UK Parliament / Open data

Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2013

My Lords, we had many debates in the House and in this Committee on the Health and Social Care Act, and the noble Lord will remember the lengthy debates on the Bill itself. In this Session debates have taken place on secondary legislation that puts in place key elements of the new system. Most recently, we debated the NHS Bodies and Local Authorities (Partnership Arrangements, Care Trusts, Public Health and Local Healthwatch) Regulations

on 5 February and the draft Local Authorities (Public Health Functions and Entry to Premises by Local Healthwatch Representatives) Regulations on 7 February.

This draft order, however, is very different from those sets of regulations. It is short, and it raises no new issues of substance. Since it seeks to amend primary legislation, it is right and proper that it is subject to affirmative resolution. But it is made under a narrow power to,

“make provision in consequence of the Act”.

I cannot claim that the amendments it makes are of significant interest. They are minor adjustments, needed as a direct consequence of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. They help to keep the statute book up to date and coherent, but they involve no new policies. Consistently with this, neither the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments nor the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has seen a need to draw special attention to the draft order. That confirms that the amendments in the order are indeed consequential on the Act.

Because the order is brief and amends only a few pieces of legislation, it may be helpful if I explain the reason for the amendments to each Act in turn. I will start with the simplest. Section 403 of the Education Act 1996 refers to an NHS body within the meaning of Section 28(6) of the National Health Service Act 2006. Following the amendments to the 2006 Act made by the Health and Social Care Act, this is now Section 275(1). The draft order amends the cross-reference in the Education Act accordingly.

The order amends two other Acts by removing references to primary care trusts. These bodies are being abolished by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 on 1 April 2013, so it makes no sense to keep references to them on the statute book.

The first of the Acts in question is the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994. Schedule 2 to this Act identifies the vehicles that are exempt from vehicle excise duty. Currently a vehicle is exempt when it is being used or kept on the road by, among others, a primary care trust or by,

“a health service body, as defined in section 60(7) of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990”.

The definition of “health service body” in Section 60(7) currently includes strategic health authority.

Schedule 5 to the Health and Social Care Act already removes the reference to “strategic health authority” from the definition of “health service body” in Section 60(7) of the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. Consistently with that, the draft order now removes the reference to primary care trust from the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act.

The second Act is the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Section 130 of this Act identifies circumstances in which local authorities may use or disclose information about certain benefit claimants, including when the claimant is in hospital accommodation provided by an NHS trust, a foundation trust or a primary care trust. Again, the draft order removes the reference to “a primary care trust” without replacement. The Health

and Social Care Act creates no new provider bodies, so it is not necessary to replace this reference to a primary care trust.

I turn next to the Audit Commission Act 1998. The amendments to this Act look more complex because they amend a number of provisions, but their purpose is very simple. The Audit Commission Act is best known for setting out the audit framework for local authorities, which also applies, with some differences, to health service bodies. As matters currently stand, however, the Health and Social Care Act provides for clinical commissioning groups’ accounts to be audited by the Audit Commission in accordance with the Audit Commission Act, but the Audit Commission Act itself does not apply to clinical commissioning groups. These are the new bodies that are being established under the Health and Social Care Act to commission the majority of secondary healthcare. The draft order therefore amends the Audit Commission Act to ensure that its requirements for health service bodies apply to clinical commissioning groups. The amendments also recognise the role of the NHS Commissioning Board in relation to clinical commissioning groups. For example, if an auditor of a clinical commissioning group thinks that there has been unlawful expenditure, the auditor must notify the Commissioning Board in addition to the Secretary of State.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
743 cc165-7GC 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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