Health Bill

There is a convention that the provisions of an Act of Parliament should not normally be commenced until at least two months after Royal Assent. The purpose of this convention is to ensure that those who are affected by a legislative change have sufficient warning to adjust their behaviour accordingly. That is conducive both to ensuring that the law is applied in a fair way and to preserving legal certainty. The Health Bill will be no exception in that respect, with Clause 82(1) setting out a few technical provisions, mainly needed to make the Act work, which will come into force on Royal Assent. The provisions in Clause 73, on transfer of criminal liabilities of certain NHS bodies, will also come into force on Royal Assent as it is entirely in the public interest for there to be no undue delay in the provisions taking legal effect. However, the Government’s view is that the commencement of regulation-making powers either on Royal Assent or shortly after does not breach the convention, provided that the coming-into-force date of the regulations does not fall within the two month period governed by the convention. It is of course only when the regulations come into force that they have any legal effect. As I am sure the Committee will appreciate, it is very often desirable to be able to make regulations well in advance of the main provisions of an Act coming into force, as the noble Earl indicated. For example, it is clearly in the interests of the industry to have sight of the final content of the smoke-free regulations permitted under Part 1, Chapter 1, as far in advance of the summer 2007 coming-into-force date as possible. It would therefore make no sense if regulations were ready to go but could not be made or, in the case of any affirmative regulations, scrutinised by Parliament until two months after Royal Assent. That would be to no one’s benefit. The Bill as drafted would already allow us to commence such regulation-making powers early through the laying of separate commencement orders; in other words, orders that simply switched on the powers to make regulations in advance of the main provisions being commenced. However, we believe that that approach is unnecessarily bureaucratic and would be unhelpful to the reader of the Act, who would be required to search out extra commencement orders which did nothing apart from switch on regulation-making powers. Amendment No. 104A therefore automatically switches on all regulation and order-making powers in the Bill on Royal Assent. We believe that this is a much less bureaucratic approach than going down the individual commencement order route and will provide greater clarity to the Act. Of course, in line with the convention, any regulations would not have a coming-into-force date any sooner than two months after Royal Assent. Given that no one stands to gain anything from the switching on of regulation-making powers through separate commencement orders, we have decided to apply this amendment to all subordinate legislation in the Bill with the exception of Clause 35(2). The Scottish Executive has indicated its wish to retain control of when that provision is commenced. Finally, I should add that a similar provision was included in the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. Quite why we did not therefore include such a provision in this Bill from the outset I am not really sure. In answer to the noble Earl, the regulations will be laid as soon as possible, but in draft form. That may assuage some of his concerns. In view of the clear desire expressed by the noble Earl and his indication that other noble Lords would wish to discuss this amendment more fully, I suggest that this amendment be withdrawn with a view to bringing it back on Report.