Clause 1
Health Bill
11:00 am
Michael Penning (Shadow Minister, Health; Hemel Hempstead, Conservative)
Can I take the Minister back to the other methodologies that could be used to introduce such a document? By bringing this document out and launching it in that way, there was a presumption that the House would agree to it entirely. Otherwise, he would have introduced a White Paper, which we could have amended in the usual way. What is so difficult to understand is that if Parliament is, quite rightly, debating it today, why was it brought out in its finished form? I know the Minister said that it could be amended, but the document, which was published as part of the constitution, would have to be completely pulped, whereas if it had been introduced through another method, perhaps as a White Paper, that would be the correct way for Parliament to scrutinise it. We could then have introduced the actual legislation, rather than publishing something which is highly likely to be defunct after this exercise in Committee.