Health Services (Cross-border Health Care and Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

(asked on 26th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish details of his assessment that The Health Services (Cross-Border Health Care And Miscellaneous Amendments)(Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 was required in order to secure legal certainty in Northern Ireland; and on what date that decision was made.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 1st April 2019

The Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health for Northern Ireland gave his clearance for The Health Services (Cross-Border Health Care and Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 on 31 January 2019, to issue to the Department of Health and Social Care for laying in Westminster. This Statutory Instrument, and other Northern Ireland Statutory Instruments, which have been laid are in line with the wider approach of making the necessary, technical fixes to European Union retained law ahead of exit day, to ensure a functioning statute book in Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom Government remains committed to restoring devolution in Northern Ireland, and this is particularly important in the context of EU exit where we want devolved Ministers to take the necessary actions to prepare Northern Ireland for exit. In the continued absence of a Northern Ireland Executive, UK Government Ministers therefore decided that in the interest of legal certainty in Northern Ireland, the UK Government would take through the necessary secondary legislation at Westminster for Northern Ireland, in close consultation with the Northern Ireland departments. These instruments make technical fixes, rather than any policy changes, as befits the powers in Section 8 of the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018.

Department of Health for Northern Ireland officials completed a legislative review in August 2017 as part of Northern Ireland Civil Service’s preparations for EU exit. The legislation, which transposed the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive (Directive 2011/24/EU), was identified as requiring significant amendment, and as being essential for exit day to avoid confusion and to provide clarity around entitlements to healthcare arrangements. The regulations were developed by the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and the Permanent Secretary of Northern Ireland gave his consent for these regulations, and for the instrument to be passed through Westminster.

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