Clause 22 - Trust funds and trustees
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 459, in
clause 22, page 8, line 36, leave out from beginning to second 'for' and insert
'An NHS foundation trust may appoint trustees which the regulator can approve'.
Again, I can be brief. In many ways this is a probing amendment. As hon. Members will see, clause 22 deals with the appointment of trustees for an NHS foundation trust to hold property on trust. I do not think that anyone in the Committee would regard that as an unusual or unreasonable proposition. The amendment seeks to change significantly who appoints the trustees, from the Secretary of State to the NHS foundation trust. Given that it is the foundation trust's property, it would be a reasonable proposition for the foundation trust to make the appointment and to have some check on the power to allow the regulator to approve the trustees.
The NHS foundation trusts would appoint the trustees and they would be subject to the approval of the regulator, which is more logical and fair than for the Secretary of State to do so. Unless there is some complicated legal reason under existing law, I am not sure why the Secretary of State has to have a role. The important thing is that there are trustees; given that one concedes that that is crucial, surely it would be better for the foundation trust to make the appointments, subject to the approval of the regulator, who will be independent of the foundation trust, rather than the Secretary of State.