Health and Care Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

As I have said, that diversity is not just people’s professional background. I could not agree more with the noble Lords who have just spoken that that diversity is important, but other elements of diversity are also important. We should rely on the chair, on parliamentary scrutiny for the appointment of the chair, and on stakeholder scrutiny through the department and the Secretary of State to ensure that the appointments are run properly. I think we should look to put on the face of the Bill the duties that the organisation needs to have, rather than the specific caricatures of individuals who should sit on the board.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I generally support the direction of the Bill. I welcome it; I think a move towards less competition and more collaboration is the way forward. I support—[Interruption.]

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am so sorry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

We have a Green intervention.

I support particularly the amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Merron and Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and I pick up the points made so strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about Public Health England. The major issue where we are still lacking as we move forward is the recognition that we have to go beyond the clinical and be as inclusive and wide-ranging as we can in involving people in the health service. If we go way back, in the early days of the Labour Government, we even talked about people having shares in the National Health Service to try to get more people involved. We are not yet there.

At the other end of the scale, I take a contrary view to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding. I have spent a lifetime while I have been in this Chamber working on issues of addiction and with voluntary organisations that offer help free of charge. Often they make no progress, but quite often they produce remarkable results. I believe that Public Health England has not given big enough recognition to those organisations. It endeavours to work with them, but we need greater collaboration between the two. We need not just the public health element present on the board but the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, of wider involvement with what I would describe generally as the third sector. The development of the National Academy for Social Prescribing is a great movement, and it should be expanded at a faster pace. It would produce great benefits in relieving pressures in other parts of the health service.

As somebody who works on the other side—as distinct from being a director and running the organisation—I see the difficulties of trying to get influence at that end. From the noble Baroness’s viewpoint, not too many people are involved and the chair makes the decisions, but I beg to differ. I think we need wider representation there. The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, provides that, and I most certainly give strong support to Amendment 3 in the name of my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to ask a question of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who has what is accepted as huge experience at board level, on boards of different sizes. If it is right, no matter the size of the board, to have representation selected on the basis of experience, can it be wrong, no matter the size of the board, to have as board members people with experience in, let us say, public health or local authorities—because they have experience specifically in that area—as opposed to people who might have wider experience, including in finance or whatever?