Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): You will recall, members, that, last week, we discussed our concerns around statutory rule 2019/42 in relation to the provision of health services to persons not ordinarily resident. The Clerk confirmed with the Department that the SR remains on the statute book through its operational date, although its operational date has been deferred until 31 December. While we understand that it will be reviewed and amended before commencement, I propose, given our concerns, that we agree a motion to annul the regulations. In this way, the policy review would start with a blank sheet, and we will be able to develop and feed in our own recommendations.

Are members content that we table a prayer of annulment?

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Are we agreed that the Committee for Health has considered SR 2019/42 The Provision of Health Services to Persons Not Ordinarily Resident (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2019, and recommends to the Assembly that they be annulled.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): It is important to state that we have a number of strongly developed cross-border services. We have the North West Cancer Centre, paediatric cardiology, and the Minister is actively working on paediatric pathology, which is a hugely sensitive issue. That is the spirit in which we need to advise the Department that this type of legislation needs to be well considered and that statutory regulations should be brought to us in that spirit.

As the Committee has agreed to table a prayer of annulment, I will sign the motion to go to the Business Committee, which will schedule it for debate. Should the Department revoke the regulation in the meantime, we can advise the Business Committee and/or not move the motion as required.