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Health and Social Care Bill

I have short-term memory loss, but before the disruption I thought that I heard the Minister suggest that Clause 77 on page 37 was part of his defence. Subsection (1) states: "““The Commission must from time to time, or at such times that the Secretary of State may specify by order, prepare and publish a document””," and so on. That is our concern, because the Secretary of State is specifying. We would like to give the commission more freedom and accountability to Parliament, rather than the Secretary of State. Subsection (2) states: "““Before preparing a document””—" this relates to special reviews that we will discuss later— "““the Commission must consult … the Secretary of State””." That is our concern. We feel that the Secretary of State, not necessarily the present Secretary of State, but a future one, could heavily influence the commission regarding when it produces the documents and how it does that. Many of those documents will be unpalatable and, therefore, the Secretary of State could lean on the commission not to produce those documents either at the time of its choosing or with the content that it chooses.