Health Bill [Lords]

This is a bit of a mish-mash Bill, containing a lot of fairly worthy things. Most of today’s discussion has been about tobacco, but we also heard detailed discussion of the NHS constitution and direct payments. I shall be particularly interested in the results of the pilots on that when they emerge, because this represents an interesting way forward in respect of people taking more control over their own health care. We also looked into things such as quality accounts, innovation and the provision of pharmaceutical services. What was fairly obvious throughout was that a mish-mash of things had been thrown together and there was no coherent sense of direction in the Bill. The big disappointment was the Government’s timidity, in some respects, on the tobacco legislation. An attempt was made to produce something simple that people could instinctively understand, but the solid evidence base remains relatively poor. An opportunity to be bolder and to deal with the smuggling of, and proxy sales of, tobacco products and all the other things that constitute the problem we face was missed. However, we are where we are and some welcome moves have been made. I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) for his support during the long hours in Committee and to thank the Clerks and the Department of Health officials, who were also very helpful. My one criticism is not of any particular individual involved with the Bill; it is of the procedures of the House, which meant that although the Government amendments had been tabled for some time, we did not see the wording on the amendment paper until Friday. That was because of the recess, throughout which amendments are not published, and we need to change that situation. The procedures resulted in a lot of last-minute activity in trying to understand the amendments. I particularly wish to thank my researcher, Joe Moran, who gave up much of his weekend to have a look at some of this material and prepare my briefing notes. Often our researchers do not get mentioned, and the fact that he did a lot of this work in his own time is very much appreciated.