[2nd Allocated Day]

My right hon. Friend is right to remind the House of the clarifying statement that was made before his Select Committee. That is what we want to encourage. We are listening to the results of the consultation exercise at the moment. Such people should be officers who report to the council and to the chief executive. Those are the issues that we are considering, and we will return to the matter. Amendment 1254 would require the local authority to obtain the agreement of the Secretary of State before dismissing its director of public health. Our view is that as the local authority is the employer, it is not appropriate for the Secretary of State to intervene directly. The Bill already requires local authorities to consult the Secretary of State before dismissing a director of public health, so there is a safeguard already built into the legislation. Amendment 1256 would require the director of public health to be suitably qualified. It is important to be clear that, as the Bill sets out, the director of public health must be jointly appointed by the Secretary of State, who can ensure that only appropriately qualified individuals are appointed. The amendment is therefore unnecessary. Amendments 1255, 1258, 1259 and 1260 would either replace references to the Secretary of State with references to Public Health England or confer new duties on Public Health England. In legal terms, Public Health England and the Secretary of State are the same thing, and Public Health England will not be provided for in primary legislation. It will be an executive agency, which makes amendments 1255 and 1260 superfluous. Amendments 1258 and 1259 would effectively require the director of public health to be employed by the Secretary of State. There is, I believe, widespread support for conferring new public health functions on local government in this area. As there is widespread support for that, it follows that local government should have the appropriate expertise and resources, rather than what my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) described, and rather than having to rely on central Government or agency support. Amendments 1242 and 1243 would extend co-operation duties for local authorities when exercising public health functions. Local authorities already have a number of co-operation duties relating to health and well-being, and new health and well-being boards will encourage integration of health and social care. The amendments would simply complicate matters unnecessarily. Amendments 1172 and 1173 would give the Secretary of State a duty to make arrangements for facilitating haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. That is unnecessary, because of the continuing functions of the Secretary of State, which we consider very important indeed. Those are provided for under proposed new paragraph 7C of schedule 1 to the National Health Service Act 2006. The amendments are therefore unnecessary. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who tabled them. We are also making a range of technical amendments to these clauses, with which I will not detain the House. If Members wish to have further information about those matters, I should point out that they were the subject of detailed briefings published last week to accompany the amendments.