Clause 75
Health and Social Care Bill
Public Bill Committees, 17 January 2008, 3:30 pm
Stephen O'Brien (Shadow Minister, Health; Eddisbury, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 44, in clause 75, page 37, line 6, at end add—
‘(5) Subsection (2) does not confer on the Secretary of State the power to prevent the Commission conducting reviews.’.
Under clause 75, the commission
“must...prepare and publish a document setting out”
the reviews it proposes to undertake. Subsection (2) provides that
“the Commission must consult...the Secretary of State”
on the document. The amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from using the consultation as an opportunity to block certain reviews.
The clause highlights the privileged position of the Secretary of State in relation to the commission. It must be patent by now that we have sought to remove the Secretary of State’s powers in order to make the CQC a genuinely and transparently independent body. I have just one question for the Minister: what is the purpose of consultations under subsection (2), and could the clause be used by the Secretary of State to block reviews, however necessary people feel them to be?