The Government has abolished NHS England, the largest QANGO (quasi non-governmental organisation). Its function -managing the NHS in England- is now simply folded into Whitehall’s Department of Health (from whence it emerged under the Conservative /Lib Dem coalition government).
It was created to try and take the party politics out of the NHS. The theory being that this arms-length managerial body would be clinically led, with political responsibility -and controversy- being confined to the provision of funding. Alas, we cannot break our habit of blaming government for everything. Notwithstanding the eye-watering increases in funding, ministers continued to get the flack for the relatively poor performance of the NHS. Their frustration was that they had no levers left to pull with which to do anything about it, power having been handed over to NHS England. The Secretary of State became a bit like a spectator on the touch line at a soccer match, shouting advice to the players and being largely ignored.
Well, the current Secretary of State, Wes Streeting has had enough. I don’t blame him, but now he has no excuses, now he really is in charge. For all our sakes, I wish him luck.
Despite getting rid of this super-QANGO, the Government has created eight new ones for every week that has passed since the General election. Decisions that should be made by ministers accountable to Parliament, are continuing to be outsources to unelected officials.
One QANGO ripe for abolition is the Sentencing Council which has issued new sentencing guidelines for Judges, the effect of which will make a custodial sentence less likely for those “from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”.
This is an outrageous double standard, a two -tier approach to sentencing. It is an inversion of the rule of law to which we should all be equally subject.
The Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, is ‘incandescent’ (despite the fact that her Department supported the new two-tier guidance—her representative was at the meeting when it was approved on 24 January. Her officials were even given a walkthrough on 3rd March: a dummy’s guide to two-tier justice).
She then wrote the Sentencing Council expressing her dissatisfaction and asking for the guidance to be ditched.
The Council, under the chairmanship of Lord Justice William Davis has, in effect, told her to get stuffed (as the council is quite entitled to, Parliament having delegated those independent powers to it. But it is now high time we took them back again)
This is yet another example of the impertinence of the judiciary in the face of criticism from elected representatives. We’ll have to see how Shabana Mahmood responds in this latest display of the monstrous regiment judges.