Department of Health: Arm’s-length Bodies

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point. We need to distinguish between posts that are administrative in nature, where we will see considerable reductions, as I have mentioned, and posts that relate to clinical activities. There is obviously a clear case for the latter posts to be advertised and filled where necessary.

[Baroness Thornton]

Will the Minister explain to the House why the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority have been included in the Public Bodies Bill when some 28 other NDPBs—I apologise to the House for that—were listed on 14 October in the announcement made about quangos? Will the Minister also explain whether an impact assessment has been done on any or all of these bodies, and when we might see the results of that? How many people does he expect will be made redundant, and at what cost?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the impact assessment will be published as soon as we know the size and shape of the costs involved. As I mentioned in my original Answer, we do not know that at the moment because we do not know about natural wastage, the grades of the people who will have to leave, and so on. The main reason why those two bodies have been included in the Bill is that our proposals, when we finalise them, will be very simple. As I have outlined, they will involve reparcelling the current functions of the bodies in different directions. That is not a difficult thing to do: it can be done very easily by secondary legislation.