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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I would like to speak very briefly. It is unusual for me to disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I am looking back to long ago when I was a chair of social services in a London borough. I was always concerned about the buck-passing that used to go on between education services and social services for children. It was very difficult for the two disciplines to work together. I am also worried that the Care Quality Commission is covering so much. As you know, I have accepted now what the Government are doing, but I still think that it has an enormous brief and I just do not know how it is ever going to have enough staff. The thought that children’s services may be in there somewhere and may get lost worries me because it is one of the crucial areas that we need to keep track of in this country. I felt pleasure that Ofsted was going to cover education and social services for children because that would bring things together. If the noble Earl feels that Ofsted may not be well equipped to cover children’s social services in the way it does education—I am quite sure he is right—we should strengthen Ofsted and make sure that it really is able to cover them, and that children’s services can be integrated and looked at by one inspectorate. That is a much healthier way to be than to have them separate.