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Health and Social Care Bill

I will be brief. Having tried to rise several times, I have almost lost my impetus. I have been involved in a number of Bills and I have sometimes hoped that a Minister will say, ““We will take this away and look at it””. This is such an occasion. Having worked on numerous non-departmental public bodies and non-ministerial bodies, I understand the need for a balance between understanding the Government’s policy framework—under which, as a member of such bodies, you would be ill advised to fail to work—and the need to be independent enough to express the views that you find in your work on behalf of community groups, user groups or whomever you are representing. Someone will pick me up on the word ““representing””, but you know what I mean—the people for whom you are working. That balance has been well worked through. I hope that the matter will be taken away because, like the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on looking through the Bill I am concerned at the variety of places where the Secretary of State has almost managerial capacity. The exercise of functions in Part 2, where the Secretary of State may specify the programmes of the inspection framework, particularly concerns me. The Secretary of State has every right to inform the body of the Government’s view on how the programme might move forward, but the ability to direct and specify it is an extraordinarily difficult thing to have in the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will be prepared to take this away, recognising that most of us who have spoken understand the balance between the need to work within the government framework and the rights of the Secretary of State and the need for that independence that gives a voice to a non-departmental public body.