Health and Social Care Bill — Clause 168 — Private Patient Income Cap — 6 Sep 2011 at 22:00

The majority of MPs voted to remove the restriction on the amount of income a foundation trust can earn from private charges, otherwise known as the "private patient income cap".

MPs were considering the Health and Social Care Bill[1]. This vote was on an amendment from Emily Thornberry MP[2][3]:

  • page 159, line 24, leave out Clause 168.

The clause[4] the amendment would have left out of the Bill under consideration[5] read:

  • (1) In section 44 of the National Health Service Act 2006 (private health care), omit—
  • :(a)subsection (1) (restriction on provision of private health services),
  • :(b)subsection (2) (cap on private income),
  • :(c)subsection (2A) (special provision for mental health foundation trusts),
  • and
  • (d)subsections (3) to (5) (interpretation etc.).
  • (2)For the title to that section substitute “Power to charge for accommodation etc.”.
  • (3)In consequence of subsection (1)(b) and (c), omit section 33 of the Health Act 2009.

Section 44 of the National Health Service Act 2006[5] prevented any increase in the proportion of an NHS Foundation Trust's income derived from private charges. Having removed this cap the clause the amendment proposed removing would re-title the section "Power to charge for accommodation etc." as the remaining elements of Section 44 allow NHS Foundation Trusts to levy charges in respect of accommodation and services.

Explanatory notes[7] on the retained clause (published after this division) explain:

  • This clause repeals the restriction on the amount of income a foundation trust can earn from private charges, otherwise known as the "private patient income cap" .The cap, which was introduced in 2003, has the effect that a foundation trust cannot earn in any financial year a higher proportion of its total income from private charges than it derived from private charges in the financial year 2002-03 (the year before the first foundation trusts were authorised). For example, as no mental health foundation trust derived income from private charges in 2002-03, their cap was 0%. This was increased to 1.5% by section 33 of the Health Act 2009.
  • The Bill does not repeal the provisions of section 44 of the NHS Act which allow foundation trusts to charge NHS patients for the provision of accommodation, such as a private room, and additional services, such as an ancillary service like the provision of a television.

==

Debate in Parliament | Source |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con256 (+2 tell) 0084.3%
DUP0 6075.0%
Green0 10100.0%
Lab0 223 (+2 tell)087.2%
LDem36 3068.4%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 2066.7%
Total:292 239084.0%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Andrew GeorgeSt IvesLDem (front bench)aye
Martin HorwoodCheltenhamLDem (front bench)aye
Adrian SandersTorbayLDemaye

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive