Table
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
8:55 am
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I, too, take the opportunity to welcome you, Mr. Griffiths, to the Chair, and I also welcome the Ministers who will be speaking to much of the Bill.
Conservative Members and Liberal Democrats voted against the programme motion, bearing in mind the scale of the Bill and the length of time that we will spend in Committee, rather than specific divisions. Many people have waited a long time for the Bill and now find that, despite the many clauses, the Government insist that it leave Committee on 19 June. It is unusual for a Bill with so many clauses to be dealt with so peremptorily in terms of the planned sittings. I welcome the Government's willingness to reconsider the number of sittings overall, particularly if progress is slow.
The concern that I have already raised informally is that there should be adequate time to debate matters specific to the social care inspectorate. The hope and expectation is that there will be, but I fear that there will be so much to say about the Commission for Health Improvement that discussion may be truncated. I hope that it will be possible to revisit the question of a knife protecting discussion of that business if the need arises.
I share the concern that the allocation of only two sittings at the end of our consideration for a discussion of dentistry, when there will be little or no room for manoeuvre for extra sittings to discuss the reorganisation of dentistry and all that that entails, does not allow the matter due consideration. I have asked the Minister on the Floor of the House—I received no reply, but I have since asked for an undertaking on the record—whether, if the general practitioners agree to the Government's plans while we are in Committee, the Government will introduce in Committee clauses, which we know they have already drafted, to implement that agreement. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that, without prejudging the Government's view, if they have decided that that could happen by 19 June. We would certainly appreciate that.
My final point, which is really a point of order, is that the acoustics in this Room make it difficult to hear, particularly for those of us below the Gangway. We had no problem hearing the Member for West Chelmsford, but we did not hear some of the Minister's comments. Perhaps someone could examine the microphones.