Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill

It seems from this debate that you could put together into an amendment the appeal mechanisms suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, the general thrust of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and the three examples the Minister gave of what would trigger the investigation. The Minister clearly has “resist” on every briefing for every amendment. However, this is the House of Lords and basically, we are either going to put an amendment through ourselves, which will win on Report, or the Minister will sit down with us to try to agree something. If the Minister is not able to give way on anything, frankly, it is pretty hopeless and departs from what your Lordships’ House is about. That is what I find frustrating. It is quite clear that there is a broad consensus that we need to see a trigger mechanism of some sort in the Bill. We would like to work with the Government, otherwise we are left with no option but to construct something ourselves.