Nursing and Midwifery (Amendment) Order 2008

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister. The clock ticked over on the second floor before I had a chance to get down to the Chamber. I heard most of what she said. I have read the order and the instructions that go with it, and I thank her for that explanation. This is another one of those occasions when one says, ““Oh no, not another reorganisation””. The impact of what is being proposed is far-reaching, and perhaps more far-reaching than one would think at first sight. To restructure the supervising body of any profession is not to be undertaken lightly. One might start by asking the Minister about the reconstitution of the Royal College of Midwives into a body of appointed members rather than elected members. I do not know whether this is in any way unique, but it seems to me that it is unusual for the Appointments Commission to be in a position of appointing professional people. My first question is, in terms of those who will be appointed, will the Appointments Commission use senior royal college members to act as adjudicators or judges of who is going to go forward? Who will it get to help with those appointments? Lay members are easier to appoint, because they have a completely different role to play, but professional members have a specific role. They will need to be people of the utmost quality. That needs to be carefully guarded. The other thing that struck me was the constitution. I understand that will be covered by yet another order, and I presume that it will be drawn up only after the new body has been formed; or is it to be formed now in conjunction with the current Nursing and Midwifery Council, before it is abolished? Which comes first; the chicken or the egg, in terms of the constitution? I know that the Royal College of Midwives has had concerns about the cancellation of the elections this year for England. I am now less concerned. I understand that it has an issue with that, but it seems to me that if you are going to make a change as major as this, you will want to put new people in place as soon as you can. I know that this is tied up with civil contingencies and all the problems associated with emergencies, but I found it rather odd to be picking out not-quite-registered members of the profession to be identified as being able to order drugs, or whatever was required. If we have an emergency such as a pandemic, it will require more than a few unregistered midwives to help with that. I suppose that other people will be used. Otherwise, this will be a strange and rather small addition to what has been proposed. My concerns are mostly about the appointment of the professional members and who will be appointing them. I would like to know a little bit more about those who will be involved if the emergency contingency was to happen—I hope that it never will.