Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that, and for the opportunity that he gave us to meet him and members of the Bill team last Thursday. I was concerned to express the fact at Second Reading—and again in Committee and on Report—that the responsibility of the National Health Service for the education and training of healthcare professionals was not formally acknowledged in the Bill. However, after our discussions I am sufficiently reassured that any revision of the NHS Constitution and other issues would take full account of the needs and concerns of those involved in such education and training. In the light of those assurances, then, the amendment that we had considered tabling for Third Reading has proved unnecessary. At the same time, I expressed the concern that had been conveyed to me—not least, by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Association of Medical Research Charities—that the word "research" did not formally appear in the Bill. All innovation is, in many respects, dependent on research. Whether the innovation is physical, social, behavioural, scientific, or whatever its nature, achieving it depends on a background of inquiry and research. For that reason, I believe that the amendment meets our concerns precisely, and I am delighted to see it now come into the Bill.