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Health Bill [HL]

I know that this is probably infringing the Addison rules yet again, but so be it. The point that needs to be drawn out on Amendment 80A is not necessarily that of the CQC’s role as the quality regulator but the fact that it has to register the pattern of services to be permitted to operate. If the pattern of services proposed by the special administrator was one that the CQC did not find registrable, it would therefore be at odds with the special administrator’s proposals. It seems to me that the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, avoids the risk of the special administrator coming forward with something that the CQC did not find registrable. It would be unfortunate if the special administrator put a proposal to the Secretary of State that was challenged by the quality regulator during the consultation period on the ground that he considered it was not sustainable. I am trying desperately to think of an example. A special administrator could come forward with a proposition to dissolve the services of a trust and reconfigure them into a different configuration with other trusts that the regulator did not feel were capable of being carried out at the requisite level of quality because it already had doubts about the trust or felt that the guidance given by a particular professional body, or by NICE or other independent source, militated against the proposed configuration being a good one. It is better to avoid to avoid that sort of debate arising after the special administrator has put forward his proposition rather than before. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has rightly pointed out the issue.