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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 92 and 93 in part in a spirit of helpfulness—I hope that is the case—to the Minister as I have traversed the same ground as him on Department of Health arm’s-length bodies. In 2003-04, I was the Minister who reviewed DH arm’s-length bodies and halved their number. Therefore, I cannot claim to be against reducing the number of Department of Health arm’s-length bodies. Indeed, my sins are fully catalogued by this Government in annexe B of their document on the arm’s-length body review, which was published last year. Therefore, I own up fully to these past misdemeanours. However, as I have previously said about the Government’s own arm’s-length body review, although I do not necessarily agree with every aspect of it, it comprises a serious, comprehensive, clear and coherent set of proposals, unlike some of the things which emerged from other departments under this Bill. Therefore, I do not in any way wish to argue that it was not a thorough piece of work. I must confess also to proposing in my review a merger of the HFEA and the Human Tissue Authority into what we then called a regulatory authority for fertility and tissue. I still think that that has some attractions and do not necessarily think that we got that wrong. However, I recommended to John Reid—then Health Secretary and now the noble Lord, Lord Reid—that we abandon that merger idea because it seemed that the aggro involved in achieving it was disproportionate to the gains that we would achieve. This House was very active in persuading us to change our minds, and I recall that the Lord Speaker was a vigorous opponent of that change in her then role as chair of the HTA. However, the coalition Government have been rather more ambitious and, if I may say so, a bit less savvy in suggesting a kind of dicing and slicing of the functions of the two bodies between the CQC, the MHRA, the NHS Information Centre and a new health research regulator. I admire the courage and ambition of the noble Earl on this issue, but I fear that he may have overreached himself. However, I totally support his and the Government’s idea of a new health research regulator to bring some better order into ethical approvals, the EU clinical trials directive and data protection. Speeding up approvals of health research and clinical trials is important for patient benefit and UK plc. I spent a lot of my time as a Minister trying to speed up these systems, and the Government are to be congratulated on having another and probably more successful go. Here I must declare another interest. The Government asked the Academy of Medical Sciences to look at the idea of a single health research regulator, and the academy’s report in response is on its website. I was a member of the academy’s external review group that commented on the draft report. If one looks at the final version of that report—I draw the Minister’s and the House’s attention to page 89 in particular—one will see no mention of bringing the functions of the HFEA or the HTA into the new health research agency recommended by the academy. My reading of the report is that the case for the new health research agency seems not to be dependent on taking into it functions from the HFEA and the HTA, as distinct from the other six or seven bodies mentioned by the academy in its report. The Minister may want to clarify that issue. Finally, perhaps I may deal with the transfer of licensing functions from the HTA and the HFEA to the CQC, which my noble friend mentioned. The Government have proposed in their arm’s-length body review document that this should happen. However, the role of the CQC will become even more onerous under its new remit arising from the Government’s health and social care reforms. I make no criticism of that extended role, but the CQC will have a lot on its plate over the next few years. I ask the Government to consider whether it really makes a lot of sense to transfer even more functions to the CQC from two well established licensing systems run by the HFEA and the HTA. I do not doubt that there are efficiencies to be gained in both organisations. My advice to the Minister, for what it is worth, would be to require those two bodies to reduce their back-office costs by reducing their budgets and the sharing of back-office services, and have an independent look at their licensing processes to see if they can be streamlined. However, the brands of these two bodies are very strong among the public and in a lot of other areas, and they have many powerful supporters. I can still remember the parents of Alder Hey children keeping a very beady eye on me as I took the Human Tissue Bill, which set up the HTA, through your Lordships’ House in 2004. These two bodies handle very sensitive issues and they are not necessarily essential for setting up a new health research regulator. I would leave them alone, apart from securing some efficiency gains. That is why I support the amendment.