As the Guardian (and every other paper) notes, Nick Clegg has thrown a metaphorical hand grenade into the midst of the Coalition government, announcing, apparently without prior agreement that the Health & Social Care Bill will be going back to the House of Commons for a new Committee Stage and that not much of it will survive that process.
Well, we'll see if that happens.
But there is a more worrying possible outcome. From the moment Andrew Lansley announced his reforms in July 2010 the process of implementing them began. There was no delay for something so nice as legislation. There was no hanging around waiting for expenditure to be duly authorised by parliament. PCTs began reform: staff began to be shed. Consortia of GPs (and I stress, GPs) have been set up all over the country. NHS funds are being expended in the process. Staff are being hired. GPs might be reluctant, but as one said, when ordered to man the lifeboats that is what they have been obliged to do: they were told the old NHS was not going to be there any more, so set up consortia.
The effect, as Lansley has already claimed, is that many of these changes may be irreversible: the PCTs are no longer there, good staff (and there are good staff - let's stop the nonsense on that issue) have been lost and management chaos is likely to ensue.
And nothing is stopping this process of change going on: the Bill is a mere sideline, the change is happening.
Three questions: first, will anyone stop the changes now it is clear they may not be approved? Second, who will be accountable for the money spent without authorisation? Third, what will happen when the chaos of this unauthorised action is realised to be unconstitutional wrecking action undertaken without any legislative approval?
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The Spectator Coffee House blog was urging Lansley just to go ahead with some of the reforms anyway as many of them didn’t require legislation to enact.
http://tinyurl.com/428t83x
Probably right procedurally, but what does that say about the Tories’ contempt for democracy?
These guys learned when they were young they could wreck restaurants and get away with it. Why would they have any respect or concern for the democratic process?
BB
Perhaps there could be a legal challenge on the ‘ultra vires’ rule for the money that has been spent without authorisation. If this could be directed at Lansley in some way it would make the government more careful in the future. Unfortunately I am not sure how this could be done, but I know that local councillors were subject to this rule so surely it could be applied to MPs, Secretary of State.
Teresa — you make a good point Sec state for Health is as vulnerable to an ultra vires challenge as a local council (!) From memory though the constitutional position is that spending can take place once a Bill has passed second reading – which this Bill did some time ago (it’s a while since I’ve had to think about this so that might not be quite right). But it would be worth asking some more questions on this as the timing is important – if the spending took place before this then I would agree that there may be a case for a legal challenge by way of judicial review to hold the executive to account (probably looking at procedural impropriety). More would need to be known about the facts …FOI anyone?
I am concerned about the very dodgy line, from the most dodgy Party, reducing ‘competition’ between private providers.
This is how railways were privatised. Wtih each company given a different rail line, there is no competition, so none of the supposed user advantages of privatisation that a competitive environment is supposed to produce.
Its the privatisation part that we need to resist, not that which Lib Dem doublespeak focusses on.