Baroness Merron (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful not just for this brief debate but for the efforts of noble Lords to expedite this legislation. I acknowledge the short timeframe—it is not as short as in the other place but, nevertheless, noble Lords have been most co-operative, and I value that. Amendment 23, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seeks to require that all regulations made under the Act are subject to the affirmative procedure. This is an amendment we are not able to accept. To reiterate our intention, the Bill sets out the groups of people who are to be prioritised for specialty training from 2027 onwards. I reassure the noble Lord that the delegated power is limited to adding to this list by reference to significant experience working as a doctor in the health service or immigration status. Similarly, we have set out in the Bill specialty training programmes excluded from the prioritisation scheme. The delegated power is limited to amend this list, and it gives necessary operational flexibility to respond to future changes in recruitment, training and workforce needs—something that I know noble Lords are very attuned to the need for. I am sympathetic to the desire for parliamentary scrutiny and I always try to ensure that it is provided but, because of the limited scope of these powers, we believe that the negative procedure is appropriate. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, just referred to, the Bill has been assessed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and no suggestion has been made that the negative procedure was inappropriate for this regulation. I have spoken in a previous group to why we are dealing with emergency legislation. I hear what is said about the downsides, but we have to balance that with the scale of the problem and the urgency that it demands. That is why we decided to introduce emergency legislation. The noble Earl spoke about the Constitutional Committee letter. We will be responding formally to the committee to address its concern. With that, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.