Clause 93
Health and Social Care Bill
11:15 am
Sandra Gidley (Shadow Minister, Health; Romsey, Liberal Democrat)
I support the aim of the amendment. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned in his concluding comments, the clause as drafted has a lay list and a professional list. There seems to be no provision for the inclusion, even in the lay list, of someone who is legally qualified. Consequential amendments are needed if the principle of that argument is approved.
I, too, was taken by Lady Justice Smith’s oral evidence to the Committee. I do not want to repeat what the hon. Gentleman said, but the following comments of Lady Justice Smith are worth referring to:
“I believe in horses for courses and in professional expertise being matched to the nature of the tasks in hand. Chairing a disciplinary tribunal is a job for a legally qualified person, not a lay person.”
I assume by that she means a medically qualified person.
“Legally qualified people who appear in front of such tribunals are capable of running rings round the tribunal if no one on the panel is legally qualified. The proceedings would take a lot longer than they needed to if there was not a legally qualified chair. You would achieve a much higher standard of reasoned decision if you had a legally qualified chair because writing a judgment, which is what such a decision is, is a job that requires professional expertise.”——[Official Report, Health and Social Care Public Bill Committee, 8 Jan 2008; c. 37-8, Q64.]
I hold no particular brief for the legal profession, and I am not sure that lawyers were the best example to choose—a lot of people are unhappy with some of the fitness to practise decisions, but we are not here to discuss that. However, I was persuaded by the argument that the proposal would save time and be more effective, because somebody who has intimate knowledge of the law would be ahead of any panel, however well trained it was. There is always flux in the new panels as people usually serve on them only for a certain length of time.