---

Health and Social Care Bill

No, we want to do this as soon as we possibly can. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that no Minister can stand at the Dispatch Box in July and say exactly what will be in the next legislative Session. As I have said, it is certainly our intention to legislate at the earliest opportunity. As for the Care Quality Commission's commissioning role, I do not think that we could have made it clearer, both during the passage of the Bill and in changing its wording in the other place, that the CQC's role would include reviews of the process of commissioning. The hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) made an important point about the overall importance of improving commissioning and the primary care trusts' capacity to commission. It should not be forgotten that alongside the role of the CQC in improving the quality of commissioning through regulation, we also recently announced in the primary and community care strategy—and before that, in our proposed performance and failure regime—how PCTs' commissioning could be better performance-managed. The Bill contains a power for the CQC to call on the Secretary of State to intervene where it believes that a PCT's commissioning is not up to standard.