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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I do not intend to prolong much more the last rites of this dead parrot save to make a couple of points in response to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, my old chum and sparring partner, accused me of choosing the weakest of the arguments that had been put forward against my amendment. If those are the weakest arguments, I would be grateful if he would explain to me after this debate why Ministers chose them and not other arguments that might have been more convincing. I am not sure that I agree with my previous noble friend Lady Wall that patients worry day and night about whether the new commission to look after their care will be established. They are worried, as am I, about what will happen to them, and that is why I have brought the matter before us. In the period up to next April and beyond, when the commissioners and their staff are worrying about the colour of everybody’s carpets and the size of their desks, who will be in charge and who will tell whom what to do? I am worried that, during that period, the progress that we have genuinely made in regulation in this field will come to a halt. Most particularly—this will be partly on my conscience because I feel guilty that I did not pick up this problem earlier and try to raise these issues when first the Government proposed this solution—I worry terribly that there will be some dreadful scandal and that infections in hospitals will again get out of control as today’s report from the Healthcare Commission warns, or that some old person’s home might not receive a visit from an inspector because his or her superior was so busy dealing with the amalgamation that they did not have the time to organise the inspectorate and that, in consequence, all the residents died. That would be on my conscience as it would be on that of all noble Lords who have chosen not to support the amendment today. I take comfort from the many amendments that the Government have made to the Bill, all of which I regard as positive and helpful. I do not think that anybody who runs the commission could be unaware now of the danger of it becoming unbalanced as between the priority it gives to healthcare and that which it gives to social care. Knowing the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, as I do, I am sure that she has taken that on board. Other amendments before us today may assist in this. This will be no prolonged funeral, although I feel some regret and offer a heartfelt prayer that everything that I and other noble Lords have said during the passage of the Bill turns out to be utterly wrong and that the new commission is a fantastic success. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Schedule 1 [The Care Quality Commission]: