Clause 2 - Health functions
Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Dr Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Public Services, Health & Education; Westbury, Conservative)
This is an important part of the Bill, and we can afford to be expansive about it, given that we have rattled through the previous provisions at a rate of knots. We have done so because the Bill is not
controversial; we fully appreciate the need for it. However, it is our function to delve into the detail, both here and on Report, and we have identified matters that will most certainly need to be considered on Report. In general, the Bill is okay in its intentions; we support the amalgamation into the agency of the National Radiological Protection Board and the special health authority. That will be positive, despite concerns about how the NRPB feels about certain aspects of that, on which we shall no doubt touch later.
The clause drives at the heart of the Bill. It has to do with the purpose of the HPA. Why do we need the Health Protection Agency? What will be gained by combining the NRPB with the special health authority? What will that synergy lend to it? There needs to be some added value. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) said on Second Reading that if we continue to combine more and more things, ultimately everything in the Department of Health will merge—and what would be the point of that? Merging things is all well and good. It is a truism these days that amalgamation is good because it makes bodies co-operate better, but often that does not bear close inspection.
It would be helpful if the Minister laid out precisely how the functions of the constituent parts of the HPA will be enhanced. To be fair, she has touched on that, and it was mentioned on Second Reading. However, I am not as clear as I would like to be that the constituent parts of the HPA will function any better in an amalgamated body. To be honest, if we are not improving things, we might as well not have the Bill. I hark back to the remarks of my hon. Friend. They were not addressed; we did not get a clear account of how the functions of the HPA would be enhanced. The clause deals with those functions, and it is important that the Minister lays out how she and her right hon. and hon. Friends believe that their Bill will protect and improve public health.
It is also important that the Minister be absolutely clear in her mind about what the HPA will do; I have to say that I am not clear in mine. I understood initially that it was set up to address the novel threats faced by this country. We live in a sad old world in which—if the Prime Minister is to be believed—there is a terrorist at every turn and we are in imminent danger of attack. If that is the case, we need to protect against it. The HPA was set up to address such threats and novel diseases—the Minister helpfully referred to one of them in correspondence on the Human Tissue Bill. Those threats are obviously on the increase, and will probably continue to grow. I understood that the agency would address those threats specifically. We now find, however, that it might also have other functions that might augment the Government's public health effort. I make no comment about that.