HC Deb 26 January 1956 vol 548 cc396-9
Miss Hornsby-Smith

I beg to move, in page 16, line 13, to leave out subsection (1) and insert: (1) It shall be the duty of the General Dental Council with all reasonable expedition to carry out, by means of the arrangements hereinafter mentioned, an experiment to determine the value to the community of a class of ancillary dental workers—

  1. (a) permitted to undertake the filling of teeth and the extraction of deciduous teeth, and
  2. (b) employed to do work of that kind in the course of the provision of national and local authority health services.
During the Committee stage the Minister gave an undertaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) that he would introduce an Amendment by which the primary duty for carrying out the experiments for ancillary workers or others was placed upon the General Dental Council, and the Privy Council should intervene only if it thought that the Dental Council had failed to carry out the statutory duty imposed upon it. There is a clear division between the statutory functions of an autonomous body in relation to the training, education and registration of its own members and duties such as this experiment and we are reasonably entitled to provide an additional assurance that such duties will be expeditiously carried out.

The two cases are not parallel in any way. The original draft of the Bill provided that the Privy Council should initiate the experiment by requiring the General Dental Council to carry out the scheme. At the request of representations made during the Committee stage the Government have brought forward the Amendment which now places the initiative for carrying out this experiment upon the General Dental Council. It was felt that this would give the new Council the opportunity to be the prime movers in this experiment and, at the same time, a time limit would be imposed by the Privy Council requiring that it should be carried out with all reasonable expedition.

In the very unlikely event of the Dental Council not complying with the obligations placed upon it by Parliament then, and only then, if the Privy Council was dissatisfied with the manner in which the Dental Council was proceeding with the experiment, it could give what directions it thought fit, and the Council would have to comply with them. This is a matter of balance. Originally, the experiment was to be initiated by the Privy Council, but during the Committee stage my right hon. Friend gave an undertaking that he would transfer the emphasis and give the Dental Council the opportunity to initiate and take responsibility for the experiment, with the proviso that if the Privy Council was dissatisfied with the Dental Council's progress in the matter it could finally require the Dental Council to comply with certain directions. I think that the Amendment fulfils the promise made by my right hon. Friend during the Committee stage and I hope that the House will accept it.

Mr. Richard Fort (Clitheroe)

My hon. Friend has quite correctly said that the Amendment has been moved in accordance with an undertaking given by the Government to my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead), who, unfortunately, is not able to be here today. I shall be representing the viewpoint of the British Medical Council as he did during the Committee stage.

The difficulty is the carrying out of that undertaking introduces a method of administration which might in certain circumstances be extremely difficult. It lays down that after the General Dental Council has initiated an experiment the Privy Council will have the right to express its dissatisfaction and, presumably, to order the Dental Council to start all over again. It would be much more desirable to have the discussion between the Privy Council and the Dental Council before the experiment starts rather than afterwards. That would save time and money and perhaps a good deal of irritation.

The British Dental Council feels that in carrying out the undertaking my right hon. Friend has made the Clause much less important than it was originally, from a prestige point of view. I wonder whether he could consider withdrawing the Amendment and allowing the Clause to revert to the original drafting, which put the onus of initiating experiments upon the Privy Council, in consultation with the British Dental Council, which, I am sure, would be administratively a better way. In any case, it would be more in keeping with the feelings about prestige that the British Dental Council have in this matter.

Dr. Edith Summerskill (Warrington)

The House will recall that in Committee my concern was that nobody should drag his feet. I am anxious that the experiment should be initiated forthwith. I take it that the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) has consulted the dentists about his suggestion. My hon. Friends who represent dentists would also feel happy if the Minister acceded to the request that has just been made. I am concerned that there should be no delay in dealing with this matter, and we must trust the Minister to keep his hand on it and do the requisite prodding in the right direction.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Turton)

This is a surprising development. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) asked that this Amendment be tabled because he was not satisfied with the original wording. Now my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) says that he is satisfied with the original wording and does not like the Amendment which we have tabled.

The hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) suggested some form of words like those in the proposed new subsections (7) and (8) to secure expedition. For that reason we included that form of words which, I may add, is quite different from the type of intervention we were discussing a few minutes ago. That would have been intervention to deal with the discipline of the profession while this is to secure that a professional body makes due progress towards an experiment.

In view of the unanimity on both sides that the Bill in its original form, as passed in Committee, is better than with this Amendment, I suggest that the Amendment be withdrawn.

Miss Hornsby-Smith

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

The next Amendment in the name of the Minister, in page 17, line 24, to insert new subsections (7) and (8), falls with the one that has been withdrawn.