Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I wonder whether I could chip in, starting with an apology. As a result of the apparent abandonment of the previous set of amendments, I did not realise that this one had started and, therefore, have not followed everything that has been said. My remarks will be correspondingly brief. However, I have heard enough to know that I want to declare my general broad sympathy with the thrust of what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, proposes and to link myself with the remarks that have just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and not least those that were made while I was in the Chamber by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. They all echo something that I, and my noble friend Lord Mawhinney, have tried to say on a number of previous occasions—that there is beginning to be an absence of realism in the Government’s attitude to some of these matters. As I have said several times—and as has been said in other ways by other Peers during this debate—at the end of the day the House of Commons will not accept a Secretary of State who says, ““Nothing to do with me, guv””, when something has clearly gone seriously wrong. If the Secretary of State judges that something is happening that is not in the best interests of the health service, I do not see how he can fail to do something about it; and if he does not have a clear power to do something, I can tell you what will happen. The Government will scratch around in every corner of the Act until they find something that enables them to do something, because the Secretary of State will not be able to tell the House of Commons that he can do nothing. There is a real danger that the Government will immolate themselves, in this House at least, on the basis of an absurd proposition that the Secretary of State can somehow stand back and wash his hands of things when they are going wrong. I hope that this amendment will not be pressed to a Division tonight, because I do not think it would be sensible. We need to reflect on what the Minister says, but he needs to reflect on what is being said to him and to be prepared to come back with something different on Report.