Clause 7 - Effect of authorisation
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
8:55 am
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
I will deal quickly with the point made by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns). Later parts of part 1, especially clauses 23 to 26, provide for the dissolution of NHS foundation trusts. It is not, therefore, a once-and-for-all process. We have envisaged circumstances in which it might be right to dissolve the NHS trusts, and clause 25 in particular sets out the procedures for doing that.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) asked a characteristically intriguing question. I will need to take proper legal advice on that point. Therefore, because I do not want to detain the Committee unnecessarily, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman and copy my response to other members of the Committee. In general terms, the hon. Gentleman is right. The architecture that is proposed in clause 7 assumes the organisations' seamless transfer from NHS trust to NHS foundation trust status—there is no need for the dissolution of the NHS trusts, and there is no need for a transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 because there is no transfer of an entity. It is a seamless process.
We have also extended that principle to the contractual liabilities of the trusts as they exist at the moment of authorisation. It is conceivable that the issue that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire highlighted could arise in, for example, the treatment of private patients. Providing such treatment would take applicants for NHS foundation trust status above the private cap below which they must operate under the provisions of clause 15. In those circumstances, the clause 15 cap would have to take precedence.
The hon. Gentleman raised a genuinely serious point, and I am happy to take further advice from legal sources in the Department and across Government, after which I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with a properly thought-out answer.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.