Health Bill [HL]

Before the Minister replies, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours for entering the debate. I have never heard the argument about the birth certificate before. It is a very interesting one. I was born on the north-west Indian frontier and have a birth certificate that is very strange indeed. It is quite a treasure, really. It is written on a piece of tracing paper and is signed by the Minister of People. I have never found it to be a problem. I have a very simple line on the closure of maternity units; if women do not want to choose them, they should close. There must be something about them that really is not very satisfactory. The tremendous strength of independent midwives is their partnership with the woman with whom they are dealing. They would never force a woman to have a baby at home if she did not want to, but they give real choice, which in some areas in this country is simply not available to women. If a pregnant woman goes to a GP, that GP will say, "No way should you have a home birth", but when the woman builds a relationship with the midwife, and the midwife and the woman are confident that home is the right place, the woman should have a home birth. The one problem at the moment is that independent midwives do not have access to acute maternity units, but that is changing; it will alter quite soon. That makes employing an independent midwife even more appealing, as the midwife follows the woman into the hospital and delivers the baby in the hospital, as well as doing the antenatal and postnatal care. I have a quick word to say to the noble Lord, Lord Walton. I remember when we had GP fund-holding. It was very interesting to see the enormous difference that that made to complementary therapies and the number of people who went to their GP. We should remember that it was the last time that patients really had some power over their care. The GPs wanted to respond to patient choice because it affected their income. A number of people—the figures are quite startling—chose to have complementary therapies, and, so far as I know, no damage was done. As soon as GP fund-holding was done away with, those figures fell. Lastly, I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, that I am talking about direct payments.