Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will (a) review the funding process for the General Medical Council whereby doctors have to pay a fee to register with the organisation and (b) consider making the organisation taxpayer-funded.
The Government has no plans to review the funding process for the General Medical Council (GMC).
The GMC is the independent regulator of medical doctors in the United Kingdom and sets standards for doctors, provides support to achieve them and takes action when they are not met. Government guidance is clear that payments for licences awarded by statutory regulators are justified in the wider public interest, not because they provide a direct beneficial service to those who pay them. It is right that the cost of regulation is met by those professionals who are regulated.