ACCESS TO MEETINGS AND DOCUMENTS OF COMMUNITY HEALTH COUNCIL (Hansard, 27 March 1987)

§ Mr. Terry Lewis (Worsley)
I beg to move amendment No. I, in page 2, line 14, after 'effect', insert 'with the insertion at the end of paragraph 1 (information concerning employees of the authority) of the words "or any regional health authority or district health authority within whose region or district the authority exercises functions" and'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)
With this we shall take amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

§ Mr. Lewis
The Bill was considered shortly Committee and it was found that one or two things had been overlooked, hence these three tidying-up amend-ments. Amendment No. 1 is fairly simple. It addresses the need to include employees of district and regional health authorities in the exemption that the Secretary of State can order from having to disclose information under the Bill. He may do so when personal reasons are involved.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 merely substitute "district" for "area". We failed to notice in Committee that the old descriptions of health authorities had been used instead of the ones that followed the 1980 legislation.

§ The Minister for Health (Mr. Tony Newton)
I support the amendments. The Government have an obvious interest in ensuring that any legislation that reaches the statute book is as good as it can be made. There were defects in the Bill, and the amendments put things right.

§ Mr. Terry Lewis
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The Bill has been referred to by some colleagues as a minnow, and I have described it as modest. It is another useful step, however, towards freedom of information. It is a useful and not faltering step to opening up Government and public life affairs to those who use the services of the National Health Service. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have supported it, not least the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). The hon. Lady has given invaluable support and I have been talked about for being seen with her in the corridors of the House over the past few months. On these occasions we have been seeking to smooth the passage of the Bill. I thank the officials of the DHSS and the parliamentary draughtsmen for the help that they have given.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)
I thank the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) for 713 piloting this extra piece of freedom of information legislation through the House. The Bill has enjoyed allparty support and we made sure in Committee that we got it as right as we could. The Bill will allow those in the Health Service, which is one of the issues of the greatest national concern, to be able to feel that they are more in control and more well-equipped with information. It will have a significant effect on people's access to information about the Health Service. It is a fundamental improvement, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the Bill.

§ Mr. Newton
First, in a more than conventional way, I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) on getting his Bill to this stage. He has kindly acknowledged the help that he has been given by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). I hope that I can modestly claim that I too was as helpful as I could be, slightly behind the scenes, at an earlier stage, in enabling us to have this debate today. That is a slightly roundabout way of saying that, although we would not have chosen to legislate in this area—I am certain that we would not have regarded it as a priority for Government legislation—as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are ready to accept the Bill.
It has been suggested that the provisions are rather heavy for small bodies, such as community health councils, to comply with. Frankly, I do not agree with that. Provided that they are well organised, it should be within their competence and resources to implement the Bill's provisions. As community health councils are normally advocates of openness, and provided that they sincerely wish to be as open as possible, they will not need bureaucratic mechanisms to implement its provisions.
714 Although Ministers of all political colours and persuasions occasionally find the comments of community health councils tiresome—indeed, they occasionally find tiresome the comments of regional and district health authorities—a community health council which works well performs a useful function in articulating some of the concerns of local people and groups about the Health Service. Those councils have, of course, a statutory position on consultation written in in relation to closure proposals, giving them significant capacity to make their views known and to ensure that they are considered. It is entirely within their purpose, function and approach to the Health Service that those councils should deal with the public as openly as possible themselves. Therefore, it seems entirely reasonable to ask them to conform with the obligations imposed by the Bill.
I am happy to allow the House to decide that without further guidance from me and to say that the Bill should have a Third Reading.

§ Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras)
It is appropriate that on the weekend when the Prime Minister is going to Moscow we should welcome this little bit of what Mr. Gorbachev would refer to as "glasnost" on the activities of community health councils.
One of the problems of improving access to information is that we seem to take one step forward, but two steps backwards. Therefore, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) on this extension to freedom of information in the week when, but for a stand of principle by Sir Douglas Black, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, we might never have heard of the report from the Health Education Council on the health divide in this country. Nevertheless, I welcome this measure.