My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 229 and 230 from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to limit the Secretary of State’s powers in Part 3 of the Bill to transfer or delegate functions. Part 3 as it stands would give the Secretary of State a wide range of powers to abolish or modify the functions of a body without primary legislation. That goes to the heart of the matter. I share the concerns of the Constitution Committee. In the absence of proper parliamentary scrutiny, it is necessary to narrow the scope of these powers. To this end, the two amendments would remove from scope the power to abolish a function of the body, the power to change the purpose or objective of a body and the power to change the conditions under which the body works.
The amendments go to the heart of what the Government are trying to do in Part 3. We will come to the wholesale removal of Part 3 in the next group but, for now, will the Minister explain why these powers are needed, why they need to be so broad in scope and why the Government are so frightened of Parliament that they do not want to give Peers and MPs an opportunity to make a judgment on their justification? It would be helpful if the Minister could say how it is anticipated these powers will be used. Give us some examples, please.
I also support Amendment 318 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. The Minister may recall that at Second Reading and at the beginning of Committee stage, five exhausting weeks ago, I expressed similar concerns about the ability of the NHS to cope with this wholesale reorganisation at this time. The NHS has been in crisis for the last two years and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has laid out clearly the extent of the backlog—as far as any of us know about it. There is a big difference between 30% and 80%. The Secretary of State himself makes it clear that he knows that the backlog will go up before it comes down again. We have what we call “the dark backlog”; we do not know how many people are going to come forward.
There is also the issue of the pre-emption of Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, suggested. A lot of these bodies have been set up and we do not know whether Treasury rules have been broken by the expenditure of money in their setting up. Perhaps questions will be asked about that. I hope that the Minister will bear in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said in conclusion. The amendment is not intended to destroy the Bill, but to delay it to a point when the NHS can cope with it, without damage to patients.