My Lords, we discussed at Second Reading the general concern that the Bill extends amendments aimed at the provision of health service medicines to provisions relating to medical supplies. Subsequently, the Minister has written to us to explain that,
“section 260 of the NHS Act 2006 already provides the Secretary of State with powers to control prices of medical supplies and to require companies to provide information on any aspect of their business. Clause 5 of the Bill ensures that the enforcement and territorial provisions for any scheme concerning medical supplies are aligned with those for health service medicines, including changing non-compliance from a criminal to a civil offence … While the Government is currently not using its powers to control prices of medical supplies … it is important that we continue to have these powers”.
I have to say that, so far, I am not convinced. Will the Minister confirm that the section of the NHS Act 2006 to which he referred is essentially a consolidation measure, which merely restates the provision introduced some years before? Indeed, with the help of the Library, it seems that the measure was first introduced in 1977. There seems to be no reference in Hansard as to the reasons that it was then introduced, although it is thought that it was part of the debates on the Bill on the status of private patients in the NHS. Looking back to those happy days, one can only imagine the debates that we had. The point is that the power has never been used: it was legislated for 40 years ago and it has never been used.
I start from the premise that, if a provision introduced 40 years ago has never been used, the first question is: should it be needed at all? So far, I have heard no convincing argument that it should. With this provision having never been used, even though on the statute book for 40 years, the Minister should not be surprised that the companies concerned are suspicious of the Government’s motives for doing what they are doing. This is particularly the case because there was so little consultation with the medical technology industry, as an example, prior to the publication of this Bill.
As just one example of this, at Second Reading in the Commons, the Health Secretary said that his officials had consulted stakeholders across the supply chain, including those from the medical devices sector. My understanding, however, is that the continence- stoma industry, and its relevant trade associations, was not consulted about the potential impact of the Bill. It is unclear why the Government want to do this in relation to medical supplies. If ever there was an example of gold-plating of legislation, this is it. I hope that the Government will be prepared to modify those provisions.
If the Government really want to extend this beyond medicines to medical supplies, surely they can find a way to remove the open-ended provisions and set a threshold to trigger them. At the moment, we have no information. There was none in the impact assessment. Given that the Government are supposedly interested in light-touch regulation, it is difficult to understand why Ministers have not removed this clause from the Bill and the section from the 2006 Act. It is very difficult to see what they are getting at here. I beg to move.