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Health and Social Care Bill

I thank the Minister for those comments but wish to clarify a couple of points that have been made in the debate. I did not suggest that we should move away from unannounced visits. At the heart of what I was proposing was the idea that we should retain what we have at the moment; namely, unannounced visits, primarily with inspectors trained to ask the right questions and to probe the right issues when they appear on premises. We are trying to retain that in the amendment. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, that a home is a home and sometimes people like it to be organised in different ways, but key to all that is not to talk to the people who run the home but to the residents. There is a skill involved in doing that but I believe that our inspectors are trained to ask the right questions, to make residents feel at ease and consequently to find out what they really think about where they live. If they are happy with their home, that will come across and there should be no further worries. The other point that was raised—it has been raised on several occasions—concerned the overuse of tick boxes. I am worried that the Government propose to move away from on-site inspections to an increased use of form filling whereby people will be able to tick boxes and self-justify their activities. I am still not clear whether the Minister is saying that, having gone through a whole series of cuts, inspections will not be cut further. If she is saying that, I shall feel slightly reassured and be prepared to withdraw the amendment. However, I would like further clarification on whether we shall retain the current level of on-site inspections, which is what I intended my amendment to deliver. However, I thought that I had made a neat compromise that went some way to accommodate what the Government are trying to do. I seek clarification on that.