Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I really am not trying to prevent Christmas starting for Members of this Committee. I feel as though most of today’s amendments have concerned me. These are probing amendments, which relate to NHS capital assets. They are designed to explore what happens to the current offices and clinical premises of an NHS body at the time of transition and afterwards. If these premises are occupied by a clinical commissioning group or a company that is advising a clinical commissioning group on its commissioning, who will become the owner of the property? This is important because GPs are themselves independent contractors, not NHS employees. For many—not all but a significant number—the premises from which they work are owned by their practice. They, not the NHS, jointly own them, even though the building will usually have been subject to a range of capital improvement schemes from the NHS over many years. Such schemes allow a GP to purchase a practice and invest in it over the years. The capital gained then forms a significant additional pension pot for that GP. My question for the Government concerns whether the deeds of the property will be transferred to the general practitioners of the clinical commissioning group. Will they be able to sell it for profit that would then be their personal profit? Will the profit revert to the NHS and, if so, to which pot? If property is transferred, will the new owner be liable to put capital gained into the capital part of the commissioning pot to develop service premises and equipment for the health service itself, rather than be able to take whatever capital gain there is on that property? I beg to move.