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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, in the absence of anyone else, I express my puzzlement at this amendment. If I were still practising as a doctor, I am not sure that I would want to feel that my colleagues in Northern Ireland were regulated in a different way from me in England. I find it rather a curious notion that a professional body should want to be regulated in different ways. I remember when our qualifications were very different and no one knew what a medical qualification meant. In my year at medical school, there were some wags who took the Society of Apothecaries exam which, apart from allowing you to put up your plate in Harley Street, entitled you to drive a flock of sheep over London Bridge. They all found that entertaining and that was why they took the exam. We do not want to go back to the days when we could not rely on regulation being regulation wherever we were in the United Kingdom. It is terribly important that members of the public can be sure that health professionals are regulated to the same high standard wherever they are in the United Kingdom. For health professionals themselves, it enables easier movement. It means that they are more able to move from area to area within the UK and not fear that they are going to be regulated in a different way. If Northern Ireland feels that this should be a devolved issue, in my experience in the other place and here, the representatives from Northern Ireland are more than adequate and more than able to represent the views of people in Northern Ireland. I am sorry to have to oppose this amendment, but I feel very strongly that regulation in the United Kingdom should mean just that.