Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
8:55 am
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) for her support for the programme motion. I do not want to take issue with any of her comments because I think that we should all like to make progress on consideration of the Bill.
As regards the comment from the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), we have had discussions through the usual channels about the Committee's ability to make progress on part 1 and on the need to have extra sittings on a Wednesday. It would be preferable if we did not have to sit on an additional Wednesday; I am sure that Committee members would agree with that. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham made a fair point about members' having other commitments. She will know from experience that that also applies to Ministers.
We propose extra sittings for the week after the recess simply to ensure that there is no further encroachment on the time devoted to consideration of other parts of the Bill. I welcome the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon for even more Wednesday sittings. I do not think that there would be much support for that proposal from either side of the Committee. My responsibility is to ensure that the Committee has had the chance to consider the Bill properly, so we would not rule out the possibility of further sittings on Wednesdays, if the need arises.