Health and Social Care Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which I will return to later. There were assurances that there would be no top-down reorganisations, but we should note the scale and complexity of this huge, top-down reorganisation. The Government alluded in Committee to the costs of administration, as did other members of the Committee. During Health questions and in Committee, I raised the question of the huge costs of administering Monitor, which have grown exponentially. We have had various estimates from the Government about the true cost, but over the lifetime of a Parliament it could be as much as £500 million, once we know the full extent of the legal challenges that Monitor will be expected to defend. That is a colossal sum of money. I wanted to intervene when the Secretary of State referred to clause 60 of the original Bill and the intention to extend the duties of Monitor into the social care element of health and social care, but he would not allow me to do so. I wanted to ask whether any estimate has been made of the cost of such an extension of Monitor's remit, which I suspect will be considerable.