Clause 24 - Powers and duties of the Council: general
NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill
4:45 pm
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 200, in page 29, line 40, leave out from 'ended' to end of line 42.
This amendment, which I was trying to speak to earlier, deals with an inconsistency in the drafting of this clause and of clause 27(1). Subsections 24(3) and (4) are designed to do three things: to prevent the council from intervening in the cases of individuals that a regulatory body is considering; to allow the council to investigate a complaint about maladministration, which is dealt with further in clause 26; and to allow the council to exercise its public interest appeals powers as described in clause 27, but only after the regulatory body's proceedings have ended. As drafted, the words in brackets in clause 24(4), which the amendment will delete, suggest that, under clause 27, the council could take action, even in cases where it was decided not to undertake regulatory body proceedings. It was never intended that clause 27 should apply in such cases, and the amendment will remove any possible inconsistency between the two clauses.
It might also help if I make clear the definition of ''proceedings'' in clause 24(10), which states that
'''proceedings', in relation to a regulatory body, or one of its committees or officers, includes a process of decision-making by which a decision could be made affecting the registration of the individual in question.''