COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 5 May 1978)

§ Lord WELLS-PESTELL

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 10. This is a matter relating to the Preliminary Proceedings Committee which I shall want to say more about in the next Amendment. This prevents members of the Preliminary Proceedings Committee hearing the case twice. If I may touch upon the next Amendment in order to clarify Amendment No. 10, your Lordships will remember that in the Bill provision was made for setting up two committees, one known as the Health Committee which would consider the health of a practitioner if it was called into question, and the other a Professional Conduct Committee which speaks for itself, which would concern itself with the professional conduct of a member of the profession if that was called into question.

I am talking really to the next Amendment. Before members of the profession went either before the Professional Conduct Committee or the Health Committee it would be necessary for the case to be considered by a Preliminary Proceedings Committee. The point of Amendment No. 10 is to make sure that people who have heard a preliminary complaint are not subsequently members of one of the other two committees when the matter is being heard in depth. Amendment No. 10 prevents that from happening. I. beg to move.