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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, that is precisely the point and that is precisely why the Labour Government were avoiding any argument because that is where the big loophole lies. Any competition lawyer will tell you that that was the point where EU competition law started to bite in the NHS. That is a fact which you cannot deny. The establishment of independent treatment centres constituted a major introduction of the private sector into the health service by the Labour Government. That process was far more unregulated than it will be in the future under this Bill. There were major flaws in the 2006 Act which have never been fully acknowledged by the Labour Party throughout these debates. The noble Baroness's speech could have been written three or four weeks ago. The Opposition refuse to accept the value and benefit of the amendments that have been made to Part 3 just in the past two weeks. I will not adumbrate them all. I refer the Opposition to the House of Commons paper that has just been written which sets out in great detail something like 2,000 amendments that have been made to the Bill since it started its passage through the House of Commons. We have had Future Forum, we have had 1,000 amendments tabled in this House alone and we have had changes to the Competition Commission's involvement.