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Health Bill [HL]

I support my noble friend in stating that administration would be the last resort. That goes without saying. I welcome the fact that in the event of administration a very specific timetable is laid out in the Bill. That is very helpful. My problem with the timetable, though, is that it takes a long time for the Minister or the Secretary of State to reach a final decision. If one takes it in terms not only of the working days but of weeks, which would include weekends and bank holidays, it could take up to five months. That is a long time before a final decision is made, and the people who are working in the trust and those who use it are left dangling, not knowing what that decision will be. The Bill also states that at the end of those five months the Secretary of State may say to those people, "I’m very willing to reinstate you". If I was a chairman or a member of the board and after five months was offered a return to my job, I would say, "Stuff your job". I would be very upset about it. I can see that this is very unlikely to happen, but we need to ensure that the legislation is precise. Will the Minister consider whether there are any methods to shorten the timescale so that it is not as long as five months? That would mean reducing some of the consultation and so on in terms of working days, but it would be preferable. When there is a reconfiguration issue, the independent reconfiguration panel is brought in. We know that on some occasions the panel has overturned the proposals put forward by the strategic health authority. So the Secretary of State will have two sets of advice, one from the independent reconfiguration panel and one from the special trust administrator. I wonder whether that is a clear way forward or whether it could cause quite a bit of confusion. Perhaps there needs to be something in legislation to clarify the roles of each so that the Secretary of State is not left with conflicting advice, which would be unhelpful for those who were subject to administration.