I shall be very brief. First, I assure my hon. Friend that if he wants a definition of ““fraudulent””, ““homicidal”” or anything of that sort, I will do my best to oblige him, but ““connection”” is not an area in which I hold myself out as having any expertise, so I hope that the Minister can help us.
I wonder whether the Minister can also help on another short matter. Clearly, the orders are quite wide ranging and can make provision for a large number of matters, but is it envisaged that this change in the clauses, and what is on the face of it a significant extension of powers, will have any impact on the scrutiny of any of these arm’s length organisations? The definitions refer to the entity’s position in accounting terms, but nothing is said about scrutiny. It may be that it is not intended that there should be any change, to follow up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). If part of the justification relates to the operation of these organisations in the past, has failure or difficulty of scrutiny been any part of that? Can the Minister assure us that none of the changes would diminish scrutiny of any organisations in which significant sums of public money may be invested, in whatever fashion?
Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Robert Neill
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 22 May 2007.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill.
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2006-07Chamber / Committee
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