Clause 2 - Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts
Health and Social Care(Community Health and Standards) Bill
10:45 am
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
It must have been the effect of my speech on you, Mr. Griffiths. I promise that it is rapidly drawing to a close.
The final point that I wish to make relates to amendments Nos. 234 and 141. For obvious reasons, we do not anticipate, or want to be in, a situation in which the Secretary of State removes the independent regulator from office. However, in the unlikely event that the regulator becomes unable to fulfil his role, the Secretary of State must be able to act quickly to ensure that the interests of NHS patients, and the wider interests of the NHS, are protected. To create a further delay or another set of obstacles to the process—as, essentially, the amendments would do—would not be helpful if there were a need to act in those limited
circumstances in which the incapacity or misbehaviour of the independent regulator arose.
The hon. Member for South-West Devon asked me what I meant by misbehaviour, and I declined to give him a verbatim history of the case law and jurisprudence on the subject. I will arrange for him to receive a copy of it, if he would like to peruse it at his leisure. Obviously, he needs to get out more.
There are precedents for the choice of such words, including the appointment of the chairman and other members of Ofgem, the rail regulator, the Director General of Water Services and the Director General of Telecommunications. These amendments raise many issues, but Opposition Members' criticism of the Bill as it stands is fundamentally misconceived. However, I accept the general argument made by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire that the Government must keep under review the structure and the shape of the office of the internal regulator. We will certainly do that.
It will come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman that we examined a variety of different models that we could use to set up the office of the independent regulator, including the sort of board structure that he suggested. We went for this particular shape because we believe it is the right structure, given the specific roles of the independent regulator and his functions in relation to the wider national health service. However, we are always willing to listen to arguments on how the structure could be improved from the Better Regulation Task Force or others, including Conservative Members and my hon. Friends. However, at present, given where we are and where we will start from, I ask my hon. Friends to reject any amendments that are put to the vote for the reasons that I have given the Committee.