NHS Reorganisation

Indeed. In the circumstances that my hon. Friend cites, both coalition parties listened to the voices that they heard and took serious note of them. It would be unsafe to draw any conclusions from the voting patterns today. Political gamesmanship and party loyalties will prevail. However, it is not necessary to hang around the Lobbies much to see that a corrosive unease is spreading through Government ranks, even in the most unlikely quarters, and to see how opposition hardens with every defiant, unbending rebuttal from the Richmond house bunker. We must accept that the Committee, for all its forensic talent, will not solve the problem; we must concentrate on Report and Third Reading, and on the debates that will take place offstage beforehand. This is our Bill, not the Secretary of State's. It will not come about unless we vote for it. Even the most calculating, the most tribal, the most ambitious of us—but not, possibly, the most stupid—must see the clear risks as well as recognising the opportunities. If we get it right, reform can take place with the grain of professional and expert opinion, without Ministers' ceasing to be ambitious for the NHS, and with broad political support in the House and in the country, and arguably it will work better as a result. However, it will require dialogue. It is a profound irony that the Government want to abolish what they call the command and control model of the NHS by means of a command and control model of legislation. Indeed, they issued a Command Paper over the Christmas period, but then Richmond house does not do irony. If Parliament is to help the Government to climb out of the hole into which they threw themselves last June when the White Paper announced the liberation of the NHS, we need genuinely constructive, open dialogue, and we need it to start here. Perhaps, in order to liberate the NHS, we need to liberate Parliament a little bit first.