"The Minister has one of the toughest jobs in Government, and he carries out his duties with diligence, courtesy, reasonableness and ability. I wish him well in whatever the future holds, and I hope he retains his post. Members on both sides of the House have rightly highlighted the illegality …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"I will endeavour to be relatively brief in my reflections, and I will address, particularly, clauses 35 and 38. I can see a logic to what the Minister proposes in them. On clause 35, we know that foundation trusts face challenges. We saw that writ large with the scandal at …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"I will be relatively brief, turning just to clause 40. I hope the Minister may be able to clarify something for me. I take the opportunity to thank the Minister for the letter that I received this morning, which was a very prompt response to her promise to write to …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"In their 2024 manifesto, the Government made a promise to set up specialist rape courts in every Crown court location. Two years on, how many have been set up?..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"Does the hon. Member share my concern that what often gets billed as simply streamlining or efficiencies is in fact slimming down, decoupling and weakening?..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"Can the Minister set out how she envisages health scrutiny committees having genuine teeth? Our cross-party health scrutiny committee in Leicestershire universally condemned a decision by the ICB—totally disagreed with it—and the ICB basically said, “Thank you; noted,” and carried on anyway...." Edward Argar - View Speech
"I will not detain the Committee for long, and I will speak primarily to clause 15. I am broadly supportive of what the Minister seeks to achieve, as I understand it, with the clause. It is absolutely right that service users and communities are engaged by their integrated care boards—those …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"My hon. Friend comes to this with significant knowledge from his work on the Health and Social Care Committee. He is absolutely right, but that is a tension and a balance that I fear runs as a thread throughout this legislation, between local decision making and tailoring and the genuine …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; she is typically generous with her time. Can I just seek a little clarification in terms of the right to a GP appointment in new clause 2? Is her intention that that is an appointment with the practice—be that …..." Edward Argar - View Speech
"It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. My hon. Friends have addressed at some length the Government new clauses and amendments, so the Minister may get a slightly easy ride from me this time, but I want to pick up on new clause 2 and some …..." Edward Argar - View Speech