Health Bill

Part of the debate – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:35 am on 6 December 2005.

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Photo of Andrew Lansley Andrew Lansley Shadow Secretary of State for Health 10:35, 6 December 2005

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Illsley. It will be a pleasure to serve under you and your fellow Chairman. I do not recall having had the pleasure of serving under your chairmanship before, but I look forward to doing so.

I am grateful to the Minister for moving the programme motion. It seems tight but achievable so long as we constrain ourselves to the subject in hand rather than speaking of extraneous matters. The Minister did not point out that we have nine   substantive subjects to discuss, although one or two loom somewhat larger than the others. However, we must ensure that we have time to discuss other matters that are less controversial but none the less significant.

I am comforted by the fact that the same will not be done with this Bill as happened with the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. I had the privilege of serving on the Committee that considered that legislation, and I remember that the general medical services contract was added on Report rather than being discussed in Committee. For example, we shall have the opportunity to discuss the general ophthalmic services contract in Committee. I hope that it will be given at least the one and a half hours that was allocated to discussing the general medical services contract. Subsequent events have demonstrated the value of discussing such matters in Committee before implementation exposes all the problems.

I know that the eyes of the nation are upon us today—little else is happening. People will be looking to us to proceed swiftly to discuss Part 1, which is a matter of great interest. I am happy to say that we accept the programme motion; we want to get on with the business at hand.