Clause 4 - Functions: supplementary
Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
Dr Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Public Services, Health & Education; Westbury, Conservative)
I commend the brevity of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats. I, too, will attempt to be brief.
This matter was chewed over in Grand Committee, and the form of words that we now have is the result of their Lordships' deliberations. However, there is still a little bit of confusion about what is meant by subsections (7) and (8). I hope that as a result of my probing amendments, the Minister will be able to expand on their provisions.
I understand that the agency will be a non-departmental public body, clearly distinct from a special health authority. It will therefore have a great deal more independence than the special health authority has now. That being so, powers of direction come into play. Subsections (7) and (8) seem to make it possible for the agency to be directed by the authority in a way that is not particularly well defined. The Grand Committee made play of the provision that the agency should ''have regard'' to the authority's policy when exercising its functions. That concerns me.
Amendment No. 11 teases the Minister by suggesting that that somewhat meaningless provision should be removed. We need to decide what is meant. Will the authority be able to tell the agency to do such and such, or to read its policy on this, that and the other? If so, we need to know who is to decide whether the agency has not had regard to a particular policy, what veto the authority might have, and under what circumstances it might be used. I am a little unhappy about that, and further work might be needed to clarify the relationship between the agency and the authority.
Amendment No. 23 is of a similar genre, so I shall not expand on it. I hope that I have made my purpose clear. I should be grateful to the Minister if she clarified the relationship between the agency and the authority.