Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for providing us with a further opportunity to debate the future of these two bodies. As is clear, these amendments would have the effect of putting the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority outside the scope of the Public Bodies Bill. The Government recognise that a number of your Lordships remain unconvinced of the merits of our plans to reform these arm’s-length bodies. The concerns that various speakers have raised are ones that we have debated previously and are therefore familiar. I hope, nevertheless, that I can address them. To begin, I strongly feel that we cannot continue with the parallel systems of regulation that are currently running. There must be some scope for rationalisation and relieving the overall burden on those regulated. However, in looking to achieve that, I fully recognise the need to retain regulatory rigour and expertise in the fields of embryology and human tissue. I therefore offer further reassurance on those issues that have proved of most concern: the retention of expertise, public consultation and the potential savings offered by our proposals. First, expertise will not be lost. It is envisaged that the expertise invested in individuals will follow functions —for instance, through staff transfers and establishing expert reference groups. There will be a carefully managed transition between regulators, which will ensure that key skills and knowledge are passed on to receiving organisations. Secondly, there will be extensive consultation later in the summer on where functions are best transferred and, subsequently, on the orders to effect the transfers. We envisage that our consultation will cover two main areas. It will set out our proposals for the transfer of the regulation of treatment and research, and set out the options and considerations for other functions where there may be several different possible destinations, such as those related to the collection and sharing of information or policy decision-making. Let me be clear that these functions, which are required under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and the Human Tissue Act, will continue. A number of your Lordships have voiced the fear that, for instance, the HFEA’s registers and databases will be dissipated or lost. That will not happen. The consultation document will set out a number of different options for how these functions might be delivered in the future, and we will listen to people’s views about this. I can reassure the House that, in considering how to transfer functions, we will want to maintain the best aspects of the current regulatory system and avoid action that might undermine them. Thirdly, I turn to financial savings. Together, the budgets for the HFEA and the HTA total £13.6 million. Through the streamlining of regulatory functions, we envisage scope for savings in three areas. The first will be in grant-in-aid for reduced overall running costs. The second will be for the regulated bodies in licence fees. The third will be for those bodies in the preparation and demonstration of compliance with the regulatory system. A leading clinician licensed by the HFEA recently said: "““We pay over £100,000 per annum in fees to the HFEA. Since 80% of our work is NHS funded that means that over £80,000 of the money that the PCT pays for fertility treatments goes straight to the HFEA””." That is money which in large measure could be saved and used to deliver healthcare to patients. The department will undertake more detailed analysis of current costs and potential savings to inform an impact assessment which will be developed as part of the consultation process, so the whole set of equations will be transparent.