Clause 31 - Designation of priority neighbourhoodsor premises
Health and Social Care Bill
11:00 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I am delighted that the Government tabled the amendment, as the idea of health authorities prioritising pilot services in some unspecified way was alarming. By tabling the amendment, the Minister has saved me working out how to attack paragraph (c).
Will the Minister to acknowledge the fact that the process of designation causes concern in the same way as paragraph (c) does? Alarmingly, he proposes to interfere with commercial freedom by preventing certain businesses from setting up in an area. Although it is unnecessary to do so, it would be easy to paint a picture of circumstances in which it would be sensible to defer part II applications while the structure of a pilot was put in place. The Minister must recognise the danger of a health authority choosing as its preferred partner a large national pharmacy chain, capital-rich and perhaps proposing a complex deal involving all sorts of glamorous additional benefits to the health authority. The health authority would then be in a position effectively to trade off in a deal with the provider monopoly exclusivity in a particular area. The real concern is that if ``Shoes the Chemist'' makes a deal with the health authority, all potential entrants to an area will be blocked out.
I am sure that that is not what the Minister has in mind, but he will have to draft the regulations to ensure that health authorities do not abuse their powers—although I am aware that he has given himself the power to deal with abuses of the system. It would be helpful if he assured the Committee that health authorities would not be allowed to designate an area. He used the term ``breathing space''. In my experience of bureaucratic organisations, their idea of breathing space is a little longer than that of commercial organisations. One can well envisage a health authority breathing a sigh of relief and saying, ``We will designate our entire area, so that we can think about it for two or three years without having to process all the tiresome part II applications, and then see if we can come up with a pilot scheme''. I am sure that the Minister does not intend that to happen, but he must make sure that the power to designate cannot be used as a blocking mechanism or to create blight. We must bear in mind—and this is a familiar theme—that it will have an impact on the provision of services other than pharmaceutical services within the meaning of the Bill because it could prevent retail pharmacies from opening and therefore limit access to over-the-counter products.