Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Hendy

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I start by commending Amendment 100 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and I look forward to hearing him speak on it. It is an excellent idea to ask people how much choice they have actually had when offered treatment. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for explaining his two amendments, and I would like to say to him that he is not sad for carrying out his role in your Lordships’ House with interest and care. His expertise in matters that may leave others cold should be celebrated. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, ask that trade unions should be part of consultations on private providers, and that seems sensible.

I wish to focus, albeit briefly, on Amendment 106A, which proposes that Clause 70 be left out, and which will be spoken to later by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton; I apologise to her that under the remote rules I have to speak first. I will confine my remarks to the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s 15th report, in which paragraphs 17 and 18 make plain its views about these proposed procurement arrangements and regulations. The first point that it notes is that the memorandum, at paragraph 481, says that

“full analysis has not been completed and there has not been time to produce a more developed proposal.”

Why on earth do the Government wish to bring into force legislation that they admit they have not had time to analyse, let alone produce a more developed proposal for? We from our Benches, along with other noble Lords, have repeatedly said that the Cabinet Office procurement Bill is likely to overtake the needs for NHS-specific procurement regulations.

Paragraph 17 of the DPRRC Report gets straight to the heart of the issue and provides a response to the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, has tabled, starting with Amendment 101 in this group. It says:

“We do not accept that the inclusion of regulation-making powers should be a cover for inadequately developed policy.”


It is therefore more than a little surprising to see a slew of government amendments on this issue that, in the group under discussion, strengthen the powers under regulation.

Paragraph 18 of the Delegated Powers Committee report states that:

“Ministers would not ordinarily propose clauses in one Bill possibly requiring imminent amendment in a subsequent Bill without expecting to face questions. The House may wish to seek further and better particulars from the Minister concerning the possible effect of any Cabinet Office procurement Bill on the Health and Care Bill, and … to press the Minister on why it was necessary to include provision, based on inadequately developed policy, in the Health and Care Bill when the Government intend to introduce a procurement Bill.”


Not only have we tried this at an earlier stage, but there have been meetings between Committee and Report, and it appears that the Government are determined to press on. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has concerns about the Government’s intentions on the clause and its amendment; if she chooses to call a Division on stand part, we from these Benches will support her.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 98A, 98B and 98C. Among other things, the Bill is designed to facilitate the outsourcing to private contractors of NHS services currently carried out in-house. That is the Government’s policy for the NHS, although it is firmly opposed by most of the citizens of this island.

Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Hendy

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. I pay tribute to Lucy Herd, who as we have heard has been campaigning for nearly a decade. When I first learned of the campaign, I knew that it would take a while because the issue is not one that affects many families. Not many families or their wider circle of friends will know somebody who has lost a child or are aware of a stillbirth. I give credit not just to Lucy but to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, Will Quince and Kevin Hollinrake for all the work they have done to ensure that this never lost the eye of Ministers. We may all collectively have been a thorn in their flesh, including myself over the past four or five years, but I am delighted that we have now got to the point where these regulations are coming into play.

I note particularly that account has been taken of the definition of “parent”. I was an informal foster parent. I was not a kinship carer but I had parental responsibility for two children after their mother died, so I am very grateful for that. It is because of such funny modern-day family situations that we need a regulation broad enough to recognise that when people are personally involved and have a responsibility, no employer or state system should say that they do not have the right to receive parental bereavement leave.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who kindly gave me an in to the issue that I want to raise, which I appreciate is not within the remit of BEIS. However, I raised this repeatedly during the passage of the Bill and I want to do so again.

I understand why the decision was made that self-employed parents will not be in receipt of this benefit because they are not in receipt of many other benefits. However, there is a serious inequity for parents, especially those who have stopped working, often for many years, because of the serious medical difficulty that their child has had. They have done so knowing that their child will die. The fact is that under our current system, the day after the child dies, they lose their disability benefit and carer benefit and, shockingly, they have to apply immediately for benefits. I remind the Grand Committee, because I raised this on the Bill, of the words of one parent who wrote:

“The day after, I applied for jobseeker’s allowance, wanting to buy myself a little extra time to grieve before returning to some sort of work, only to be told that because I hadn’t worked in 10 years, I was ineligible, despite the fact that in those 10 years I had worked harder and for many more hours than the average person. The fact that I had saved the Government and the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds by providing my son with hourly complex medical care counted for nothing. You are told to man up, move on, get a job, pay the bills. Provide for your remaining family.”


That inequity still remains. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, referred to unemployed parents not being covered but said that the DWP will keep this under review. It will do more than that because the campaign for these parents starts today.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and all those he mentioned for introducing the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 which gives the power to make the regulations we are considering today. I shall raise three short points. The first is one that the Minister referred to in his speech, which is that these benefits are available only to employees. This raises a critical issue in labour law and indeed it is one that has beset labour law for centuries: different legal statuses are attached to different kinds of worker. The consequence of having a different status is that one is entitled to different employment rights. This issue will perhaps be dealt with in the forthcoming Employment Bill which I understand will deal with the Matthew Taylor report and contain some measures in relation to that.

The issue is that employees are entitled to more rights than other categories of worker. At one end of the spectrum one has the employee while at the other end one has the genuinely self-employed in business on his or her own account. In between, we have what lawyers call the limb (b) worker; that is to say, a worker under Section 230(3)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which is a worker under a contract that is not a contract of employment and not working for a client or a customer of a business of that worker. In effect, it is a kind of employee but not quite an employee. The consequence of being a limb (b) worker is that one does not have the same array of employment rights as an employee. There is a fourth category which is what lawyers call the false self-employed, which is somebody who appears to be self-employed because that is how the employer has designated him or her, but in reality and on examination in the courts or tribunals turns out to be an employee or indeed a limb (b) worker.

The point I make to the Minister is that there is really no justification for confining the right to bereavement leave or pay to those who are employees and not extending it to limb (b) workers. I appreciate that these regulations could not confer the benefit on limb (b) workers because the Act itself confines those benefits to employees, but when the Employment Bill comes to be drafted, this is something that could be addressed. There can be no doubt that limb (b) workers will suffer just as much grief and tragedy over the loss of a child as an employee. In his speech, the Minister suggested that the justification for this might be that all parental leave under the Employment Rights Act is confined to employees, but that is not really a justification for excluding limb (b) workers from the benefit of parental bereavement leave or pay.