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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, my Amendment No. 56 is in this group. I am sorry that I did not speak before the noble Lord, Lord Walton, as I had hoped that he would also support my amendment. As we are on Report, this is the only time we will debate it; perhaps he can intervene before I sit down. I apologise; I had thought that it would be a long time before we reached these amendments. My Amendment No. 56 does not cut across the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howe at all. I strongly support having equal numbers of lay and professional people. My history of doing so goes back nearly 50 years, when I supported equal numbers on the Inner London Executive Council, which ran the National Health Service for London. I was a professional member, of whom there were too many. The numbers were not equal, and I did not think that that was a good or healthy thing. It is far better to have equal numbers, so I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howe. My amendment is quite different. I would like to see retention of at least two elected professional members. The profession has ownership of its council if it can elect some of its own members. A fully appointed body is not as good. I have quoted various bodies that make appointments; professionals do not feel that they are in touch with that process at all. I therefore propose that at least two professional people should be elected by members of their own profession. In my experience on the General Dental Council—sadly not comparable with the General Medical Council—most of the original thoughts came from the elected members. They were people in ordinary practice who seemed to know what was going on in the everyday life of their profession.