Clause 3 - Radiation protection functions
Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Miss Melanie Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
The amendments would require all the functions exercisable by the NRPB at the date of commencement to be transferred automatically to the agency. Therefore, the appropriate authority would lose its discretion to decide whether the agency was a suitable home for the functions concerned both now and in the future. There would be no requirement to consult appropriate authorities. There would be no provision allowing the transfer to be revoked and the agency would have to carry out those functions until such time as the primary legislation was changed.
I do not think that is what the hon. Gentleman had in mind. I recognise the issues he is raising, but his amendment would not achieve the effect that he seeks. We will therefore not accept the amendment. The sentiment behind it is that the presumption should be that the functions that the NRPB currently carries out should transfer automatically to the agency. The Government share that general presumption, as the approach that we have taken in subsection (1) makes clear.
However, the functions on which we envisage issuing a direction under subsection (2) are different. They are not the functions given to the NRPB by the Radiological Protection Act 1970 or a core part of its business that could not be removed from it or from any successor body without compromising its independence or effectiveness. They are the administrative functions, which, over the years, it has been found convenient to have the NRPB, rather than the Department of Health, perform.
Some of the responses to the 2002 consultation paper were concerned that the agency should take these functions over from the NRPB. Subsection (2) allows for that to happen. That is probably not the hon. Gentleman's understanding, which is why he is looking so bemused by this. We have no wish to pursue the alternative of returning the functions to the Department of Health. That would be inconsistent with our view that the Department of Health should not perform functions that can be done better elsewhere.