I am most grateful to all noble Lords who participated in this debate, which I thought was very good, with a lot of points well made, including points by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. There were good points throughout, with hardly any that I would take issue with.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy will have anticipated some of the arguments that we can perhaps develop a little further when we come to Amendment 28. It may enable us to cut to the chase, as it were.
I was prompted, in listening to my noble friend and the noble Lord, to wonder what the collective noun is for former Health Ministers. I had always imagined that the appropriate collective noun for those who leave the job was a “release” of Health Ministers. I was struck, after today’s further discussions, by the thought that maybe we should be called a “frustration” of ex-Health Ministers. In every case, we know that we have become enmeshed in and, generally, absolutely fascinated by and engaged with all the issues that we get involved in in the Department of Health, but we never stay long enough to see them through in the directions that we wanted them to go or the conclusions that we wanted them to reach. Perhaps when we come to Amendment 28, I shall have a chance to talk about value-based pricing, which was something that I started but which did not happen after I left. I am thinking in this particular instance of the December 2011 report on innovation in the NHS. Many of the things that we have been talking about today were there nine years ago and continue to be there today, and we need to keep pushing forward with them.
In that context, what my noble friend the Minister said by way of reply about the consideration that the medicines regulator should give to the availability of medicines will certainly cover the ground. If, for example, the NHS makes it clear that it wants earlier access or what we might think of as breakthrough designation for medicines, that will definitely get into the “availability of medicines” consideration, so I take that point entirely. I am grateful for her explanation about the requirements laid on Ministers where they engage in consultation—that satisfies that factor.
I am particularly grateful that we have a date for the medtech funding mandate. I am glad that we are making progress. I know that that will mean that it is not subject to the vagaries of the Covid-19 crisis, which has delayed so many of the objectives that we were hoping to progress during this year and next. For NHS England, it is important. It will enable it to look after patients more effectively and potentially save costs. I am grateful to my noble friend for that. With that positive response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.