Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the frequency with which he expects to use the reformed intervention powers set out in Point 5.84 of the Health and Social Care White Paper.

The reconfiguration proposal creates a new call-in power which allows the Secretary of State to intervene at any point of the reconfiguration process.

We expect the current local process to continue to apply in most instances. However, there are a minority of cases, where there is a significant cause for public concern or it is particularly complex, which may benefit from Ministerial intervention.