Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, with whom I have had many encounters over the years. I thank the Senior Deputy Speaker for a characteristically thorough, rigorous, courteous and careful report, but decisions have to be made. It is now just on 10 years, and we cannot faff about any longer. We cannot kick it into the long grass, hope an election will come along, conceal or deceive. It is not going to work. We have to make decisions, and we have to make brave decisions. I was reflecting on those infrastructure projects that many of us have been involved in. Very few people who come into politics know anything about project management or infrastructure. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, does because he was leader of Sheffield City Council and knew a lot about this. My friend, the noble Lord, Lord Morse, knows a great deal about this area, but many of us came as innocents to the subject. We have all been bruised and burned in the bonfire of public opinion and hostility, and we have all had to make impossible decisions. I suppose my first one was after there had been 29 reports into why London had too many hospitals, all not very good. It needed to have fewer, better hospitals—it needed critical mass—and they needed to integrate with the universities. I just knew that I had to make this decision. Sir Bernard Tomlinson came along and helped on it. He could not believe the hostility and viciousness of people in the public sector. My former boss, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, used to say that the charm of a board is often in inverse proportion to the virtue of its project. The BAT board was charming, but the Great Ormond Street board was often very difficult indeed. As many in health will know, people can get very emotional. But I made the decisions, and I was not going to back off them.