I am delighted to do so, Mr Speaker, and I know that you would think it was legitimate of me to hold the Labour party to account for its decision if it is voting against today’s Bill or declining to support it, as its amendment clearly states.
However, today is a day to rise above party political considerations, as Mr Speaker has just said, and recognise that putting these things right is overwhelmingly in the interests of patients. If the Labour party continues its stubborn refusal to support legislative underpinning for a new chief inspector of hospitals, which is in today’s Bill, how will it ever be able to look patients in the eye again? Perhaps the most shocking thing about Mid Staffs, which is one of the reasons we have so many provisions in the Bill, was not just the individual lapses in care but the fact that they went on for four long years without anything being done about them.