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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, I will take those questions in order; I will have a better chance of answering the last one if I start with the first one. I say to the noble Baroness that this Bill has proved deeply unhealthy. At some point everybody on the Front Bench has lost their voice. We will be well out of it at the end of this. The noble Lord makes important points on the transitional arrangements. He has identified some of the ways in which this could be done, in relation to the website, the monitoring of services and so on. We have tried in this area, as well as in others, to achieve the right balance in giving people power, in enabling them, in giving them money and now in giving them scope, by way of transition, to go and do things that they think are right and proper and will make a difference. They can draw on their experience. The amendment that we debated earlier about the governance mechanism will substantiate the sort of changes that we want to see. That will make it absolutely clear that this is not tokenism but that these are real changes. The activities are being undertaken, including investigating and monitoring reports, which can be logged up—and certainly one would be looking at the relative levels of activity in inspections, visits and so on. In those arrangements for governance, we identified decision-making arrangements, using money wisely and making sure that a membership is in place, for example. They are tough and will be explicit. The department will keep a very close eye on this over the next few months. On the timescale of the regulations, the noble Earl rightly said that we do not have time to consult, given where we are. That is why I stressed that we would be working with stakeholders to make sure that we have the common-sense approach that we need. We will bring forward the regulations as soon as we can. We will be looking to have them in place in the New Year. I take the point that time is very important. On the question of ““may”” and ““shall””, we intend to introduce regulations on all the matters to which the noble Earl referred. I will write to him on that point because there may be other points of detail that would be useful to pick up. I will certainly have to write on some of the questions raised about private providers. I am advised that directions will apply during the transitional period in relation to the independent sector. The Department of Health will make sure that there is compliance with those arrangements. Those are important questions and I am not really equipped to give more of an answer, but I can certainly make sure that we write. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 226 [Sections 220 to 225: interpretation and supplementary]: