Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, if the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, will allow a moment’s interruption to her speech, I promise to give way. It is very important to state that a number of us who have tabled amendments to this clause, including those of us who have expressed a desire for it to be omitted, did indeed inquire whether it might not be wise to try to discover more about the precise meaning of the clause. There are some arguments among lawyers about its effect and about whether it should be taken together with Clauses 1 and 10, to which it is clearly very intimately related—a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in her role as chairman of the Constitution Committee. Therefore, we must stand accused of having asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe, whether he would be willing to consider taking this group together, not forgetting the long debate that we had on Clause 1, in order to find out whether there is common ground about their precise meaning, their weight and their relationship with one another. The matter will then of course come back to the Committee for wider consideration. I hope that the Committee will recognise that, with such a difficult balance of legal opinion, it may be sensible to discuss the issue further before bringing it back to the Chamber for the continuation of the Committee stage. In fact, what I thought the noble Lord, Lord Warner, was most eloquently asking for was that the clause be taken away for reconsideration. He went on to say that that might be a good way to deal with the matter. We are in total accord with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and I therefore ask him to allow us to continue with that reconsideration.