Contributions
724 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDHealth Bill (Ninth sitting)I wish to carry on the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston has just raised. He rightly says that there is a transparency element to this, so that the…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Ninth sitting)I want to touch briefly on clause 39, Government new clause 20, and new clause 26, tabled by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon in her role as Chair of the Health and…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)On clause 29 and the relevant amendments, the membership model and the council of governors were originally introduced to give patients, staff and local communities a formal voice…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)Very briefly, on clauses 27 and 28, I am sure the Committee is aware that special health authorities were initially established under the National Health Service Act 1977. Since…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)My hon. Friend is right that there will be a gap in local decision making on these issues. It goes back to that tension I described some moments ago: the Government’s stated…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)I am not convinced that clause 24 delivers the transformation that the Minister claims. At its core, it appears to be little more than a rebranding exercise. It replaces joint…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Ninth sitting)My hon. Friend is making a prescient point. Has she thought about the word “limits”? To me, it is not clear from the clause as drafted—perhaps it is clearer to her—whether that is…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)Will the Minister give way?30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I want to pick up where the shadow Minister left off. Essentially, she said that the cart is being put before the…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)The hon. Gentleman’s intervention neatly brings me to my next point. I have some sympathy for his viewpoint—and apparently the viewpoint expressed to him by governors—that in many…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. It is helpful to understand that the Liberal Democrats will not press the new clause to a vote, but if we are to use probing…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Eighth sitting)We can go back to the record in Hansard , but I do not remember mentioning anything to do with hospitals in what I just said; I may have had some sort of amnesia at that point. If…30 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Sixth sitting)That is a helpful clarification, but it raises a number of other questions. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that named GPs are most appropriate; all the clinical evidence…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Seventh sitting)My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The danger in this process—especially the multiple instances of chasing within a period of weeks, which sometimes happens—is that pressure is…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Sixth sitting)It is for the Minister to clarify that point, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern. It is ironic that we seem to be heading back towards the strategic health authorities of an…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Sixth sitting)Let me finish this point. I am not in the mind of the current Prime Minister, and I am certainly not in the mind of the potential next Prime Minister, but even if the hon. Lady is…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Sixth sitting)I will start where the Liberal Democrat spokesman, left off, with new clause 52 on dental provision. I have a lot of sympathy for what she is trying to achieve with the new…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Seventh sitting)My hon. Friend makes an interesting point that I had not considered before, but she is absolutely right. The upper-tier authorities and strategic mayors might be from different…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Seventh sitting)The clause will replace the constitutional requirements contained in paragraph 8(2) to (4) of schedule 1B to the 2006 Act so that “ordinary members” must now include at least one…25 Jun 2026HANSARDHealth Bill (Seventh sitting)There have been a number of reports of situations where people have not received care and have died because of that, so I do not see the hon. Member’s point. I think that, with…25 Jun 2026