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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Dubs for supporting this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, who is not in her place today, had tabled Amendments Nos. 62A to 62D, which seek to make further changes to government Amendment No. 62. Amendment No. 62A is intended to ensure that the right to review is extended to regulations setting measures against ““things or premises””. I can assure my noble friend that the provision does, in fact, already cover these measures. However, I understand that the technicalities of the drafting may not make this clear. I thank the noble Baroness and my noble friend for bringing this to our attention, and I am delighted to be able to say that I can accept the amendment. Amendment No. 62B seeks to extend the right of review to measures that are one-off measures and not measures that have a specified period. I sympathise with the sentiment. However, I believe that it is unnecessary to remove the wording in question. One-off measures—such as medical examination, or the requirement to disinfect a premises—already have a safeguard at new Section 45F(6). This provision allows an individual the right of appeal. If the individual disagrees with a one-off measure, the appropriate action is to appeal against it, not to seek a review. Amendment No. 62C seeks to install a sunset clause so that regulations containing measures to detain, quarantine or isolate individuals must be remade every 12 months and must lapse when there is no longer a serious and imminent threat. I hope that I have reassured my noble friend that this amendment is not needed because these measures can be imposed only if there is a serious and imminent threat. Therefore, it is unnecessary to state in a provision that the regulation must fall when no threat is present, because these powers could not be used if there was no longer a threat. We have also spoken a lot about SARS during our debates on this part of the Bill, and it is worth remembering that the SARS outbreak lasted for more than two years. If a similar outbreak occurred, it would be appropriate for provisions to be in place for longer than a year at a time. Amendment No. 62D seeks to require that all reviews are carried out by a magistrate or, "““another named independent and impartial tribunal””." As I explained in Grand Committee, the reason for not leaving the review power with a magistrate is that the purpose of new Sections 45C and 45D is to provide central powers to deal with serious and imminent threats when it may be appropriate to enable a decision-maker other than a justice of the peace to take key decisions at the relevant time. The amendment could have the effect that, in a widespread emergency, justices of the peace could be overrun with applications that could better be determined by an authorised officer applying centrally set criteria under carefully drafted regulations. My noble friend proposes that this problem could be avoided by allowing for independent and impartial named tribunals to hear reviews. Our provision allows the review to be heard by a person determined in accordance with the regulations. That means that the regulations must set out who should be allowed to carry out reviews, and Parliament will be able to debate the appropriateness of these reviewers when the regulations are debated as part of the affirmative procedure. I am not clear what is meant by the term ““named tribunal””, but the provision we have offers a sound safeguard for individuals subject to measures under these regulations. Let us not forget that the review is a safeguard in addition to the right to appeal to a magistrate under new Section 45F. I hope that, in the light of my explanation and the significant government amendments I have already tabled to address noble Lords’ concerns, my noble friend will agree to withdraw the amendments with the exception of Amendment No. 62A, which, as I have indicated, I am happy to accept. On Question, amendment agreed to.