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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment and I do so from a background of having been the chairman of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and a trustee of a number of organisations that have supplied services to the NHS and local government. This is indeed a very long-running sore; it is a sense of grievance. It often goes with another grievance—one which is not germane to this debate but which I might as well mention, because it explains why voluntary organisations are sometimes reluctant to provide some services for public authorities. That is a kind of meanness, almost, on the part of many public bodies about meeting the administrative costs—the management costs—of local authorities. If one takes the two together—a meanness about meeting management costs and being treated unfairly on VAT—this is a barrier to entry. I fully support the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. As the Minister knows, I have probably made myself a little unpopular on these Benches through my support for the idea of competition on a level playing field. I have a later amendment which raises the issue of barriers to entry. This is a barrier to entry. It is stopping voluntary organisations participating fully on the basis of a level playing field as a qualified provider. Therefore, in terms of the Government’s own philosophy in the area of competition, they would do well to listen to these arguments and remove this barrier to entry.