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Mr. Bercow: I am listening intently to my hon. Friend. Will he entertain the possibility that the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) was excluded from membership of the Standing Committee not because of his views on fundholding arrangements or cross-border provisions--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with the new clause.
Mr. Amess: It was kind of my hon. Friend to intervene, but I must concentrate on cross-border arrangements. I have heard a sedentary comment from a Labour Member about queue-jumping. My goodness, given the Government's policy it is appalling for any Labour Member to talk about queue-jumping. However, we will not get to that debate for some time.
6.30 pm
When the Minister replies, I hope that he will give the House a little more detail about subsection (3)of new clause 18. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) suggests that the Minister has not looked at new clause 18. I hope that that is not the case, because we are on Report and Ministers should be so familiar with the detail of their legislation by this time that the answers should pour forth from them. Therefore, it is not unkind to expect the Minister to give the House more detail about subsection (3). It puzzled me. It states:
Mr. Fabricant:
Is it not apparent what the provision means in the sense that yet again it is an example of the Government not knowing what they intend so they give powers to the Secretary of State to make any decision he likes about doctors, patients, border areas, non-border areas, Scotland and England?
Mr. Amess:
My hon. Friend may be right, but the new clause is defective. The Minister will claim that it is not and we will be asked to accept it, but when it goes to the House of Lords an amendment will be tabled to it. Subsection (3) continues:
"Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for any functions to which subsection (4) applies which are specified in the Order, so far as exercisable in respect of the provision of services to persons in Scottish border areas".
I do not understand that and I want to know whether the Minister understands it. As the Member of Parliament for Southend, West I need to understand it because after this debate my constituents will want to know what it means.
"to be exercisable (instead of any corresponding function to which subsection (2) applies)".
I do not know what subsection (2) is and I wonder whether the Minister knows what it is. It continues:
"in respect of the provision of the services in question to persons in English border areas who are specified in the Order."
Mr. Bercow:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the litmus test of whether the Minister understands the new clause is that when he replies to this short debate he is able to explain its rationale and content without reference to a crib sheet provided by those whom we are not supposed to name?
Mr. Amess: I do not know how I should comment on that, although I believe that the Minister was a barrister or a solicitor before he became a Member of Parliament. We will have to see whether he stands at the Dispatch Box without notes and can answer my point about subsection (3).
The Minister, when he worked on new clause 18, could have made it more easily understandable. The arrangements for borders will become a big issue. In fact, I shall suggest to the Chairman of the Health Committee that we ask the Minister to come and give evidence to the Committee to justify the border arrangements. The more I listen to myself talk, the more I believe that the new clause is unfair.
Mr. Fabricant:
It is capricious and unfair, but is not it also worrying? Subsection (3) specifically states that the
Mr. Amess:
The whole flavour of proceedings in Committee was that the Opposition were unhappy with the wide-ranging powers given to the Secretary of State for Health. I do not wish to imply that we thought that the Secretary of State for Health was incompetent, but we thought that he was too busy to do justice to all those functions.
Mr. Fabricant:
We are in no position to judge whether the Secretary of State is competent or incompetent because he did not do the Committee the courtesy of turning up for even five minutes.
Mr. Amess:
My hon. Friend is right. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald was present throughout in Committee, the Secretary of State's absence was unfortunate.
Mr. Hammond:
To return to the point that my hon. Friend was making about the wide order-making powers that the Secretary of State will have, does he agree that the Minister could have saved much debate and given us much reassurance if he had made draft orders and regulations available to us? Does my hon. Friend recall that we pressed the Minister on whether they would be made available in time for the debate today? Sadly, we have not seen any.
Mr. Amess:
My hon. Friend is right and I congratulate him on his diligence in Committee and today. As he knows, we were not afforded that courtesy. Indeed, we tried to make constructive, sensible changes to the Bill, but we did not have one amendment accepted.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Order. We are not considering what was accepted in Committee. We are dealing with the new clauses and amendments before us.
Mr. Amess:
We would not be in the mess that we are now in--grappling with new clause 18--if the matter had been handled differently. The Minister is charming and persuasive and he thought that new clause 18 would be accepted without any debate. However, I do not trust the Government's motives in the border arrangements.
I wish to go into more detail about the health authorities adjacent to Scotland.
Mr. Swayne:
Is it appropriate to call them authorities, given the huge and sweeping powers that the new clause will give the Minister over every aspect of their function? Are they authorities in any sense?
Mr. Amess:
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I pointed out earlier that the Bill is defective and we will probably find that that description of authority is removed when the Bill is discussed in the House of Lords. The Minister has so far failed to give us any details of the
Mr. Bercow:
I am still puzzled by the way in which the new clause was tabled at such short notice and without explanation. Having consulted the reference sources, I have discovered that among the Minister's interests are cooking and walking. We welcome the fact of that hinterland, but perhaps he imagines that tabling the new clause at this late stage, without explanation or apology, is like producing a new recipe. Is not it important that, wherever else he walks, he does not walk away from his responsibility to answer the serious challenges that we have posed to him?
Mr. Amess:
That is a telling point. The Minister knows that if he gives us a precise list of the authorities concerned, Her Majesty's loyal Opposition may accept the argument. My constituents want to know which health authorities are to get special treatment.
The Labour Government talk about equality and the Minister disarmingly suggests that the new clause is merely a tidying-up measure. I believe that we have not been given the details because there is an argument going on behind the scenes. There is uproar in health authorities throughout the country, for all manner of reasons that we will discuss later. There is a row about which authorities are to be included, because inclusion will bring favourable treatment. My constituents think that that is unfair.
As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm) said, there are areas of great social deprivation, not only in Scotland but throughout the country. The areas on the other side of the border will be very upset about the favourable treatment given to the authorities on the list.
Mr. Bercow:
If the authorities due to benefit from the special arrangements have not yet been determined, is not it possible that, in the argument that is raging behind the scenes, Ministers are planning to work on the basis of a conformists' charter, and that Labour Members who are prepared to suck up to the Government will benefit from the arrangements, while those who are not, such as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm), who is a faithful servant of his constituents, will not? Must not these matters be disclosed to the House without delay? It is not acceptable for this hole-in-corner practice to be allowed to continue.
"by Order in Council provide for any functions".
Has my hon. Friend discovered any other clause in the Bill that is so open that the Secretary of State can provide for any function? Is not it outrageous that he will be given a blank cheque?
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