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Health and Social Care Bill

If the noble Baroness wishes, I shall put lots of information about the word ““ultimate”” on the Labour Lords’ Twitter account. It might enlighten people more than some of the stuff that has appeared. I say all that gently and in a teasing way. I am now quite convinced that there are difficulties with this word and I merely promise the Committee that, if it reappears on Report, I shall be probing it again. I thought that my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby made a wonderful speech this afternoon. If we can get this right, it will do two things. First, it takes out the really difficult sting of part of this Bill. There are other issues in the Bill—I understand that, and we will debate them—but this particular issue threatened to wreck the Committee stage by setting it off on an entirely wrong note. If we can get this right it will help us in the next 12 sittings to have a proper Committee stage and not just political arguments. The second point is that the wording, which was in the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Williams, from the present legislation has lasted for well over half a century—more than 60 years in fact. If it needs updating—50 or 60 years after the health service was founded—we need to find wording that will last another half a century as the basis for a publicly funded, publicly provided, available-to-everybody health service.