Health Bill

I am not a naturally lugubrious person, as many who know me will acknowledge, but I have not heard a great deal during the past 90 minutes or so to put a zing in my heart and general mien. I should like to put on record my approach to Committee stages. I say this on the basis of having attended Committee on a number of health Bills where, I believe we have collectively been both thorough and businesslike in the way in which we have conducted our affairs. Many such sittings have led to government amendments being agreed without long speeches, by force of argument and by keeping to the point in the amendments being discussed. I gently remind noble Lords that this is the Committee stage, when we should speak to the amendments. Throughout Committee, I propose, despite provocation to the contrary, to keep to the amendments under discussion and to try to help the Committee by responding accurately to them. I do not intend to respond to speeches about democracy or anything else. I recognise that that may be news to those who have not regularly been in health Committees—we have not had the pleasure of their company. I now want to clear the ground on a few points about the nature of the Bill, which I shall do only once in Committee. A number of points have been raised about the human rights aspects of the Bill. I signed a copy of the Bill as being compliant with the convention rights. I stand by that statement; it is a correct statement of the Bill’s status. The noble Lord, Lord Geddes, raised some aspects of that issue. I do not want to go into complex arguments about human rights here but, essentially, legislation under the convention must strike the right balance on convention rights. We think that we have done so. Any noble Lords who want to consider our track record on the Bill may want to study our responses to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for a more detailed explanation. We wrote to the Committee twice explaining our position. A number of Members of the Committee raised issues about Labour Party manifestos, free votes and all the rest of it. I gently remind them that 47 Conservatives—