Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 19th November 2020 Grand Committee

Committee (7th Day)

14:38

Relevant documents: 19th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee, 10th Report from the Constitution Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

A participants’ list for today’s proceedings has been published by the Government Whips’ Office, as have lists of Members who have put their names to the amendments, or expressed an interest in speaking, on each group. I will call Members to speak in the order listed. Members are not permitted to intervene spontaneously; the Chair calls each speaker. Interventions during speeches or “before the noble Lord sits down” are not permitted.

During the debate on each group I will invite Members, including Members in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister, using the Grand Committee address. I will call Members to speak in order of request and will call the Minister to reply each time. The groupings are binding and it will not be possible to de-group an amendment for separate debate. A Member intending to move formally an amendment already debated should have given notice in the debate.

Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only. I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says “Not content”, an amendment is negatived and if a single voice says “Content”, a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely intends to oppose an amendment expected to be agreed to, they should make this clear when speaking on the group.

We will now begin.

Debate on Amendment 119 resumed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He is not there. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, is not with us either so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Penn.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, before I speak to the helpful debate we had on this group of amendments, I should like to make a correction to my response to an earlier grouping. At the time, I said that all adverse incidents with medical devices are available online on the MHRA’s website. I would like to correct this: adverse incidents with medical devices will be published online on the MHRA’s website as part of the plans to deliver increased transparency and in line with developing future legislation enabled by the powers in the Bill. However, it is not presently the case.

Turning to our present debate, I thought it might be helpful first to address the current arrangements for the regulation of medicines, veterinary medicines and medical devices in Northern Ireland. Responsibility for medical device regulation is reserved in respect of the whole of the UK. However, Part 1 of the Bill, relating to human medicines, and Part 2, on veterinary medicines, deal with transferred matters in relation to Northern Ireland. Clauses 1 and 8 set out that regulations in relation to Northern Ireland can be made either by the Secretary of State acting jointly with the Northern Ireland department or by the Northern Ireland department. This has always been the case; however, the MHRA and the VMD regulate these areas UK-wide on a day-to-day basis. After the end of the transition period, with regard to both human and veterinary medicines, as well as medical devices, under the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, Northern Ireland will continue to follow the acquis.

Amendment 119 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, seeks to ensure that, in making regulations under the Bill, the Government must minimise and mitigate the potential for regulatory divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Along with Amendment 120 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Amendment 119 seeks to establish a requirement for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on areas of divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I completely understand that these probing amendments seek to ensure that Parliament has proper sight of how medicines and medical device regulation develops in the future, particularly in relation to any differences between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is right and proper. Noble Lords will be aware, however, that the amendment in the name of my noble friend the Minister, on reporting obligations, means that the Government must already provide Parliament with a report every two years. This sits alongside the separate amendment to Clause 41 in my noble friend’s name, which requires a public consultation on any regulatory change to be made under the Bill.

That new reporting obligation on the operation of regulations made by the Secretary of State under Clauses 1(1), 8(1) and 12(1) is both forward and backward-looking. It must include any concerns raised or proposals for change made by anyone consulted by the Secretary of State in the preparation of the report, and the response to these. That may include advance notice of further regulatory change that the Secretary of State is proposing to make.

These reports, along with the public consultation on regulations under the Bill, would be the right place to deal with any issues of possible regulatory divergence raised. It would therefore be duplicative to require the Secretary of State to lay additional reports specifically on regulatory divergence for medicines and medical devices.

Noble Lords also asked a number of practical questions on how regulation will operate in Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the end of the transition period, which I will also address. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, asked who would be responsible for any possible divergence between the Great Britain and Northern Ireland regulatory systems. I can reassure her that the MHRA and the VMD, reporting to their respective Secretaries of State, will continue to regulate human and veterinary medicines and medical devices for the whole of the UK, and will continue to ensure that patients and animals in Northern Ireland, just as in Great Britain, receive the safe and effective medicines and devices they need.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, asked specifically about the interaction between the UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive on issues relating to future regulation of medicines and medical devices. I can reassure the noble Baroness that officials in the Department of Health and Social Care meet officials in the Northern Ireland Executive every two weeks to discuss the Bill and regulation of medicines and devices, and that a strong working relationship exists.

Robin Swann MLA has also given consent for the medicines day one-readiness statutory instrument, laid on 20 October, to be made by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland as well as for Great Britain. We will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland Executive as plans for the future regulatory environment for devices and medicines develop.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, also raised the approach to the day one readiness after the end of the transition period on which the MHRA has based its guidance to industry. I can reassure the noble Lord that, as I have just said, those regulations have been laid before Parliament, and we expect to debate them in early December.

Those regulations also require that from 1 January 2021, marketing authorisation holders must transmit all global serious reports of adverse drug reactions directly to the MHRA, to ensure that the agency has access to the totality of the information, to assess safety issues. This links to the noble Lord’s point on pharmacovigilance. I can reassure him that, following the end of the transition period, the MHRA will continue to be responsible for pharmacovigilance across the whole of the UK, and will use common processes for the assessment of safety issues in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

14:45

The system for medical devices is different. Medical devices placed on the market in Northern Ireland must be registered with the MHRA. If such devices come into Great Britain via unfettered access and there are any safety issues, it will be possible to trace them back to the manufacturer and remove the device from the market. MHRA officials will be able to carry out market surveillance for medical devices that comply with both Great Britain and Northern Ireland rules.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, also raised the UK’s access to EU databases for the purposes of effective regulation of medicines and medical devices. I can reassure the noble Lord that we have been in discussions with the EU on precisely this matter, to enable implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol for medicines and medical devices. We are now in discussion with the EU on the fine operational details to provide clear and detailed guidance for industry.

Where there are concerns about the implementation of the protocol in Northern Ireland, there are formal channels in place. Officials meet regularly in the Ireland/Northern Ireland Specialised Committee. The specialised committee reports to the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee and provides advice on decisions to be taken by the joint committee under the protocol.

We have already raised the issue of the falsified medicines directive and regulatory importation requirements for medicines moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland after the end of the transition period with the EU through the specialised committee, and have agreed with the EU a pragmatic one-year time-limited approach to implementing the regulations that will ensure that there will be no disruption to the flow of medicines to Northern Ireland at the end of the transition period. I say this to reassure noble Lords of the effectiveness of those mechanisms under the protocol.

In closing, I repeat that patient safety and animal safety, and the supply of human and veterinary medicines, as well as medical devices, in Northern Ireland are of primary importance, and the Government’s priority will always be to ensure that patients and animals across the UK have access to safe and effective treatments. As we move forward, we will ensure that Northern Ireland patients and animals are not disadvantaged in accessing those treatments. On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, has heard enough to withdraw Amendment 119, and that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is similarly assured so that he need not move his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, is now with us. Are you there, Lord Mackay?

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

Yes, I am here. My internet was turned off on the basis that I was on an aeroplane—which I have not been since March. That shows that some things are not absolutely reliable. Anyway, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has dealt with the subject, and I do not need to trouble noble Lords any further.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler. No? I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, wants to speak. I call Lord Patel.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I sent in a request to speak after the Minister. I am grateful to her for her lengthy response, but in a way it just shows that there will be considerable areas of divergence once we exit Europe, even after we exit Europe and the agreement with the EU has expired. What the Minister said is correct—that maybe the emergency power regulations will allow us to ask questions—but those are only emergency powers, and this is longer-term.

My amendment asks for an indication, on at least a yearly basis, of where divergences are occurring. It is interesting that the Minister said that the statutory instrument is now available and will be debated in due course. Of course it is available now—although I do not know when it was made available—and we will have an opportunity to debate it. However, the MHRA was already giving guidance on the basis of that instrument before we had seen it or debated it. The Minister’s reply did not therefore satisfy the intention behind my amendment—although I will, of course, not move it today—in terms of the necessity for the Government to produce a report of where divergences are occurring and why.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

To address the noble Lord’s question about when the statutory instrument was laid, I believe it was on 20 October. I think the statutory instrument laid on 20 October, which we shall debate, is not the Government’s approach to an answer on how we deal with the future issues of regulating medicines, medical devices and vet meds in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. What I was trying to express to the noble Lord is that we have a mechanism that means the Minister will report to Parliament every two years, both looking forward to prospective changes and back at any changes that may have been made. Of course, where new regulations are proposed there will be public consultation on those, but there will also be reports to Parliament ahead of that about the intentions, and those reports will provide a mechanism, which I think the noble Lord wants, to ensure that these issues are discussed properly in Parliament in future.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her response. Due to the break in the group since Tuesday, we have all had the advantage of being able to have a closer look in Hansard at the speeches made by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. If we had managed to squeeze in the Minister’s response, that would have been perfect; I could then have responded having read it all very closely.

Anyway, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, both for his support of our amendment and his very detailed considerations and questions on the MHRA guidance on Northern Ireland-Great Britain regulatory diversion on medicines and medical devices. His speech was very much a tour de force on the whole situation, understating how confusing the situation is in relation to the distinction the MHRA guidance makes between the EU market, the GB market and the market for Northern Ireland. We will need to read Hansard carefully but, despite the Minister’s best endeavours, I cannot see that she has managed to clear up for us exactly how the whole confused system will work in the future.

Moreover, as the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned, we do have the draft regulations. My attention has been drawn to them only this week. I thought they were published on 13 November, not in October, but that may be just me not reading them properly. Both regulations deal with Northern Ireland and Great Britain regulatory diversion issues, so this debate will be paused until we have considered those regulations and come back to the main Bill, and while we see what outcome there will be on the adoption of the Northern Ireland protocol.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, underlined the need for monitoring, oversight and accountability on this issue, and the importance of reporting to Parliament, and we obviously strongly agree with that. I did not specifically hear a response to her question on what internal discussions there have been between the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive with responsibility for the NI Department of Health. If the Minister could write to her and put a copy in the Library, so that we can see what progress the discussions have made so far, that would be really helpful.

On the issue of reporting to Parliament annually—as in the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel—and not every two years, as the amended legislation provides for, I think the annual report called for by the noble Lord will be very much needed as all the problems and issues underlined by him and others in this debate are being worked through.

The issue is vital, and many issues are still to be identified, considered, worked through and resolved, which will mitigate and minimise the potential for regulatory divergence in human medicines and medical devices between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. In that expectation, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 119 withdrawn.

Amendment 120 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 121. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Amendment 121

Moved by

[Baroness Cumberlege]

121: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Independent medicines and medical devices safety review: task force for implementation
(1) Within three months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must appoint an independent task force.(2) The task force must—(a) have an independent Chair;(b) be accountable to an oversight governance board; and(c) include representatives of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, published on 8 July 2020.(3) The task force’s functions are—(a) to deliver a timeline for the implementation in full of the recommendations of the Review in subsection (2)(c); and(b) to implement the recommendations of the Review in subsection (2)(c).(4) Once the task force has fulfilled the functions in subsection (3), it will cease to exist.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would establish the task force whose role it would be to implement recommendations set out in the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review.

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as noble Lords are well aware, First Do No Harm, the report of my review, was published in July of this year. Our ninth and final recommendation was that the Government should set up a task force to implement the other recommendations and the many actions for improvement contained in the report. That task force has not been set up, and the Government remain silent on whether they will agree to do so and, indeed, on the report as a whole.

This proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to set up a task force within three months of the Bill becoming law. I would much rather not find myself tabling it; I would much rather the Government saw the urgency and had already set up the task force, because it is designed to help the department and the wider healthcare system to do the thinking, to make sure we get the details right and to set out a pathway and a timeline for implementing the report’s recommendations.

I believe it must be a collaborative venture; it should involve not just the department and its arm’s-length buddies but also patients. It would be a missed opportunity were it not to include the representatives of my review, because we have the knowledge and the expertise, acquired over two and a half years of work. To inspire confidence among people who have suffered, it needs to be independently chaired and overseen by a government board.

We feel that the task force is the right way to approach the job of implementing the review’s recommendations. My noble friend the Minister may well tell us that the Bill is not the right place for this measure—that is as may be—in which case, if he were able to reassure me that the task force would be set up separately by the Government, as we envisage in this proposed new clause, and on a similar or shorter timescale, I would be more than satisfied.

These matters are pressing. Our recommendations need to be implemented if we are to help people who have suffered so much already, many of them for decades. We must try to prevent further avoidable harm to more patients and families in the future. The task force is the key to making this happen, and those of us who have run organisations know that they need some discipline and something like a task force—a body that will ensure that the task set out is actually implemented and that it happens. I beg to move this amendment, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and to support what she is saying. At the heart of her argument is the concern that, although the Minister said earlier in Grand Committee that the Government are weighing it up with all “seriousness and intent”, the Government are not going to run with the core of the noble Baroness’s recommendations. Because the Government have been so reluctant—very unusually—to respond immediately to the thrust of her report, there remains a lot of uncertainty about how far the Government are prepared to implement it.

Of course, the opportunity given to us with the medicines Bill enables us really to press the Government to be more detailed about what they are going to do. On Tuesday, we had a very good debate on the recommendation for the appointment of a patient safety commissioner. The Minister made a very extensive response, which essentially set out the measures that the Government are taking to embed patient safety throughout the NHS. I shall just mention a few: promoting a positive learning culture at the heart of the NHS; taking steps to help staff to speak up when things go wrong; establishing the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch to examine the more serious patient safety incidents and promote system-wide learning; appointing medical examiners to provide much-needed support to bereaved families and improve patient safety; introducing a duty of candour, so that hospitals tell patients if their safety has been compromised, and apologise; and commissioning the NHS national director of patient safety, Dr Aidan Fowler, to publish a strategy, which, of course, has been done.

15:00

I do not seek to underestimate in any way the work that the Minister referred to, which has already been undertaken, but two things are missing. First, that is not a system-wide approach. I would like to hear how the Care Quality Commission, instead of making patient safety one of the five criteria by which a trust can get the top rating, will make patient safety the sole criteria for the top rating. I would like to hear much more about how we will ensure that equipment, buildings and services have safety designed into them right from the start. When we set up the NPSA nearly 20 years ago, we knew that one of the best approaches is to design safety in the system. In many hospitals, you could have medical equipment for the same purpose but of different makes and with different controls, leading to confusion. There are many other examples. All that should be driven out by someone at the centre who understands that safety is a system issue above all else. We do not see that; the patient safety strategy talks about a system but does not mention how it is going to be done in a systematic way.

It is the same with the issue of independence. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, was a Minister in the Department of Health and she has said that the department does not like independence, and I can confirm that as a former Minister. But to have credibility, you have to have an independent approach. The task force is one example, and the patient safety commissioner is another. At heart, we want to hear from the Minister, before the Bill reaches the end of its stages in the House of Lords, what the government response is. I am afraid that we are not going to get it, which of course then leads us to push amendments at Report. But I hope that the Minister, with his colleagues, will reconsider their approach and, before we reach Report, set out what they will do with the noble Baroness’s recommendations.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and support the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in her amendment, to which I have added my name.

The report that the Government commissioned and appointed the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, to do on these issues of medicines and medical devices made nine very clear recommendations in July. One central recommendation in that report, First Do No Harm, was the need for a task force to oversee the implementation of the recommendations from the report —hence this amendment today.

If the Government, the Minister and his colleagues, are serious about the recommendations and recognise that there is an issue and a problem in relation to certain medicines and medical devices, they should see fit to implement all nine recommendations. I think back to when I was doing some research on this. An eminent QC, Lauren Sutherland, said that the Government should not ignore these recommendations—they should implement them.

I made the request, along with many other noble Lords, for the implementation of the task force during Second Reading in early September. I said that it should be set up without delay to oversee progress, and I believe that, if the Government are to take this report seriously and ensure that such failures do not happen again, that needs to happen. What better way to have an implementation group than by the task force that is already in existence, because it was independent of government, has worked on these issues for two years and is fully acquainted with all the matters, problems and challenges met by many people, who have suffered indignity and immeasurable pain as a result of the imprecision in relation to medical devices? To ensure proper implementation and oversight of the recommendations, a task force is a necessary prerequisite and needs to be placed in the Bill. The first remit or task of such a task force should be to set a timeline for its work and delivery of the review’s recommendations. The only way for that to work is if the implementation task force is put in the Bill.

As the report states, the task force should be made up of representatives of the various arms of the healthcare system that have a recognisable role to play in delivering patient safety—in other words, people acquainted with the issues and who have knowledge and expertise. Those responsible for implementation need to know that their work and progress will be monitored and they will be accountable. Supporting the implementation process should be a reference group made up of a range of patient interests going far wider than the groups the report members dealt with. Yet again, such a reference group would consist of people with direct experience, and ongoing daily experience, of the impact of such medicines that have been specified, as well as other types of medicines, where there have been side effects, and the medical devices that have caused so many problems to so many women and men.

We need a system and task force that listens, hears and acts with speed, compassion and with proportionality to prevent further avoidable harm—hence my support for the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, to establish such an implementation task force without delay in the Bill.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Cumberlege on the work that she and her able team have done on the report, First Do No Harm. I entirely support the amendment, and I am delighted to follow in this the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, who has pointed out that by definition it will have only a limited life. Its main work will be to ensure that the functions of the report and all the recommendations are followed through. However, I take this opportunity to ask both Ministers if they are minded to support this. Possibly, when my noble friend comes to respond, we might hear what the nature might be of the budget allocated to the task force, as well as to whom, if at all, the oversight governance board in subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause might report, and whether it is intended that Parliament might have an overview of the work of the task force.

In establishing the task force, it is absolutely vital that there is a body that has the role, as is intended in this amendment, of implementing the recommendations set out in the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. I would personally favour the mechanism in this amendment that a task force should be set up for this purpose, limited in time with a specific view. I would be interested to know what budget might be allocated, and from which budget this would come, and also if there was a mechanism to keep Parliament informed of the work of the task force for its limited life.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, when I was preparing for today’s debate and I saw where I was in the speaking list, I anticipated that there would not be much left to say by the time we got to me. I was wondering what I might be able to add to support my noble friend Lady Cumberlege in the very powerful argument she made about the need to set up the task force in recommendation 9 from her review.

I went to look at the latest data on the use of valproate in girls and women in the UK, and I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the APPG that looks at these issues. The MHRA publishes a regular report and its version 4, which tracks the data from 2010 to 2019, was published earlier this year. From that I draw two lessons that are very germane to this debate. The first—which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded to—is that there is this fear of independence, but there is also something else that perhaps goes on, which is almost a sense of helplessness: well, harm is going to happen in practice, there are things you can do, but it is something we are always going to have to accept. The positive message that comes from the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and her review, is that we can make a difference. If you look at the prescribing of valproate in pregnancy, you see that it fell by 78% from 2010 to 2019 on the back of concerted action from many people—clinicians, officials, Ministers, patients of course, patient campaigning groups particularly, and many others. It halved, year on year, from 2018 to 2019. So we can make a difference through concerted action.

The other data point I take out of it is that even now there are still 200 babies exposed each year to valproate and, as we know, half of them will experience physical or mental harm. That is 100 babies whose lives, and whose families’ lives, are going to be irreparably changed because of that exposure, when everybody accepts that exposure to valproate in pregnancy should be zero, or as close to that as humanly possible.

It is the point about urgency that I want to get across to my noble friend the Minister. I do believe that he is deeply sympathetic to the findings of the review and the need to move forward, but we cannot wait any longer, because these harms are going on. They are going on every day and we can do something about them—and the recommendations in my noble friend’s review are precisely the way we can do something about them. As my noble friend Lady Cumberlege said in her opening remarks, this is not the kind of thing on which you really want an amendment. It is not the kind of thing that should require legislation, but the reason there is such support for it is the sense that nothing is happening when there are harms going on that could be prevented if we took the concerted action that is necessary. That is why I am speaking in support of the amendment today.

15:15

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in favour of this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. Like the preceding speaker, I am aiming to add extra angles and approaches rather than to repeat what has already been said—but I associate myself, essentially, with everything that has already been said.

As I was thinking about this amendment, I was reflecting on a session in the House—I believe it was this week, although it all blurs slightly if one looks at a screen for long enough—when the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, was being questioned by one of his noble friends about why a whole series of Written Questions about Covid had not been answered. The fact is, of course, that all aspects of our health system are currently under enormous pressure. The proposition that I put—as I was arguing in another amendment to the Bill earlier this week—is that this is actually an amendment that makes the Government’s job easier. It carves off a recognisable, obvious piece of work that does not have to be done by already horribly overworked, stretched systems. It means that something can be done: something can be ticked off and said to be under control, managed and done, in a way that does not draw too heavily on that existing overstretched system. That is the first point I wanted to make.

The second point I want to make—and I feel that I need to apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for bringing this up—is that, as a former newspaper editor, when I was thinking about reports and what happens to reports, I had to go back to the Leveson inquiry, conducted by Lord Justice Leveson. I remember, when I first read that report, I thought about how it had been carefully structured to put aside some of the more difficult areas, particularly the issue of media ownership concentration. In the report Lord Justice Leveson had tried very hard to create something that was implementable and manageable, and that had some chance of being delivered. I think we all know that that is not what happened, so I can understand that anyone asked to take on a huge job of work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, did with this, must ask themselves the question, “If I devote so much time, energy and effort to this work, will it actually be delivered?”

I said before that the patient safety commissioner amendment was possibly the most important one. In some ways, this certainly vies with it. This is about delivery. We know that there are three reasons to call an inquiry. One might be to find information, one might be to reassure the public, and another might be to create a plan of action. Those are the three often-stated reasons, but sometimes there is a fourth reason—perhaps “sometimes” is not the right word; perhaps “often” might be a better word—to kick something into the long grass. It is crucial that the issues uncovered by the noble Baroness are not kicked into the long grass, and that the very clear, obvious and important recommendations are not lost. So I support this amendment and, should it need to go further, I will continue to support it.

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 121 is another recommendation, as we have heard, from the Cumberlege review. We would, within three months of the Bill being passed, set up a task force to implement the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. This particular recommendation, like the others in the review, received very widespread support at Second Reading, and a key element of the recommendation contained in this amendment is the appointment of an independent chair of the task force. It is absolutely critical that this independence is real, and perceived as being real. It should be clear to all that the chair is not an establishment place-person, and is an obviously safe pair of hands. It is vital that public confidence in the safety of medical devices be restored, and we very strongly support this amendment. This amendment is the means—and perhaps the only means currently available to us—of making the Cumberlege recommendations a reality. If the Minister is not inclined to accept this amendment, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, will bring it back on Report, so that we can test the opinion of the House.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, as it must be clear to the Minister that there is unanimity across the Committee in support of setting up this safer care task force. My noble friend Lord Hunt was quite right that this is about whether the Government take this report seriously, and for me this is also an issue of accountability. Recommendation 9 of nine states:

“The Government should immediately set up a task force to implement this Review’s recommendations.”


I hope that the Minister will just say, “Yes, we’ve done it”, so that we can now be told what the timeline for the task force will be and who will be involved. That is my hope from the Minister’s remarks, but if that is not to be the case, I hope that it might be the case in two or three weeks’ time when we move to the next stage of the Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, again, I thank my noble friend and her team for their work to produce the report and to ensure that patients and their families have been heard. Above all, I pay tribute to all the patients and their families who have so bravely shared their experiences to inform this important report. The report has been impactful and has already served to firmly put patient safety at the top of the agenda for all the healthcare system, and we in the Government are committed to learning from it.

On the amendment, if I may put this delicately, we must please remember that this is not a Bill to respond to the review. The Bill provides the powers needed to be able to update the current regulatory regime for medicines, devices and clinical trials in response to the end of the transition period, although the Bill does have the best interests of patients at its heart.

If it was not for the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on the health and care system, I believe that we would be discussing little else but patient safety. But, as my noble friend Lady Cumberlege has acknowledged in this Grand Committee, Covid has had a challenging impact on all our priorities, including on her own work on the NHS maternity transformation programme —and, of course, on the publication of her report, which was scheduled for the beginning of this year but, because of Covid, happened only 16 weeks ago.

I can assure noble Lords that much activity is already under way. Officials from across the healthcare system have been working together intensely since the report’s publication. They have been meeting weekly since August to ensure that we fully understand the report’s recommendations and the best way forward.

My noble friend has rightly mentioned the importance of listening to and involving patients in the implementation process. We absolutely recognise the need for effective patient engagement to ensure that we get implementation right. The Minister of State, Nadine Dorries, will provide an update on this and other matters related to the report in December, and I shall be very happy to report likewise to this House.

These debates have been clear, and I can assure noble Lords that, as part of our consideration of the report, we will of course want to be informed by the debates on this Bill before responding in detail to this very important report. I am very sympathetic to the desire of my noble friend and others to see the Government move quickly in responding to her report, but I do not agree that this Bill is a sensible method of delivery for that response. It is a weighty report, and our response will be rightly scrutinised when the Government responds to Parliament, but an amendment in this Bill is not the right mechanism. We should not be making policy through legislation, for that rarely makes for good government policy-making.

Therefore, I hope that this is a probing amendment, seeking some reassurance, rather than a firm request. In that spirit, I welcome the opportunity to update the Grand Committee on some of the progress that we are making to date.

Recommendation 1 has been implemented. The Government have, on behalf of the health and care sector, apologised to those women, their children and their families for the time that the system took to listen and respond.

We debated my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s amendment for a patient safety commissioner just a few days ago, so I shall not repeat all the points raised. It was an insightful discussion, and I will think on it further, as I said during the debate.

We shall shortly be debating Amendments 122 and 123, on establishing a redress agency and redress schemes, so I will not pre-empt those discussions.

On recommendation 5, I know that my noble friend is already aware of work to establish specialist centres for mesh removal, but I would like to say a little more in recognition of its importance. NHS England is working closely with providers to set up the specialist mesh removal centres and is currently working to prepare for launch next April. The service specification for mesh centres describes how all centres must come together in a clinical summit to agree how we can develop the service moving forward, to agree standards that all centres will work to and to share data and outcomes. The first summit will take place tomorrow, 20 November. I am pleased to note that clinicians from the devolved nations are invited to that session too.

On recommendation 6, the MHRA has already begun a substantial programme of work to change the culture of the agency. Key priority areas are: first, listening and responding to patients; secondly, better utilising scientific evidence to strengthen and speed up decision-making on safety; and, thirdly, becoming more open and transparent in everything that the agency does. The MHRA is strengthening its yellow card scheme to make it easier for both patients and healthcare professionals.

On recommendation 7, as my noble friend will also be aware, we have debated Clause 16 of the Bill. Significantly, its provisions will mean that, in future, we can collect surgical implants and devices data from all NHS and private provider organisations, starting with mesh-related procedures and from that agreed next steps.

On recommendation 8, the General Medical Council already has guidance covering financial and commercial arrangements and conflicts of interest, which came into effect on 22 April 2013. In addition, the GMC’s updated consent guidance came into effect on 9 November. This reaffirms that any conflicts of interest that a doctor or their organisation may have should be shared with patients where relevant. We are considering whether these arrangements should be strengthened further.

My noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy spoke of a worrying attitude of fatalism in the system, but I should also flag the work being done by GPs, universities and the royal colleges on long Covid and the excellent work being done to protect patients. We are listening to patients, who are presenting highly complex symptoms, including mental health, renal, cardiac, respiratory and other issues. I host a weekly round table that has full engagement with representative groups. We have mobilised a whole-system response. We are linking research with guideline writing for primary care in real time. We are using data thoughtfully, and we are mobilising networks of concerned groups around the country and around the world. This reflects the priority that we have already put on the recommendations of the patient safety report.

My noble friend Lady Cumberlege and her team took two and a half years to complete their review and present their findings, and I am intensely grateful for that. It is imperative, for the sake of patients and especially those who have suffered greatly, that we give this independent report the full consideration it deserves. I look forward to updating the House following the Minister’s Statement in the other place before recess. I therefore hope that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

I do not believe that anyone wishes to come in after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege.

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]]

I thank all those noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I am extremely grateful to them. I have listened to what the Minister had to say, and I do not deny that meetings are taking place—I understand that they are—but I have no idea what is coming out of those meetings. But we will come to that in a minute.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is quite right that actually implementing policy is the most critical thing and is extremely difficult. The Paterson report was a very interesting report on things that had gone terribly wrong with an individual surgeon who acted inappropriately, and, as I said when we debated the patient safety commissioner amendment on Tuesday, I understand that the Paterson report’s recommendations echo what our report said. What has happened to the Paterson recommendations? I do not believe that anything has happened. If things have happened, I would like to know what they are. I can show shelf upon shelf of wonderful reports that have been drawn together by people who have put their heart and soul into them, but, actually, nothing has happened. I am not going to let that happen with my report—I really am not—because there are too many people who have been so badly hurt and who deserve redress, which we will come on to in the next amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is right that there is a missing piece in the jigsaw—the most important piece—because safety has to be a system.

15:30

My noble friend Lord Bethell has talked about the different bits that are being discussed. They are being talked about—I will come to that in a minute. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, is absolutely right that the independent chair is critical, as other noble Lords have mentioned. Independence brings huge strengths. When we debated the independent patient safety commissioner we also referred to the Children’s Commissioner. When I talked to the Children’s Commissioner, she said: “The most important thing that I have is independence”.

When we were a review team, I accepted this commission and told Jeremy Hunt, who asked me to take on the task, that there were three reasons I would do it. First, I wanted to choose the people around me and appoint my own team. Secondly, I wanted independence and thirdly, I wanted a budget that I could call upon. The third one really did not happen, but every time I met those in the department I had to remind them that we were an independent review. That independence is precious and gives people the right to say the things that need to be said. The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, is absolutely right about that and about the timeline. If you are to implement something, you have to be serious about how long it will take. The timeline is critical.

We have also said that when the report is implemented, we do not want the task force to continue. We said, “It’s time they went—they’ve done their job”. In fact, I was responsible for setting up certain task forces as a Minister. I remember that it was terribly difficult to close the one on food down. Those on it loved their task force. They got remuneration for doing it and they were doing some good things, but we said, “No, it’s time-limited.” That is why I was anxious that this task force should be time-limited.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, so much for her support. She is absolutely right that the thing about this report is that it links together and makes sense. Some of it is about what is happening now, but most of it is about the future. As a review team, we kept saying to ourselves: what is really important is the future and ensuring that safety will be taken into serious consideration—and we need someone to do it, which is why we have talked a lot about the patient safety commissioner. The governance board, which she also mentioned, is really important. If you are going to implement something, you want some rigour. We tried to put rigour into the idea of having a task force, so the governance board was important in that.

My noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, who I know has done a huge amount of work on sodium valproate with the all-party group and beyond, when he was a Minister, is so right that there are lessons to be learned. Independence is the most crucial one, but he is so right on another thing: when you produce such a report there is a sort of hopelessness about it if it is not accepted and people do not say, “Yes, we think you’ve got some really good ideas, we will implement them”. We can make a difference and are determined to do so. We are setting up an all-party parliamentary group because we anticipate that we will not get the task force through today, so we are going to have another body the whole purpose of which is to implement these recommendations. We will launch it very shortly.

The urgency is huge. We cannot underestimate it and my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy is so right that as a nation and a society, we cannot expose more babies to being disabled because their mothers are not told about the sodium valproate that they use to control their epilepsy. We cannot wait any longer and if nothing happens we will all have a terrible burden to carry into the future.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, very much for the work that she does. I was really interested in what she said about the Leveson inquiry. She is absolutely right: people put all their time and energy into the work of these great reports—you have to start with a very good report—but actually it is delivery that really matters. As I have said, what has happened to the Paterson inquiry? I wonder.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, very much for his contribution. He is absolutely right, again, about having an independent chair for the task force—somebody who is not part of the establishment but will take the position seriously. The independence is critical; we heard all about that when we debated the independent patient safety commissioner in relation to the Children’s Commissioner, who has always said that independence is essential. Take other people such as Amanda Spielman, who is doing work in the education field: you can jolly well tell that she is independent by the way that she takes on issues.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, so much. She is so right about accountability. It is no good setting things up that are not accountable. They have to be questioned. We are suggesting that the task force should be questioned and have not only an independent chair but the oversight of a governance board, to which it would be accountable. If we are to spend public money on these things, we must ensure the accountability is there and follow it.

I want to thank my noble friend the Minister for always being very generous about the report. That is true of everybody who we have met and spoken to. Nobody has said to us, “It’s not a thorough report” or, “Ah, but you missed this”, or, “You didn’t do that”. Our real worry was about the patient groups. Before we launched the report to the media we gave the patients the report and the weekend to read it. They had all of Monday and then on Tuesday we gathered them all together—virtually, obviously—and said to each of the 15 groups: “Just tell us what you think”. They might have said to us, “Sorry, we know that you put a lot of work into this, but actually it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. It’s a whitewash”. We had none of that. They were all so pleased with the thoroughness and the work that was done—not mine, but that of the review team, who worked their socks off to get it done.

I say to my noble friend the Minister: I value your generous remarks and your sympathy, which you always explain to us. Your sympathy knows no bounds—it is amazing—but I have to say that it is not enough. Warm words do not cut it. We need action. We need to know what you are doing in all these weekly meetings. How are those weekly meetings actually improving the life of patients? What is this work that is under way? So much of it you have told us; you told us when we were discussing the patient safety commissioner. We know all that, but there is nothing there that is going to implement this report. You are going to do other things—fair enough, you can do those—but there is still a lacuna, a gap, something that needs addressing. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, we need a system-wide approach. We need somebody who is going to gather the different threads together and ensure that we do have a system where patients are foremost. They are, after all, the reason for our National Health Service, for our regulators, for various bodies and for all the colleges in the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, all of which support us, but it is the patients first.

I fear that if we do not do anything about this quickly we will not produce what we can do. What we want is not for me or the review team but for the Government’s and Ministers’ legacy. Their legacy can be coronavirus, but this is a different legacy. The thing about this report is that it really has brought everybody together. That is so important at a time when the country is in such stress. We need to have absolute assurance that we have a real rock-bottom area where people are joined together. They want to see it. They want the implementation. Regarding other things such as specialist centres and so on, we know all that because we were working with them during the review.

I did not want to bring this amendment forward. I had to do it because I have received no ideas or whispers of what the Government think. I really feel that this is the time when the Government must tell us not just warm words but the way forward: “This is what we are going to do”. We have given them a chance, which is the task force. They can set up the task force and pass the implementation on to it. The task force can ensure that things happen. It will have to be accountable, as we have set out. That is all there. I am sorry but I had to bring this amendment forward because the Government have been as silent as the grave. They just have not come forward with their ideas on what they intend to do. I find that disappointing.

I do not want to press the amendment now. Whether I will decide to do so later, after thinking about it, is another matter. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 121 withdrawn.

15:45

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 122, and we will not be interrupted by any Divisions. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Amendment 122

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

122: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Medicines and Medical Devices Redress Agency
The Secretary of State must, by the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, bring proposals before Parliament to establish a Redress Agency for those harmed by medicines and medical devices.”

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is a probing amendment. Although I am a member of the GMC board, I make it clear that I am not speaking on behalf of the GMC.

It is very difficult to move on to the nitty-gritty of a redress agency after the hugely eloquent and moving speech made just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. The Minister said in his response to the noble Baroness that this is not the Bill to respond to the report. What I say to him is that this is the only Bill in town. Medicines and medical devices are at the core of patient safety. He promised that the Minister responsible for patient safety would make a Statement on the report in December. My assumption is that that will be made after the Bill has passed through the House of Lords, and therein lies the problem: we will not be told the Government’s response before we come to the critical Report stage. We just have to work on the assumption that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said, the Government are not going to embrace her core recommendations. We will therefore have to take action on Report on that basis. I do not see what other course of action the House of Lords can take, unless the Government are prepared to bring forward their Statement so that we can see it before we reach Report.

I have just one other point. I listened to the Minister, and he has been very helpful in setting out some of the initiatives that the Government are taking. However, as with the patient safety strategy—we have been here before—the department seems to have collected all the examples of good practice it can find, bunged them into a report and called it a strategy. That is the problem, because it ain’t a strategy. It does not address the fundamental crunch that the NHS has been run far too hot and is unsafe. When you really tackle that, you have to tackle the issues of resources, work force and targets. That is a huge challenge to the Government, which is why they are so reluctant to go down that course.

What does that have to do with the redress agency? I will try to come to that in a moment. However, I want to ask the Minister whether he can say anything about this recommendation. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, argued powerfully for a redress agency to be set up on an avoidable-harm basis that looks to systematic failings, rather than blaming individuals, encourages reporting and should provide faster resolution for claimants. She argues that it should be a consensual process rather than a judicial one. Redress would be offered, not awarded, and proceedings under the scheme would be voluntary. She also said that the redress agency would have an important role to play in harm prevention as claims for adverse events would be centralised, enabling data to be provided that would help regulators detect signals earlier.

This is not the first time that a redress scheme has been proposed. Indeed, 17 years ago, an NHS redress scheme was unveiled by the then Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson. It included no-fault compensation for babies born with severe brain damage, and payments of up to £30,000 without litigation for patients whose treatment went wrong. Under the scheme, parents would get a managed medical care package for their child, monthly payments for other care of up to £100,000 a year, lump sums for home adaptations and equipment of up to £50,000, and compensation for pain and suffering capped at £50,000. The other arm of the redress scheme, for smaller negligence claims, would have provided a package including an explanation and apology, remedial treatment, rehabilitation and care where needed and financial compensation up to £30,000 where authorised. Legislation followed in 2006, but 14 years later it has, as I understand it, yet to be implemented. The aim of the Act was to provide a genuine alternative to litigation, but it has languished on the statute book. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell me whether that is it and whether the Government do not think it the appropriate way forward.

I also ask the Minister to say something about the increase in negligence costs to the NHS. The latest annual report from NHS Resolution shows that the total cost of payments made in respect of clinical negligence in 2019-20 was £2.32 billion. Of that figure, a substantial amount was paid in legal costs: nearly £500 million to claimant legal costs and £143 million for NHS legal costs. We know that it often takes years for cases to be resolved.

Is the Minister confident that we are getting this right? Does the noble Baroness’s recommendation not deserve examination, at least? I beg to move.

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is hard to follow the very well-researched contribution to this whole issue from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It was interesting to hear about Sir Liam Donaldson’s report, which got on to the statute book but was not implemented. Is that not a disgrace? It is really dreadful.

Very near to where I live is the centre for Chailey Heritage, now the Chailey Heritage Foundation, for children who suffered through their mothers having taken the drug thalidomide. I chaired its governing body for years. It is interesting that that redress system still continues; it is supported by a trust, which inherited the disaster of the medication, and it has honoured that and receives government support. So we have examples where this is working.

The redress agency that we recommend is really about the future. My amendment is about the present. We know that so many patients and their families have suffered such harm, and we need a system that is more compassionate and a much more certain route for obtaining redress to compensate them. We are talking not about compensation as such, but about redress. You have to go to the courts to achieve compensation, and it is a very miserable experience—we have heard that from patients. It also takes a very long time and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, very often the people who benefit most are the lawyers.

We are talking about Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh—the three interventions through which people have suffered avoidable harm. The suffering they endure now is terrible. All three have caused and are causing avoidable psychological and, of course, physical and neurological harm. These families really need a little help with the conditions they are living with. Indeed, some are looking after some very disabled children. We do not believe that their needs are adequately met by the healthcare, social care or benefits systems. Some of these people are actually very elderly—the parents of the children who took Primodos. It would be a scandal if those people were to live their lives unable to access the redress they need and the outcome they deserve. After all, the harm was caused not by them, but by the state.

In the case of these three interventions, there is a moral and ethical responsibility to provide ex gratia payments in respect of the avoidable damage that occurred. That responsibility falls on the state and the manufacturers of the products in question. The schemes that would be established through this proposed new clause would provide discretionary payments, and each of the three schemes would have tailored eligibility criteria.

The payments the schemes make would not be intended to cover the cost of services that are already available free of charge, such as healthcare and social security payments. They would be for other needs—for example, the cost of travel to medical appointments. We have met and talked to many of those people, and they have said that it is a significant cost burden. The payments might be for respite breaks or emergency payments where a parent has had to stop work to cover care. These redress schemes would not be in place of litigation, nor will they be to deliver compensation. People should retain the right to take legal action if they wish to obtain compensation—of course they should; that is in our law. The schemes I am talking about should be set up in such a way that they can be incorporated into the wider redress agency that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke about, once it is established.

These people have suffered for decades. They have tried to obtain compensation through the courts. That action has failed in the case of valproate and Primodos, although I am aware that a new Primodos action is under way. I have been told by solicitors that, in fact, the report does not in any way affect that action. There have been some awards and settlements in the case of mesh, but legal action takes time, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. It creates added stress and much more personal cost can be involved.

I believe that a measure of a decent society is how well it looks after those who have suffered harm, especially when that harm was avoidable. From having met many hundreds of people who have suffered and heard from many more, I am clear that help is needed and deserved. People should not be made to wait any longer. I hope my noble friend the Minister will agree with that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 122 and 123, to which I attached my name. The first is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the second in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. They have both introduced these very clearly, so I will make only three points to add some extra, different perspectives.

The first point I wish to make is that there is what I can describe only as a heart-rending report in the Guardian today about Windrush compensation two years on. The headline talks about

“long waits and ‘abysmal’ payouts”.

The story mentions an agency that talks about five people waiting more than 18 months for compensation. If this—as high-profile a scandal as we can possibly imagine, which attracted far more attention than the issues covered by the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege—is going so badly, surely we have to address this issue, which in many ways is smaller, more limited and perhaps much less complicated, to create a situation via Amendment 123 to deal with these three issues. Amendment 122 would create a situation to deal with all cases, so that we would have a system and framework that, I hope, would do better than the Home Office is doing. I hope that such an agency in the health framework would not suffer from the same hostile environment in the Home Office that the Windrush compensation scheme has to act within.

16:00

My second point comes partly from the fact that I spent part of this morning at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Legal Aid’s inquiry into the current condition of legal aid. If one were to apply a medical term to it, a fair description would be “in critical condition in intensive care”. Legal aid is enormously overstretched and our courts are enormously overstretched. Ideally, we should be in a situation where very few people who are victims of medical malpractice or medical misadventure, or of commercial interests overweighing the medical, have to go to court. We need an automatic system. If we just look at the practical point, putting philosophy to one side, we have a court system that is in no position at the moment to deal with these situations. We want to take them out of the court system to take the pressure off.

My third point picks up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in response to the Minister’s answer on the previous amendment. I think it can be summed up as—this may indeed be a direct quote—“If not now, when?” I believe Parliament gets through, on average, 30 Bills a year. If we do not do this now, with all the pressures of Brexit, the climate emergency, the nature crisis and the economic struggles we face, when will we find the space and time to do this again within that 30-Bill limit? This has to be the time—this is the place and this is now the opportunity. This has been thought through and worked through by the noble Baroness and her team. Let us just do it.

That is my contribution on these amendments. I want to take a second, if I may, because this is my final contribution on the Bill, to say that, particularly due to the clashes with the internal market Bill, we have been a very small group of people carrying an enormous load. I attempted to make my very small part a contribution towards that with my particular interest coming from the environmental side, the feminist side and a concern about patients and patient safety that reflects my personal experiences and my family background. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and for their patience with me. I am aware that I have been in your Lordships’ House for only about a year, so I still very much feel as though I have my learner plates on. I am working my way through and trying to work out the best way to contribute. I thank all noble Lords. I would love to say that we will not need to be back again, but I fear we will.

[Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)]

I shall speak to the amendments in reverse order, starting with Amendment 123 in the name of my noble friend Lady Cumberlege. As she said, these amendments deal with the here and now and with the future, and it is important that we start with the here and now. The perspective I bring to this is again informed by my work with valproate charities through the all-party group and by reflecting on the evidence compiled by charities such as INFACT and others and presented in my noble friend’s report. Historically, some 20,000 babies were exposed to valproate in the UK and half suffered harm. The disorder recognising those harms, foetal valproate spectrum disorder, was fully recognised only in 2019, although the drug was known for decades to have effects of that kind.

It must now be the case that for those families and others we put in place a proper redress scheme. They have had to battle to be recognised. They have had to battle to change clinical behaviour. They have had to battle red tape and a lack of understanding in personal impact payment schemes and in the education and health assessments carried out for young children. This is not only a historical problem; it is true today. We need a solution in the here and now. We do not need to spend huge amounts of time creating a new agency or anything else—I will come to that in a moment—but we need to address that and their harms today. I hope my noble friend will be sympathetic to that spirit.

Amendment 122 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. He is quite right to want to look at this structurally, given all the scandals over the years, including thalidomide, contaminated blood, which I dealt with briefly when I was a Minister, breast implants and many others. It was quite right that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege talked in her report about creating an agency and a proper redress scheme for clinical negligence. Indeed, she has been promoting such an idea since her work on maternity safety, where, as we know, are the largest financial claims and some of the most heart-breaking. I do not think any of us can deny that the system is currently broken. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about some of the data points from NHS Resolution’s annual report. The annual cost is now nearly £2.5 billion and there are total liabilities of £84 billion because of clinical negligence. A lot of that is the cost of care for people who have been harmed, but a lot of it is the frictional cost—the legal and other costs of going through the process—let alone the uncounted cost to families, especially as the average number of days to settle claims has been increasing over the past decade. There is a very strong case for acting in a big structural way to do something about this.

Having said all that, and having been responsible for this policy area as a Minister, it is a very complex situation. There is undoubtedly a case for moving to a less confrontational and swifter approach. This is not a new idea, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out. We have been thinking about this and legislating for this purpose for at least the past 15 years. There are good examples of no-fault compensation schemes that work in New Zealand and across Scandinavia, which generally satisfy all the participants and, importantly, change clinical behaviour, which is so important in reducing the cost. However, the truth is that this is tied up in broader tort reform, which I am definitely not expert enough to discuss, and in considerations attached to other legislation. A good example is Section 2(4) of Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948, which has been discussed in this House before and concerns the entitlements of people who have suffered from clinical negligence, but inevitably affects other people who have been harmed.

It is also true that these kinds of schemes do not necessarily save money. Indeed, the modelling I saw when I was a Minister suggested that they could end up being more expensive. That is the challenge and we have to be realistic. It might be deserved, but it is a challenge in moving from one scheme to another.

I am definitely a supporter of action on this front, and I would very much like to hear from my noble friend that work is going on. I worked closely with my noble and learned friend Lord Keen, when he was at the Ministry of Justice, on this programme, and I hope it has continued. I am not sure that this can be dealt with in the way suggested, with a clause dropped into the Bill, because of all the consequential changes and the very difficult issues that it raises, but it is unbelievably important. The cost—that liability of £80 billion—is two-thirds of annual spending on the NHS and we simply cannot go on taking on these liabilities to future tax- payers, let alone to those people who have been harmed. We need to see a more robust policy response from the Government in general on this.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

The next speaker on the list, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am in the position that my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy was in earlier, as much of what needs to be said has been said, but I want to add a few remarks on the two amendments.

I echo what my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy said. In the light of the First Do No Harm report, we have to be careful to address ourselves to the issues before us and put in place schemes of redress on the three causes. I am not an expert on those, but when I was Secretary of State for Health I was only too aware, when dealing with the Thalidomide Trust or infected blood payments, for example, that when we reviewed and made payments that were more generous, we were working in what was, in effect, an administrative structure that did not necessarily have coherence or consistency. We were making what we thought were the right decisions at the time, but those who had been harmed all suffered, from their point of view, from two problems. The first was the relative lack of generosity of the payments, which were made to reflect specific needs but were not representative of the overall harm that had been done. Secondly, there was no admission of liability, which is always an issue. Liability matters. Those who are harmed want to see liability determined and accepted.

I am sympathetic to the view that not only should redress schemes be considered for the three causes in the report, but the Government should take the opportunity to think about what a redress scheme might look like more generally. My noble friend Lady Cumberlege and her colleagues looked carefully at a number or international examples. They might well have thought, with some justification, that the French scheme—I will not attempt its title in French, but it is a national office for indemnity in relation to medical accidents—is an interesting basis on which to examine the issue. We might include not only the redress schemes from previous years but the present schemes that need to be established. This is something that Ministers might want to say in relation to the continuing review into infected blood accidents.

Again, like my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy, I do not want to confuse what are related but distinct issues. The schemes relate to what are, in effect, systemic failures. Recommendation 3 of my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s report appropriately says that the schemes are to provide redress in relation to avoidable harm resulting from systemic failures. There is a question, which is not entirely resolved in the report, about which test should be applied. The Government should look carefully at where liability genuinely lies. Where there is harm as a result of systemic failings, the Government have a responsibility. That is fairly straight- forward. However, that is not the same as assuming that such a scheme should encompass all the many other cases that give rise to most of the clinical negligence claims against the NHS, which result not from systemic failings but from the failings of medical practice in particular circumstances. Those are different and separate. This debate is not the right place to go on about that at length.

I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, talk about the NHS Redress Act 2006. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will recall that in 2009 she was not able to bring that Act into force. I was the shadow Secretary of State during the passage of that Act and Secretary of State after 2010. One reason for not bringing it into force, to which my noble friend referred, was the Government’s intention to undertake tort law reform in general and this was a tort-based liability scheme.

16:15

The second reason was that, in Opposition, we argued for the reduction of costs through the establishment of an independent fact-finding phase rather than adversarial engagement where clinical negligence was claimed. The idea was to reduce the cost of expert witnesses and legal fees, which consume—I think that this is probably still true—as much in public expenditure from the NHS Litigation Authority as the compensation payments. It used to be pretty much half. There were reasons why we did not bring the NHS Redress Act into force. I do not share my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s view that it is a matter of regret that we did not.

The First Do No Harm report did not undertake what one could regard as a systematic analysis of the NHS redress scheme, the NHS Litigation Authority or how we should deal with the thousands of clinical cases of accident, negligence or malpractice. I do not think that those involved would claim to have done that. In my view, it would be quite wrong for us to put into this legislation something that might be held to represent such a scheme. I want to distinguish between those two things. If we come back to this on Report, I hope that we do so—I say this to my noble friends—on the basis of an amendment that is explicit about creating schemes in relation to the Government’s responsibility for systemic failings, for which the Government take liability. We should not try to reform the whole NHS redress system in the space of a few weeks in the absence of any consultation with the great majority of the people affected and without any systematic consultation with the organisations most responsible.

I look to my noble friend the Minister to say that the Government will consider Amendment 123 and see what they can say in response to it in particular. That is for the Government to take away and continue the process of finding a basis for consultation on policy on the reform of redress. I know that it is nearly 14 years on, but I still think that a reduction in cost in the NHS Litigation Authority’s responsibilities is the main way of proceeding. We can pursue that through non-adversarial fact-finding and arbitration mechanisms to try to reduce the number of occasions on which people go to court to litigate for compensation to be provided.

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I can be very brief. Amendment 122, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Cumberlege and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, would require the Secretary of State to bring proposals before Parliament to establish a redress agency for those harmed by medicines and medical devices.

The arguments advanced for this by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and others, seem completely and obviously convincing, and we strongly support this amendment. We have not spoken to its proposers about this, but we wonder whether this redress agency might be hosted by the patient safety commissioner. We also wonder whether the amendment perhaps ought to be reworked into a revised task force amendment for Report, as we discussed in the previous set of amendments.

I know that the Government are in resistance mode about the patient safety commissioner but, when he responds, could the Minister tell the Committee what coherent arrangements there currently are for NHS patient redress, and whether he believes these arrangements are satisfactory?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I think this has been one of those really rather good and unexpectedly deep House of Lords discussions, going back into the mists of time. Until the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, mentioned the redress Act, I had completely forgotten about it—it all came flooding back.

We have two quite different amendments in this group, and my noble friend Lord Hunt said at the outset that his Amendment 122 was a probing amendment. This is about opening up the discussion, which it certainly did—a discussion that has long needed resolving. The noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord O’Shaughnessy, were quite right in that it is an issue of the future; this group has one probing amendment about the future—what it should look like and how you create an agency that can address the issue of those harmed by medicines and medical devices. It is a very legitimate discussion, which needs to be had.

The second amendment, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is about the future, what happens now and what happens about the harms that were done—the avoidable harms, in the case of hormone pregnancy tests, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. That is very important indeed, and the noble Baroness is right to say that those harms must be specifically addressed by the Government and to push that. I think that is what we would be looking for—how the Government would implement those recommendations. I see the noble Baroness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, whose comments we very much welcomed and valued, but I do not think that was the last word. I hope she will involve herself in the next stage of the Bill. In fact, I am depending on it.

The Government have to address Amendment 123 in particular, because that is urgent and needs to be done now. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that in particular.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle—who indicated her interest in this along with my noble friend Lady Cumberlege—for raising the important issue of redress for those harmed by medicines and medical devices.

I share the review’s concern that patient voices were not heard, and I reiterate that we are committed to ensuring that the healthcare system does better at listening, learning and acting on patient concerns. Furthermore, we recognise that patients need to be at the centre of decision-making to ensure that their perspectives are built in.

Our focus is on improving the safety of medicines and medical devices so that in future there should be less need for redress. We are determined to increase patient safety and drive additional pre-market scrutiny and post-market surveillance of medical devices. For example, the yellow card scheme plays a vital role in providing an early warning that the safety of a product may require further investigation, and the MHRA is transforming and strengthening the system to make it easier for patients and healthcare professionals in the UK to directly report adverse incidents involving all medicines and medical devices. The UK has one of the safest medicines systems in the world and we will continue to make sure that patients and the public have access to the best and most innovative medicines.

Amendment 122, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, would require the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals to establish a redress agency within 12 months of the Royal Assent of this Bill. Committing now to such an agency would short-cut the in-depth policy consideration that the review’s recommendation of a redress agency deserves, as a number of noble Lords have reasonably recognised. I understand that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege herself undertook substantial engagement with the affected patients and other parties as part of her review. Listening and consultation is a vital part of how we take forward any policy change, and it is even more important given the significance of this issue.

A redress agency would represent a significant addition to the current landscape for all stakeholders, and we need to give them time to contribute their perspectives and think through the implications for them. In particular, there is a need to work through what the determinations and parameters of such arrangements would be and how they would interface with current legal remedies—already complex—before we could agree to take forward this proposal. This would help us explore how that would affect the patient journey through different potential approaches, the costs and their value for money. We also need to be mindful of the potential impact on industry.

With regard to Amendment 123, tabled by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, given that legal action is pending over hormone pregnancy tests, and as is usual when matters are sub judice, I am restricted in what I can say on this aspect of the amendment.

I know that the establishment of a specific redress scheme was my noble friend’s fourth recommendation in the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. While I am very sympathetic to the desire of my noble friend and others to see the Government respond to her report and take forward her recommendations, I do not agree that policy should be made and deadlines set through primary legislation. Indeed, her report itself was sadly delayed during the current situation we find ourselves in.

I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that we will respond to the issues raised in the amendment as part of our formal response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. The Government are considering all recommendations made in that review and will provide an update before the Christmas Recess. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has heard enough that is reassuring and feels able to withdraw Amendment 122, and that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege is similarly reassured not to move hers.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to conclude the debate on his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I think this has been an excellent debate. I fully accept, as my noble friend Lady Thornton said, that my Amendment 122 covers a much wider area than Amendment 123, which focuses on the specific issues relating to the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege.

My Amendment 122 was definitely a probing amendment, because the current situation in relation to clinical negligence is wholly unsatisfactory. It combines the bureaucracy and slowness which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to in relation to Windrush and she is absolutely right to draw parallels. It combines a hugely frustrating process for patients and their relatives with a system that increasingly becomes ever more expensive for the NHS. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, was not going to be drawn on these wider considerations, but the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord O’Shaughnessy, have both dealt with these—we know that it is a very complex issue, but surely, at the end of the day, we have to recognise that the current system simply is not working.

16:30

I fully accept that the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, did not go into the wider issues of clinical negligence, nor do I think it is easy. It lends itself to work by the Law Commission perhaps, or even a royal commission, because those issues go much wider and are very complex and there are lots of different matters to be considered. However, from this debate, the Minister can take it that there is wholesale dissatisfaction with the clinical negligence situation as a whole. He might just reflect on that, in thinking through where the Government might go. I know that this view is shared by almost all participants in the clinical negligence field.

The noble Baroness’s recommendations are related to the specific patient groups covered by her report. As she said, she wants to look forward, but the people who she met and reviewed deserve redress as a moral responsibility. At the end of the day, that is right. Where harm has been done, especially when it is difficult to pin absolute responsibility on any particular individual or institution, there is systemic responsibility, which the Government have to bear. Before withdrawing my amendment, I ask the Government to look at this matter sympathetically, within the confines of the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, but also in the wider area of clinical negligence. This has been an excellent debate, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 122 withdrawn.

Amendments 123 to 125 not moved.

Clauses 39 and 40 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

We now come to Amendment 126. I should inform the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 127, 128 or 129.

Clause 41: Consultation

Amendment 126

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

126: Clause 41, page 24, line 9, leave out “consult such persons as the authority considers appropriate” and insert “carry out a public consultation.
(1A) In relation to proposed regulations under section 16(1), the Secretary of State must specifically consult—(a) the Welsh Ministers,(b) the Scottish Ministers, and(c) the Department of Health in Northern Ireland.(1B) In relation to proposed regulations under section 1(1), 8(1) or 12(1), the consultation document must include a summary of the relevant authority’s assessment of the matters mentioned in section 1(1A) and (2), 8(1A) and (2) or 12(1A) and (2)(as the case may be).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires a relevant authority to carry out a public consultation before making regulations under any provision of Part 1, 2 or 3, and to set out the authority’s assessment of any matter to which the authority must have regard in making the regulations, as well as requiring the Secretary of State to consult the devolved administrations in relation to regulations under clause 16(1).

Amendment 126 agreed.

Amendments 127 to 130 not moved.

Clause 41, as amended, agreed.

Amendment 131

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

131: After Clause 41, insert the following new Clause—
“Reporting requirements
(1) As soon as reasonably practicable after the end of each reporting period, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the operation of any regulations made by the Secretary of State under sections 1(1), 8(1) and 12(1) that were in force at any time during the reporting period.(2) In preparing a report, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(3) A report must include a summary of—(a) any concerns raised, or proposals for change made, by a person consulted in accordance with subsection (2), and(b) the Secretary of State’s response to those concerns or proposals, including any plan the Secretary of State may have to make further regulations under section 1(1), 8(1) or 12(1).(4) The reporting periods are—(a) the period of 24 months beginning with the day on which the first set of regulations under section 1(1), 8(1) or 12(1) comes into force, and(b) each successive period of 24 months.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause imposes reporting requirements on the Secretary of State in relation to the operation of regulations made under Clauses 1(1), 8(1) and 12(1).

Amendment 131 agreed.

Amendment 132 not moved.

Clause 42: Procedure

Amendment 133

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

133: Page 24, line 36, leave out subsections (3) to (9) and insert—
“(3) The procedure for making regulations under Part 1, 2 or 3 is to be determined in accordance with this table and subsection (4)—

If the regulations contain provision made in reliance on	the regulations are subject to
section 5(1)(a)	the negative procedure
section 10(1)(a)	the negative procedure
section 14(1)(a)	the negative procedure
paragraph 9 of Schedule 1	the negative procedure
section 6	(a) the made affirmative procedure, where the regulations contain a declaration that the person making them considers that they need to be made urgently to protect the public from an imminent risk of serious harm to health
	(b) the draft affirmative procedure in any other case
section 15	(a) the made affirmative procedure, where the regulations contain a declaration that the Secretary of State considers that they need to be made urgently to protect the public from an imminent risk of serious harm to health
	(b) the draft affirmative procedure in any other case
any other provision in Part 1, 2 or 3	the draft affirmative procedure

(4) Provision that may be made by regulations subject to the negative procedure may be made by regulations subject to the draft affirmative procedure.
(5) Where regulations are subject to “the negative procedure”—
(a) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State acting alone, the statutory instrument containing the regulations is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament,
(b) in the case of regulations made by a Northern Ireland department acting alone, they are subject to negative resolution within the meaning given by section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954, and
(c) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State and a Northern Ireland department acting jointly, the statutory instrument containing the regulations is subject to—
(i) annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament, and
(ii) negative resolution within the meaning given by section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954.
(6) Where regulations are subject to the “draft affirmative procedure”—
(a) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State acting alone, the statutory instrument containing the regulations may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament,
(b) in the case of regulations made by a Northern Ireland department acting alone, they may not be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and
(c) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State and a Northern Ireland department acting jointly, the statutory instrument containing the regulations may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of—
(i) each House of Parliament, and
(ii) the Northern Ireland Assembly.
(7) Where regulations are subject to the “made affirmative procedure”—
(a) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State acting alone, the statutory instrument containing the regulations—
(i) must be laid before Parliament after being made, and
(ii) ceases to have effect at the end of the period of 40 days beginning with the day on which the instrument is made unless, during that period, the instrument is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament,
(b) in the case of regulations made by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland acting alone, they—
(i) must be laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly after being made, and
(ii) cease to have effect at the end of the period of 40 days beginning with the day on which they are made unless, during that period, the regulations are approved by a resolution of the Assembly, and
(c) in the case of regulations made by the Secretary of State and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland acting jointly, the statutory instrument containing the regulations—
(i) must be laid before Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly after being made, and
(ii) ceases to have effect at the end of the period of 40 days beginning with the day on which the instrument is made unless, during that period, the instrument is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament and by a resolution of the Assembly.
(8) In calculating the period of 40 days for the purposes of subsection (7)(a)(ii) or (c)(ii) in relation to Parliament, no account is to be taken of any time during which—
(a) Parliament is dissolved or prorogued, or
(b) either House of Parliament is adjourned for more than 4 days.
(9) In calculating the period of 40 days for the purposes of subsection (7)(b)(ii) or (c)(ii) in relation to the Northern Ireland Assembly, no account is to be taken of any time during which the Assembly is—
(a) dissolved,
(b) in recess for more than 4 days, or
(c) adjourned for more than 6 days.
(10) If regulations cease to have effect as a result of subsection (7) that—
(a) does not affect the validity of anything previously done under the regulations, and
(b) does not prevent the making of new regulations.”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for urgent regulations made in reliance on clauses 6 and 15 (emergencies) to be subject to the made affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure and for regulations under clauses 2(1)(j), (k) or (n) and 9(1)(f), (k) or (l) to be subject to the draft affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure.

Amendment 133 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

Amendments 134 to 138 have been pre-empted.

Amendments 134 to 138 not moved.

Clause 42, as amended, agreed.

Amendments 139 to 144 not moved.

Clause 43 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

We now come to Amendment 145. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Clause 44: Commencement

Amendment 145

Moved by

[Lord Sharkey]

145: Clause 44, leave out Clause 44 and insert the following new Clause—
“Commencement
This Act comes into force on the day on which it is passed.”

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this is a probing amendment; its purpose is to allow the Minister to explain why Clause 44 contains four different commencement provisions for different parts of the Bill. The Explanatory Memorandum is silent about the reasons for that. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain on what basis the paragraphs in subsection (1) were chosen, why the coming into force of the items in subsection (2) is delayed by two months, and, in subsection (3), why Chapters 3 and 4 of Part 3 come into force at the absolute discretion of the Secretary of State. I think that I may understand subsection (4), but it would be helpful if the Minister could explain that to us too for the record. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

The only question I want to ask is the question the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has just asked. Can the Minister give a rational explanation about why certain parts of the Bill come into force at different times? The key question on commencement is whether the commencement schedule as drafted risks holding up any of the work that needs to be done or allows the Government to move too slowly on anything.

My colleagues in the Commons drew attention to this provision as essentially a means of saying, “at some point in the future”. Can the Minister give an indication of the timeframe in which the Government expect to get these regimes consulted on, regulated for and up and running? As the Bill is drafted, the timing is left rather open-ended.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her amendment, which would require the Secretary of State to act in accordance with the guidance on the use of civil sanctions—I am sorry, I am on the wrong amendment.

Amendment 145, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, seeks to amend the commencement clause, Clause 44, so that all provisions would come into force on the day the Bill receives Royal Assent. I am confident that the amendment is not necessary. Clause 44(1) provides that the clauses needed to make emergency amending regulations will come into force the day the Bill receives Royal Assent.

Under Clause 44(2), a significant number of clauses come into force after the customary two-month commencement period. Chapters 3 and 4 of Part 3 come into force on a day the Secretary of State appoints which is specified in regulations. This combination of commencement provisions is for a good reason. Patients, stakeholders and Parliament must know what the law is before the law is made. The two-month commencement period allows the Government to continue to engage with industry and the relevant stakeholders properly before provisions come into force.

Importantly, Clause 44 provides for the necessary powers and provisions to come into force on Royal Assent should it be necessary, within that two-month period, to make regulations urgently in order to protect the public from an imminent risk of serious harm to health.

I understand that there may be concern about Clause 44(3), which allows the Secretary of State to determine when Chapters 3 and 4 of Part 3 come into force, but I assure the noble Lord that, again, this is for a good reason. Chapter 3 of Part 3 is concerned with enforcement and included in that is the introduction of a civil sanctions regime. Civil sanctions will act as a flexible, proportionate enforcement mechanism, enhancing the MHRA’s ability to incentivise compliance. The new civil sanctions regime requires supplementary regulations to be made under paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 before it can be fully operational. It is important that the MHRA engages with industry and stakeholders on these regulations and the accompanying guidance. Indeed, the Bill requires a consultation to be carried out before they are made. If these provisions came into force on the day the Bill achieved Royal Assent, we would have no time to make the necessary regulations. Our time to consult in advance on those regulations and the guidance would be severely condensed.

It is absolutely right that we consider the views of stakeholders and the public before making the supplementary regulations and bringing the new civil sanctions regime into force. I assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to bringing the enforcement and data and disclosure chapters into force as soon as is appropriate in order to enhance the safety of the medical devices regime. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, understands the reasoning behind the clause and feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, I have received no request to speak after the Minister, so I call Lord Sharkey—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I sent an email.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

With apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who does wish to speak after the Minister, I now ask him to do so.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I thank the Deputy Chairman. I sent the email only about 30 seconds ago so I suppose, strictly speaking, that apologies on his part are not required. I should have anticipated the need to ask a question, but I am afraid I was prompted by listening to the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and the Minister’s reply. I want to ask one question: how can what will become Section 1 be brought into force without Section 2? I do not understand. If a power is to be used under Section 1, it must surely make provision about some of the long list of relevant areas in what will be Section 2. In the absence of Section 2 being in force, I cannot see how Section 1 works.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I will seek to provide an answer to my noble friend. Should it not be quite the right answer I will endeavour to write to him. It is my understanding that no substantive provision of an Act should be brought into operation earlier than two months after Royal Assent. However, some sections of the Act can be brought into force on Royal Assent, typically those setting out how the Act is to be cited and what the procedure is for making regulations or commencing them. It is under those arrangements that the sequencing which he describes can be undertaken.

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his intervention. I will read Hansard carefully tomorrow to make sure that I understand not only his question but the Minister’s reply. I thank the Minister for his explanations—they were useful—and for the brief preview of his next speech.

Amendment 145 withdrawn.

Clause 44 agreed.

Clauses 45 and 46 agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

We now come to Amendment 146. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Schedule 1: Medical devices: civil sanctions

Amendment 146

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

146: Schedule 1, page 34, line 10, leave out “have regard to” and insert “act in accordance with”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to follow, rather than have regard to, guidance.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, we have reached the final amendment so I will be as brief as I can. The first thing I need to clarify, and I do not know if other noble Lords have spotted this, is that my amendment is actually to page 32 not page 34, otherwise it makes no sense at all. It is to amend line 10 on page 32—of the Bill that I have in front of me, anyway. But maybe I have an old copy of the Bill. Paragraph 13(7) of Schedule 1 says:

“The Secretary of State must have regard to the guidance or revised guidance published under this paragraph in exercising functions under this Schedule.”


That is the point of this tightening-up amendment, which would require the Secretary of State to “act in accordance with” the guidance.

Amendment 146 is about the planned civil sanctions regime for medical devices. Part 5 of Schedule 1 provides that the Secretary of State must “prepare and publish guidance” on

“the sanctions that may be imposed on”

someone who commits an offence,

“the action that the Secretary of State may take”,

and the circumstances in which they may take such action. This could be, for example, when a penalty may or may not be imposed, the amount of such a penalty, what the Secretary of State will take into account in determining that amount and so on. Before publishing the guidance the Secretary of State will, of course, consult devolved Administrations and anyone else they consider appropriate. Where necessary, should changes be needed, the Secretary of State must revise the guidance and publish the revised version.

Once published, this guidance is the information that will be in the public domain on the operation of this regime. Yet after all that preparation, as currently drafted, the Bill says the Secretary of State must only “have regard to the guidance” when “exercising functions under this Schedule”. The amendment would simply tighten this up, so that the Secretary of State must “act in accordance with” the guidance. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope we can locate it in the right place—I obviously have an old version of the Bill in front of me.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

The amendment proposed is to page 34, possibly corrected by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to page 32.

16:45

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I hesitate to disagree with my noble friend, but I think it is on page 34—but then, of course, I might have an old edition of the Bill as well, just to confuse things.

The reason for supporting this is the unease about provisions in Clause 27 and Schedule 1. The Delegated Powers Committee concluded that

“in the absence of a full justification … allowing the ingredients of criminal offences … and … the penalties for existing offences to be set by delegated legislation”

amounts to “inappropriate delegations of power”. The Constitution Committee said:

“We have concluded previously that ‘the creation of criminal offences through delegated powers is constitutionally unacceptable’, save for exceptional circumstances. The delegated powers to create and adjust criminal offences in this Bill are constitutionally unacceptable.”


The Minister has made certain modifications, but I think the general principle still holds good.

The guidance to be issued under paragraph 13 of the schedule is likely to be extensive, including: the imposition of a monetary penalty; the notices to the person it is proposed to fine and the grounds for so doing; the representations that have been made; the appeals process; and the consequences of non-payment. As my noble friend said, lines 9 and 10 on page 34 provides that

“The Secretary of State must have regard to the guidance or revised guidance published under this paragraph”.


Given that the Secretary of State is the person publishing the guidance, it is puzzling that he or she is required only to “have regard to” the very guidance that he or she has published—hence my noble friend’s amendment to require the Secretary of State to “act in accordance with” the guidance. I look forward to hearing from the Minister as to why the Bill is drafted to give the Secretary of State wider discretion on that.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak very briefly to support this amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, have covered the argument extremely well. As the noble Lord said just now, the guidance is produced by the Secretary of State but, when you look at it in practice, it says that the Secretary of State “must have regard to” the guidance—that is, can take note of it but does not have to follow it.

I am a doctor and am used to following guidelines. If I do not follow the guidelines, I am liable to be reported; if I do not follow them for any reason in the management of a patient, I am expected to write down as to why I did not follow them. I am not expected to take note of it or have regard to it—I am expected to follow it. The amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, addresses exactly that point: why is the Secretary of State not asked to follow the guidelines which he or she drafted?

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

We all know that the words “have regard to” create no real obligations, whereas the words “act in accordance with” do create real obligations. Clause 13 seems to contain important restrictions on the actions of the Secretary of State, but it does so via guidance. As the Bill stands, with its “have regard to” wording, that guidance has no statutory force. If the restrictions are to have any reality—and I assume that the Government would like them to, or they would not have written them into the Bill—we must replace “have regard to” with “act in accordance with” as the amendment proposes. We support the amendment.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her amendment, which is designed to require that the Secretary of State must “act in accordance with” the guidance on the use of civil sanctions that he is required to publish under paragraph 13 of Schedule 1, as opposed to having regard to the guidance. Paragraph 13 requires the Secretary of State to prepare and publish guidance about the use of civil sanctions. More specifically, this guidance must cover the sanctions that may be imposed if a person commits an offence, the action the Secretary of State may take, and the circumstances in which action is likely to be taken.

I understand the intention behind Amendment 146 and recognise that it is crucial that civil sanctions are imposed in a transparent and consistent manner to ensure that the regime operates effectively. However, the current drafting of Schedule 1, including the obligation on the Secretary of State to publish and have regard to guidance on the civil sanctions regime, will ensure this transparency and consistency.

The guidance will be prepared after consultation with the devolved Administrations and others. The purpose of any guidance is to provide clarity to the civil sanctions regime and detail the circumstances in which different civil sanctions may be pursued. However, instances of non-compliance or criminal activity, where the medical device regulations are concerned, need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The scale, complexity and severity of non-compliance can vary significantly. As such, any resultant enforcement activity needs to be proportionate, effective and commensurate with the non-compliance or criminal activity.

The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, would bind the Secretary of State, acting through the MRHA, to act in accordance with guidance in every instance. This would limit the regulator’s ability to arrive at and undertake the most appropriate course of enforcement action commensurate to the multifaceted nature of the case at hand. The MHRA cannot set out every circumstance where it may be appropriate to impose civil sanctions. However, by preparing, consulting and publishing a clear set of guidance we can be clear on the framework and illustrate circumstances on how and why a civil sanction might be imposed without being exhaustive.

The regulator needs civil sanction guidance that is flexible enough to appropriately address all forms of non-compliance. To mandate following the guidance to the letter could potentially mean that no action can be taken if the MHRA encounters a new example of non-compliance that has not been explicitly catered for in the guidance but clearly warrants a civil sanction. Under such circumstances, the Secretary of State will, of course, comply with obligation to publish revised guidance as required in paragraph 13 of Schedule 1.

I remind noble Lords that recipients of civil sanctions can contest the imposition of a civil sanction before it takes effect by appealing to the First-tier Tribunal. It is also worth highlighting that, as currently provided, the guidance will be statutory guidance and the regulator must have regard to it when carrying out enforcement activity.

Furthermore, this type of provision is standard across the statute book. For instance, provisions requiring regulators and statutory bodies to “have regard” to statutory guidance can be found in a wide range of legislation, from Section 2 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to Section 5 of the Business and Planning Act 2020. In a civil sanctions context, Section 63 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 provides that provisions conferring a power on a regulator to impose a civil sanction must also make provision relating to guidance—in particular, that the regulator “must publish guidance” about its use of a sanction and

“have regard to the guidance … in exercising its functions.”

The Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products Regulations 2010 has a similar civil sanctions regime. These regulations are concerned with the establishment of a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for energy-related products. In paragraph 28 of Schedule 5 to those regulations the market surveillance authority

“must have regard to guidance”

while exercising his or her functions with regard to the imposition of civil sanctions. I hope that the reassurance we seek is not unusual but in line with how civil sanction and, indeed, other regimes operate domestically. For that reason, I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment 146.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, I think that I have received no requests to speak after the Minister so, hoping that I have not overlooked the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, once again, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to conclude this debate.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

First, I need to say that I do have an old version of the Bill which I picked up from my desk on my way here, so I apologise to the Committee for that. I will read the Minister’s comments, but if the schedule already has, as I understand it, the ability to be flexible written into it—I think the Minister said that it was there in Clause 13—it seems to mean that one does not need to have regard to it. One would need to act in accordance with it, because the Bill already has built into it the flexibility needed under the circumstances that he was describing. However, I will read his comments and reflect on them. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 146 withdrawn.

Schedule 1 agreed.

Schedule 2 agreed.

Bill reported with amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, that concludes the Committee’s proceedings on the Bill. I remind Members to wipe their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.

Committee adjourned at 4.56 pm.