Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 36:"Page 17, line 24, at end insert—" ““National Leadership and Innovations Agency for Healthcare.”” The noble Lord said: Government Amendment No. 36 responds positively to the public consultation on the Bill. It will enable the commissioner to review the discharge of functions of the National Leadership and Innovations Agency for Healthcare, a body that, in April 2006, will subsume Health Professions Wales, which is already listed in Schedule 2. I feel especially sure of the Committee’s support for the amendment, as the same body features in Amendment No. 37, standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Livsey of Talgarth and Lord Roberts of Llandudno. While I am on my feet and with the permission of the Committee, I shall deal with Amendments Nos. 39, 40, 61 and 63, also standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Livsey of Talgarth and Lord Roberts of Llandudno. They deal with reviews of Schedules 2 and 3 and add bodies to those schedules. Amendments Nos. 40 and 63 place a duty on the commissioner to review the lists of persons in Schedules 2 and 3 annually and to report those findings to the Assembly. The Bill already makes provision for the Assembly by order to amend Schedules 2 and 3 by adding, omitting or changing the description of a person. It would therefore appear to be more appropriate for any review of the list of persons on those schedules to be undertaken by the Assembly, in consultation with the commissioner. Amendments Nos. 37 and 39 would add several new bodies to the list of persons in Schedule 2 who are subject to the commissioner’s power to review the discharge of their functions. The air ambulance service and the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust are already included in Schedule 2 via the listing of,"““An NHS trust managing a hospital or other establishment or facility in Wales””." Therefore, there is no need to add them by name to the list. To add the words ““voluntary organisations”” in general to Schedule 2 and Schedule 3, as proposed in Amendment No. 61, would not only alter the scope of the Bill but would be at odds with the models of other commissioners and ombudsman, which focus on the accountability of bodies and persons who provide statutory services. Amendment No. 38, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and Amendment No. 39, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Livsey of Talgarth and Lord Roberts of Conwy, would give the commissioner a specific locus in non-devolved matters by listing in Schedule 2 bodies that operate on a UK-wide basis. The functions of those bodies have not been devolved to the Assembly. Here we find ourselves back in the territory that we visited last week in our first day in Committee. I explained then that the establishment of the commissioner and the functions of that office must, for obvious reasons, be consistent with the existing constitutional settlement. I hope that I made the Government’s policy clear. The Assembly Government understand and accept that position. I have to say at the outset of this second day that the Government’s position is simply not going to change. We shall, of course, have other opportunities to pursue the matter when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House. I hope that I shall not have to bore the Committee by rehearsing those points when we reach other amendments addressing similar matters and that, given what I have said, noble Lords will be able to withdraw their amendments. I beg to move.