Clause 19 - Information
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
6:00 pm
Mr Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
The amendment would remove a power that we believe is unneeded. Why does the Secretary of State need to specify to the regulator what should be the information disclosure requirements of the foundation trust? Why should it not be a matter for the regulator and the trust to work out together? The Secretary of State does not have a great track record when it comes to setting appropriate and sensible levels of bureaucracy and paperwork. We see no benefit in inserting the Secretary of State into that relationship.
The amendment would remove the phrase
''the Secretary of State specifies to the regulator''
and insert the words ''the regulator requires''. That would be a prudent amendment: the regulator would still be able to extract from foundation trusts information that was appropriate for the regulator to use when making his report to Parliament and when ensuring that NHS foundation trusts make public enough information about their financial and constitutional affairs, and about their performance in
the services that they deliver. There is no possible reason to allow the Secretary of State to decide what the regulator needs; surely that can be done by the regulator himself.
Amendments Nos. 457 and 458 offer two options to the Government. They are designed to make a similar contribution and are to some extent mutually exclusive, but I hope that the Minister will accept the principle in one of them.
Our problem is with subsection (1)(b), which says that an authorisation
''may require an NHS foundation trust to disclose other information to the regulator.''
That is surely taken into account in paragraph (a), so there is unnecessary duplication. The provision does not add anything to the Bill.
The Bill also provides:
''The regulator may require any other health service body to disclose any information to him which he requires for the purposes of his functions.''
Why should we give the regulator the power to ask any other health service body to deliver any information that the regulator decides that he requires? We should not give the regulator the power to seek information from NHS bodies other than foundation trusts over and above the information that the Secretary of State already requires to be provided to Government.
We are simply considering the status quo, and it is perfectly reasonable for the regulator to ask the same question of other organisations in pursuit of his judgment about, for example, the nature of an authorisation that should be given. It is also reasonable for the regulator not to have powers to request information over and above the existing powers of the Secretary of State.
These are tidying-up amendments, designed to reduce bureaucracy in a system in which there is too much. I hope that they are not controversial and that, if the Minister does not accept the substance, he can accept the direction and will acquiesce with steps to ensure that the provision of information is carried out with as little impact as possible on the operational side of the trust's activities.