Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
10:30 am
Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)
Good morning, Mr. Benton, to you and members of the Committee. I wish first to endorse many of the remarks made by the Minister. It is indeed a pleasure to work under your chairmanship at the historic start to proceedings on the Bill. We are all looking forward to seeing how it will work. As Lord Cope said in his recent note that he sent round about the new procedure:
“The new process is not described as an experiment, but it is recognised that the system may need modification in the light of experience.”
We are in the happy position of being the first people to provide some of that experience on which modification might be based.
The decision to modernise legislative proceedings and to improve the way in which a Committee informed itself of what was before it through the process of taking evidence was warmly welcomed by the House when the Modernisation Committee reported after the matter was debated in November. We are pleased to be able to start the process that the Minister has outlined.
Now comes the historic “but” moment. We have recognised over the years that, whereas consensus is incredibly important, the danger of being over-consensual is that we miss things. We believe that it is our job to assist the process of modification by pointing out things that could be improved and by putting a little bit of grit in the oyster, which I intend to do. I shall come to that in a second.
I add to my welcomes by saying what a great pleasure it will be to work with the Minister. He and I have known each other for many years, and I regard him as a highly capable colleague with a great interest in and knowledge of the subject. I look forward to representing the Conservatives while he applies his skill to outlining the Government’s measures. In that spirit, I am sure that when we suggest changes that he knows need to be made, he will agree and ask his colleagues to do the same.
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab) indicated dissent.