Health and Social Care Bill

The noble Lord will know that the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has in it some very serious considerations about how to build up the voluntary sector and indeed build up the whole relationship of the community to the National Health Service. However, in all fairness, from the very beginning the Minister has talked a great deal about the role of the community and about the way in which the National Health Service can become more open to patients, or more open to those local community forces that can assist it in bringing out the best possible outcome for patients. With respect, it is a little unfair for the Opposition to talk as if that had not happened. Indeed, if one looks closely at the motivation of the Bill—it is well known that I have considerable reservations about some aspects about it—one of the aspects that I like the most is the quite clear commitment to the idea of the National Health Service being in partnership with local authorities, health and well-being boards, and the healthwatch system and so forth. All of these organisations are new and all are about involving citizens, voluntary organisations and community organisations in the best possible delivery of healthcare. I have to say that the highly centralised control that was exercised in the early stages of the Labour Government, and indeed right up until 2007, really is quite strikingly different from the attempt to decentralise and create partnerships between local authorities, citizens’ groups and the National Health Service itself. With great respect, the Minister would be quite fair in saying that he has tried to make the point, in almost all the debates that we have had on this issue, of the importance of the voluntary sector and of the community that can protect and help the National Health Service. Although I would readily agree that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has made some very important and germane points which should be addressed, I do not want to give the impression abroad that somehow the Government are less keen on the voluntary sector than the Labour Government were in its day.