Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Warner

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I will confine myself to considering the regulations. I accept the challenge thrown at us by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about what we are doing. For my part, I believe that my job is to go through these SIs precisely to establish what is real and what is fictitious in them. There is a grave danger, not least on an important subject such as this, that the general public are being given completely false reassurances. I take the point that the regulations are for a no-deal situation and will last for six months only, but the world does not stop and research does not stop in those six months. I echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, that the impact on medical research is tremendously important.

I will make two points. On the inspection of premises, the noble Baroness mentioned in the discussion of the previous regulations reciprocal inspection powers between countries. She said that countries in the EU will continue to inspect their premises and we will inspect ours. In a no-deal situation, why would the EU 27 continue to uphold our inspection processes? They are under no obligation to do so. That has huge consequences, not least for research. I make the observation that if we in the United Kingdom are sitting here content that the EU countries will continue to inspect their own facilities to their own standards, that is a very curious interpretation of taking back control.

Secondly, we are told that the regulations will be in force for six months in a no-deal situation. What if, down the line, it turns out that there has been an adverse incident either here or in the EU? What are the implications of that in a no-deal situation for the protection of patients? Yes, we are in fantasy land, but even in fantasy land we have to start asking real questions. Those are simply two of the many questions that noble Lords are entitled to ask and to which we are entitled to have strong answers.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak on this set of regulations, but I was taken down memory lane when I saw what was involved because I was the Minister who took the human tissues legislation through this House in 2004. I want to remind the Minister why that legislation was put in place because it is relevant to a question that I want to ask at the end of what I am going to say. It was put in place because medical research was being jeopardised because of patients’ concerns about the safety, storage and use of human tissue of various kinds. It arose against a background of huge concern about the treatment of human tissues of children at Alder Hey Hospital. I can still vividly remember the parents of those children fixing me with a gimlet stare as I took that legislation through the House.

My question to the Minister therefore backs up to some extent the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has just made: can the Government guarantee that in these regulations there will be an absolute set of safeguards around the use of human tissue during the period after a no-deal Brexit that will not jeopardise all the good will that has been built up since 2004, which has got patients willing to co-operate in the use of human tissue for medical research?

Quality and Safety of Organs Intended for Transplantation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Warner

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, procedure and process in this House is not one of my specialities, but I understand that my noble friend Lord Beith has put that Question down, precisely because the whole House knows that there is absolutely no way we can sit from now until the planned Brexit day and get through the amount of work. Therefore, a great many matters will be left unexamined, and that is quite dangerous.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I want to comment on this set of regulations but will relate my remarks to all 10. I address my remarks to the three Ministers here, bearing in mind the three hours that we have spent on these regulations so far, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has said. It can be taken as given that most of what I, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and others said on the previous set of regulations is what we would say on this set of regulations, but I am not going to repeat it. The same considerations apply.

We are not going to get to number nine on the list, and I want to question what the Minister has been saying, and what the Government have been asserting, all the way along, which is that these regulations do not change policy. The Minister has said this a number of times. I know from the speech I am going to make on number nine that it has changed policy, and I shall deploy the arguments to demonstrate that. Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is not here to hear them, but if I ever get the chance, he will hear them.

I have a terrible feeling that my concerns about item nine apply all the way through this set of regulations. They do change policy and, although this is not the Minister’s fault, the Government have been asserting for month after month that they do not. They do, and they change policy that is set out in primary legislation in some cases. We do not have any alternative, if I may say to the Grand Committee, to continuing to negative—or whatever the verb is—all these sets of regulations. We can go through this process all the way down to item 10 if the Government want us to do that. I am quite prepared to do that to make the point to the Government. I am doing that not as a member of any party—I am the only Cross-Bench Peer in the Room—but because we are discrediting this House by giving an authenticity to these regulations, which I fear would then get tucked away in the cupboards of Whitehall to be produced again when the need arises. I do not want to be associated with giving authenticity to this set of regulations, and would hope that other Members, of different political parties, feel the same way. I want these three Ministers, who have heard this and sat through this very patiently, to go to the Chief Whip and the powers that be in the government party with feedback about the farce being created.