"My Lords, is the Minister confident that the lines of responsibility of the chief executive of Healthwatch are compatible with the very clear assurances that his noble friend, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, gave to this House about the independence of Healthwatch during the passage of the Health and Social …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, the Minister should have been made aware of the concern I expressed the other night in relation to the reference to Monitor in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and to its supervision by the proposed Competition and Markets Authority which seems to some of us to …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I do not want to repeat the arguments that have been made. I was going to repeat the arguments that I made about the history of consumer representation in other sectors, but time is against us. The conclusion from that would be that independence and the perception of …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I want to add a couple of brief points to the already powerful case made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble friend Lord Harris. I do so from some experience of the consumer interest in other markets. First, I resort to what the clause says …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness very much. In this case, logic trumps chivalry.
I have four amendments in this group, all of which relate to the independence of the local healthwatch—some of them in some slightly indirect ways. We spent some time at an earlier stage, and again …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I will intervene only briefly because most of the points on competition were made very eloquently, in particular by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Owen. My amendments would rather more crudely delete references to anti-competitive behaviour. One thing I will draw to the Committee's attention is …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the consideration of this group because for once the Committee is making faster progress than I thought, but I have tabled two amendments that relate back to the issue of anti-competitive behaviour, so I will be following on …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I, too, tabled amendments in this group. They are aimed at providing HealthWatch with the independence and resources that it requires to genuinely represent the patients and users of health and social care services. Many noble Lords will understand that I am not a health service expert. However, …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech
"My Lords, I intervene briefly in this debate to ask the noble Earl whether, in his reply, he could perhaps cross-refer to a later section in the Bill, which deals with the role of one of the entities to which my noble friend Lady Wheeler has just referred, namely HealthWatch …..." Lord Whitty - View Speech