Health Bill [Lords]

It says here, "I beg to move, that the Bill be now read the Third time." However, I gather that someone moved the motion in my absence, so I shall move on and say something about the Bill. This important Bill paves the way for the next stage of reform in our national health service while, at the same time, cementing its founding values in a new NHS constitution. I am grateful for the constructive approach from Members on both sides of the House to improving the Bill, and I believe that it leaves the House better and stronger as a result of our deliberations. It builds on the consensus established by Lord Darzi’s next stage review that the next decade in the NHS must be characterised by a relentless focus on improving the quality of services. In the past decade, the NHS has done the heavy lifting, tackling the big challenges such as waiting and infections. Today it is in a position where it can focus more on the quality of the individual patient experience. In that regard, the introduction of quality accounts marks a significant step forward for the NHS. Those new accounts will give patients and the public clearer information when exercising their right to choose health care services, setting out for clinicians and managers valuable information about the quality of the services that are provided. Equally, the provisions allowing for the introduction of direct payments for health care will further empower patients to take greater control of their care. These measures are evidence of how, in the next decade, we are placing the power to drive reform in the hands of patients and staff, not from the top down. The Bill also reaffirms our commitment to the pursuit of excellence in the foundation trust regime and across the NHS. We have listened to calls from another place for mental health trusts to be given more flexibility in respect of the operation of the private patient cap, and will expect that to be used to improve NHS services. The pressing requirement to act in the wake of the events at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust led to late amendments to the Bill. I am grateful to the House for its patience and consideration of those amendments at this late stage. I was particularly pleased to hear the comments today of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and the hon. Members for Stone (Mr. Cash) and for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), and to see on the Front Bench my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), all of whom had spoken to me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State for Health to convey to us the strength of feeling in Staffordshire about the appalling failure at their local hospital. The House has shown today its commitment to the foundation trust ideal that freedom must be continually earned through high performance. It is important that foundation trust status continues to represent a badge of excellence and high standards in the NHS, and the amendments that we have passed today will help secure that. I noted that the Conservative Members from Staffordshire were asking us to go even further than we had proposed. We had constructed an amendment that kept Monitor as the decision maker but gave the Secretary of State a role to ask Monitor to take a view on whether a trust should be de-authorised. In opposing that approach, the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) is somewhat out of touch with his own Back Benchers and local opinion on the matter. There was another late amendment on help with costs of spectacles for over-60s, or rather, to correct a loophole in the law whereby eligibility for help with those costs was more widely drawn than was ever intended. That had lain on the statute book for some time. I am pleased to say that that loophole has now been closed. Perhaps in time the amendment will come to be known as the "should have gone to Specsavers" amendment. The Bill includes new protections to ensure that future generations are less likely to suffer from tobacco-related disease. For many hon. Members, the central issue in the Bill has been deciding how best to protect our children from the dangers of smoking. We heard today passionate contributions, most recently from the Chair of the Select Committee on Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), and from my right hon. Friends the Members for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney). There is consensus in the House that smoking has devastating consequences for our society and that more needs to be done to protect children from those harms. As my Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron) pointed out, there is direct evidence that tobacco point of sale has a direct impact on young people smoking. I am pleased that the important clauses on the subject remain in the Bill. It is clear that although Opposition Members were not able to conduct a proper whipping operation, hon. Members have made their views on tobacco vending machines clear this evening. I note in particular the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield. His passion and resolve have been rightly rewarded by the House today. We appreciate that as a result of certain amendments being withdrawn, the remaining amendments that have been voted through today go to the other place in a well drafted and legally workable form. I will watch with interest how my right hon. Friend’s proposals are received in another place. The Government will not seek to overturn them but, respecting this House, will consider how best to put its will into effect. My right hon. Friend has announced his intention of standing down from the House at the coming election. His legacy will be one of campaigning on issues that matter to people throughout the country, from the minimum wage to other matters that he has campaigned on. Tonight his campaigning force has yet again delivered another major step forward in protecting the health of the children of this country. I pay tribute to my Ministers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), and to Lord Darzi and Baroness Thornton in another place, who have placed the Bill in its strong position today. We want the Bill to go forward, and we will work to ensure that this evening’s amendments are put into a workable form. The Bill leaves the House in a strong position. It will protect our children from the dangers of smoking, empower patients, ensure the highest possible standards of care throughout our national health service and lay the ground for the next stage of reform in the NHS. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.