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Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, is new Section 52E premised on the idea that the Secretary of State may have information coming to him that will have escaped Monitor? If that is not the case, I do not understand why he should take it on himself to tell Monitor about something that it is already investigating. I should have thought that one’s basic confidence in a foundation trust was based on the independence, skill and competence of Monitor. If you have a system that allows the Secretary of State to say to Monitor, "You are not doing this very well", that will tend to reduce confidence in Monitor and reduce public confidence in the system, as it would suggest that public confidence could be bolstered only by the fact that the Secretary of State had power to intervene.