9 Community health programme 2007-13
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9905/06
COM(06) 234
| Draft Decision establishing a second programme of Community action in the field of Health
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| Legal base | Article 152 EC; co-decision; QMV
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| Department | Health |
| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 17 October 2006
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| Previous Committee Report | HC 34-xxxiii (2005-06), para 3 (28 June 2006)
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| To be discussed in Council | November 2006
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared
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Background
9.1 Article 152 of the EC Treaty provides that Community action
on public health is to complement the policies of the Member States
and is to be directed to improving public health and preventing
human illness by promoting research, information and education
about health. The Council is authorised to adopt incentive measures
to protect and improve human health, excluding any harmonisation
of the laws of the Member States. The Article expressly requires
Community action to respect the responsibilities of the Member
States for the organisation and delivery of health services.
9.2 The EC's first public health programme is for the period 2003
to 2008.
Previous scrutiny of the draft Decision
9.3 The purpose of the draft Decision is to establish the Community's
public health programme for 2007 to 2013, with a total budget
of €365.6 million.
9.4 The programme's objectives would be to :
- "Improve citizens' health security;
- Promote health to improve prosperity and solidarity; and
- Generate and disseminate health knowledge".
9.5 The actions to give effect to the objectives would include
promoting:
- risk assessment;
- the development and procurement of vaccines;
- planning for health emergencies and the response to them;
- the safety and quality of human organs and blood;
- healthy ageing;
- the reduction of health inequalities within and between Member
States;
- healthy life-styles;
- health education;
- identification and dissemination of good practice in health
care; and
- the collection, analysis and publication of statistical and
other information.
9.6 The draft Decision proposes maxima for financial contributions
from the programme. For example, it proposes that the Community
should not contribute more than 60% of the cost of action to help
achieve the programme's objectives, although "in cases of
exceptional utility" it could contribute up to 80%. The Commission
would be required to publish its criteria for assessing claims
of "exceptional utility".
9.7 The Commission would also be required :
- to present a report by an external and independent body on
the implementation of the programme after three years;
- to present a Communication on the continuation of the programme
after no more than four years; and
- to present, no later than the end of 2015, an assessment of
the programme by an external and independent body.
9.8 Section 6 of the Legislative Financial Statement attached
to the draft Decision sets out the indicators the Commission would
use to monitor the achievement of the programme's objectives.
They are measures of activity (such as the number of projects
or number of publications), not measures of the effect of the
programme on public health.
9.9 The Minister of State at the Department of Health (Ms Rosie
Winterton) told us that the Government supports the draft Decision.
She noted, however, that the Government would propose amendments
to stress the importance of monitoring outcomes and the impact
of individual projects. The Government would also propose additions
to the text about matters which it considers to be a priority
for the exchange of good practice, such as patient safety.
9.10 When we considered the document in June, we noted that, because
the Commission had accepted so many of the European Parliament's
amendments to a previous draft, the Recitals to the draft Decision
occupied almost seven pages. We doubted the value of such extensive
Recitals. We asked the Minister to provide us with progress
reports on the negotiations and to send us the Government's Regulatory
Impact Assessment of the draft Decision.
The Minister's letter of 17 October 2006
9.11 The Minister tells us that, in the course of the negotiations
in the summer, the Government agreed to amendments which:
- emphasise the importance of effective monitoring and measuring
the impact of work supported by the programme;
- highlight the need for data on socio-economic factors and
the impact on health of other policies; and
- make clear that any proposals for action which arise from
projects funded by the programme "should respect the Council
Conclusions of June 2006, which emphasise that while EC health
systems share common values and principles, how these are implemented
in practice is for Member States to decide".
9.12 The Minister says that the Finnish Presidency wishes to achieve
political agreement on the draft Decision at the Health Council
on 30 November. The European Parliament appears to be broadly
content with the draft decision but would like:
- the addition of a programme objective on major diseases (but
it might accept as a compromise — with which the Government
would be content — a statement that the other objectives
should contribute to the reduction of major disease); and
- a budget increase of about €3 million a year (the Government
has no objection to this in principle but the Minister says that
the money should not be taken from other programmes which have
already been agreed or cause an increase in the overall EU budget
ceilings).
9.13 The Minister says that she agrees with us about the need
to confine Recitals to what is necessary. She adds, however, that:
"Recitals can be a useful source of clarification —
and in this case many of the amendments and additions proposed
by the UK … were to the recitals."
9.14 The Minister has sent us her Department's initial Regulatory
Impact Assessment (RIA) of the draft Decision. It takes account
of the responses to the Department's public consultations on the
Commission's original proposals. It says that the Department has
considered four options:
- do not take part in the negotiation of the draft Decision;
or
- support all the proposed action; or
- support some of the action and negotiate for a revised package;
or
- oppose all the proposed action.
For the reasons given in the Minister's Explanatory Memorandum
of 21 June 2006, the Government welcomes the draft Decision and
supports the action it proposes.
9.15 In the section on costs and benefits, the RIA says that the
proposed action would entail costs for the Community but would
not impose direct costs on business, the voluntary sector or consumers.
The aim of some of the projects would be to influence consumer
behaviour (for example, to discourage people from smoking tobacco
or eating junk food) and so could affect businesses; the aim of
the projects would be in line with the UK's own policies to improve
public health. UK-based organisations would be likely to benefit
from grants towards the cost of projects in which they would take
the lead or be a partner. The main benefits to the UK would include:
improved public health which would contribute to economic growth;
health authorities would be helped to respond more effectively
to health threats, such as an influenza pandemic; and a stronger
evidence-base for public health interventions would be developed.
Conclusion
9.16 The draft Decision would enable the Community's public
health programme to continue until the end of 2013 with much the
same budget as is available for the present programme and similar
objectives. We note the amendments the Government has secured.
We also note the findings of the initial Regulatory Impact Assessment.
We have no further questions to put to the Minister and we are
now content to clear the document from scrutiny.
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