Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment very briefly. It is a minor and technical amendment that would clarify the Secretary of State's power to commence the provisions of the Bill relating to clinical commissioning groups. The amendment would apply when it was clear that one or more clinical commissioning groups established before 1 April 2013 would not receive any income nor incur or commit any expenditure directly during the period between their establishment and 31 March 2013. In that event the Secretary of State could when making the order commencing the provisions of the Bill about clinical commissioning groups disapply the accounting and audit requirements for that period. This avoids such CCGs having to create blank accounts for that period, which we do not think is a sensible approach. I beg to move.