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Health and Social Care Bill

The noble Baroness is right. Regulation and the delivery of services are completely different. The point I was seeking to make, although children’s services are not part of my brief, is that bringing together children’s services and education and then introducing regulation of the two was the way that the Government moved ahead. That is what we are seeking to do here. We recognise that the delivery of services has evolved, is evolving and is becoming integrated on the ground. It therefore makes sense that the regulation moves together in a coherent and integrated fashion. I have said today, and it has been said by Ministers in the other place and by my noble friend the Minister at Second Reading, that that does not mean it is not recognised that none of the three services should overwhelm the others. The Bill allows that recognition. Various alternatives will need to be developed for how the regulation moves forward. That is not an easy task, and no one is suggesting it is. That is why we are going through it in such detail: because the service delivery is evolving, the regulation needs to evolve at the same time.