§ Mr. FoulkesTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list all areas within(a) her Department (b) agencies under her Department's control and (c) organisations for which she has ministerial responsibility to which Crown immunity applies; what consideration she has given to removing this; and if she will make a statement. [28648]
§ Mr. Sackville[holding answer 15 June 1995]: The detail requested can be provided only at disproportionate cost, but the general position is as follows.
An Act of Parliament is presumed not to bind the Crown, and thus the Department of Health and its agencies, unless the contrary intention is clearly stated, or there is a necessary implication that the Crown is to be bound. Ministers and civil servants do not necessarily share the Crown's immunity from criminal prosecution.
Crown immunity was removed from those national health service bodies which had until then enjoyed it, by section 60 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 with effect from 1 April 1991, subject to certain exemptions provided for in schedule 8 to that Act.