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Health Bill [HL]

I hope that the Minister will agree that the purpose served by amendments of this kind is to enable us to look at issues, rather than to suppose that the wording of the amendments should literally be transposed into legislation. That purpose has been well served by this short debate and particularly by the Minister’s reply, which I found very helpful and largely reassuring. He spoke about assured indicators and the wish to see a voluntary audit, and I was glad of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, endorsed the principle of an independent audit, even if she did bat back at me the proposal that the CQC should be tasked with this job. The fact that she did bat the idea back at me is helpful in itself. It will indicate to those who have been actively thinking that this might be a role for the CQC that they had better think again. I was grateful for her support on the role of accreditation, where all that she said indicated to me that we were speaking the same language. I very much welcomed what the Minister said on this area as well. I take on board the Minister’s point about being prescriptive. I did not wish to imply that accreditation would or could be a substitute for proper assessment by the CQC or whether a body should be registered. The point of the amendment was to air what I know is a live concern in the CQC: how to make regulation proportionate and as unburdensome as may be reasonable in individual cases. I hope that the Committee will feel that we have broad consensus on this. I certainly do. I am happy to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 38 withdrawn.