I want to support new clause 12, although the Minister has made his case for turning it down. I think it is important that we build a review stage into the devolution of health simply because the implications of the Bill for the English NHS and social care system are not clear. The Bill regulates for important new powers to remove functions from NHS hospitals, commissioners and other bodies and to transfer them to the local regional authority. Depending on the implementation, interpretation and limits of the powers, such transfers might fundamentally reshape the health service in the years to come. We must ensure that the national health service stays national. We do not want a postcode lottery for healthcare.
Accountability and scrutiny remain crucial for a well-run national health service, delivering the best care it can for everyone no matter where they live. The Bill’s light-touch nature and the pace with which the agenda is moving leave a number of crucial and unresolved questions, some of which I would now like to ask. Will central and regional government argue over the responsibility for meeting population needs and making difficult decisions, such as those on whether to close hospitals or prop up overspending healthcare providers? What will happen to neighbouring areas?
Deals permissible under the Bill create the possibility of NHS funding melting into wider regional authority budgets, making ring-fencing or protecting impossible. Given the importance of healthcare spending as an issue, it needs clarity and scrutiny. Devolution to combined authorities under the Bill might actually have a centralising effect for many health and social care functions, taking power away from councils that represent smaller communities and the clinical commissioning groups that represent clinicians. Although that might be desirable in some cases, it is also important to consider how the positive developments brought to health and social care by these bodies can be preserved.
Clauses 7, 16 and 17 allowed the piecemeal transfer of health care commissioning responsibilities from clinical commissioning groups and NHS England to local government. I am concerned about the impact that will have on the NHS, especially as regards local variation in service levels, further allocation of resources and the cross-border impact of decisions. The Opposition believe that there should be a statutory duty on the Secretary of State for Health to secure and provide universal health care and that core national NHS standards should remain in place.