Health Bill [Lords]

My memory does not serve me well enough to recall how I was involved, but I think that the discussion of the impact of the control of entry regulations took place during our debates on the Bill that became the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. If the hon. Lady consults the record, she will find that I questioned the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt), on the subject. I said that while I did not oppose the liberalisation of control of entry, it must take place alongside proper measures providing for the Department to pay if it wished to have access to community pharmacy. If it was not willing to pay, there would have to be some compensating mechanism through control of entry. The problem is this. In the circumstances that the hon. Lady is describing, someone might wish to set up additional pharmacy premises to offer an additional service to the public. Why are we trying to prevent that from happening? The issue is not a pharmaceutical needs assessment preventing people from providing additional dispensing or pharmacy services; it is how to procure those services in places where there is a lack of community pharmacy. It is in that regard that the contract has not really done the job yet.