NHS Redress Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very full and considered answer. I listened to what she said very closely. The issue we still have between us is on the importance of ensuring that people have quick and easy access, not to legal advice but to specialist legal advice. She will know, because she took part in our debates in Committee, that the success of the Resolve pilot and the speedy resolution scheme—and one of the key things that made them attractive to people as an alternative to going down the route of litigation, which remains open to most people—was that they would have easy access to people with that particular background. The comments made in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about the Community Legal Service quality mark have been, to some extent, reiterated by the noble Baroness. He pointed out that the CLS quality mark applies to organisations such as legal practices and not to individuals. Therefore I am not convinced that what the noble Baroness has said makes the scheme as it stands sufficiently attractive to persuade people that it is a more beneficial route for them because it will not just be quick but will also have within it that specialist knowledge. The noble Baroness questioned who these people would be. We have left that matter open, not least because this is a specialist field, but because it is possible that practitioners or people who currently work in it could come within the overall ambit of the scheme. I do not accept many of her arguments. If we do not in some way get the Resolve-type pilots back into this scheme, then the crucial thing that was good about them—the learning that came from having all that legal advice and people there working together—will be lost, and not just to patients. It will also be lost to trusts. It is important to test the opinion of the House on this matter. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 26A) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 90; Not-Contents, 121.