Health Bill [HL]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. This has been a good debate. Of course, I acknowledge the reservations that have been expressed about the amendment. I recognise the danger of putting lists in legislation. Everyone will have their views about the content of such a list. The noble Lord, Lord Walton, is right in saying that there is no mention of research and education, and I would agree that the phrase ““evidence based”” might usefully sit in the wording. The noble Lord, Lord Walton, said that the amendment would be likely to give rise to litigation. That is one worry that I have had about promulgating an NHS Constitution in the first place. I sincerely hope that I am wrong, but there is a risk in undertaking this very worthy exercise, which the Government have embarked on, that people will sit on their rights rather more firmly than they have in the past. Let us hope that that is not so. I thought that the core principles contained in the NHS Plan were as good a collection of principles as any. So far as I know, no one has seriously argued with them up till now. If we are not to have anything, I must come back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said. She was absolutely right: there is a gap to be filled here, and if we are not to have an amendment of this kind or something like it, we need to ask ourselves how we are going to fill that gap. I would of course be concerned if the inclusion in the Bill of principles, however brief, gave rise to an increased risk of litigation, as I mentioned. I think that that point can be argued over in relation to the amendment as worded, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that, in my own mind at least, principles are not the same as rights or, indeed, pledges. They are separately listed in the constitution for, I would say, a very good reason. The noble Lord said that Governments should be free to change the principles in the future if they want to. However, I think that that is the very argument that people out there will not want to hear and it is why I felt that Parliament and this Bill should be allowed to say something about the content of the constitution. I give way.