The noble Lord asked me a question to which I feel obliged to try to respond, but I really want to answer the question with a question: does the CQC have enough powers to benchmark as it would want to do, and to publish those benchmarks? I hear the concerns of my noble friend Lord Stevens in relation to fear of litigation and how that is an objection to the amendments, but I am also quite worried that that is potentially a way of avoiding adopting the guidelines themselves, thereby inhibiting a change in practice and a move to best practice.
While there are sources of information that those who are very health-literate, IT-literate, and so on, can access to establish their own benchmarks about what is happening, many people, particularly those in the most deprived areas of the UK, do not have any knowledge of even where to begin looking for these things. That was the motivation behind the amendment: to try to make sure that in the poorest and most deprived areas, people would still be able to access this. That would drive up standards gently but would not create a mandated requirement that a NICE guideline is adopted, for the reasons I outlined previously.