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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, at this late hour I will keep the Committee only for a moment or two. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Warner, on a courageous, statesmanlike and important amendment. We all believe that there have to be huge changes in the NHS, those of us who support it very strongly just as much as those who are critical of it. The noble Lord has thoughtfully tried to produce a machinery of government that will enable some of these extremely difficult decisions to be made. Perhaps I may say without, I hope, offending anybody, that there are echoes here of what happened to the Governments of Greece and Italy—flatly refusing to look at the realities, refusing to change, and ending up with effectively a total loss of trust in the democratic system. I believe that this amendment is an attempt to try to get away from that and to begin to mobilise a much larger section of the public for the changes that have to be made. That can be done only through open debate and the willingness of politicians to get up and express the need for change and their support for it, not by hiding away and doing the popular thing when that is almost certain to bring about the destruction of the remaining health services in any effective way. I congratulate the noble Lord and say that he is brave to have done this, and to point out rather harshly that we all have to learn that we cannot at one and the same time take part in Chase Farm demonstrations and Chase Farm decisions. What that means is that, inescapably, the Secretary of State has to be at the centre of this operation, unpleasant though it is, because—as most of those who have been in Government know—either you have to take unpleasant decisions or you have to resign. What you cannot do is dodge the issue by saying, ““It is nothing to do with me””, because in the end that will not carry the public with you. It is the public we need to mobilise behind us.