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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply to my amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, will no doubt speak in relation to hers. I am afraid that I do not find the response convincing in a number of respects. In the first place, on the status of Public Health England as an executive agency, she did not really deal with the Cabinet Office guidelines, which I remind your Lordships state that an executive agency should be a clearly designated unit responsible for undertaking executive functions of the department that established it as distinct from giving policy advice. If, as I apprehend, it is the intention that Public Health England should give policy advice, it should not be an executive agency. If on the other hand the Government's position is that it should not give policy advice, it is a significant departure from what we have hitherto understood the role of Public Health England to be and certainly from the current arrangements. That would not be acceptable to this side and, I suspect, to other Members of your Lordships' House. In anticipation of the Minister's reply, I raised the question of income. She referred to the possibility of raising income but did not set out in any detail the proposals which we had anticipated being forthcoming in light of the Government's previous statement that they would explain clearly how the income-raising capacity of the organisation would be maintained.