Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-19
Topic: Health
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this group contains two amendments. Amendment 4 is in my name and the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Watkins of Tavistock. Amendment 10 is in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. Amendment 4 addresses two fundamental faults, as we see them, with the Bill. The first is that the Bill is a global Bill, when it does not need to be. The second is that the powers proposed for the Secretary of State in the Bill are, in effect, unlimited and so thoroughly dangerous. The first point, the international scope of the Bill, has been considered in part and defended by noble Lords opposite—the Minister and the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord O’Shaughnessy—in the previous group. Notwithstanding the position taken by the Government and those noble Lords, my position is firmly that the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, were right to say that the Bill ought to be directed solely at ensuring the continuation of the reciprocal healthcare arrangements we currently enjoy with the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, and that international healthcare arrangements outside that context should be left for another day when they can be more carefully considered, with a consideration that I raised with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the effect of CRaG in the picture at that time That immediate EU/EEA/Switzerland Bill is what British travellers in Europe need; what EU visitors to the UK need; and, perhaps most important from a UK point of view, what 190,000 desperately worried British pensioners living in other states of the EU need to ensure that their existing healthcare will continue. The Explanatory Memorandum makes it clear that the Bill is being introduced because we are leaving the EU. Whatever our views of that decision, we all share the aim of ensuring that our current reciprocal healthcare arrangements continue The Bill is necessary if—but only if—we leave without a deal that secures a transitional period as envisaged by the current version of the withdrawal agreement. If we do secure the withdrawal agreement, or something like it, our reciprocal healthcare arrangements will continue, and one would hope that they would be replicated on a permanent basis before the transitional period ended. However, the Bill goes far further than is needed to achieve that limited and legitimate aim. The Government are seeking—unashamedly—to use the Bill to go global in healthcare by making arrangements with other countries across the world. That is simply not necessary because arrangements with third countries can be made at any time, and they should be negotiated and brought before Parliament properly, subject to the CRaG procedure and extra procedures. There is no urgency about that. We already have agreements with Australia, New Zealand and some others. So far as I know—and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, knows—there are no others in the pipeline, but any which are in prospect can be dealt with individually in their own time The Constitution Committee, as has been said, reported on the Bill yesterday. While it acknowledged that Brexit legislation might justify, "broader powers than would otherwise be constitutionally acceptable", it was absolutely clear that such powers should be used only for the limited purpose of passing that Brexit legislation. It reported in clear terms that: "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".