Health and Social Care Bill

Lord Walton of Detchant Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walton of Detchant]

My Lords, I have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lord Owen—a noted Health Secretary and Foreign Secretary, and someone who made a major contribution towards peace in the Balkans. He became, obviously, one of the glitterati of British politics. Many of your Lordships may not be aware that he began training as a registrar in neurology at St Thomas’s Hospital and I often contemplate what might have happened to his future career if he had stuck with neurology and not turned to politics.

While I talk of neurology, may I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that I was the neurologist on the Southwood working party on BSE which gave advice to the Government on that tragic, difficult problem in 1988? I am very glad that we got that advice right—we learnt a lot about the assessment of risk at that time.

To return to this Bill and the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, which, with some difficulty, I feel that I cannot support, I am a fervent supporter of the National Health Service. I spent much of my professional life working in it and in academic medicine, and when this Bill was introduced into your Lordships’ House I joined with the voices of the BMA, the royal colleges, the nursing organisations and many others in saying that in my opinion the Bill was potentially damaging to the NHS and that it was unacceptable. However, we have moved on. I have been involved with many of your Lordships in the lengthy, at times almost interminable, debates which have improved this Bill beyond recognition. It is not perfect, and there are still issues which perhaps need to be handled by regulation, but it is an infinitely better Bill than the one which came originally into this House. For that reason, any further delay would be unacceptable.

Having said that, I was greatly touched by the wise words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and by the very wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who has been a tower of strength throughout all the debates in this House. I genuinely believe that if the medical organisations which are continuing to express their complete opposition to the Bill had fully appreciated the enormous number of amendments that have been carried and accepted by the Government in this House, they would not be continuing to take their stance as fiercely as they are. The Bill has been transformed; for that reason, if your Lordships will forgive the cliché, enough is enough. We are where we are. It is time to give this Bill a Third Reading.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Walton, who, as we all know, carries such respect on health matters in this House. I do not doubt the sincerity of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in his fundamental opposition to the whole Bill. Indeed, he expressed it very clearly in his Observer article yesterday. He put the arguments very fairly on his Motion, but I have absolutely no hesitation in disagreeing with it today—and I say to him, in his capacity as a doctor, that I feel no physical or mental discomfort with a whipped vote on the matter, for the very key reason that my noble friend Lady Williams mentioned.

The risk register whose publication is being requested was written as long ago as November 2010. It will certainly not relate to the Bill being considered today, as it was drawn up many months before the pause in the Bill’s proceedings. Many changes to the Bill were made as a result of the Future Forum process, headed up by Professor Steve Field. The Bill was then changed significantly in Committee and on Report in this House, as the recent House of Commons research paper makes absolutely clear. The risks identified in the register are therefore those of the old Bill, long since superseded, or even of the White Paper which preceded it. It will have been based on worst-case scenarios—