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Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments and Practitioner Psychologists) Order 2009

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their perceptive and interesting questions and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her wise words. Perhaps I should start with the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. At no point have I used the word ““modernise””; at no point have I used the word ““codifying””. The Government are not intervening for the sake of it, but to ensure patient safety and higher standards. The figures that I shall cite later show that the vast majority of psychologists support this move. The figures speak for themselves. The noble Viscount would have patients take their chances with anyone who cared to call himself a psychologist, dentist, chiropodist or whatever, but his party would be the first to scream when anyone came to harm. The noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, are much more experienced than I in dealing with this issue, as both of them observed. In the noble Lord’s Private Member’s Bill of 2001, his views were supported by the noble Earl. The work that has been done has no doubt proved helpful in clarifying thinking about how psychologists should be regulated, what standards should be used and the role of professional bodies in that regulation. I take on board the point that the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made about the time that this has taken. I agree with him; he has a very good point there; there is no doubt about that. The noble Earl said that the road down which we are now starting with the regulation of psychologists may lead to the standardisation of talking therapies. That is a legitimate question, but there is no evidence that regulation in other areas has stultified the work of those professions. In this profession, which is based on talking, it is even less likely that that will be the case. To deal with the specific question raised by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice—why did we in the end reject the idea of a psychological therapists council?—both noble Lords gave the answer themselves. In the 2007 White Paper we set out a policy of no new regulators. No one to date has persuaded us to the contrary. The HPC has a very good record as a professional regulator.