Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Thornton

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

I congratulate the Minister on her summing up and answers. As these things go, it was absolutely perfect. I did not agree with a lot of it, but I commend her skills.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I know it has taken almost two hours, and I knew this would be a very important debate because it is about the scope of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, was right to put down clause stand part, because it focuses the mind—of the Government, certainly—when you are facing a clause stand part. We all knew that this was probing the scope of the Bill, which was exactly right.

I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—just keep banging on. I agree with other noble Lords that this is very important. All of us will be reading the noble and learned Lord’s remarks very carefully, because they have given us a lot of material for how we are going to take these discussions forward. The noble and learned Lord may have used the term “carte blanche Bill”. My honourable friend Justin Madders in the other place called it the Martini Bill: good “any time, any place, anywhere”. I wanted to join in with finding different ways of describing the Bill and the experience of the noble Baroness.

The noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, was right to draw attention to the issue of no deal and to talk about the problems of the scope of this Bill. I welcome the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, because he has such huge knowledge of the powers that are being talked about in this Bill. With the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Wilson, he expressed enormous frustration—from enormous knowledge, power and experience—with what we are dealing with here and how unacceptable it is. I am afraid that the Minister and the noble Lords, Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord Lansley, have not dealt with that frustration. I take one grain of hope from the fact that the noble Baroness said she was open to discussion, and that was very wise of her. We will need to have more discussions.

I am looking forward to the future amendments in the name of noble Lord, Lord Marks, but this was a very useful amendment to put into this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is quite right to talk about changes to NHS procurement. As we know—and I declare an interest as the chair of the procurement committee for a clinical commissioning group—European rules do rule, and that is important.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

I apologise to my noble friend that I was not here earlier, due to travel difficulties—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It is in order to ask a question during Committee.

[Baroness Thornton]

As much as I admire and love my noble friend, he should probably not intervene at this moment, but he has lots of opportunities to do so in the next few hours and I know he will take them.

The letter that the Minister sent, and the representations of the Government to the DPRRC, really did not take these concerns seriously. My noble friend Lady Andrews was right when she said that while these long letters are full of interesting things, they do not address the powers. The powers are not just for Brexit and the following years—they are for ever. That is the point.

While of course I will withdraw the amendment, because that is what we do in Committee, I assure the Minister that unless something changes in the next few weeks regarding discussions with her, I suspect we will be returning to this at the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw.

Quality and Safety of Organs Intended for Transplantation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Thornton

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My noble friend knows an awful lot more about House of Lords procedure than I do, so I seek her advice. If I were in the other place, as I was for 26 years, I would know exactly what to do. I would ask the Chair, Speaker or whoever was responsible whether it is really in order for us to consider going ahead with something that will involve more expenditure by the Department of Health and its excellent officials, who are sitting behind the Minister, given that the House of Commons decided against a no-deal Brexit yesterday. In other words, we are doing something that seems ultra vires: working on the basis of no deal, which is now not just unlikely but, pray, certain not to take place because of yesterday’s decision. How can we challenge this? How can we stop going ahead with the farce of considering these statutory instruments when we are aware of a decision taken in the other place? Should it be raised with the Clerk of the Parliaments?

I would love our present Deputy Chairman of Committees to rule on that because she is a wise woman and would rule wisely but, sadly, she does not have the power to do so. She knows, as do others, that I have raised many times on the Floor of the House the matter of giving more powers to the Speaker and, following on from that, to the Chairman of Committees, but I have got nowhere. I want to ask my long-standing friend and experienced parliamentarian, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, whether there is any way for us to put the Minister out of her misery and abandon both these statutory instruments and those that the noble Lord, Lord Bates—poor him—will have to struggle to deal with. How can we do that?

[Baroness Thornton]

My noble friend tempts me to step outside my pay grade. That is not my job.

[Baroness Thornton]

That is true. I forgot that bit.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

You should be.

[Baroness Thornton]

It is not my job to say whether our discussions are ultra vires. The Constitution Committee might usefully address that issue at some point, but this Committee has already made its views quite clear to the Government during the debate on the previous two statutory instruments. I am happy to say that this matter is the Committee’s responsibility.

Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness Thornton

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I will bowl her an easy ball. On page 9 of the statutory instrument, paragraph (6) mentions “appropriate authority” and refers to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. What consultation has taken place with the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Government? What was their reaction to this proposal? Have they specifically approved this statutory instrument or made any comment on it? It would be useful to know that. In the case of Northern Ireland, where as we know there is no Assembly, who was consulted—senior officials, presumably—and what did they say? I genuinely hope that my question falls within the Minister’s pay grade. I look forward to her answer.

[Baroness Thornton]

I am grateful to noble Lords for being here because working on statutory instruments has felt quite lonely at times; this is my third or fourth set. I have become increasingly concerned, as I have shared with some of my colleagues. These three statutory instruments in particular give me enormous cause for concern, borne out by the Committee’s comments during the debate—particularly those of my noble friend Lord Winston. Along with her colleagues, the Minister has some serious problems. As I have said to anyone who would listen in the past few weeks, this is written across different subject areas; patents, which we will discuss later, is one example, as well as food security, which my noble friend Lady Jones has been waxing lyrical about. It is written across every single aspect of our life. In that way, our discussion today is important indeed. I do not envy the Minister.