tanks have recently suggested that NHS charges should apply to the Welsh, Eric Pickles, and people who had Shreddies for breakfast.

Treasury minister Danny Alexander was not available for comment but his office confirmed that as a ginger person he recognised his duty not to be a burden on the taxpayer.

[Yes, this is satire... probably]