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Health and Social Care Bill

I support in particular Amendment No. 128, regarding this rather clumsy Clause 95(4), which talks of, "““a chair who is legally qualified for the purposes of section 96(2)(a), and may provide for pilot schemes under which chairs who are legally qualified for those purposes are, or are not, selected for such proceedings as may be determined in accordance with the rules””." I am still reading it, wondering if I have got it right. My difficulty with this is that we are talking about a legal process that is going to determine the future career of a medical practitioner, and we are saying that we are going to set up pilot schemes so that some doctors will be ““tried”” by one method, with a legal chair, and others with a lay chair. If, after a certain time, the Government decide that the pilot for lay chairs is rubbish and has not worked and that we must ensure that all panels have a legal chair, will those medical practitioners who have been tried by a panel with a lay chair then be able to challenge the decision that that panel came to, on the grounds that the Government were not satisfied with the way that panel was set up because it had a lay chair, and that it was therefore not a valid panel any more? I am not a lawyer, but there is a crack in the pilot scheme idea that could cause an awful lot of trouble and confusion. It would be much better, if the Government are unsure about which is the best method, to say, ““We will go for a legal chair and in 12 months we will review all the cases that have been done by the panel and see whether that was a worthwhile method and if there have been any problems””. This is a probing amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Howe, said—the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I am sorry. It is late, and the back is aching. I support the amendment.