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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

We welcome the 10 shuffling steps forward that the Minister has made on this issue. I also wish to record my thanks to Baroness Neuberger for the work that she and her team did in the other place in conjunction with other Members. It has been a sorry tale and, as has been said, hearts were broken when community health councils were abolished. As I recall, a sharp Labour rebellion led to the introduction of PPIs and all that went with them. They were a step down from CHCs, but not actual abolition. We now seem to have taken a further step away from that original concept. Perhaps the Government are now finishing the job that they could not get past their Back Benchers when they first got rid of CHCs. Nevertheless, I recognise that the Government have acknowledged some of the weaknesses in their original proposal. In Committee, we discussed the problem that arises with tertiary medical facilities. I spoke about Manchester's Christie hospital, a specialist tertiary cancer hospital that would be beyond the reach of individual LINks that are pinned to local authorities' geographical areas. I take it that what the Minister is now saying about regional, sub-regional and national collaboration between LINks is designed to respond to that problem. Subsequent to that discussion, I have received representations about how the north west ambulance service would be dealt with under the new system. Again, I hope that the Minister will have the opportunity to reassure the House that the Bill will respond to such problems. There is a contrast between the Government's response to consultation on these proposals and their response to consultation on earlier parts of the Bill. In the earlier part of the Bill, they dismissed popular opinion in preference to what they considered to be professional insider opinion that knew what it was talking about. One can understand that argument even if one does not agree with it but, in respect of this part of the Bill, the Government have rejected the professional argument as well. One has to wonder what the Government thought that they were doing when they brought the Bill forward in the first place. It was supposed to be based on the experience of those who know about monitoring and delivering health, but this proposal is a step away from that common-sense approach, not one towards it. If the Minister has the opportunity, I hope that he will let us know how the changes will improve the checking and inspection of NHS facilities—another issue that was strongly contested. I conclude by saying that, overall, the Bill is better than what we started with. However, what we started with was so bad that no improvement could make it good.