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Health and Social Care Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, is an experienced hand in these matters and his words are wise and worthy of careful study. It is now sensible to investigate again a number of issues around NICE and its costs and I think that the Care Quality Commission will be in a good position to enable that to be done. I commend the creativity of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in tabling this amendment, which I think is irresistible in relation to the commission’s functions. My interest in pharmaceutical matters started when I was trained as a graduate at Heriot-Watt pharmacy school. I spent my summer vacations making industrial-scale chemicals for Boots the Chemist; I became an expert in the industrial-scale manufacture of suppositories, which I fear is likely to be put on my tombstone. In the context of the quality of healthcare, my stints behind the dispensary desk at Boots in Shandwick Place in Edinburgh suggested to me that there is considerable confusion about the route of administration for suppositories; perhaps the Care Quality Commission could look at that as a matter of urgency. We had some high-quality debates yesterday in Committee. The weight of influence and experience in Committee is rooted in the care side, but this set of amendments is equally important. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, are right to talk about the pharmaceutical sector and, indeed, the health service itself. If I am interested in anything, it is in trying to get people off benefits and into work. When one goes around sister European nations and, in particular, America, one realises that the jewel in the crown of what is available to us in the United Kingdom is universal free healthcare, because it does not provide a disincentive from getting into work. In America, if you try to tempt people away from benefits into work, the block is always that they say that they cannot pay for their healthcare. We should celebrate what the health service does. Of course it can be improved; in my view, this Bill goes some way towards doing that. Incidentally, it is not just the pharmaceutical industry that is a key sector for the Government in relation to skills upgrading and working in a global economy more successfully. In the United Kingdom, we are developing a professional grade of regulator—the people who do this stuff and do it well—that is beginning to become world renowned. I am talking about the quality of those people’s work and the systems that they use. [The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 4.15 to 4.25 pm.]