Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 83:"Page 28, line 31, leave out from ““may”” to ““to”” in line 32 and insert ““by order make provision for a Primary Care Trust””" The noble Earl said: Amendments Nos. 83, 84 and 85 pick up a concern raised by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform, which commented that the power given to the Secretary of State and the Assembly in Clause 33 to set a fee for applying to go on the list of providing pharmaceutical services is exercisable not by regulations, but by directions in writing. There is therefore no parliamentary control whatever over the setting of these fees. Like the committee, I do not believe that we can let this go by without comment. Indeed, I seriously question why it is not appropriate for both the fees themselves and the formulae for arriving at them to be subject to the negative resolution procedure so that they do at least come before Parliament. There are numerous other examples of fees and fee scales being subject to a negative statutory instrument, so what is different about these? I beg to move.