The Lord Bishop of Norwich

My Lords, I support Amendments 17 and 309A, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and so ably explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. I declare an interest, in that my wife is a GP and a medical examiner—so the Bill has had much discussion at home. Having spent 10 years living in Northumberland, and having friends who live along the Scottish border, I know that many of those living sufficiently close to the border have chosen very deliberately to be registered with a Scottish GP because they then receive free prescriptions. This raises a number of questions for the noble and learned Lord. Let us say that you live on the English side of the border, at Cornhill-on-Tweed, and your GP is in Coldstream. The sense of continuity of care that GPs give to their patients is vital to that GP-patient relationship. Indeed, this House was reminded of that yesterday in the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada: “That continuity, seeing lives unfold across time, gives general practice its unique moral and social power. It allows us to see people as whole human beings, not as isolated organs or diagnoses”.—[Official Report, 11/12/25; col. 370.] In supporting this probing amendment, I am interested to discover more about how that continuity of care that is so essential in primary health care can be continued.