National Health Service (Cross-Border Healthcare and Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

To move, as an amendment to the above motion, at the end insert “but this House regrets that Her Majesty’s Government’s failure to ensure that the legislation complies with proper legislative practice has led to the lack of clarity concerning the specific rights that will cease to be available in domestic law, as reported by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments on 22 March.”

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her detailed explanation, in which she named the new Act, which has now received Royal Assent. I thank her and her colleagues for, very sensibly, accepting the amendments which were agreed in this House, and thank all other noble Lords who participated. I think we did our job quite well there.

I am very grateful that consideration of this SI was postponed to allow consideration of the Joint Committee’s report, published on Friday. That consideration has prompted me to table the amendment regretting the SI, on the grounds highlighted in its report, and give the Minister the opportunity to explain to the House how she and the Government intend to remedy the issues. She has gone some way towards doing that, for which I am very grateful. Reading through the Official Report of the proceedings in the Commons on Monday, I must say that her honourable friend the Minister did not do so with such admirable clarity. This led my honourable friend, Barry Sheerman MP, to say:

“It is horrific news for our constituents—for people who live in Huddersfield and Dewsbury”,


which is the part of the world I come from,

“and all the constituents we represent. It is, in stark terms, the end of the assurance that people can travel around Europe—we all had our little card and we knew that we did not have to go out and get private health insurance; we would be covered. We had that peace of mind. What the Minister is saying today, in plain language, is that that peace of mind will end. He has just read that out. It will end unless by luck, some wing and a prayer policy that arrives from this incompetent Government actually delivers something that they cannot promise and cannot deliver”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/3/19; col. 8]

My honourable friend Paula Sherriff MP expressed the serious and deep anxieties that many Members in both Houses have felt about this whole period of legislation and orders leading up to Brexit day, which is now of course not this week. This issue of people’s healthcare, as we have said several times in your Lordships’ House, is of immediate and personal importance to hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, so it is very important that we get it right. In this period, we have seen some power grabs and new policies being pushed into some of these instruments, despite the Government saying that would not happen. I fear that the lack of time to scrutinise sufficiently means that we will be discovering things that got away from us, and their implications, in the months and years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have sufficiently reassured noble Lords on this very important SI, and explained that we as a Government take seriously communicating effectively with patients about their rights to healthcare. With that, I commend the regulations to the House.

[Baroness Thornton]

I thank the noble Baroness for that extensive explanation, her answers to questions, and the detail and attention she has given this statutory instrument.

I was struck by a couple of things the noble Baroness said. The fact that all those countries have had to pass no-deal legislation is perhaps not the best way to make friends and influence people as we move forward in our new relationships. That is just a comment on the uncertain world we are now entering.

Dozens of the SIs before us have not been criticised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, but this one was. That is why it merited particular attention in your Lordships’ House. A regret amendment will not stop its progress; it is actually just that: it regrets that the Government needed that criticism and attention from the statutory instrument committee.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who asked some extremely pertinent questions. Indeed, through his persistence, the noble Lord got the right answer to the question—I was sitting here waiting to hear the Minister say that, yes, the list would have to be issued on that date. I agree with the noble Lord that the need for speed if we crash out will be absolutely paramount. I thank my noble friend Lord Foulkes for his commendation and for the support he has given during the course of the recent Act.

I thank the Minister for her reassurance and of course I accept that we need this statutory instrument on the statute book. It underlines the fact that we are going yet one more step further down the road of uncertainty. The people who need our National Health Service have been badly served by the Brexiteers in this whole argument. That lie on the side of the bus was such a big lie—and here we are discussing the welfare of millions of our fellow citizens. We should really not be here having to do that based on those lies. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.