Clause 239

Part of Health and Social Care Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:00 am on 31 March 2011.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Burstow Paul Burstow The Minister of State, Department of Health 10:00, 31 March 2011

My words were certainly not as described. I was referring to the bodies most likely to be the beneficiaries of the clause; they are the public bodies that I listed a moment ago. I then went on to say that it is certainly not the Government’s policy intention to do it in the way described by the hon. Lady.

Pharmaceutical companies can request information collections, but the Secretary of State can veto them. There is no direct relationship; a pharmaceutical company could not expect anything to be done by the information centre on its behalf. The safeguards and the enhanced transparency put in place by the Bill mean that any such collections by the information centre will be published in a register. We shall come later to the clauses that deal with the fact that the information centre has to set out all the information collections that it undertakes, even if they are not published. There will be much more information about what it is doing than hitherto.