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

I would suggest that it is a failing model, and not one that we should be looking at. I should like to look at the idea of risk pooling, in which Monitor will have a role. Monitor will be required to top-slice the budgets of foundation trust hospitals to obtain that pool of money. The problem is that if the trust is already in financial difficulty, the fact that Monitor needs to top-slice the FT hospital's budget could tip it into being unsustainable, and then Monitor would have to act. Does that not seem back to front? It needs looking at. If the foundation trust is unsustainable, Monitor has a duty to take action, yet Monitor may well have precipitated the situation; there seems to be a conflict at the core of that relationship. There is no clarity about how top-slicing will be calculated, or what it will involve. Will the Secretary of State please comment on that? I shall bring my comments to a close with a quotation that I used in a speech I gave a while ago. In ““This Week””, Michael Portillo was asked by Andrew Neil why the Government had not told us before the general election about their plans for the NHS. He replied:"““Because they didn't believe they could win the election if they told you””—" the public—"““what they were going to do. People are so wedded to the NHS. It's the nearest thing we have to a national religion—a sacred cow.””" He could not have been more clear. The Government intended to misrepresent their position and mislead voters. I believe that this is the latest stage of that misrepresentation, and the Government must be held to account if they force the Bill through in its current form.