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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I should like to speak to Amendment 37 as my name has been added to it. Before getting down to the precise wording of the amendment, I want to give some context to my remarks by talking about what I regard as the total incoherence of Clause 4. I note from the letter of 7 November from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to my noble friend Lady Thornton that the Government now seem to want to treat Clause 4 in the same way as Clause 1. I have to say that that is hardly a ringing endorsement of the drafting of Clause 4. I wonder, privately, how many other clauses we will have this problem with as we progress through the Bill. In effect, the Government are seeking to take these clauses out of the normal consideration of a Bill in Committee. We are getting into rather strange territory where, as we wander through the Bill, we find that, when the Government find themselves under pressure with regard to bits of the Bill, they sweep those bits aside to have another go in some procedure, which is less than clear to the House, and promise to come back later. Before I go any further on the amendment, as I am already unclear as to how the Government are going to handle Clause 1—and, it now seems, Clause 4—procedurally, I would welcome any light that the Minister can shed on how we are going to deal with these clauses and have a proper discussion of them in Committee. I turn now to Amendment 37. I am completely supportive of reducing or even stopping ministerial and Department of Health micromanagement of the NHS.