Clause 2 - Primary care trusts
NHS Reform and Health Care
10:00 am
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
It was a mistake to invite the Minister to intervene because, parrot-like, he has merely repeated what he has been saying for the past 20 minutes. He has not answered my question. In theory, a PCG might by September or October next year be nowhere near to becoming a PCT—for some quirky reason, it might not want to become one. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State will possess the clause 2 powers to make it become a PCT. That is my understanding of what might happen. The Minister says—events may prove him right in one respect—that although the Government will have that statutory power when the Bill becomes law, they will not need to use it because of the evolutionary process. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and I believe that the Government have sought powers under the clause to make PCGs become PCTs by 2002, and that they could use those powers to speed up the process if some PCGs were reluctant to acquire trust status.