Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall speak in a friendly way towards the Minister on his amendments to the amendment that the House was good enough to pass at Third Reading. I cannot guarantee to be quite as friendly towards the Minister on all matters relating to the NHS and social care in future. I suspect that we shall have a good canter around that course on Thursday.

What it shows is that this House has an important scrutiny function to perform. I know that we gave the Minister a pretty hard time on this issue, but the Government rather deserved it. I think that it was very foolish for the Government to bring the Bill to this House with the devolution of NHS functions in it without clarity about how that would work in relation to existing NHS legislation, particularly the 2006 and 2012 Acts. I am glad that the Government have seen the error of their ways and I am extremely grateful to the Minister and his colleague, Alistair Burt, for the considerate way in which they discussed with me this set of amendments.

I am happy to commend them to the House because they meet the concerns that were expressed at an earlier stage, and I accept the points made by the Minister about the need, very occasionally, to revoke some of these changes. I do not accept the advice from the BMA in its guidance that there should be more safeguards. Given the nature of NHS legislation in this country, it is inevitable that where the Secretary of State sees real damage being done in a local area, he has to step in and make some changes. It is almost inevitable that on the odd occasion that will be necessary, so I am quite happy to support the change proposed by the Minister.

This shows the House in a good state in its ability to exercise its scrutiny functions—and, at the time of the Strathclyde report, it does us well to pat ourselves a little bit on the back that we have actually helped the Government improve their legislation.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, Warner Brothers established a remarkable reputation in the field of entertainment. It would be churlish if the noble Lord, who perhaps no longer counts himself as a brother to some of us on these Benches, was not to be congratulated on effecting a substantive change to the Bill that improves it. Members on all sides will want to join the Minister in paying tribute to the noble Lord’s efforts.

As to the rather peculiar route taken by the Government in this matter, I think it became apparent to those of us who attended the meeting chaired by the noble Baroness at which the noble Lord, Lord Prior, was present, together with the silent presence of the Minister for devolution and the northern powerhouse, that at that point there really had been virtually no contact between the relevant departments, notably DCLG and the Department of Health. Clearly matters have improved since then and the House will be grateful to the two Ministers, who I suspect have got together much more effectively than had been possible at that stage. So far as the Opposition are concerned, we welcome the changes that have been made.

But questions still remain, some of which I referred to in my earlier speech in relation to the first group, about the position particularly in what are now county areas, where it is conceivable that certain districts may affiliate to combined authorities in an adjacent area. If, for example, there was a situation where there was a district council in Cheshire rather than a unitary, which joined the combined authority—it may or may not; I have no idea what is happening in the north-west, and no doubt my noble friend Lord Smith will enlighten us—and it affiliated for economic purposes with the combined authority and health was then taken over by that combined authority, what would happen to the social care part of the overall concept of health and social care? I do not think that that question has been resolved. It certainly has not been resolved in my mind, but that may be a defect on my part. It would be good to have some enlightenment about that situation.