Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 11:30 am on 9 October 2003.

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Photo of Earl Howe Earl Howe Conservative 11:30, 9 October 2003

I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 26 and 29 standing in my name. The public constituency works on the basis of members nominating themselves for membership and the hospital accepting the nomination, or not, as the case may be. Providing that they are accepted, all they then have to do to become members is undertake to pay #1 if called upon to do so at some time in the future. I differ slightly from the interpretation put on this part of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—and, I think, from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—in that what it says is that one has to undertake to pay #1, not actually pay it. I cannot imagine that the #1 will be collected by anyone; surely it is just a token contingent liability. While the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, speaks in terms of needing to have a visible sign of commitment, I think that this provision is not that. It is not a sign of commitment; it is only a token. I think that the Minister really does have to explain what on earth the point of it is.

We see from paragraph 5(2) that members can be disqualified. However, I should like to ask the Minister how and in what circumstances that could happen. It is not clear. It would be helpful if the Minister could bring us in on the Government's thinking. Surely it cannot mean that a hospital could exclude someone simply by virtue of the opinions they might hold on a moral issue such as abortion or stem cell research or the opinions they might hold on prioritising the care of patients afflicted with a particular condition. What are the implications of having different exclusion rules for different foundation trusts? I am troubled by that thought.

If the system underpinning the entitlement to vote is to be genuinely fair, this might be an area where there ought at least to be guidance from the Government—if not anything on the face of the Bill—to indicate what kind of exclusions a trust should countenance.