VIEWPOINT FOR 10 DECEMBER 2009
FROM DR RICHARD TAYLOR

One of the casualties of the cut back in finances for public services is the very expensive and delayed NHS IT system which the Government has announced will be scaled back. 
Answering an urgent question in the House on Monday the Health Secretary belittled this turn round and, in my view, an admission of reality, and concentrated on some successes of the scheme. 

I was able to ask him that if the electronic summary care record (SCR), a crucial part of the scheme, is subject to any further delays he would look at exciting plans workers at Coventry University and City University , London have for providing the SCR on a cheap, simple smart card with an extendable memory stick. 
I shall send him details as he promised to look at these.
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Last week I mentioned that there were 58 pages of amendments for
the debate on the Report Stage of the Equality Bill that was to take place just after my deadline for this article. 
Those that were selected for debate were divided into seven groups. 
The debate started just after 12.30pm and had to finish by 6pm for the Third Reading. 

1. The debate on the first group of 42 amendments on discrimination and equality at work lasted until 4.24pm . (4 hrs)

2. The second group, containing 57 miscellaneous amendments on discrimination and harassment had therefore limited time for debate. (2hrs)

3. The remaining large numbers of amendments in groups three to seven , including those on disability, received no scrutiny at all. 
   (No time at all)

No time limit is put on speeches in a report stage debate and during the debate on the first group lasting nearly 4 hours front bench spokespersons spoke with interventions for over 2 hours and only 4 backbenchers contributed with speeches other than brief interventions. 
In the second group again most time was taken up by front bench contributions. 

Only three votes were called at 6pm . 
One supported by Lib Dem and Labour rebels for mandatory audits to show differences in the pay of male and female employees was lost by 77 to 427 votes; another supported by MPs from all the main parties that would have deleted a clause that threatened to prevent those involved in any organised religion from going about their daily business was lost by 170 to 314 and an amendment that seemed to me to be just a time waster, to change the words “as qualified as” to “equally qualified to” in a particular clause was also lost by 160 to 354 votes.

Thus the Bill goes to the House of Lords with only two out of seven groups of amendments debated in the Commons. 

What makes it even worse is that Government amendments not reached in debate automatically pass while Opposition amendments automatically fall.

And we, the Commons, have voted to make the House of Lords a second elected House that will inevitably lead to the loss of independent peers and many with expertise so badly needed to do the work the Commons fails to do.
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I hope the House of Commons Reform Committee will look at reforming these sort of anomalies during its work on rebuilding confidence in the House.

RT

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