Motion B1 (as an amendment to Motion B)

Health and Care Bill - Commons Amendments and Reasons – in the House of Lords at 5:15 pm on 5 April 2022.

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Baroness Cumberlege:

Moved by Baroness Cumberlege

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 29B in lieu—

29B: Clause 35, page 42, leave out lines 14 to 19 and insert— The Secretary of State must, at least once every three years, lay a report before Parliament describing the system in place for assessing and meeting the workforce needs of the health, social care and public health services in England. (2) This report must include—(a) an independent assessment of health and social care workforce numbers, current at the time of publication, and the projected workforce supply for the following five, ten and 15 years, and (b) an independent assessment of future health and social care workforce numbers based on the projected health and care needs of the population for the following five, ten and 15 years, taking account of the Office for Budget Responsibility long-term fiscal projections. (3) NHS England and Health Education England must assist in the preparation of a report under this section.(4) The organisations listed in subsection (3) must consult health and care employers, providers, trade unions, Royal Colleges, universities and any other persons deemed necessary for the preparation of this report, taking full account of workforce intelligence, evidence and plans provided by local organisations and partners of integrated care boards.””

Photo of Baroness Cumberlege Baroness Cumberlege Conservative

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that wide-ranging introduction on workforce. There are a lot of issues that we will want to consider later, but at the moment we have before us the issue of what the Commons have done. They have returned our amendment back to the Lords, and it is now for us to consider whether we wish to pursue it.

I want to go back to the situation on Report in this House, and the amendment to Clause 35 of the Bill on the subject of workforce planning. That was passed by your Lordships with an overwhelming majority in this House. I thank noble Lords who gave their support and welcomed that we wanted to return this issue to the Commons on that occasion. I want to stress strongly that it was supported not only in this place but by over 100 different organisations throughout the country—charities, patient groups, think tanks, royal colleges, professional bodies and organisations representing NHS management and those working in the service. They are extremely worried about our workforce numbers and the future. What is going to happen to our services if we do not have enough people in the workforce? We need a proper plan. We need to know how we are going to take this forward.

We had hoped that the Government would listen to the strength of the arguments put last time and the strength of feeling, not to mention that in the Commons. We also hoped that the Government would agree that workforce planning is the greatest problem facing the NHS and social care and that we are in crisis. We have to handle this problem. We hoped there would be agreement that we need better planning, because we know that, without improved planning, we will not be able to tackle the growing backlog in procedures and appointments, with people waiting to be treated by the service. Even this morning, on the “Today” programme, one of our charities—Macmillan Cancer Support—came forward to speak about cancer services and to strongly say, “Please will you sort this problem because it needs sorting?”

Regrettably, despite the extraordinary consensus in favour of the amendment, it was, as noble Lords know, rejected in the other place. The case for improvements to workforce planning has been made by me and many others many times during the passage of this Bill. The current NHS waiting list stands at 6.1 million, and it is rising. More people are joining the waiting list every day—more than those who are being treated. This is not a new problem; according to the King’s Fund, it has been like this since 2016. Of course, we have had to deal with the pandemic, which has made matters a great deal worse.

I thank my noble friend the Minister very sincerely for the time he and the Bill team have spent with me trying to sort this problem out. But today, and often in previous debates, we are told that there are record numbers of staff in the health service. The fact remains that this does not seem to be enough—but of course we do not really know. We can experience it but we have not got the figures. We do not know whether we have the right people in the right place at the right time. We do not know if we have a plan for retention of the wonderful staff already working within the NHS and social care. As the backlog figures suggest, we are not meeting, and we will not meet, the public’s expectations when they turn to the NHS for care and support.

The NHS is spending huge sums on bank and agency staff, which reached £6.2 billion in the financial year 2019-20. That figure has been increasing since then, and the projections are that it will continue to increase year on year. This is expensive and inefficient, and I suggest to your Lordships that it is no way to run the NHS—the huge, very important organisation that so many of us rely on.

However, no organisation can do everything. The NHS cannot do everything, but surely we need it to do everything it can to treat people who need very high-quality care and treatment. If we want the NHS to do everything it can, it needs a clear assessment of workforce needs and a clear plan to meet those needs.

When the amendment we passed on Report was considered in the House of Commons, the Health Minister at the Dispatch Box suggested that it was not acceptable “in its current form”. That was not an off-the-cuff remark but words that he obviously meant to say in his summing-up. I took some heart from that, and I hope that my noble friend will agree that the new form of words that we have in front of us today will be acceptable. I thought carefully about how to make the amendment more palatable to my noble friend and his colleagues at this late stage.

The version now before us has several significant changes. It would require the Secretary of State to publish a workforce assessment every three years, rather than two. We are suggesting that because we hope that my noble friend will agree that it makes it less onerous and less bureaucratic. The maximum length of projection of workforce needs is now 15 years, rather than the 20 years that we previously proposed in our amendment. We decided on that because it is aligned with the Government’s own plans. For example, framework 15 also spans 15 years and we thought it sensible to marry the two. Under this amendment, the workforce would not need to include an independently verified assessment of workforce numbers; it now requires only a simple “independent assessment”, because I knew that the department did not like the word “verified”.

I hope that these changes will make it easier for the Government to live with the amendment, without their having to dismantle it. I am pleased to say that the 100 organisations—the charities, patient groups, think tanks, royal colleges, professional bodies and organisations representing NHS management—that I mentioned earlier are all supportive of this version. Every time we want to make a change, we ask the 100, “Do you support this?” and they do.

I hope my noble friend and his colleagues are now able to join the consensus, support the amendment and ensure that we start to improve workforce planning for the benefit of the NHS, its staff and, of course, most importantly, the people it is here to care for. I beg to move.

Photo of Lord Geddes Lord Geddes Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords) 5:30, 5 April 2022

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely.

Photo of Baroness Brinton Baroness Brinton Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Health)

My Lords, although my noble friend Lady Walmsley will be speaking from our Benches on the workforce amendments, I just want to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, on the eloquent speech she made on the need for proper and effective workforce planning. I support everything she said.

I will now speak to Motions D and D1 on genocide and modern slavery, having added my name to amendments at earlier stages of the Bill. I thank the Government for their Amendment 48A in Motion D. Frankly, a review of the NHS supply chains should undoubtedly happen, regardless of the Bill, but the amendment does not go nearly far enough to stop the practice of suppliers to the NHS purchasing goods where there has been a risk of slavery and human trafficking. The amendment talks only about the Secretary of State having to “mitigate the risk”. In the linguistic range of a Minister making commitments, mitigation does not hit even the halfway bar.

We need to be blunt. A very large quantity of NHS medical equipment is sourced, in whole or in part, from the People’s Republic of China. Despite the Government denying that any equipment is sourced from the Uighur region, reports have found that the UK Government have bought more than £150 million-worth of PPE from Chinese firms directly linked to abuses of Uighur rights abuses. As recently as this month, supply chain specialists revealed that the NHS continues to be supplied PPE from a company known to use Uighur forced labour programmes. Without legislation mandating transparency and due diligence, it seems very unlikely that the Government will be able to ensure that they are not sourcing goods from companies practising modern slavery.

Amendment 48B in Motion D1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, goes beyond the Government’s proposals for a review by seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State must by regulation make provision to ensure that all procurement of goods and services for the health service in England avoids slavery. The UK Government have to face up to their obligations to prevent through the law any forced labour and people trafficking in UK health supply chains. From these Benches we will support Amendment 48B in Motion D1.

Photo of Lord Stevens of Birmingham Lord Stevens of Birmingham Crossbench

My Lords, I will speak in support of Motion B1 on workforce planning and Motion C1 on the Secretary of State’s powers on reconfiguration. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has just reminded us, there is a huge groundswell of support for the need to do proper workforce planning in the NHS, but the fact is that today we do not need to relitigate the fundamental arguments, because your Lordships have already decided, by a margin of 171 to 119 votes on 3 March, that that is indeed what is required.

Of course, if the facts change, we should change our minds. Have the facts changed since 3 March? Have we seen the long-awaited detailed workforce plan for the health and social care sector that has been promised yet suppressed for the last six years? Regrettably, we have not. Have we even had concrete commitments to the detailed, costed and quantified five, 10 and 15-year outlooks that will supposedly be forthcoming in the spring? No, we have not had commitments that those numbers will be able to be produced without fear or favour, or Treasury veto.

However, we have before us two new data points. One is the survey of 650,000 NHS front-line staff, half of whom—52%—are now telling us that they cannot do their jobs properly because of a shortage of staff in their local service. The second data point is the results of the British Social Attitudes survey, telling us that nearly half of our fellow citizens have noticed that fact; they too believe that one of the fundamental problems standing in the way of performance by the health service is the shortage of staff.

If the Government are not inclined to listen to the hundred or so organisations that have supported this amendment or, indeed, to the results of surveys of front-line staff or the public, perhaps they will listen to a commentator from the Spectator:

“The lack of workforce planning by the Government—and its continual refusal to commit to it—means satisfaction from patients and staff is likely to plummet still further.”

I do not believe the Government want that. Nobody wants that, which is why we should take this opportunity to listen to the clear message that we have been sent by patients, staff and the public.

I turn briefly to Motion C1 on the Secretary of State’s powers on reconfigurations. There is an obvious read-across between the discussion on workforce and the discussion on reconfigurations. In the real world, it is often staff shortages which give rise to concerns about the safe provision of services, hence the request for reconfigurations. In these circumstances, and coming just a few days after the Ockenden review of maternity safety, it is all the more dangerous that the new powers in Clause 40 and Schedule 6 would allow the Secretary of State to suppress changes needed to keep patients safe and to pre-empt and override the concerns of local clinicians, local patient groups, local authorities and even the Care Quality Commission.

There could be safeguards but, unfortunately, to date at least—perhaps, depending on what we do today, this will resurface after Easter—we are being asked to support the original text of the Bill, which has taken no account of any of the concerns that have been raised in both Houses during its passage. Instead, on the reconfiguration powers, today the Government are essentially praying in aid an argument not on the substance but on the merits of democratic oversight by the Secretary of State. This is despite the fact that previous Health Secretaries have managed democratically to supervise the National Health Service without requiring these new powers, despite the fact that former Health Ministers—Conservative Health Ministers, Labour Health Ministers and Liberal Democrat Health Ministers—all oppose these measures and have spoken out, including in your Lordships’ House, and despite the fact that democratically elected Health Ministers in just about every other European country have never sought and do not possess these types of powers.

If the Government want to argue Motion C on the crucible of democratic oversight, it seems that by that logic they should indeed support Motion C1 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which further enhances the democratic oversight of the use of these proposed new powers, giving Parliament the ability to scrutinise these types of interventions. Therefore, for those reasons, frustratingly, perhaps, I find that we are in a position where Motions B1 and C1 are still necessary.

Photo of Baroness Harding of Winscombe Baroness Harding of Winscombe Conservative

I rise to congratulate my noble friend Lady Cumberlege on her excellent speech and to support her on Motion B1. Addressing workforce shortages in our health system is a wicked problem. It is complex and complicated and it is a problem that is shared by every healthcare system in the world. I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister and the Government are sincere in their belief that they are doing a lot to address the problem but, as my noble friend said, the problem is that we do not know its scale. Until we do and we are open and honest about the complexity and size of the problem. we will not be able to move forward.

Sadly, this ought to be one of the reasons why the NHS is the best healthcare system in the world. It, above all other healthcare systems, ought to be able to do this sort of long-term, complex, detailed planning as a single-payer, state-provided system. Most developed countries do not have those benefits, yet today we are in a place where the Government appear to be saying that we should just keep doing what we have always done. There is a basic maxim in life that if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got. The reality is that unless we are willing to bend and change, we will not get any meaningful, sustained solutions to this burning problem. My noble friend Lady Cumberlege has bent and changed and has adapted her amendment to try to address what I know were some of the major concerns of the Government about the risk of a verified, firm and unwavering false certainty in a forward forecast and the need to recognise that this is a complex problem where there is likely to be a range. If we are not open and honest about that, we will never really address the issues.

This is a wicked problem that requires us to be brave enough to admit that we do not have all the answers. That is the courage we would need to see in publishing a workforce plan and is why I support Motion B1.

Photo of Lord Blencathra Lord Blencathra Conservative 5:45, 5 April 2022

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Motion D1. It is straightforward and I need not detain the House long. We all know the situation in Xinjiang province; it has been set out in graphic detail in this House by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others.

In recent years, the Government have procured billions of pounds’ worth of medical equipment sourced in whole or in part from Xinjiang. Despite widespread reports of forced labour in that region, our supply chain laws have failed to prevent such procurement. The Government have repeatedly condemned China over its treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province and has imposed sanctions in response to its human rights abuses. Indeed, my right honourable friend the then Foreign Secretary said that torture “on an industrial scale” was happening there. Then the new Foreign Secretary, my right honourable friend Liz Truss, told our ambassador to China that China was committing genocide—at last someone in the FCDO was admitting the truth. Everyone knows that it is genocide. The independent Uyghur Tribunal, the US Government, our own Parliament and five other Parliaments determined it.

However, every time we try amendments, however modest, on trade with companies using slave labour in Xinjiang, the Government throw a wobbly if we use the word “genocide” and give the usual, simply unbelievable answer that only a court can pronounce on that, despite there being no court capable of holding China to account. There have been an awful lot of government pronouncements in the past two days about Putin and Russia committing war crimes and atrocities, and rightly so, but there has been no suggestion of a court needing to pronounce on that. However, let us park all that.

The Government will not accept any amendment which remotely hints at genocide. So my amendment does not seek to go there. Instead, it uses the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which is already on the statute book. We sent a simple, three-section amendment to the Commons: first, to make regulations ensuring that the DHSC did not buy goods and services from a country which may be in contravention of the genocide convention; secondly, a Minister should assess whether there was a serious risk of genocide; and, thirdly, a Minister had to make that assessment if a chair of a Select Committee requested it. That was rejected in the Commons and the Government gave us back the complicated and rather complex Amendment 48A in lieu. As we see from the government amendment, the Secretary of State would have to carry out a review in case there was slavery and human trafficking. He would determine the scope of the review and what parts of the NHS it might apply to. Then he must lay it before Parliament within 18 months and give his own views on how he would mitigate it.

My amendment combines that government review amendment with a simple one-line clause. This one-line amendment was moved in another place by my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith MP and was supported by all Opposition Front Benches and Conservatives who included the former Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt MP, and the latterly Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland MP. In the other place this simple amendment was rejected by my honourable friend Ed Argar MP. Now Ed Argar is a good Minister but someone drafting his speech obviously found an old “Yes Minister” script and wrote a classic Sir Humphrey response:

“In developing the modern slavery strategy review, it will continue to be important to engage across Government and civil society, nationally and internationally, to collect the necessary evidence to agree an ambitious set of objectives … We remain of the view that this is not the right legislation for the proposed changes.”

Can your Lordships not just hear Sir Humphrey adding, “A very courageous decision, Minister”?

Well, the right time is right now and the right legislation is this Bill. Of course, the Government always have a better Bill coming along in the future. The government amendment in lieu relies on the Modern Slavery Act, and so does mine, and while I criticise the obfuscating waffle of the government amendment in lieu, I am not attempting to replace it or reject but will support it. I am merely adding a one-line sentence to it. It is simple and does what the Minister in the other place said the Government wanted; that is, to

“further strengthen the ability of public sector bodies to exclude suppliers from bidding for contracts where they have a history of misconduct—or extreme misconduct in the case of slavery, forced labour or similar.”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/3/22; cols. 926-27.]

Ignoring the fact that genocide and slavery are a wee bit worse than misconduct, my amendment gives the Department of Health and Social Care the opportunity to desist from buying goods and services from anywhere practising modern slavery.

I do not blame those involved in procurement for the sorry fact that slave-trade goods have entered our supply chains. Those working in the Cabinet Office, NHS procurement and the Department of Health have worked jolly hard in very difficult circumstances over the past few years. The fault is not theirs. We clearly need better tools to keep slavery out of our supply chains and this neat little amendment would allow the Government to do exactly that.

We do not need to engage the whole of government, nor civil society here and abroad. After all, Dominic Raab has just cancelled a contract for solar panels on prisons because parts were made in Xinjiang province, and I am certain that he did not consult civil society here or overseas before doing so. If the Secretary of State for Justice can make that unilateral decision, so can the Department of Health and Social Care. Nor need we worry that we will be deprived of essential PPE from Xinjiang. On 31 March, I found the following announcement by the Department of Health and Social Care:

“Personal protective equipment for sale by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) including visors, gowns, aprons and goggles”, alongside a link to a site listing:

“Various Locations - Online Auction of Pallets of New PPE Equipment to include Gowns, Visors, Goggles, Sanitizer & Aprons - NO RESERVE!”

Let us be honest: the DHSC is the Government’s biggest procurer and happens to be the department with the biggest problem. More than any other department, it needs extra help to keep slavery away. I am grateful for what my noble friend the Minister has said, but in view of the fact that the Government will not support my amendment, I regret that I shall have no option but to test the opinion of the House in due course.

Photo of Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Labour

My Lords, first, I thoroughly endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has said. I find it extraordinary that the Government are taking such a slow pace in relation to the important issue he raises. Of course, I relate it to my own amendments on forced organ harvesting, which is yet another example of the deplorable behaviour of the Chinese authorities. I refer the House to the China Tribunal, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice in 2019, which stated:

The Tribunal’s members are certain—unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt—that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”

Current human tissue legislation covers organ transplantation within the UK, but it does not cover British citizens travelling abroad for transplants. My amendment, which the House accepted, went to the other place. It was not accepted there but, as the Minister has kindly said, the Government put in their own amendment in lieu which we see here this afternoon. I am very grateful to the Minister for this. The impact of the Government’s amendment is to ensure that offences under Section 32 of the Human Tissue Act 2004, which currently prohibits people in this country from commercial dealings in human material for transplantation, will now be extended to acts outside the United Kingdom. The amendment covers people who give or receive a reward for the supply or for an offer to supply an organ or any controlled material. That is very welcome indeed. It is welcome because it deals with a gap in UK legislation, but it is especially welcome because it sends a powerful message internationally that the UK will not be complicit in this appalling crime. I am very grateful to the Minister and very much support the amendment he brings.

I now turn to my Amendment 57B, set out in Motion F1, which relates, as the Minister said, to issues to do with patient data and the proper protection of it. Laid out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is the concept of a safe haven for patient data across health and social care. Because of the sensitive nature of that data, I sought, and the House agreed, to keep those statutory protections in place and not allow NHS England to take on that responsibility because of a potential conflict of interest in that role.

The issue arises because, last November, the Secretary of State announced that NHS Digital and NHSX would merge with NHS England to accelerate the digital transformation of the NHS. The Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to do this by the transfer of a function from one relevant body to another. NHS Digital is currently the statutory safe haven for patient data and my concern is whether it is appropriate to place that responsibility in NHS England, in view of the inherent conflict of interest that might occur in its wider role. As a matter of principle, I and a number of other noble Lords consider that the collection, analysis and publication of public data should be independent of any operational body. In effect, NHS England will be able to decide that its legitimate interests override those of the citizen and the patient, with little or no external constraint or scrutiny.

The noble Lord and I are at one in wanting to speed up digital transformation. I will set out what I am trying to do here, with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. We are trying to be helpful. We want to make sure that the integrity of the safe havens is retained within this digital transformation. As the noble Lord said, we have had an extremely useful discussion with officials who are leading this programme in the department. I hope the Minister will be able to offer assurances that the integrity of the safe haven concept will be retained; that no transfer will take place until those safeguards are fully set out in the regulations necessary to bring the transfer into force; and, in particular, that strict governance arrangements will be put in place, subject to external independent scrutiny and oversight established on a statutory basis.

Can the Minister also confirm that the merged entity will at the least maintain the status quo of transparency and, indeed, go further for the patients whose data it is and whose trust and confidence are so necessary? Can he further confirm that a data usage register will be published which covers all projects accessing patient-level data and shows which data was accessed? Will the National Data Guardian be consulted on all this before the Government progress the regulations? Finally, will the Minister ensure that the regulations will avoid the need for NHS England—this was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—to be in the difficult position of sending legal directions to itself, and can he say how in practice this would work?

Photo of Lord Alton of Liverpool Lord Alton of Liverpool Crossbench

My Lords, at earlier stages of this Bill, with my noble friend Lady Finlay, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, it was a great pleasure to be able to support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in moving his amendments on organ transplantation. It is a crucial issue and I congratulate the Minister on responding so constructively and positively with that amendment. I think that we all wish it a fair wind as it goes on to the statute book.

No one was more relieved than me to see my noble friend—if I may call him that—Lord Blencathra back in his place today, because it fell to me on Report, when he was afflicted by Covid, to move his amendment. It is a pleasure to follow the speech he made earlier and the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, committing her Front Bench—I think the Opposition are of a similar mind—to support this amendment if the noble Lord takes it to a vote. I have only a couple of additional points to make to your Lordships.

One is about the sheer volume of items of personal protective equipment for which China is recorded as the country of origin—I raised this during Oral Questions earlier today. Since Report, the Minister has confirmed that 24.1 billion items have been bought from the People’s Republic of China, where of course the Chinese Communist Party exercises control over all companies. The cost to the British taxpayer has been £10.9 billion.

I am especially pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, who was a sponsor of this amendment in Committee, and who asked the question of the noble Lord that extracted this information recently, is in her place. It was she who said to me, “Put it another way; £10 billion is about the size of our entire reduced overseas aid and development budget for last year alone”. That begs many strategic questions about UK manufacturing capacity, about resilience, and about dependency on the state that was judged in our integrated review to be hostile to the United Kingdom and its interests. I draw the attention of the House to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee report, published only today in another place, on the sale of the United Kingdom’s biggest producer of microchips and semiconductors to a Chinese company, which, it says, “potentially compromises national security”.

Earlier this week, the Minister told me that no assessment had been made of the security consequences for his department of the use of surveillance cameras used by the National Health Service and made by Hikvision —an issue which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I raised on the Floor of the House a few weeks ago. That same company makes the cameras being used in Xinjiang to monitor the Uighurs, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and has been banned in the United States. It is extraordinary that a Five Eyes ally would take the decision to ban a company and we blithely say, “We have made no assessment of it and we don’t have any intention to do so, either”.

The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have said that a genocide is under way in Xinjiang and that there must be a complete review of our policy towards genocidal states. I hope that the Minister will take note of that. Beyond security, resilience and dependency is the further question, which the noble Lord raised earlier, of slave labour in Xinjiang. The National Health Service is of course about saving life and what is happening in Xinjiang has been about the deprivation and the taking of life.

On 20 March, at column 914 of Hansard, Sir Iain Duncan Smith set out the case for the amendment now before the House. In the House of Commons, it was signed by 20 other Conservative Members of Parliament, as well as being supported by the Opposition Front Benches. The amendment creates a duty to avoid slavery in National Health Service procurement and, in addition to recent revelations in the Spectator about products directly banned and linked to Xinjiang slave labour, I remind the House of the Daily Telegraph report that at least £150 million was paid to companies linked to genocide in Xinjiang.

In a letter today to Peers, the Minister says that we can have a review—a point he made earlier—but we have been offered reviews on countless occasions. The road to hell is paved with reviews and good intentions. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, offers us something much better, and I hope that the House will vote for it, as Sir Iain has asked us to do, to give the House of Commons a chance to incorporate a measure that enjoys widespread support across all Benches and across both Houses.

Photo of Lord Rooker Lord Rooker Labour 6:00, 5 April 2022

My Lords, in our debate on 31 January, I made the point at some length that it was not possible to trust accreditation of products based on paper and supply chains. I assume that the Minister has been briefed on this. After that debate, on 3 March, he wrote a long letter to me and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and towards the end of it raised my point about the supply of cotton-based products.

I had explained that it is possible, using the techniques of element analysis, to take a product and find out where the cotton was grown. You do not need paperwork to do that, or trusted supplier chains. The technique and the technology are there. You can find out whether it was grown in Xinjiang, another part of China, or another part of the world. The Minister said in his letter that bidders to the NHS supply chain will have to certify that they are better-cotton-initiative certified. That is the very thing that we need to avoid. You cannot trust paper-based systems of supply. You must use the technology to find out where the cotton is grown.

In the government amendment that has come from the Commons, paragraph 3 specifically refers to cotton-based products—so, given the final paragraph of the Minister’s letter, saying that the NHS supply chain does not have a contract to use the element-analysis services supplied by Oritain, what has happened since? Has there been any contact between the Department of Health and the NHS supply chain with the company that has the technology? I have no interest to declare here. I made it absolutely clear in the debate that this came out of a “long read” in the Guardian way back in September. The technology is there, not just in cotton but in other issues. Here I am just using it for cotton—the uniforms, the mattresses and the products. In subsection (3) of the new clause proposed by Amendment 48A, the Government are going to assess cotton. Have they done anything since our debate in Committee to make arrangements to use the technology, on the basis that you cannot trust paper-based supply chain accreditation? It is a simple question, and I would like an answer.

Photo of Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords)

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support Amendment D1, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Last night I was part of a BMA web conference mounted by the Ethics Committee, of which I am an elected member, looking at the powerful evidence coming out of Xinjiang province in China. The concern is that, if we are purchasing products from there, we are complicit in the appalling human rights abuses that we were shown evidence of in this webinar. Therefore, I hope the House will support that amendment.

I return to the very important Amendment B1, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. This is not just a static situation. It is worsening. All that we have done is not just more of the same; we are actually sliding downhill rapidly. I want to give a little bit of data to the House to support that statement. There are now 1,565 fewer GPs than in 2015, meaning that there is a shortfall of 2,157 against the target that was set by the Government in their manifesto promise, in terms of where we are tracking to date.

The number of fully qualified GPs by headcount has decreased by over 600, so there are now just 0.45 fully qualified GPs per 1,000 patients in England, down from 0.52 in 2015. This means that each GP is responsible for about 300 more patients than previously. In terms of physiotherapy—I declare an interest as president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy—the model shows that 500 new physios are needed each year for multiple years to meet demand. There needs to be a trebling of the 6,000 NHS physio support workers. In nursing, the district nursing numbers have dropped from 7,055 in 2009 to 3,900 in 2021, which is a 45% drop. This is all going in the wrong direction. From the data that I could obtain, it looks as if three-quarters of nursing vacancies are filled by temporary staff.

This amendment, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is crucially important. It would be a dereliction of our duty to ignore supporting that amendment, given all that we know and all the work that has gone on. That is not to be critical of the Minister and his team at all, because I am sure that it is not his personal wish that we do not have this in place—but we certainly do need a completely new approach to workforce planning.

Photo of Baroness Tyler of Enfield Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair, Children and Families Act 2014 Committee, Chair, Children and Families Act 2014 Committee

My Lords, I wish to lend my support very briefly to Motion B1, moved so very compellingly by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. I simply wish to pick up and echo the telling point from the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who I think broadly said that if you carry on doing the same thing, you are going to get the same results.

I have had a look over the last week at what results we are getting. We have had the frankly shocking revelations in the Ockenden review, highlighting the really severe implications for patient safety, particularly for women and babies, when there are just not enough suitably trained staff around to do the vital job that they are there to do. I looked at that review last night and found it truly shocking. In the last 24 hours, we have had a Care Quality Commission report looking at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. It said that they lacked enough qualified clinical staff to keep women and infants safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right treatment. There is also today’s report—it may have been yesterday’s—from the Health and Social Care Select Committee, highlighting the critical NHS staff shortages affecting cancer services in England, meaning that too many people are missing out on that critical early cancer diagnosis which is so vital to their chances of survival.

I know those are the worst things happening and that there are lots of good things, but those things are not acceptable. Things like that are why public satisfaction in the NHS, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, is sadly going down. That is a real problem; it is the reason I so strongly support Motion B1 and why there is such strong cross-party support for it in this Chamber.

Photo of Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Deputy Chairman of Committees

My Lords, I support Motion B1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. I will be brief and not repeat what others have said. However, it is worth noting that in the Statement on the Ockenden report, the Secretary of State for Health said:

“I am also taking forward the specific recommendations that Donna Ockenden has asked me to. The first is on the need to further expand the maternity workforce.”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/3/22; col. 819.]

That phrase could be repeated for every part of the NHS and social care workforce, so I believe that has changed the situation since the other House debated this issue.

The public are asking what the national insurance levy is for if not to increase the number of professional staff in training. We are turning away people who want to be paramedics and nurses, as my noble friend has just said, who want to train locally. Of course we should undertake ethical overseas recruitment as well, but we need both. I firmly believe that this amendment needs the full support of this House.

Photo of Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Green

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, and to ensure that full support for Motion B1 has been presented from all round your Lordships’ House, including the Government Benches. The Green group also supports Motion C1 particularly strongly, and Motions D1, F1, G1 and L1, but I will speak briefly only to Motion B1 because it is so crucial.

In introducing this group the Minister spoke, as the Government often do, about the record numbers of staff in the NHS. I do not think anyone has yet mentioned the NHS staff survey conducted between September and November. Just 21% of nurses and midwives thought that there were enough staff in their unit to do their job properly and provide an adequate standard of care; almost 80% thought there were not enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, referred to the Ockenden report: that helped to highlight that, despite the fact that the Government have been trying to recruit more midwives, in the last year the number of midwives has actually gone down.

We really have to ask ourselves why the Government are so opposed to this amendment when there is such strong support for it around this House and among all the key bodies around the country. It may be that the Government have an ideological objection to the word “planning”, or that the Minister does, but this is about the future of our NHS and all the evidence says that this is an essential amendment. Surely the Government are not going to let ideology stand in the way of the future of our NHS.

I finish by commenting on the typically wonderful introduction to this group from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, who referred to the strong civil society campaign. The hashtag for it on Twitter is #StrengthInNumbers, and that says so much. We need the numbers and the facts so that we can get the numbers of staff in the NHS.

Photo of Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Digital) 6:15, 5 April 2022

My Lords, briefly, I support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, regarding Motions F and F1. He, assisted by my noble friend Lady Brinton and I, has pursued the question of the future of data governance in the NHS with great determination and persistence. I pay tribute to him and to medConfidential in that respect. I know that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, is equally determined to make sure that data governance in the new structures is designed to secure public trust. I very much hope that he will give the assurances sought by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

The key problem we identified early on was the conflict of interest referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, with NHS England in effect marking its own homework, and those who have data governance responsibility reporting directly to senior managers within the digital transformation directorate. I hope that the assurances to be given by the Minister will set out a clear set of governance duties on transparency of oversight, particularly where NHS England is exercising its own statutory powers internally. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

Photo of Baroness Walmsley Baroness Walmsley Co-Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Peers

My Lords, I plan to address matters in the group that have not been addressed by my noble friends. They are workforce planning, reconfiguration and organ tourism.

First, on Motion K, on organ tourism, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, my noble friend Lady Northover and others on their success in convincing the Government that something must be done about this dreadful trade. I also thank the Minister for listening.

On Motions B and B1, we support the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and will be right behind her when she leads us into the electronic Content Lobby on her Motion B1. It was made clear during earlier stages of the Bill that Peers across the House believe proper planning for training and providing a safe health and care workforce is essential. We also hear that almost 90% of trust leaders do not think the NHS has robust plans in place to deal with the workforce shortage. We are asking a lot of the NHS and care workforce at the moment; they are badly understaffed but, at the same time, are being asked to reduce the backlog of treatments that built up during the pandemic, while Covid-19 is still rampant in the population and thousands of patients are still in hospital with that as the primary cause.

In these circumstances, we have a desperate need for a reliable system to plan for and provide the staff we need, but nobody has confidence in the current system—if you can call it that. However, it seems that the Treasury has stuck its oar in. I find that rather odd, since neither the Bill as drafted nor the various amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, have mandated the Treasury to fund the numbers of workers at every level who may be identified as necessary to deliver the health and care we need.

I accept that, when the yawning gap becomes clear between the numbers we have and the numbers we need for safe care, there would indeed be pressure on the Treasury to provide the money. However, it has been pointed out many times—including this afternoon, by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege—that the NHS spends £6.2 billion every year on expensive agency staff, whose roles could be provided much more cheaply, and with better continuity for patients, by permanent employed staff. Considerable savings could be made to offset this.

It is significant that the Government are resisting the noble Baroness’s amendment. They know very well that the reviews she recommends would shine a light on the fact that the NHS and care systems do not know what they have got or need, and are badly short-staffed. The Government would be pressured to do something about it.

Since the Ockenden report, something else which is rather crazy has emerged. The Government have agreed to comply with all Ockenden’s recommendations, including on planning for and providing adequate staff in obstetrics and gynaecology. Hopefully, all maternity units will be safer in future, but it would be ridiculous to have a maternity unit adequately staffed in the same hospital as a cancer or stroke unit that was not. In voting for the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, we will attempt to save the Government from making such a dreadful and unnecessary mistake. We will be voting for safe health and care services in the future, in the interests of patients and staff alike.

On Motions C and C1, we support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which she will no doubt speak to in a moment. In voting for this amendment, we will again be attempting to save the Secretary of State for Health and Care from getting himself into an awful pickle. There may be far too much temptation for a Secretary of State to use the powers in the Bill as it stands to meddle in matters far better decided by the professionals and local authorities on the ground. A clear process, which is rooted in local accountability, already exists for reviewing proposals for NHS reconfiguration—there is no call for the Secretary of State to be further involved except now and then if an election is in the offing. The Government have emphasised accountability throughout this Bill, but that accountability must be at the right level. Many of the decisions that might be made under the power that we are attempting to curtail today should be accountable to local people through those operating the local integrated care systems. By interfering, the Secretary of State may well corrode the very accountability that the Government say they want. We will be voting with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton.

Photo of Baroness Merron Baroness Merron Opposition Whip (Lords), Shadow Spokesperson (Health and Social Care), Shadow Spokesperson (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

My Lords, I sense a deepening of support in your Lordships’ House for the issues contained within this group. I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for introducing Motion B1. I also put on record my thanks to the 100 organisations which have indicated their support and got involved to make this an even better Motion for us to consider.

Yesterday’s Health and Social Care Committee report said:

“Neither earlier diagnosis nor additional prompt cancer treatment will be possible without addressing gaps in the cancer workforce” through a workforce plan. The lack of staff, both currently and projected, is not restricted to the cancer workforce but extends to the total staff shortage of some 110,000 across the NHS as well as 105,000 vacancies in social care, while some 27,000 NHS workers voluntarily left the health service in just three months last year, the highest number on record.

As we have heard, just last week your Lordships’ House debated the Ockenden review, which I believe has provided great focus on the issue of workforce planning. The review shockingly laid bare the reasons why hundreds of babies’ lives were avoidably cut short or damaged and mothers died; to their great credit, the Government have accepted every one of the recommendations. The clear finding here is that we must safely staff our maternity wards, yet midwives are leaving the NHS in greater numbers than it is possible to recruit them. If the Ockenden review does not illustrate why we need a workforce plan then I do not know what does.

It is worth reflecting on what Motion B1 is not about, in case that offers some late reassurance to the Minister. Despite needing all of these things, it does not commit the Government to hiring thousands more doctors and nurses, nor does it commit to new funding for the NHS. It does not even commit the Government to finally publishing the workforce strategy that the NHS is crying out for—even though the NHS has not had a comprehensive workforce strategy since the Government’s plan was published in 2003.

What Motion B1 talks about is an independent review of how many doctors, nurses and other staff are needed in health, social care and public health, both now and for the future, and that the report, which must be brought before Parliament, must be informed by integrated care boards, employers, trade unions and others—people with expertise and a great contribution to make. This is not just a question of recruitment, important though that is, but one of retention. There is absolutely no way out of planning and preparation; without them, it is just not possible to magic up the necessary staff. Motion B1 is about facing up to the scale of the workforce challenge so that we can see safe and efficient health and care. These Benches will certainly be supporting Motion B1 if the will of the House is tested.

I turn now to Motion C1 in the name of my noble friend Lady Thornton. The inclusion of a clause about changes to reconfiguration shows that not all of the Bill was what the NHS was asking for. The powers in this clause are unnecessary and introduce a very considerable new layer of bureaucracy. Just about every commentator and representative group has said that this approach of an interventionist Secretary of State is quite wrong. As many have pointed out, the power that any proposal can be taken over by the Secretary of State takes us down a road of politicisation and will deter some from even trying to pursue necessary but controversial changes. It matters not that we are told that this power will be used only sparingly; if it is there, that will influence behaviour.

Given where we are in the parliamentary process, outright rejection of this provision would, of course, be problematic. Our alternative in this Motion is to say that, if the power is only rarely to be used—in exceptional circumstances, when intervention is justified—then the way to deal with this is to make that case to Parliament, to put it up for proper scrutiny and to show the evidence. If we are potentially to deprive people of their right to be consulted, then at least let Parliament do a proper job of examining this.

I now turn very briefly to Motions D1 and K. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for presenting Motion D1 today. It seeks to ensure that health service procurement of all goods and services avoids modern slavery; in other words, it takes us further than Motion D. I thank the Minister for the move forward contained within that Motion; however, if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, wishes to test the will of the House, we on these Benches will certainly be in support.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt and other noble Lords for their persistence in ensuring that Motion K is before us today. Again, I thank the Minister for being so responsive on this point. I hope that, in the votes that follow, your Lordships’ House will swiftly take the opportunity to ask that we might further improve this Bill.

Photo of Lord Kamall Lord Kamall The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and their constructive debate and engagement, not only this evening but throughout the process of the Bill. I thank noble Lords also for their agreement to the measures we have drawn up on organ tourism. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for the way he pushed the Government, making sure that we were able to find a constructive way of closing that gap.

I turn to reconfigurations. The public expect Ministers to be accountable for the health service—which includes reconfigurations of NHS services—and this was made clear in the support for this clause in the other place. The reconfiguration power will ensure that decisions made in the NHS which affect all our constituents are subject to democratic oversight—and are done so with the appropriate flexibility and timeliness. I remind noble Lords that, at a previous stage—at Second Reading or on Report—the accusation was made that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel would be abolished. However, that panel will still be there to guide the decisions of the Secretary of State.

I am grateful to noble Lords for raising the challenging topic of modern slavery. I do not think anyone disagrees with the outrage that we all express at the events in China—particularly in Xinjiang province—and the treatment of people, and horrific things we have seen, in that area. As I have made clear, the Government have sympathy with these aims, but we maintain that this is not the Bill for these changes. We have the new rules for transforming public procurement, and we want to see those transform and strengthen the ability of all public sector bodies to exclude from bidding for contracts suppliers which have a history of misconduct—including forced labour or, to put it another way, slave labour. In developing the modern slavery strategy review, it will continue to be important to engage across Government and civil society, both nationally and internationally, to collect the necessary evidence to agree an ambitious set of objectives. The measures in the procurement Bill have been consulted upon, and there has been comprehensive agreement with stakeholders to inform the development of the forthcoming modern slavery strategy. We believe that these are the right places to address the issue.

Noble Lords have raised specific concerns about Xinjiang, and I reassure them that, within the range of goods included in the supply chain review that we have announced, we will include goods with the potential for exposure to Xinjiang, such as cotton. We have specifically referenced this in the amendment. In response to the specific question from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, we recognise that there are emerging technologies which could help in this area. We will continue to discuss their value with NHS Supply Chain, and we will report back to the noble Lord. Indeed, if the noble Lord would like an additional meeting with my officials, I would be very happy to facilitate this so that the noble Lord could push his case. It is right that the Government take action to identify and tackle the crime of modern slavery. We believe that we will do so through this cross-government review, as well as the forthcoming procurement Bill and the range of non-legislative measures which I have announced that the NHS is planning, including the review of its whole supply chain.

I will now spend some time on the transfer of functions, because I have assured noble Lords that I will say things from the Dispatch Box. We understand that this amendment was tabled due to concerns about ensuring that patients’ data was properly protected. I hope I have reassured your Lordships that it is our intention to use the regulations which affect the transfer to provide as much statutory protection as possible for the continuation of a data safe haven in NHS England—particularly to retain the confidence of the public in how we make best use of their data, and to improve outcomes.

If we get this right, we could transform not only our system of healthcare across this country but our life sciences industry, and we could provide better outcomes for patients. This has huge potential, but there is no point in the Government going ahead and saying, “We have done all this wonderful stuff”, and then people decide to opt out. This is why we must get patients to have confidence in the system. I thank noble Lords across the House—including the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and previously the noble Lord, Lord Warner—for raising this issue in a constructive manner. I understand that they want the same thing. They are not trying to destroy our ambitions in any way; they want to see a modernised NHS, and I thank them for this.

There are some issues which I promised I would address from the Dispatch Box. First, we will certainly want to maintain the current level of transparency, but our intention is to go further to ensure greater transparency on how data is collected and disseminated, and to whom. This will be established as part of our approach to secure data environments. Noble Lords may not be aware that NHS Digital publishes a comprehensive data uses register which is updated every month, and to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred. This covers all its data-sharing agreements, setting out with whom data is shared and for what purpose. I am happy to see how we can build on that. I confirm that the consultation with the National Data Guardian has already begun. I met the National Data Guardian yesterday, following the very helpful meeting with noble Lords, to discuss these proposals. The National Data Guardian supports maintaining the data safe haven, and I will of course continue to involve and consult her, formally and informally, on these regulations.

Secondly, the Bill provides power when making regulations under Part 3 to make consequential provision modifying the function of bodies, including conferring and abolishing functions. We would ensure that these powers are used so that the functions of NHS England work as functions of NHS England, and that we avoid a situation where NHS England is tasked with directing itself. The Secretary of State will remain able to direct NHS England.

Finally, I turn to some of the issues around workforce. We recognise the work that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege has done to alter her amendment. However, we remain unconvinced that a statutory approached is required. The Department of Health and Social Care has recently commissioned NHS England to develop the workforce strategy and will set out the key conclusions. Workforce planning is also a responsibility of a number of organisations at a number of different levels—local, regional and national. In some ways, we want to look at that sort of bottom-up approach to planning, not only to meet local needs but to ensure that it contributes to the overall national picture.

We have set out clearly the substantial programme of work that the Government have to both support and grow the workforce, and it is closely monitored by the department and other bodies. In addition to the 15 years in the review, we will look at the changing trends of health and therefore the workforce we need. As we move to more modern and digitised forms of decision-making—perhaps by making better use of AI—we must ensure that we have the appropriate functions in place. We hope that, together, they will be sufficient. I understand that there may well be some concerns.

In addition, noble Lords have mentioned the current backlog, of which approximately 80% are awaiting diagnostics. We know that there are a lot of people waiting for diagnostics, and this is why we have rolled out a number of community diagnostic centres. We continue to roll these out—not only in hospitals but in sports stadiums, shopping centres and other places where they are more accessible to the public. In addition, when you look at those who are not wating for diagnostics but for surgery, the majority—between 75% and 80%—are waiting for surgery which does not require an overnight stay. We understand what the problem is, and we are looking at the workforce to ensure that we can tackle the backlog. This is driven by the needs of patients.

Given all this, I humbly ask my noble friend Lady Cumberlege to consider not moving her Motion and ask that the House accepts the Motions in my name.

Photo of Baroness Cumberlege Baroness Cumberlege Conservative 6:30, 5 April 2022

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Kamall for that masterful summing up. It has been such a wide-ranging debate, so full of interest, and I thank all those who have supported the amendment, which is rather narrow compared to the enormous expanse of interest that we have had—and it has not only been about the UK. People have gone abroad and talked about China and all the things that are happening over there.

I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who has been such a stalwart friend of mine and a great supporter of workforce planning. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, has, of course, had more experience of this than most of us, running the great NHS England and NHS Improvement. I very much want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who has been a really strong supporter. I remember that in an earlier debate she said that no great organisation would run without knowing their workforce. Here we are with the NHS, this tremendous organisation that we have in this country, and we really do not know where it is going or how many staff are employed. We must look forward to see how it is going. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said, it is a wicked problem that we have to solve.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, so much. The noble Lord said that he supported this amendment, and then we had this very interesting segue to China and other countries, about the way in which certain products are sourced from around the world and how we have to be very careful that they are not subject to slavery. Certainly, that was true of the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Alton and Lord Rooker, and I thank them all very much for that very interesting part of the debate.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who really works in the NHS. She knows what it is like, and she can understand what it is like not to have enough staff to do what you want to do, and her figures were so worrying and interesting. She described it as a dereliction of our duty if we do not grab this issue and come to some resolution on it.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, so much, too, for her support, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Walmsley, who again has always supported the workforce plan. Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, very much for what she was saying, and for the support that she has given us. We have to face this challenge and come to some resolution.

I say to my noble friend Lord Kamall that I really am very grateful for the work that he has tried to do on this, and the meetings that I have had with him and the Bill team. He has explained the other issues that he and the Bill team want to explore. However, rhetoric is very compelling. We have the most wonderful wordsmiths in the Department of Health, and in the Civil Service generally. They can win our hearts with the words that they use—the rhetoric—but that is not good enough. We want the numbers; we want to know exactly where people are working, what their skills are and what the future is, to take this forward.

I thank my noble friend, whose patience is amazing and inexhaustible. We have been round this issue so often, but I am afraid that I was not convinced by what I heard today. I am not convinced by strategies or reports, unless they really have the figures, and I have no confidence that the reports that he mentioned, and the strategy, will have that. So with great regret, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 187, Noes 151.

Division number 1 Health and Care Bill - Commons Amendments and Reasons — Motion B1 (as an amendment to Motion B)

Aye: 187 Members of the House of Lords

No: 151 Members of the House of Lords

Aye: A-Z by last name

No: A-Z by last name

Motion B1 agreed.