Health and Social Care Bill

It does not really matter. Five of his colleagues have put their names to it. The point I am making to the noble Lord is that I agree with them about the way forward. It echoes very much what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was saying about recognising the disquiet, hostility and fear that exists towards this Bill, particularly this part. At the end of the day, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the other royal colleges, trade unions, nurses and doctors are the people who will save our NHS, whatever the Government have decided to do to it. They are the people who will actually deliver the healthcare. That is what the royal college of GPs is saying now. It did not say that it resiled from its position about this Bill, not at all. It is acknowledging that, along with the nurses and everybody else, it will deliver this Bill. It will put patients at the heart of the health system. I think that we should all pay tribute to that and be reassured by it. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, said that mergers will still proceed. They will still proceed regardless of whether this amendment is agreed. However, he also said that good people leave when there is disruption in the health service. That is very true. They are leaving in their droves. We are losing hundreds if not thousands of good people from the National Health Service because of the past two years, the White Paper and the Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for his remarks—I think he was very wise—and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for hers. She is quite right. I am flattered that she took my remarks seriously, because this is not about wrecking the Bill. I did not tackle any of the policy issues that the noble Earl chose to stand up as Aunt Sallies and then knock down. When I introduced the amendment, I said that this was about doing things in an orderly fashion, in a way that would help to save our NHS. That is the point. The noble Earl did not tackle any of the risks that I raised about how to deliver the Nicholson challenge simultaneously with all the other changes in the Bill. In fact, he went close to saying that we have gone too far anyway to stop that. I was not convinced by his remarks about the risks and how they might be mitigated. We need time to work on this. We need time to get support for it, if it goes through. The amendment allows us to do that. I beg to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 300A