Schedule 1 - Constitution of public benefit corporations
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
Welcome back to the Chair for this afternoon's sitting, Mr. Atkinson.
I shall not press amendment No. 68 to a Division, as it was intended as a probing amendment, but I am worried by some of the Under-Secretary's comments. As the hon. Member for Ealing, North said, her enthusiasm is noticeable, but in no part of our society is active participation in democracy, volunteering or working for charitable groups high and rising. We should all do everything that we can to encourage participation, but the Bill contains weaknesses that will permit entryism.
During the next few years, we will see the introduction of all kinds of new therapies, genetic treatments and treatments that we did not believe possible. They will be controversial, and they will provoke dispute in society. Unless the Government maintain a proper framework for this measure, vehicles will exist for groups that have a particular bone to pick with the health care system to take on membership, and ultimately governorship, of these hospitals and to turn those roles to their advantage. A failure to pay serious attention to that is something that the Under-Secretary and her successors will come to regret.