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Health and Social Care Bill

This has been an interesting debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Onslow for making a perfectly valid point, because, as explained by the Minister, money is taken away from the provider, but it is the provider who perhaps needs that money to look after patients. This story will run a little. The Minister made some helpful comments on the amendments. She said that she was not drawn towards the option of a prison sentence as an alternative to a fine, and I think that she said that the Government did not consider this option appropriate or necessary. I am not sure that I heard a logical, underpinning argument for that point of view, except that, in the eyes of the Government, a failure on the part of a provider to be registered in the first place is a more heinous offence, where a prison sentence could be appropriate. I am not sure that that hierarchy of heinousness is necessarily self-evident or would command common agreement, so this could be an issue to which we return later. On Amendments Nos. 109A and 109B, it is simply wrong to set up a system of unenforceable penalties. Of course, the unspoken—or perhaps even explicit—threat is that if you do not pay up, you will be taken to court. However, you will not be taken to court for failure to pay the penalty, but for breaching the regulations governing registration. One must ask how ethical or proper it is for the threat of a more severe penalty to be used as a lever to force someone to comply with a less severe penalty. If the less severe penalty is regarded as the appropriate sanction for the offence in question, then that framework of penalties should stand or fall on its own terms. That surely means having a set of safeguards of the kind outlined by my noble friend Lord Goodlad, treating fixed penalties as a self-contained, free-standing system of sanctions quite separate from a prosecution taken through the courts. This is quite an important point of principle. I am left feeling somewhat uneasy by the Minister’s reply. While I shall of course reflect on what she has said, it will be illuminating to see what my noble friend Lord Goodlad has to say in response to the letter that has been sent to him. For the time being, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 61 not moved.] Clause 29 agreed to. Clause 30 [Offences relating to suspension or cancellation of registration]: [Amendment No. 62 not moved.] Clause 30 agreed to. Clause 31 [Contravention of regulations]: [Amendment No. 62ZA not moved.] Clause 31 agreed to. Clauses 32 and 33 agreed to. Clause 34 [Provision of copies of registers]: