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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I apologise for not taking a very large part in this debate but, as your Lordships know, a lot of competing Bills have been going through the House simultaneously and my time has been taken up with the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. However, things have clearly moved on and I have very much kept in touch with what has been said. I had enormous concerns at the beginning, very much along the lines of those of other people who have spoken today, but I have been impressed by the extent to which everyone has been persuaded along this road. I should make it clear that this approach of amalgamating a number of bodies—what I call the ““Lord Carter of Coles process””—has been going on throughout my time in your Lordships’ House in a number of areas, including legal services, equality, the criminal justice system and communications, with Ofcom; this is another one. I should have been very much in favour of a number, if not all, of these amendments—in particular, I should have liked to support the suggestions put forward by my noble friend Lady Howarth—but if you are setting up this sort of commission and inspectorate, is it really sensible to give one group special attention over and above the others, as we have heard already with regard to the disability group? There is bound to be a feeling of inequality. What I have picked up, as has everyone else, is that we need to ask the Government to think through something that will meet those needs, because the provision is clearly not yet perfect. It is important that human rights are made explicit in the Bill. I very much like the phrase used by my noble friend Lady Howarth: the problem with nursing homes is that they have nursing but alas, in many cases, are no longer seen as homes for the elderly and those requiring full-time care. They do not get as much attention as they would if they were in their own homes. We are down this road. The Government are determined to get all these groups to work together. They have been planning it in all the different areas that I mentioned ever since I came into your Lordships' House. That is their pattern. We have gone along with it to a certain extent and in some cases have approved the path that we are on. I have and will continue to have my reservations about what has been done, but we are where we are, as has been said by others, so I support the amendment.