Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Health Social Care Sport Committee Scrutiny of Provisional Common Frameworks
Letter to Convener of Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 23 December 2021
23 December 2021
Dear Convener,
HSCS Committee Scrutiny of Provisional Common Frameworks
I am writing to make you aware that the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee is about to commence its scrutiny of three provisional Common Frameworks covering policy areas within its remit, namely:
• On Blood Safety and Quality
• On Organs, Tissues and Cells (apart from embryos and gametes); and
• On Food Labelling and Compositional Standards
The outline agreement of the first two of these provisional common frameworks was shared with the Committee on 9 December, with a covering letter from the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport.
The explanatory cover page accompanying the covering letter describes the purpose of both Common Frameworks as being “to maintain a compatible minimum set of safety and quality standards between the UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to make it easier for blood components, organs and non-reproductive tissues and cells to continue to be shared across the UK.”
At time of writing, the provisional Common Framework on Food Labelling and Composition Standards has yet to be shared with the Committee for scrutiny. However, its publication is anticipated to be imminent.
Given the limited availability of time and capacity in its work programme for early 2022 to undertake scrutiny of these Common Frameworks, the Committee plans to take evidence in writing from a targeted list of stakeholders before inviting the Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health and Sport to give oral evidence to the Committee in a single session covering all three Common Frameworks.
You can read the letter from the Minister and the accompanying cover note related to the two provisional Common Frameworks already shared with the Committee here. You can access the full text of the Blood Safety and Quality Provisional Common Framework here and the full text of the Organs, Tissues and Cells (apart from embryos and gametes) Provisional Common Framework is available here.
If your Committee has particular comments in relation to any of these provisional Common Frameworks or if there are specific issues you would like to see raised as part of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s scrutiny, I would be very grateful to receive these.
I look forward to hearing from you.