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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I agreed with him when we discussed these matters in Committee, and my reason for speaking now is to acknowledge the part that he, along with other Peers, has played in what has been a most interesting and dynamic process of change around this Bill over the past three weeks. During the Committee stage, great wisdom was brought to the subject by Members of this House and by Ministers and the Bill team because they listened carefully to the arguments. To place the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, in context, one needs to look at the next three groups, which contain significant changes to the Bill. That they have happened is, in part, due to the pressure applied by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, among others, and we should acknowledge that. I have extensive experience of being involved in mergers and I agree with the noble Lord that some of the arguments that have been advanced against a delay are not strong. However, although his amendment will not be passed by the House, it affords us an opportunity to ask for one thing. Before we get to Third Reading, this House should ask the existing commissioners to meet Members of the House to enable us to answer the question which, as is evident from the amendments before us this afternoon, has not yet been answered adequately—that is, what form should the commission take? We agree on the overall, broad, outline structure of the commission but it is clear that no one in this House has sufficient experience as a regulator in this field to know what the commission’s precise structure and format should be. As a result of the discussions that we had in Committee, we now know what we want the commission to do and we now have a set of objectives, which will be put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, in a few minutes, with which we can agree, but we still have a doubt about how the experience of CSCI, the Healthcare Commission and the Mental Health Act Commission can most effectively be brought together in this new body. I hope that I am not putting words into his mouth but I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would wish to see that process take place between now and Third Reading. If that is his intention, he has my support and I thank him for raising the matter.