The hon. Lady makes an important point. I was referring to the fact identified by the Public Accounts Committee in its concerns about collecting what is due, but I take her point that many people pay for their own health provision while in the UK.
My point further reinforces the rationale of restricting the scope of this Bill to the EEA and Switzerland, which will help to ensure the priority is to improve the recovery of healthcare costs, where they are due, before we even begin to think of entering into non-EEA agreements.
We, of course, welcome the Government’s decision to remove the Henry VIII powers from this Bill. We repeatedly return to that issue in this raft of Brexit legislation, and I hope now, and certainly in connection with this Bill, that the Government agree it can never be right to confer on any Minister the same powers as are conferred on Parliament.
I understand that the Minister has a big vision and wants to take this opportunity to extend the current arrangements and to present a Bill that allows the Government to enter into any number of new reciprocal health agreements with any and every nation of the world, should they so choose. There could be a time and a place for such legislation, but it is not now because time is so short. There is not time for Parliament to scrutinise such an extensive range of proposals properly for such wide-ranging powers.
Our noble Friends raised some very reasonable concerns on that point, and they are correct to note the comments of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee when it concluded that the Bill, in its original form, gave law-making powers that were too wide. Our noble Friends were right to give serious consideration to the Constitution Committee’s recommendation that the scope of the Bill should be limited to countries that participate in the existing EHIC scheme:
“While the exceptional circumstances of the UK’s departure from the European Union might justify legislation containing broader powers than would otherwise be constitutionally acceptable, this does not extend to giving effect to new policy unrelated to Brexit.”
Above all, we now have a Bill that does what was intended: to ensure the continuation of the current reciprocal healthcare arrangements with the nations of the EU and the EEA. Given that that is the Bill’s principal target, there is no need to give the Bill worldwide scope.
I am pleased to join the Minister in giving our full support to the amended Bill before us.
2.45 pm