Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Committee stage
Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I can see that my noble friend is eager to come in but I will conclude by answering the noble Baroness. I am not an expert, but I think the CQC has the powers—since it presently does it—to take account of the NICE quality standards and to incorporate specific indicators from those quality standards as part of its regulatory review. If the CQC was to attempt to introduce large-scale application of the guidance as a question in a regulatory review, I do not think the issue would be whether it had the power to do it, but whether it would make the headline conclusions it reaches in relation to healthcare providers increasingly difficult to interpret. At the moment, they are relatively straightforward to interpret. There is a small number of specific indicators in relation to services provided and they are either doing them or they are not. With guidance, it becomes much more complicated and many more value judgments have to be applied about the circumstances in which they are or are not complying. So, there is a real difficulty in going far beyond where we are now.

I will listen with great care when my noble friend the Minister responds to the questions I have asked.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, subject to the economic difficulties. As I listened to the local Baroness, Lady Brinton, I wondered whether the amendments might be strengthened by some reference to the timescale in which they must be implemented. That might have some beneficial effect for many people who are waiting.

Fisheries Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern [V]]

My Lords, I listened with a certain amount of concern to what the noble Lord, Lord Hain, said about the difficulties of securing an agreement on this matter. I am glad to say that, so far as this Bill is concerned, we assume that there will be an agreement on the fisheries matter. The principles and the legal situation are fairly clear; it is a question of reaching an agreement, for a change.

My concern in this amendment is to benefit the people mainly affected by the fisheries situation. The objective is to have fisheries managed in such a way as to achieve economic, social and employment benefits and contribute to communities in all parts of the United Kingdom. If the negotiations are successful, the Government should be required to think of the people who are employed in the fisheries industry, and the national objective should guide future secondary legislation in the context of considering its social, economic and employment impact.

This amendment also raises the issue of the economic link that needs be adapted in line with other duties in the Bill. The economic link requires some degree of proportionate benefit to the UK from its fisheries, even when the fish is landed abroad. It is sometimes suggested that it should be required that fish caught in UK waters be landed in UK ports, but it is obvious that in some circumstances it is beneficial from the point of view of disposing of cargo that the fish should be landed elsewhere, so I do not think it is a particularly useful idea in that context.

The amendment gives an opportunity to press the Minister and the Government to grow the industry in economic, social and employment terms. I wonder whether there is a vision for doing that. Who are they consulting to develop the vision? Will the Government be carrying out any formal consultation to gather the views of wider stakeholders? What engagement are the Government having with local authorities and local enterprise partnerships to collaborate on that plan for growing the fishery industry in their region? I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley]

My Lords, Amendment 23 in my name is in this group. It and Amendment 4 are grouped together because they relate in their various ways to the economic benefits that are to be derived from sea fishing activities, but my amendment is quite specific and I will explain why I commend it to the House.

When we get to Clause 15 later in the Bill, your Lordships will recall that a power is granted to license boats engaged in fishing and that various specific powers may be granted by reference to that licence. They are included in Clause 15(2) and are amplified in Schedule 3. Schedule 3 makes further provisions relating to sea fishing licences. Looking at it, I was surprised that, given the importance placed on the economic links that are applied in conditions to licences by all fisheries policy authorities nowadays, there was nothing in the legislation that provides a specific reference to the use of those economic conditions. When I looked at Clause 15 and Schedule 3, I could see that the original material, principally from the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967, which originated the power for these licences, has been reproduced in the legislation before us—with, I might say, the benefit of better and more concise drafting. None the less, the purposes seemed to be the same.

However, it seems to me that the purposes of licensing are now established to go more widely and to include economic conditions. I do not need to explain the conditions, because we have debated these in a number of contexts in a number of debates in Committee. There is no real debate about whether there should be economic conditions attached to licences. Indeed, the Government’s position, if I understand it correctly, is that they want further to reinforce such conditions; that is part of the objectives. I found it very odd, therefore, that statutory backing was not given, at this stage, by reference in the Bill to the inclusion of such economic links.

In Amendment 23, I have made the following suggestion. Paragraph (2) of Schedule 3 lists:

“The conditions that may be attached to a sea fishing licence include, in particular, conditions”


to which my amendment would add the same language used elsewhere, as we have talked about, of

“conferring economic, social or employment benefits to the United Kingdom or any part of the United Kingdom.”

This would give statutory force to the Government’s intentions in relation to future licences for fishing boats.

We may not reach the point at which this amendment arises until Wednesday, although we are debating it today. I simply say that it is my hope that, even at this late stage, Ministers will reflect on whether, on Wednesday, this is something that they might like yet to adopt into the Bill.