Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-19
Topic: International Affairs
James O’Shaughnessy (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps noble Lords will allow me to follow the noble Baroness, given that she made specific reference to some of the comments I made on Second Reading and previously. I have listened carefully, as I always do—and always did as a Minister—to the views expressed by noble Lords whether through the reports of the two committees or in debate. However, some fundamental mistakes of logic have been exposed in this group of amendments which I want to dive into The first mistake is the assumption that this is a Brexit Bill. It is not a Brexit Bill—or at least not solely a Brexit Bill—in the sense that it is required because our statute book will change after we leave the European and this will ensure that we have continuity of arrangements going forward. It is worth pointing out that we do not need to rush into this because statutory instruments have been laid to provide for arrangements in a no deal scenario. We are considering this Bill in order to replace statutes that exist on our books which will become unworkable once we leave the European Union because of their reciprocal nature—it is not possible to have a one-sided reciprocal commitment in law—and that is what this Bill seeks to do The report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee states on this point: "While the exceptional circumstances of the UK’s departure from the European Union might justify legislation containing broader powers that would not otherwise be constitutionally acceptable, this does not extend to giving effect to new policy unrelated to Brexit. The Bill should be limited to the making of arrangements for future reciprocal healthcare arrangements with countries that participate in the existing European Health Insurance Card scheme" However, that is conflating two different issues: one is the nature of the restrictions that apply to primary legislation and the way in which secondary legislation should be carried out, and we have heard the discussion on why that should be the case; and the second is whether or not this Bill should limit itself in scope only to countries which are within the EEA and Switzerland There is no good reason why we should limit ourselves in such a way. Indeed the opposition parties are always telling the Government that they are too focused on Brexit and should take a wider view. The Bill does two things: it provides us with an opportunity for continuity and to put in place new arrangements, as well as an opportunity to make legislation of the kind that we are always being encouraged to make so that we can continue with our relationships—and deepen them—that we have with every other country in the world. Given that the Conservative Party and this Government are always accused of being too parochial, I would have thought this would be welcomed There is no reason to think that this Bill, a priori, should not have two functions. Yes, we need to replace the legislation under which we have powers in order to strike reciprocal agreements, but there is no good reason why we should limit ourselves to having those agreements with the European Union, the EEA and Switzerland as a set of countries. It may be that we ought to have different arrangements for approving such agreements. We all want to see continuity and it is the stated aim of the Government to provide it, but there is no reason why we might not have one set of arrangements to deal with that given that there is a deadline coming up. I take issue, advisedly, with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others, who have said that this process is being expedited. The Bill is not being expedited. It had proper scrutiny in the other place and is being properly scrutinised in this place. It is not being rushed through or dealt with inappropriately in terms of procedure. We are able to proceed properly in scrutinising the Bill and to think about the way in which we want to enact the two kinds of reciprocal arrangements that we will have in the future.