---

Health Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister and all Members of the Committee who have contributed to this discussion. In response to points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, FTs should be as transparent as NHS trusts. In fact, in my view, they are far more transparent because we have to account to our boards of governors and the local people who can go everywhere, including our wards. On the whole, the Secretary of State does not tend to do that. We are absolutely transparent to our local communities. We are also accountable to Parliament. I believe that those are good safeguards, but I would always support an evaluation of any model of treatment of any kind. However, at the moment, all evaluations of foundation trusts and NHS trusts show the foundation trust to be vastly better in terms of the quality of services that they provide. No doubt there are other ways of looking at these things, and I would absolutely support that. As the Minister recognises, this is a probing amendment; there is no question of putting it to a vote at any stage. However, it is an important issue. We currently have a very unsatisfactory situation. I hope that we can continue discussions on how best to ensure that we have a better, fairer system in the future. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 128 withdrawn. Amendment 129 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.