Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2012 Lords Chamber

I am very happy at this point to be interrupted by anyone on anything. I do not think that anyone wants to interrupt me, in which case I hope noble Lords will be reassured that the Bill, with the amendments that we have proposed, provides the safeguards that are being sought, which I fully understand. We are coming from the same place. We want to make sure that the public and patient voice is heard, which is why the Government have made these proposals in the way that they have for HealthWatch England and for local healthwatch organisations. I trust that noble Lords will feel that independence is secured by those statutory protections and that the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Scotland of Asthal]

My Lords, now that the noble Baroness has sat down, perhaps I may raise a point of order. I have to tell the House that I found the exhibition we have just had rather extraordinary. I have not been in this House for very long. Noble Lords will know that I came to the House only in 1997 but I had an opportunity to answer for the then Government from the Front Bench. It is certainly my experience that what would normally happen in this House is that if a noble Lord wanted to intervene, particularly at this stage in the proceedings, that person would be allowed to complete the sentence or the paragraph and would then sit down. Bearing in mind that it would be regrettable if this should become a pattern, I wonder whether we could ask the usual channels to look at these issues so that we will have clarity if we are about to adopt a new procedure.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.