Clause 1 - NHS foundation trusts
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
9:15 am
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
These are probing amendments, as we simply wish to tease out from the Minister more information on the Government's thinking behind clause 1.
Paragraph 44 of the explanatory notes to the Bill explains quite straightforwardly that
''Clause 1 sets out that an NHS foundation trust is a public benefit corporation which is authorised under this Part to provide goods and services for the 'health service' in England.''
Paragraph 45 states:
''Under subsection (2), a public benefit corporation is defined as a body corporate.''
It will not escape the notice of Committee members that the language is businesslike and corporate. That may come as a surprise to some Government Members, who have always—rightly, I suspect—considered the national health service to be not so much a business as a national provider of services for the people of this country.
It is interesting to see how the Government's original intentions have changed. Ours is simply a probing amendment—I will not seek to press the matter to a Division—to reinstate, ironically, the status quo of Ministers' intentions. When the Secretary of State addressed the New Health Network early last year he outlined his vision of the future of the health service in several areas, and he spoke about his concerns on certain aspects where he felt the health service was failing at present. He went on to outline his views about foundation trusts and the way forward to free hospitals from political control at the centre and to devolve power to the people. I have no problem with those sentiments providing that the institutions remain within the NHS.
Unlike some of the Minister's hon. Friends, I take it at 100 per cent. face value that neither this clause nor the Bill are, in any shape or form, measures to seek either to begin, or aid, the process of privatising the health service. It is unadulterated claptrap to suggest that, and this clause reinforces that view. Equally, it is unadulterated claptrap to suggest that these provisions could be a springboard for the Conservative party to
begin that process when it returns to Government. That never has been, and will not be, its intention.