My Lords, that is pretty much what I expected from the Government Front Bench, so no surprises there.
I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in support of Amendment 285. I also support Amendment 281, though I did not mention that in my opening remarks. I want the Government to reflect on the fact that, when the person who had been Secretary of State—for what was then health only—for five or six years was released from office, and what I might call the adrenaline of office had calmed down a bit, he was able to give a pretty lengthy interview in the Times in which he effectively said, “I should have accepted that recommendation”. He explained that it was an amendment which would keep Governments honest—those were his words, not mine. This was someone who had been through the mill, had seen it all, had had to deal with these issues and had had a damascene conversion when he had left office. It is a bit like when Permanent Secretaries suddenly become supporters of freedom of information legislation after they have collected their pension.
We cannot ignore the fact that a person who actually did the job saw benefit in having this kind of body. If the Government are resting their case for long-term planning on Health Education England, I am more than ever reinforced by this amendment, having listened to my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham telling us what went on in the workforce planning that he had experience of. It is a pretty unusual situation to be running a big organisation in which two-thirds of the budget is spent on staffing and workforce issues, where the guy or gal in charge of it is not actually responsible for the long-term planning of the workforce. That is an extraordinary system that Stuart Rose—the noble Lord, Lord Rose of Monewden—and others have found very difficult to understand.
9.30 pm
So I shall come back to this on Report with an amendment that looks remarkably like this—but, in the meantime, I withdraw Amendment 225ZA.