| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Hutton: It may help the hon. Gentleman if I make it clear now, as I did in Committee, that we want hon. Members to have access to the fullest possible range of information to allow them to review the operation of the scheme. I made that clear in Committee; if it will help the hon. Gentleman now, I am happy to repeat it on the Floor of the House.
Mr. Hammond: I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that. If he can answer in the affirmative the specific question that I am about to ask, it will go a long way towards reassuring Opposition Members. New clause 3 proposes that the Secretary of State submit a report to each House of Parliament annually, giving details of the total amount raised through charges under this legislation. That differs somewhat from new clause 2, proposed in the name of the Liberal Democrats, which places a duty on insurers--those who will pay the charges--to report to Parliament, giving detailed information on the impact that those charges have had on the calculation of their premiums and on their specific businesses.
The Association of British Insurers agrees with us that companies that operate in a commercially sensitive area should not be asked for too much information about how they run their businesses and calculate their premiums, and about the profile of their customers. Those experienced in these matters, of whom I am not one, could deduce valuable commercial information from the type of information that new clause 2 proposes should be supplied to Parliament.
I am relatively new in this place, but I find it curious that an outside body such as a commercial company should have to report directly to Parliament. It seems more appropriate that the Secretary of State should gather whatever information is needed and report to Parliament; he could then be answerable for his report in this place.
New clause 3 achieves, without the disadvantages of new clause 2, much of what the Liberal Democrats seek to achieve. Information about premiums may be difficult for a commercial company to define in a meaningful way for the lay reader, and I would question the value of some of the information that the Liberal Democrats seek to have provided to the House. Indeed, in a briefing note that it has issued to all hon. Members, the ABI says:
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale):
Is there not another difficulty with new clause 2 in addition to those that my hon. Friend has brilliantly analysed? New clause 2 requires insurers to provide information according to the preceding calendar year, yet many insurers operate on entirely different financial years, so the new clause is even more onerous than it seems.
Mr. Hammond:
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. He is absolutely right. The problem is compounded by the fact that settlements of claims are often not made for two, three or four years. It may be difficult to gain an informed view from information that relates to the preceding year.
The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon referred to what the Opposition health team calls the "information not collected centrally" syndrome. In Committee, the Minister, with some humility, recognised that syndrome. We have seen it on innumerable occasions when seeking information from the Department through parliamentary questions. The Department hides behind the decentralised structure of the health service as it was: it is becoming an increasingly recentralised structure, asthe Government implement various measures. The decentralised structure of the health service enables the Secretary of State to say that information is not collected centrally. It is perfectly clear that a well-run health service requires information to be collected centrally. We have no doubt that it is available to NHS regional executives, and could be collected by the Secretary of State if he chose to do so.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Now that it has been accepted across government that the
Mr. Hammond:
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The NHS is a vast organisation spending billions of pounds and employing hundreds of thousands of people. The collation of information is essential for the proper management of an organisation of that scale. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that. Indeed, the Secretary of State has shown his willingness to make more information available. He famously told the BBC "Today" programme back in September that he would ensure that, as soon as possible, data on total waiting lists--those awaiting a first consultation with a specialist and those awaiting in-patient surgical treatment--would be available.
The Secretary of State seems not to be keen on an independent audit or examination of the figures. On the same broadcast, he referred to a reputable firm of chartered accountants that specialises in collating data on the NHS as a "tinpot firm". That appropriately sums up the Secretary of State's attitude to the independent scrutiny of these matters.
We want an assurance that the Government will not hide essential information about the impact of the Bill behind a smokescreen by saying that the money is distributed to individual hospital trusts and that the information is available only at that level. In Standing Committee, reference was made to the fact that information was available in the published accounts of hospital trusts. It is not practical for parliamentarians who want properly to scrutinise these matters to plough through the annual accounts of thousands of hospital trusts up and down the country and aggregate the information. In a well-run Department of Health, the information should be available in an aggregate form.
Can the Minister satisfy the Conservative Opposition that the data referred to in new clause 3 will be regularly made available to Parliament? We would be satisfied if he could assure us that information on the amount of money collected by the compensation recovery unit and distributed to NHS trusts will be included in the quarterly data series. Alternatively, if the Secretary of State is unable to do that, the presentation to Parliament of that information in an annual report, as the new clause suggests, would achieve the same end, although somewhat more tardily.
The intentions of the new clause would be better served by an assurance from the Government that the data required will be included in the quarterly data series. If the new clause were carried and the data were provided annually, the information could be out of date when any proposed changes to the amounts to be charged were scrutinised.
"Insurers are already required to produce company accounts and should not be bound to reveal additional commercial information to Parliament. Information on total receipts should be available from the NHS itself".
21 Jan 1999 : Column 1053
That is the essential point. The information that would have to be presented to Parliament under new clause 3 could be derived by the Secretary of State entirely from the compensation recovery unit, from his own records and from Government agencies, without imposing additional burdens on companies operating in the commercial sector. It could be derived without imposing additional burdens on the machinery of government and its agencies because, in a properly run organisation, which I am sure the compensation recovery unit is, that information will be readily available.
Thus new clause 3 seeks to use aggregate information that is readily available. Because it is presented in an aggregate form, it avoids the pitfalls that the ABI has identified in terms of the revelation of confidential information, while still providing the House with the critical overall figures that will tell us how successful the measure has been in terms of funding the NHS. That information would be directly available under new clause 3. It would also inform an intelligent analysis of the impact, in aggregate, on motor insurance premiums.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |