JOINT COMMITTEES OF COUNCIL AND BOARDS (Hansard, 4 April 1979)

§ Mr. Moyle
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
This is the one great unresolved issue that the House bequeathed to the other place after the conclusion of the Third Reading in this place. The health visitors felt that their position should be more positively clarified in respect of the Central Nursing Council. I gave an undertaking that if the various bodies represented on the Briggs co-ordinating committee agreed a solution to that problem, I would ensure that it was written into the Bill.
During the passage of the Bill through the other place, various groups, and the Briggs co-ordinating committee, gathered one afternoon in my Department After discussion, they put a suggestion to me to which I agreed straight away. My noble Friend was able to move an amendment to put it into the Bill in the other place. It is a great tribute to the wisdom of all the bodies concerned that they were able to display great statesmanship and to negotiate, with give and take, before reaching an acceptable solution to the problem. I was only too happy to accept that solution. The Bill is now better than it was originally.
I commend Lords amendment No. 9 to the House with enthusiasm. I stress my gratitude to the sensible and statesmanlike attitude which has been maintained by the various members of the nursing professions.

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)
The improvement in the Bill also shows the value of the House of Lords and how a Labour Government make use of it. I have sat in the House for the last half hour and I have never known business speeded up so well or so many Lords amendments agreed by the Government and passed by the House.

§ Mr. Robert Boscawen (Wells)
This is a most significant amendment. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis).
We were anxious because the minority profession—the health visitors—was not fully safeguarded in the original Bill. We asked for further discussions and we therefore welcomed the amendment.
The amendment goes some way to strengthen the position of that profession. I join the Minister of State in paying tribute to the constructive way in which the health visitors, nurses and midwives have sought to produce the best compromise in a difficult Bill.
The House should take note of the way in which the health visitors have reiterated constantly their wish to co-operate with their bigger sisters, the nurses and mid-wives. We are grateful for the way in which we have been advised by those professions and for the help that we have been given with this complicated Bill.

§ Mr. Moyle
The only significant point that has been made in this short debate is that by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis). I disagree with him. I believe that the existence of the other place prolonged the controversy. I am sure that if the professions had known that their chance of amending the Bill ended in the House of Commons they would have concentrated their minds even more wonderfully than they did.

§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)
The Minister has just made one of the most outrageous statements that have been made in the House this Session. It was uncalled for and totally unjustified, and it cast a slur upon those people who have given of their time, effort, experience and expertise to improve a Bill. I take grave exception to the Minister's remarks. He said that there should be no secondary revising Chamber to improve upon legislation thrust upon us by the Government. It is a disgraceful, final valedictory address to make from the Government Front Bench.