Health and Social Care Bill

I do not really accept the noble Lord’s criticism of my thinking. Of course I understand that these health and well-being boards are essentially planning boards. I will read very carefully what he has said in Hansard, but I am sure he accepts that you cannot do the planning if you are totally ignorant of the implementation of what you are planning. Clearly, finance and other things come into this. The health and well-being boards that I have spoken to say that what is really important to the success of the board is the equality of members on it. If he is saying that only local government councillors have a vote, I think that people who also hold budgets—the clinical commissioning group people and the health people—would be very upset if decisions were made involving their finances without them having an opportunity to put their case in a vote, if it comes to that. Again, the boards that I have been speaking to and working with have said that they would always try very hard to avoid a vote. When I came into the health service from local government, I found the whole culture very different. I enjoyed working as an equal partner with those who were advising me, such as the district or county medical officer and others. We really should leave this to the health and well-being boards to decide how they want to run their business. Why do we always think we know best? Every health and well-being board will be totally different, representing different areas of the country and all sorts of different interests. For once, let us have a light touch and trust the people who are going to be doing this business.