§ Lord KilmarnockMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they did not publish the Binder Hamlyn report on the financial control of family practioner committees prior to the passage of the Health and Social Security Bill through Parliament and when they will publish it.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur)My Lords, the Government have been studying the Binder Hamlyn report in the context of a number of other major issues which need to be considered in relationship to the development of primary health care. We intend to publish a Green Paper about future primary health care needs later this year and may publish the Binder Hamlyn report at the same time.
§ Lord KilmarnockMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I ask him why the Government seem to be going back on the stronger commitment given by the Secretary of State on 6th April in another place at col. 691 of the Official Report when he said:
I expect to publish the Binder Hamlyn report at the same time as the Green Paper"?How does that match with the word "may" used by the noble Lord and used by Mr. Kenneth Clarke also in another place? Has this report not been on the Secretary of State's desk for months; would it not have been helpful to have it before us while the Health and Social Security Bill was going through this House; and can the noble Lord now give us an assurance that it will come out in a reasonable time so that we can read it—preferably before the Green Paper?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, I cannot go further than I have already gone. But as the noble Lord will be aware, the Binder Hamlyn report is concerned with the financial control of family practitioner services overall; and, as I have said, it is just one of the issues which need to be considered in relation to the development of primary health care. The purpose of the Green Paper to which I referred in the original Answer, and that approach, is to bring these particular strands together and the Binder Hamlyn report is being studied in this wider context.
§ Lord EnnalsMy Lords, is the Minister aware that this is the sixth occasion on which we have asked him 786 about the publication of this report, and that on the last occasion, as the noble Lord said, he told us that it would be published soon? Since this is a report paid for by the taxpayer, and since it is of great concern to those involved in primary health care, why can it not be published now? Why should the report be preserved just for the Secretary of State and Ministers and not made available to other members of the public and the professions who are deeply anxious about this report? Is it just that it is going to be published when the House has risen? Why cannot the noble Lord give a more precise answer?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, it really is a matter for my right honourable friend to decide when he wishes, and if he wishes, to publish a particular report. As I have said, a Green Paper is being published. What goes into that Green Paper will no doubt to some extent reflect what is in the Binder Hamlyn report. The two are interconnected. In that respect, while I am quite sure that my right honourable friend will note the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, I can give no further commitment than I have already given.
§ Lord EnnalsMy Lords, can the noble Lord say why he previously said that it would be published soon and he now says that it may be published? What is the reason for this withdrawal from a commitment that it will be published?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, the noble Lord is aware of what my right honourable friend said earlier on this year, and also of what has been said subsequently. I am afraid that I have nothing to add to either of those statements.
Lord WinstanleyMy Lords, arising from the Binder Hamlyn report, which we may or may not see in due course, can the noble Lord confirm that no attempt will be made to apply cash limits to family practitioner committee services? Does the noble Lord agree that these services must inevitably be demand-led; and that the demand in terms of the number of people who are ill, the nature of the illnesses from which they suffer and the treatment which they require, is something which nobody can predict in advance with accuracy?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, I am well aware of the noble Lord's particular expertise in this matter. But the question of cash limiting the family practitioner services was one of the options which Binder Hamlyn were asked to look at, and until we have completed our study of the report and the other issues which are related to it, no decisions will be taken on it.
§ Lord DiamondMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we are all grateful to the Government for studying the report but we cannot understand what is the difficulty about allowing others to study the report at the same time? Is the noble Lord in difficulty about getting a second copy? If so, we would be glad to help him.
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, I am afraid that I can go no further than I have already gone, and the noble Lord will have to wait and see.
§ Lord LeatherlandMy Lords, may I ask the Minister whether when he said that the matters relating to this Question were mixed up, he was confining that expression to the matters in this Question or to Government policy generally?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, I am sorry, but I did not hear the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question. If he would like to repeat it, I will try to answer it.
§ Lord KilmarnockMy Lords, if, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, suggested, the Government are thinking of cash limiting general practitioners, is this not something that the Binder Hamlyn report must certainly have given some advice on? Is it not therefore of great interest to all of us in your Lordships' House and outside in the country to know what they have said about it? If the report is already published, bound and printed, why should it not come out in advance of the Green Paper so that we can all have time to look at it, instead of assimilating a great deal of material in a rush?
§ Lord GlenarthurMy Lords, the Government commission reports from all sorts of sources from time to time, and I see no reason why this report should be treated in any way differently from the others. So I am sorry but the noble Lord will have to wait and see when and if it is published.