Schedule 1 - Health Protection Agency
Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
Dr Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Public Services, Health & Education; Westbury, Conservative)
Schedule 1 is quite a big schedule. It sets out in some detail the way in which the Health Protection Agency will be structured—how it will run, how it will be financed, and so on. We clearly need to get it right. To return for one moment to the Minister's
previous remarks, I fear that she may be setting herself up as a hostage to fortune. I shall look carefully at the Bill as it goes through its various stages, particularly in the light of the review expected next month, to see whether any changes are required following the expected abolition of some bodies. We shall see.
With this group of amendments, I am trying to address the latitude that the schedule gives on a number of counts. Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17 are probing amendments. I suggest that the Bill should specify the number of the categories of the agency's members detailed in paragraphs 1(1)(c) and (d). That is not because I think that there should necessarily be 12 non-executive members or six executive members, but we need to know what sort of size the Minister envisages for such an important body. That is why I have suggested inserting 12 and six and deleting ''the prescribed number'', which is such a number as the Secretary of State prescribes by regulation.
Regulations are tricky little numbers and we should give them to Secretaries of State sparingly. [Interruption.]