Health and Care Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has outlined why there is an urgent need to address the NHS procurement rules in the light of possible genocide and other clear human rights abuses. We have a duty as a nation and as a society to ensure that goods used in our publicly owned NHS are not tainted with modern slavery or linked with behaviours that may lead to genocide.

This is not hypothetical. In November 2020, the noble Lord, Lord Alton—who I look forward to hearing speak shortly—asked the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, the then Health Minister, about Medwell Medical Products, which has a factory in Fenglin town, in Jiangxi province, noting that Uighur Muslims made up 25% of the workforce, despite being forced to live in separate accommodation from other workers. This was reported at the time by the excellent investigative paper, Byline Times. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Bethel, said that the Government had not entered into an agreement directly with Medwell but that the central distribution warehouse in Daventry did have a record of receiving PPE masks produced by Medwell Medical Products. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said to Byline Times:

“We expect all suppliers to the NHS to follow the highest legal and ethical standards and proper due diligence is carried out for all Government contracts.”


This is an extraordinary response. Any contractor to the Government, even in an emergency such as a pandemic, must follow the commitments that the Government have given internationally to ensure that goods used by the publicly owned NHS are not tainted with human rights abuses. If companies such as Marks & Spencer can do it for their clothes supply chain, we can too.

In July 2020, the New York Times reported that Uighur Muslims—a minority subject to widespread persecution in China, including being put into detention camps where they are forced to undergo communist indoctrination—were being employed in the factories of medical suppliers under a specific Chinese Government labour programme. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives said at the time:

“We must shine a light on the inhumane practice of forced labor, hold the perpetrators accountable and stop this exploitation. And we must send a clear message to Beijing: these abuses must end now.”


As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, just over a year afterwards, in December 2021, the Americans passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into federal law.

UK Health Ministers’ responses in 2020 were, perhaps typically of this Government, aimed at prevarication and deflecting responsibility. This amendment does exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, and what any self-respecting Government should do. It makes it absolutely plain that procurement must be

“consistent with the United Kingdom's obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”,

and that

“procurement is not consistent if a Minister of the Crown has assessed that there is a serious risk of genocide in the sourcing region.”

The amendment also sets out conditions under which the risk should be investigated if the chair of a relevant Select Committee of either House of Parliament requests an assessment.

The amendment is very straightforward and clear. Perhaps the Minister can explain which parts of it he has problems with. It actually helps the Government, especially after the discoveries of the PPE provided by Medwell Medical Products and the supply chain—we suspect there are many other such companies as well. If the Minister is not minded to accept the amendment, can he explain to the House how NHS procurement can be protected from these human rights breaches, including possible genocide, in the future, and what guarantees there are that the department sees the supply chain details? I hope he will also agree to a meeting with the speakers in the debate on this amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I apologise for not forewarning noble Lords that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, wish to speak remotely on this group of amendments.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 219 in this group is in my name and I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pitkeathley, Lady Watkins of Tavistock and Lady Meacher, for also signing it. Just before I speak to that amendment, can I say that I also support the other amendments in this group so helpfully introduced just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler? I find her clarification of the difference between care workers and unpaid carers particularly helpful and vital in this debate because unpaid carers are invisible.

My amendment deals with unpaid carers. I am very grateful for the briefing from Carers UK which estimates —as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler—that there are as many as 13.6 million unpaid carers in the UK and, shockingly, over 1.4 million people providing over 50 hours of unpaid care a week. My brother looked after my mother for eight years, probably for 40 to 50 hours a week for most of that time. It meant that he just could not work at all. He is not alone.

I am sure we all know someone who is an unpaid carer. Even if they want to fulfil this role for their loved ones, society and the Government need to recognise the difficulties this gives the carers. The census in 2011 showed that carers are more than twice as likely to be in poor health than those who do not have a caring role—and they need support too, especially if they are isolated at home with the person they are caring for, whether that is day services or short in-patient respite care. Some 72% of carers have not had any breaks from caring during the pandemic and, as a result, are exhausted and worn out.

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[The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much indeed. That makes it 15 all, I think.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is participating remotely, and I invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too will be extremely brief on this, given the hour and the number of groups we have to go through.

I am very interested to hear the response of the Minister on this; it feels as though there has been a sort of gentle relaxation, and it would be good to understand the boundaries for foundation trusts around how much they can increase their income from private patients at exactly the time when we have a phenomenal NHS waiting list and people are becoming more seriously ill as a result of the pandemic and there are delays in getting their treatment.

I say this particularly in the light of two recent comments—as I will call them—by the Secretary of State for Health. One was about increasing the amount of contracting from the NHS to private hospitals to perform large numbers of investigations as part of the backlog, but this is becoming habit now in this exceptional time—we have bad flu winters as well, but this is an exceptional time. Perhaps slightly more worryingly, the other concerns proposals that were outlined, informally, by the Secretary of State a couple of days ago to change entirely the nature of contracts with GPs. I am concerned that some of the structures, particularly for foundation trusts, are being loosened without Parliament being aware. I look forward to the Minister’s response.