Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord Kamall
Wednesday 15th April 2026

(2 weeks, 2 days ago)

Grand Committee
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Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Con)
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I can add to that. What is the process for notifying those who will come under this regulation? That would be helpful to know as well.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
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If I may add to the list of questions, I think it might be helpful for the Minister to explain how the decisions over the size relate to the Purple Guide that the Health and Safety Executive produced, because I understand from page 114 of volume 2 of the Manchester Arena inquiry report that the Purple Guide for an event of that size set things out quite clearly, but was not adhered to at all. I have a slight concern from the responses that we have had that we may have two completely separate things going on. The Minister may not be able to answer that now, but it would be helpful in this meeting that we are all anticipating if there is a cross-reference to the Purple Guide and if the discussions could include how that would impact and be used by the CQC in regulating.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Debate between Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and Lord Kamall
Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Con)
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I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, as well. It reinforces the points I am going to come to—if that makes sense.

The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, ends the letter by saying:

“Through these actions … we hope to ensure sustainable funding for palliative care and end-of-life care sector in the long term”.


This is the Government’s stated intention. The next bit says:

“I hope this letter has provided clarification on the queries you raised”.


I will let noble Lords be the judge of whether it provides clarification. To be fair, the Minister copied the letter to all Peers who tabled amendments, as my noble friend Lord Harper said, and put a copy in the Library. I urge all noble Lords to read that letter to see whether they believe that it provides the clarification that many are seeking. If we feel that it does not, we should come back to this point in future weeks and raise these issues with the Government again.

I hope the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, will take that on board when she answers. If she does not have the answer to many of these questions, we should wait for other noble Lords to read that letter, then maybe raise the questions again and ask whichever noble Baroness is on duty as the Minister in future weeks to answer questions on areas where we still believe there are gaps.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
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I am grateful to the noble Lord for referring to that letter and quoting the amounts of money in it. Does he recognise that that is one-off and not recurring funding, and there is no intention for funding to increase as cost of living and so on increase, and to meet the gaps in services that we have been talking about?

Lord Kamall Portrait Lord Kamall (Con)
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I have to be very careful because I am not answering for the Government; I am just trying to reflect that letter. However, the Minister did make it clear that the children’s hospice funding is over the next three years and that it will account for £80 million in total. We all know how Governments work, and I not sure that any Government could give a commitment beyond three or four years or beyond another election. To be fair to the Government, I believe that they have answered the question about how much resource they will be allocating. It is up to noble Lords to decide whether they believe that that is sufficient, but if, whichever side of the debate they are on, they feel that the Government have not answered those questions, it is up to them to come back in future weeks and press the Minister on duty.