Health Bill

The Minister has very graciously entered into the spirit of these amendments, for which on behalf of the Committee I thank him. He has provided a helpful set of remarks in his response and covered a great deal of ground. I hope that other noble Lords share in my view that this has been a useful short debate. Certainly I feel that we have benefited from some excellent contributions. It was particularly helpful to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, whose professional expertise in this subject area is second to none. I must accept the Minister’s comments on the role of the NICE guidance and the national service framework now in the process of being rolled out, and what he said about the end-of-life networks. I appreciate that no overnight solutions are possible here and that it will take time to expand these important services. But at the same time I suggest that there are some key questions to ask about the funding of palliative care over the medium term and I do not doubt that we shall want to return to the subject on appropriate occasions in the future so that we can scrutinise the extent to which the Government’s stated aspirations, which we all share, are realised and attained in practice. But for now, it is appropriate that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 33 [Power to charge]: