Clause 11 - remit
Human Tissue Bill
10:15 am
Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
Amendment No. 29 effectively would delete subsection (4), the purpose of which was initially to test the question of what the Ministers had in mind by adding to the activities. We have learned from the previous debate what Ministers have in mind as a possibility of adding to the activities within the remit of the authority.
On amendment No. 30, there remains the substantive question; why it is the Government's intention to have the power to add to the activities within the remit of the authority, but not to be able to vary, omit or add to activities in relation to other matters, such as scheduled purposes within the remit
of the authorities, as we have seen illustrated? Although there were changes in the scheduled purposes, by extension they would automatically change so far as the remit of the authority was concerned. It may be that as time goes on and in ways we cannot yet determine, the authority will see a necessity not only for additional activities, but to vary the terms in which its activities are defined, or even omit some of those activities.
In so far as the scientific and research community and the commercial biotechnologies industries are concerned, the licensing regime and the requirements of the authority create some burdens. It is desirable to contemplate, in the long run, that the authority may wish to pursue a deregulatory path at some point. It may be that it will want to retain activities within its remit but behave in a different way. However, current legislation may not allow it to do so. It may be that the only way in which to pursue a self-regulatory path would be to remove activities from the remit of the authority. At the moment there seems to be no mechanism for that to happen, even if the authority were satisfied, in practice, that some activities were capable of being conducted in a perfectly lawful manner without being licensed and regulated by the authorities.
Amendment No. 30 opens up the possibility that the authority could have a deregulatory intent with the consent of the Secretary of State at some future point, as well as responding to changes in circumstances with regard to these activities.