Member

I will be among those who, in a later group, will be looking to strengthen the safeguards being applied to the eligibility test, but I do not recognise this question of residence as a safeguard. I regard pretty much all these amendments, other than my own, as devices to create bureaucratic impediments to people’s eligibility for this service. Whatever we may think in principle, for or against the Bill, we should not be depriving people who are accessing NHS services in this country of access to this service for reasons of bureaucratic differentiation, rather than because they are eligible or otherwise for substantive reasons. I hope that, on Report, my amendments might find favour with the sponsor of the Bill.