20.03.11
Bill receives Lords approval
The Health and Social Care Bill has been approved by the House of Lords, despite two attempts to scrap it. The Bill will now return to the Commons where MPs will consider planned changes for a final time.
Labour has forced a 90-minute debate, granted by Commons Speaker John Bercow, under emergency Standing Order 24 provisions. The party will call for the publication of the NHS risk assessment.
The Freedom of Information Tribunal recently upheld a decision by the Information Commissioner that this risk register must be published. The Government has said it will not do so until the tribunal has explained its ruling.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “People care passionately about the NHS and they have a right to know the full implications of the proposed reorganisation.
“This Government is insulting parliament by expecting it to support these plans whilst withholding information that could change the way MPs vote.”
Last night the Lords voted against two motions to drop the Bill; Lord Owen failed in his attempt to delay the third reading of the Bill in the upper house until the risk register is published, by 328 votes to 213, and Labour peer Baroness Thornton was defeated in her motion by 269 votes to 174.
Baroness Thornton warned that the reforms would “lead to the fragmentation and marketisation of the NHS and threaten its ethos and purpose”.
The Bill could receive Royal Assent and become law later this week.
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