I thank everybody who participated in the debate. It was very interesting and I am very grateful for the support that I seem to be getting from the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson and Lord Cope—I accept only in part—the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn.
The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, were very apposite. I agree entirely with his three stages of commissioning, operations and payment. I accept that that is widening things considerably. I could welcome that but I also have some sympathy for the Minister, who is trying to get some focus. I am prepared to accept what the noble Lord, Lord Cope, is saying—that the main area is payment—but inevitably, as whoever is dealing with this is trying to focus on these issues, that person will be drawn into issues of commissioning and operations as well as payment. If there was an argument saying, “We want focus”, I could accept that the first stage would be to look at payment and then, if we are not resolving things as we like, we can look at commissioning, the monitoring process in the public sector and so on, if those are the subsidiary issues. So I can accept the argument for focus.
The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, was saying how important it is that the whole culture here is all-embracing. This is why I find the Minister’s response quite disappointing. On the one hand she is saying, “We’re making a lot of improvements, the Government are committed to this. We’re having mystery shoppers, and that’s improving things”. If that is the case, what are we frightened of? If we are saying that the Government are making improvements, why do we not monitor it? Why do we not allow the Small Business Commissioner to say, “It’s amazing—I had a number of complaints in the private sector but because of all the work the Government are doing, I have to say that I am mightily impressed by the progress there, and as a result we have very few cases”. Therefore, if the work that is being done is successful, there will be less of a burden on the Small Business Commissioner, which will be welcomed.
The Minister made a very telling point. She was saying that obviously, if we are legislating on the private sector, the public sector will have to behave as well. Anybody in the private sector looking at this will say, “You’re putting all the burden on us and you’re not prepared to have the guts, the courage and the confidence to say, ‘We’ll allow the public sector to be measured as well’”. Call it clearly. If we have the confidence and are determined, we should include that.