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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Trimble is as ever a powerful advocate for devolved decision-making in Northern Ireland, and I almost always align myself with what he has to say on the subject. However, on this occasion I hope he will forgive me if I sound a dissenting note. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, I feel firmly that one area of policy that we really should not attempt to subject to devolution is the regulation of healthcare professionals. My noble friend may say that he does not propose devolution in the full sense, but the amendment would provide for decision-making in this area to be vested not only in Westminster but in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That would open up the potential for a different regulatory scheme to apply in the Province from that which applies on the UK mainland. The central issue is that we need absolute confidence that the system of regulation that is applied across the United Kingdom is uniform, so that, as the noble Baroness said, members of the public can be sure that, wherever they are, the healthcare professionals who look after them are regulated to the same high standard. They should be able to know that no country in the UK has a regulatory system that is weaker or worse resourced than any other. I do not necessarily wish to imply that the Northern Ireland Assembly would want a weaker or worse resourced system of regulation, but we should not open up the potential for that. I was interested in what my noble friend had to say about the BMA in Northern Ireland. I can say only that the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland oppose the amendment for the reasons that I have given. I also share the noble Baroness’s observations about healthcare professionals and the ease of moving around the UK for work. That should not be forgotten. We should not facilitate a situation in which extra regulatory hurdles could spring up in one part of the UK that acted as obstacles to taking up a job in that part of the country. The current UK-wide system gives us all consistency and certainty, and I hope that my noble friend will not wish to press his amendment to a vote.