Chamber and committees

UK Government Health and Care Bill - Follow up

Letter from Humza Yousaf MSP providing update following meeting with UK Gov - 7 October 2021

Dear Gillian,

UK GOVERNMENT HEALTH AND CARE BILL

I’m writing to the Committee to provide you with an update following my meeting with Edward Argar, Minister of State for Health, on Wednesday 6 October 2021.
We had a cordial meeting, but were not able to progress or settle any of the outstanding provisions in the Bill for which I have requested amendments to be made. We agreed that our officials would continue to work together over the next few weeks to try and reach a resolution that satisfied the points of principle on both reserved and devolved matters.

As you are aware, my main concern around the Bill is the explicit disregard for the devolution settlement. The UK Government should not have the power to act in areas of devolved competence without the consent of Scottish Ministers. Mr Argar’s counterpoint is that, in areas that engage both reserved and devolved matters, a consent requirement could potentially involve a veto from one of the Devolved Administrations over a reserved matter.

We both acknowledged that there is broad agreement on most of the policy matters and that a four nations approach is the preferred outcome. However, although I would like to come to an agreed position with Mr Argar, my recommendation not to grant consent remains unchanged.

I understand that Mr Argar will write to me next week to follow up on his letter of 28 September by providing more detail and update on more recent discussions. We will then have a follow up call in a few weeks to finalise our respective positions.

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of an additional concern that has come to my attention. Clause 130 of the Bill gives the Secretary of State power to make consequential provision by regulation which can amend or repeal primary legislation (including Acts of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd, and Northern Irish legislation). An initial consideration on receipt of the Bill did not highlight this clause as being of concern to us, given the limited application of the Bill to Scotland.

Our current position is that this clause doesn’t encroach on the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, and on that basis would not trigger the need for legislative consent. However, the language used in the clause is an unusually explicit way to describe what seems to be a relatively uncontroversial provision. I alerted Mr Argar to the fact that we may seek an amendment that will provide reassurance that this power will not be used to amend Acts of the Scottish Parliament without consulting Scottish Ministers.

Finally, I would like to provide a follow up response to a question raised at Committee by Emma Harper MSP, who requested further information on the Food Labelling clause.

The proposed amendment to the Food Safety Act 1990 regarding the retained Food Information to Consumers Regulation would not in itself change the detail of the food labelling and consumer information requirements. However, the amendment would give Scottish Ministers the power to update such requirements in future, for example, in areas such as ingredients information, certain aspects of country of origin information, allergens and nutrition declarations.

I’m happy for my officials to provide further advice on this, and indeed any of the other clauses, if the Committee has any outstanding concerns.

Kind Regards
Humza Yousaf
Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care