Health Bill [Lords]

I am very concerned that the Minister is framing his question on the premise that we can allow things to get as far as failure. If there is failure, there is already, as I have described, a de-authorisation process in place because there are already powers to distribute the assets and liabilities. The whole point is to bring about early intervention to prevent the circumstances at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells and at Mid Staffordshire from arising and to ensure that we can put new management in quickly and early in the process, instead of having to wait until there has been a failure. At that point, all that one will be doing is looking at the past, rather than taking the early action that is required to address the problems. That is why my party has made an alternative proposal. The problems that manifested themselves at Mid Staffordshire will be solved only by stripping distorting targets out of our NHS, bringing back a strong patient voice that can speak truth to power and strengthening commissioning at the local level. The Conservative party has pledged to do all that—indeed, we pledged two years ago to do so. By using the wrong sledgehammer to crack the wrong nut, the Secretary of State has shown that he does not have what it takes to do the right thing by our NHS, the professionals and patients in it, and the people of Stafford. We therefore offer new clause 11. I was grateful to the Minister for saying that he broadly welcomed it, that he understood what lay behind it and that it was a fair attempt to ensure that we had in place something on which we could agree. It would ensure that Monitor and local commissioners and authorities had early notification of any special investigations that the Care Quality Commission was undertaking, including into foundation trusts, so that speedy action could be taken where necessary, and that includes replacing the management. That is the first part of the answer. The Minister keeps trying to drive the idea that the Government have the only concept in town and that they have a full de-authorisation procedure, but they have not proved that they have a rigorous enough authorisation procedure—if they had, Mid Staffordshire would not have got through the process. Moreover, a de-authorisation process assumes that something has to have failed, but we propose that we should get in early enough to prevent things from going wrong in the first place. The answer must be to strengthen Monitor, which has been one of the most effective regulators, not to divert power from it. However, the real problems would be very much helped by having something along the lines of the autonomy and accountability Bill that we have placed on the table and asked the Government to take up. We have offered it to the Government countless times, and with the Queen’s Speech coming up, they will perhaps take this last opportunity to do the right thing. On that basis, I commend new clause 11, but my colleagues and I are not persuaded that the Government have made their case on new clause 12.