Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, what I want to say might have been a little long as an intervention in the Minister’s speech but it will be very short as a speech. I simply want to ask the noble Earl, when he replies to this debate, to address in a considered way how the Government intend to deal with an enormously significant and worrying conflict of professional interest that could arise in this context. Anyone who is a member of a clinical commissioning group, whether he or she is a GP or not, must presumably be committed and signed up to the priorities, policies and plans of that clinical commissioning group. However, where that individual is also a GP who has his or her own patients, some of those patients may have conditions that do not get a very high priority in those plans and policies. Surely there is an immediate conflict of interest. In the present circumstances, the GP can say to his or her patient: ““I am doing my best to battle with the PCT to get the treatment that I really think you need””. However, in the situation that arises as a result of the structure in this Bill, that GP would be on both sides of the table. He would be arguing with himself and making representations to himself. Surely the noble Earl would agree that it is a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation. Can he assure the Committee that it will not arise and, if it does, that the Government have a clear set of rules or procedures for dealing with it?