Health Bill [Lords]

Once again, I welcome the Secretary of State to his new responsibilities. When he went to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he said that it was his dream job. I am sorry that we may have the necessity of turning his short tenure at the Department of Health into a bit more of a nightmare, but I hope that he will maintain the merit of consistency. As I noted in an intervention, the Secretary of State has already taken a consistent approach in trying to restrict foundation trusts from extending their private income cap. The Secretary of State is consistent on a number of issues. When he first went to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in February last year, he gave an interview to The Daily Telegraph. Surveying the artwork on the wall of his new office, he told the journalist:""That's very Purnell, and it's going to have to go."" The right hon. Gentleman has done it once, and now he is doing it again. I welcome, too, the Ministers of State, the hon. and learned Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) and the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), to their new responsibilities. I wish the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), well in the Secretary of State for Health's former dream job and I wish the Minister for Children, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), well in her new responsibilities. I am sure that he is far too busy to listen but I say a fond farewell to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who has gone to the Home Office. Of course, Labour Members may be wishing that the new Home Secretary occupies his post for only a short period before he goes on to other things. When Kirsty Young asked the duly modest right hon. Gentleman whether he thought he had leadership potential, he said:""I don't think I would have been good enough, frankly. I don't think I've got the capabilities."" Just a word to the right hon. Gentleman: that did not seem to hold back the present incumbent, so why should it hold him back? Perhaps even before I sit down, others will be encouraging him. I had not quite understood that the new Home Secretary was so in tune with what was happening in the national health service. So in tune was he that he must have noticed that the average tenure of a chief executive in the NHS is now 23 months. Lo and behold, 23 months after he took up his post at the Department of Health, he left to go elsewhere.