Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, particularly on Amendment 160A. The idea that patients whose GPs are serving on the Commissioning Board, or are part of a commissioning group which represents that board, should be consulted and we should hear what their own experiences have been, is innovative and interesting. He should be congratulated on putting it forward. It means involving patients as individuals in their own assessment of the service that they have had. Time and again the Bill reflects the demand that that should happen—no decision without me, and so on. This actually makes that real. It gives the words flesh, and I congratulate him on that. It is quite an exciting idea and I hope that it is one that will commend itself to the Government, given the Government’s wish to involve patients. I am not so happy about Amendment 163B. I fear that the opposition Front Bench has not taken on board as much as I hoped that it might the idea that regulations should not go straight to Parliament, even if they are affirmative, but should go by way of the Health Select Committee. The noble Lord will be familiar with the argument—that the Health Select Committee has a huge range of expertise and knowledge. As a former Minister he will know—as well as I or the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, knows—that the regime of regulatory scrutiny is not very effective. If there is an individual Member of Parliament in another place who knows a great deal about it and is concerned about it, you can have a real debate and that real debate can affect the outcome with regard to regulation. However, nine times out of 10, there is no great debate. In the case of the negative resolution procedure, there is often no debate at all. I fear that this is a very weak safeguard for the huge amount of regulation that is built into the Bill. I therefore hope that I might commend to the House, and not least to the opposition Front Bench, the idea of looking again at the proposal, which is also radical and new. It is an idea that really ought to commend itself to those of us who believe strongly in accountability to Parliament and in the need to strengthen Parliament’s power vis-à-vis the Executive across the whole world.