Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Lansley

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments in my name relates to Clause 26. Noble Lords will recall that we had a rather helpful debate about this in Committee. The point is that the Care Quality Commission is an independent organisation. We want to respect that and see that carried through into its new responsibility of reviewing and inspecting the integrated care systems.

The Bill asks for “objectives and priorities” to be set by the Secretary of State. In another place, Members of the Commons inserted the idea that these priorities must include—as seen in proposed new Section 46B(3)—

“leadership, the integration of services and the quality and safety of service”.

That is fine; if they want that, let us leave it in, but I have no idea what “objectives” are in this context. Although I do not want to go down the path of semantics, for the Secretary of State to say what his or her priorities are is entirely reasonable and should be reflected in the indicators used by the CQC, but I am not sure that I know what “objectives” are in this context. Either my noble friend will explain to me what the objectives are, in which case the question of why they are not clarified further in the Bill arises, or let us leave them out—which is what most of these amendments do.

Regarding two of these amendments, it seems particularly undesirable for the Secretary of State—as in proposed new Section 46B(5) and (10)—to

“direct the Commission to revise the indicators”.

The indicators that the Care Quality Commission devises require the approval of the Secretary of State, so I am not sure why we should so trammel the independence of the CQC by enabling the Secretary of State to “direct” it to revise its indicators as opposed to denying approval, so I would rather that were not there.

Our noble friends on the Front Bench have been very accommodating; a spirit of compromise and understanding seems to have imbued the Front Bench splendidly so far. If the Minister is not minded to accept my amendments, I hope that she can at least give me some reassurance about the manner in which the Secretary of State’s powers are to be used or—in my view, this would be better—not used or extremely rarely used. I beg to move Amendment 69.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, the CQC is a competent and independent organisation. Long may that continue, and any attempt to trammel it is unwelcome. We have here a 265-page Bill. If the CQC cannot get from the Bill the intentions of the Government and carry them out carefully in doing its job inspecting and reporting on how the integrated care systems are working, I do not think it needs any further direction from the Secretary of State.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Lansley

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this group of amendments. May I, however, begin by seeking clarity about the grouping of the amendments? Amendment 116 is also to be found in the eighth group and is more appropriately to be found there. It is my amendment; I know where it should sit properly. It does not belong in this group and is not relevant to this subject. However, I think the Marshalled List should list Amendment 116 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who raises what is effectively the sunset issue in that amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, who I always think of as a friend, referred to his Amendment 141, which is not listed in the grouping but should be here; Amendment 142 is listed in group five and also should be here. With those two changes, I think that we are talking about the right group.

I could stop now, but I will be quick and refer to just two things. First, as a former Leader of the House of Commons, responsible for the legislative programme, I view with deep unhappiness the idea of attaching three-year sunset clauses to all the legislation we put through the House. If we start down that path, we will never introduce new legislation but will constantly be revisiting old legislation and trying to renew it. There is an argument about the nature of this Bill but it is an argument I am proposing to have when we debate the next group of amendments. It is skeletal, and there are things we can do to make the power not only clearer in its purposes but much more accountable if used. So, I am against the sunset clause.

My other point relates to Amendments 50, 67 and 115 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Kakkar. I have great sympathy with these. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who referred to the consolidation of human medicines regulations in 2011 or 2012. There is a great deal to be said for the regular consolidation of legislation to make it more accessible. I do not regard consolidation as a purely technical legal exercise; it should always be used as an opportunity to simplify and clarify. It is not, in my view, sufficient to say, as I think Ministers might well reasonably do, “We consolidated human medicines legislation and we will continue to keep the regulations in as clear a form as we can”. From time to time, there is a purpose in coming back to primary legislation and looking for clarity and consolidation. That is often what we use the Law Commission to do, because it has particular expertise in this area. It may be inappropriate to do so at this stage for human medicines because of the necessity of making the regulations and of transposing former EU regulations and directives into UK law. It is perfectly reasonable for that to happen over some period of time, but I hope that Ministers will consider that.

Where medical devices are concerned, there may be a better argument. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, was quite right—navigating medical devices legislation is, if anything, harder than navigating human or veterinary medicines legislation. There is a lot to be said for finding the consolidation instrument for medical devices regulation, once we know what it looks like and we have brought it into force. My friends the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Kakkar, are on to something; I just do not think that new primary legislation within three years is the route. However, for Ministers to recognise the value of consolidating instruments including, from time to time, consolidating primary legislation is certainly desirable.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support the attempts in this group to put a sunset clause into the Bill. I have a great deal of sympathy with the demands of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for consolidation. It is vital that through these amendments and others to later clauses, we are able to review the use of the Bill’s powers by this failed Government, who have made so many mistakes. A Government who cannot even secure the free trade agreement that was supposed to be the easiest thing ever, who disastrously and expensively have not produced the promised world-beating test and trace system and who have presided over one of the worst rate of Covid-19 deaths in Europe due to their dithering and failure to put health first, must have their powers fettered. But, as has been said, this is a skeleton Bill and gives the Government extensive powers with little ability for Parliament to intervene.

A lot is changing. The Brexit transition phase is coming to an end in a couple of months. We have learned many lessons from Covid-19, which should be implemented. The NICE review is coming up, and every month new medicines and therapies are coming on to the market. It would be folly not to have a sunset clause in the Bill. I therefore support what was said by my noble friends Lady Jolly and Lady Thornton, and urge the Government to consider, in all humility, that in two or three years’ time they may not be in power, and the whole landscape will have changed. It is therefore essential that we have an opportunity to review how the powers in the Bill have been used to change things, especially if all has not gone well.