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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and particularly to the Minister for his encouraging reply—encouraging in so far as he agreed to reflect on my amendments, from which I take heart, and in his acknowledgement that the issue of the commission’s membership is important. I believe that all noble Lords—especially perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Walton—were clear that we need to focus on the composition of the membership. The question is how we achieve precisely what we all want. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, made the very helpful suggestion that we should talk to existing commissioners to see what has made the difference for them in performing their respective roles. As the Minister has said, the challenge is to avoid undue prescriptiveness and to ensure sufficient flexibility in whatever wording we look for. The noble Lord, Lord Low, was absolutely right about that. If the Minister is willing to search for consensus between now and Third Reading, I am more than happy to join him in that endeavour. I am encouraged by the contributions from noble Lords to believe that we have the basis for such a consensus. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 3 to 6 not moved.]