Schedule 1 - Constitution of public benefit corporations
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
2:45 pm
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
I, too, echo what was said in your absence this morning, Mr. Atkinson, about what a pleasure it is to have you and Mr. Griffiths chairing our proceedings for the next 19 sittings.
I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 125 and 144. They dovetail with amendment No. 97, moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire. I suspect that they also dovetail with the intentions of my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley).
My right hon. and hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) highlighted the confusion caused by the vagueness of the Government's proposals for the constituencies of corporations. Eligibility for membership extends to members of the public, people who live in the local area, people who live outside the area but were patients in the previous three years, and employees of the trust. On that last narrow point I have a question for the Minister.
Membership for employees of the trust is confined to those who have permanent contracts or fixed-term contract longer than 12 months. I do not expect the Minister to be able to tell me this afternoon, but what exactly is the position for NHS staff on short-term contracts? In particular, what proportion of NHS staff have contracts of less than 12 months? They will be excluded, but they spend a reasonable amount of time working at the hospital.
Those with short-term contracts of 12 months would be excluded because the provision says that the contract must be for longer than 12 months. What will happen to those who have contracts for 12 months whose contracts are renewed? I presume that when the constituency and its constituent bodies are being drawn up, they would not know that such contracts would be renewed. It would be unfair to disfranchise such people because of uncertainty about how the system works.