Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, this has been an absolutely brilliant and very helpful debate to everybody in the Committee; I hope that that includes the Government. I start where the Minister left off, about intentions—it is not the Government’s intention to introduce competition red in tooth and claw. However, the Minister must by now have realised that that is not what people understand by what is actually in the Bill and how it might be applied. That is the dilemma that faces the Committee and the Government. We on these Benches will certainly take up the offer that the noble Earl made in his opening statement, which was extremely useful, of discussing how to improve and change this part of the Bill. We would like to be part of that process. There is definitely work to be done on that. I will briefly sum up our position on this debate. I have a series of questions for the Minister and I am very happy for him to write to me about them. We are not convinced as yet by the idea that having a quango as an economic regulator is the only way to bring a clear and comprehensive legal framework into the Bill. The purpose of Monitor in the Bill is to develop competition, which is why we have the Bill. We believe, and this debate shows us, that the contents of this part of the Bill in fact open the door and invite in the issues that were raised, for instance, by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. If competition is not at the heart of the Bill, why do we need all that detail? The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made a very helpful intervention and a useful analysis. I, for one, will be rereading his speech about EU competition law. I ask that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his colleagues look at our Amendment 262A, which would add a third subsection to Clause 59(1). The proposed paragraph (c) says the provision of health services should be, "““based on the principles of universality and social solidarity””." We were not making a particularly left-wing statement with that. We were actually lifting it out of European law, which our advice tells us is one of the ways in which you keep at bay the procurement processes of European law. I strongly ask the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to look at that; I would be interested to hear his comments. One part of the debate that I have been disturbed about was that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. He also has a freedom of information request in for information that would help to inform the discussions of this House. We know that we have had our debates about the lack of access to the risk register to help us in our deliberations. Indeed, my honourable friends in another place asked if they could also have access to the legal opinions that the department had got on this part of the Bill, and were refused access to that, too. We have all had to find our lawyers to advise us about competition law. We are now all a lot better informed than we were several months ago. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, was right when he said there is no consensus about this; indeed he was right when he said that parts of this Bill are feared and hated. The Minister needs to understand that there is a lot of fear out there, about this part of the Bill in particular. The noble Lord was expressing very grave concerns. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, made a threat to the Government about patient safety and quality being the order of the day and said that he will be returning to this on Report. He will probably have more effect than the rest of us put together in his interjection on this matter. We will be behind him if he does so, which may not do his reputation any good at all. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, made a very thoughtful speech, her most important point being that we already have the tools to make the system work. There is no need to put in an economic regulator and the competition regime that this Bill suggests, because the tools are already there. That is very important. I say to my noble friend Lord Whitty that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of slash and burn to make the point about this part of the Bill. In effect my noble friend was at one with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The message from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is that the NHS needs to improve. Yes, we would all agree with that and every health system in the world needs to change and improve. I would, however, refer the noble Baroness to my speech, which embraced change, embraced development and even embraced the use of managed competition. Where we part company is that the way to improve the NHS is not to treat it as a utility or a supermarket; we do not think the evidence is there to prove that. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that we should be very wary of the introduction of market forces as a way to improve our health service. My noble friend Lady Armstrong made the important point that we agree with the Minister that there is a case for the use of competition in its place. The challenge before us is how we ensure that this Bill delivers that without threatening the whole fabric of our health service.