Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
10:30 am
Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)
The Whip shakes his head, as is his wont. He would be in trouble with the Whips’ union if he did not. We are looking forward to the debate on this interesting topic.
I turn to our slight concern about the programme motion and the reason why the Conservatives object to it. It is a bit rushed. We all know that calling witnesses, particularly to give oral evidence, was always going to involve a squeeze in the parliamentary legislative procedure, but it is necessary to get it off and running well in the first place, and we are not certain that that has happened.
In order for there to be sensible consideration of who ought to give evidence and to give witnesses time to rearrange their diaries accordingly, a certain amount of time is necessary. We are concerned that that has not been given. Progress was unduly hasty from Second Reading to the meeting of the Programming Sub-Committee, which is meant to make such decisions, and to this first Committee sitting. Second Reading was last Monday, the Programming Sub-Committee met on Thursday and here we are on Tuesday expecting people to be ready to come and give evidence.
Our point is that further consideration might have helped us. The Minister is right to say that a range of witnesses will be attending today and on Thursday, but there could have been more. Further time might have allowed the Committee to consider adding one or two. Our suggested witnesses included London Councils, which will be appearing; the parliamentary boundary commission, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities for their experience of regionalisation; Professor Michael Chisholm, to whom the Clerks’ briefing notes to the House referred for his work on the costs involved in local government reorganisation; Professor Tony Travers, who I suspect needs no introduction because of his knowledge of local government finance; Gordon Keymer, the head of the Local Government Association, who will be appearing this afternoon; and Michael Lyons, whose knowledge of local government finance is second only to that of Tony Travers.
Michael Lyons could have enlightened us about the continuing debate about which cart comes before which horse—whether we should be listening to him about the financial structure of local government or to others about the structure of local government to which he will apply his financial structure. There has been an interesting debate that could cut both ways, but it might have been enlightening to listen to what he thought and probe him with questions about the financial structure. Our point is that it is difficult now to decide on two-tier and unitary structure issues without knowing precisely what financial regime will be operating shortly.
We thought that hearing from Christopher Booker from The Sunday Telegraph might have been interesting, with his knowledge of the Standards Board and of ethics in particular, about which he has written extensively. We thought that Health Link might be involved, and it will be appearing. We suggested a think tank called Involve, as well as the Socialist Health Association in order to see whether it still had any chums among Labour Members.
Only in the last couple of days, we all received an e-mail from Gill Morgan of the NHS Confederation. Her absence is a potentially serious hole in our deliberations. If we had had a little more time, perhaps we would have thought of calling the NHS Confederation to give us its experience and wisdom, particularly concerning part 11 of the Bill and the issues of patient and public involvement. The possibility also arises that we might see Gill Morgan later in the Committee. I note that the guide given to us by the Chairman of Ways and Means includes a paragraph that states:
“Although the Committee is expected to take oral evidence at the start of its proceedings, there is no procedural reason why it may not return to evidence-taking later in its consideration of the Bill.”
Bearing in mind that the Bill is neatly drawn into local government and public health elements, it might be convenient to retain some flexibility in how we handle it, and to consider at some later stage whether Gill Morgan and the NHS Confederation might come along.