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Health and Social Care Bill

I hesitate to intervene because my expertise in this area is very limited and I feel quite humble when I sit among so many noble Lords with a background in this area of parliamentary work. However, I want to make one point. If you ever want to influence the conduct of individuals or organisations, you should simply subject them to greater levels of transparency. That argument in its most populist form can be expressed by considering what has happened in the case of revealing the expenses of Members of Parliament. That has had a huge influence on the debate and it has also had a major effect in Scotland, where the new regime is in place. I use that only as a populist example but it is an indicator of what happens in all conditions where transparency is the rule of the day. I believe that in many ways this amendment would be extremely helpful to Members of Parliament in the other place in that, when referring to constituency issues, it would give them the opportunity to draw a distinction between expenditure in the whole area of social care, which appears to be at some risk under the provisions of the Bill, and expenditure in the area of acute care, which in my view at the moment appears likely to take the lion’s share of resources. Therefore, I greatly welcome the amendment.