Covid-19: NHS Contact Tracing App

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend is entirely right. The science on immunity is confounding and we do not fully understand it, although we are investing a huge amount of time, money and effort into understanding it better. We believe that there may be an opportunity to understand immunity better, and that will inform and make safe people’s commitment to going back to work. No decisions have been made yet, though, and we have in our minds all the reservations that my noble friend described.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)]

Given what we know about the NHS app, I have to say that my greater concern would be about the data held by Amazon or Google, rather than by the NHS. Does the Minister accept that the countries implementing track and trace, particularly those in the EU, are all countries that have an ongoing system, decades-old, of using ID cards? Would the Government consider the fact that trust in government in those countries, even privacy-obsessed Germany, is higher due to the state having held data, not centrally but in some form, through an ID card system? Maybe they should look at that.

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, ID cards do not form part of the British tradition. We work on a system of consent and we have a very high level of trust in the Government. The app is particularly well suited to a country that has a universal NHS system, and that is one reason why we have designed it in the way that we have.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will limit my remarks to just one aspect of the gracious Speech that has not been covered—as the 70th speaker in this debate I say that with some reticence. I will keep my remarks brief, as I am sure noble Lords would like to move on. I speak from the perspective of having chaired the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee for four years, until last summer. I also declare in the context of my remarks that I am a member of the Bank of England’s Enforcement Decision Making Committee, which I should say has no policy function.

The most frequently asked question that I faced in EU capitals during that period was about the UK aspiring to become a sort of “Singapore-on-sea”, sometimes more boldly put as “Singapore-on-steroids”. The fear in the EU was amplified by the fact that the then UK Government seemed to be concerned only about trade in goods—quite perversely—so the thinking was that there must be some design afoot to give the UK’s financial services sector an advantage greater than single market access and loss of passporting. According to my EU interlocutors, this indicated a plan for a sort of bonfire of regulations to steal competitive advantage rather than sticking with the level playing field, which the EU regulators wanted us to do. Singapore-on-sea is a myth, as anyone who knows Singapore will tell you: it is actually a heavily state-controlled and regulated market. The most potent conversation I had about this was in France. It is interesting that France has benefited most from Brexit-related financial business, particularly banking, yet it has been the most reluctant adopter of EU regulations, so that was a paradox.

Where does London stand in comparison, and where will it go? The note on financial services legislation in the Queen’s Speech speaks of two complementary aims: retaining high regulatory standards and making financial services more competitive. The challenge will be to do these, while at the same time seeing lucrative EU-facing business move away. The briefing documents speak in broad terms but make no mention of how the competitiveness objectives will be met. One way to do this would be for Her Majesty’s Treasury and the UK regulators to develop a more coherent strategy, working with the Cabinet Office and the FCO on the UK’s economic diplomacy priorities more effectively. Two other noble Lords from these Benches and I are working on a London School of Economics commission to see how the UK can undertake economic diplomacy to add real value in a post-Brexit world.

In financial services, most regulation as agreed globally through the G20, the Financial Stability Board, Basel and related bodies, where the UK has effectively led. It was chair of the FSB until 2018, and steered through most of the post-crisis global regulation, which is tribute to the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, and his team.

Another area where we have innovated is green finance. I am delighted that the PRA is now moving to stress testing all financial assets held by large banks and insurance companies, to build resilience across a range of these classes. That is another first, I believe. The new governor of the Bank, Andrew Bailey, has also innovated in the fintech sector, which is now being replicated in several other jurisdictions.

On the other hand, the enormous area of digital competition continues to be a low priority in terms of the forthcoming Bill. The previous Chancellor commissioned the Furman review into competitiveness in digital markets, which was published in March 2019, yet we have no indication of when the Government intend to act on its significant recommendations. Its main proposal for a digital markets unit languishes with the Competition and Markets Authority. I wonder whether the Minister, in winding up, can tell us what is holding back progress on the Furman recommendations.

To conclude, the UK’s financial services sector will have its work cut out if it is to deliver for the economy in a post-Brexit environment. I urge the Government to use the financial services Bill to give the sector the tools it needs to continue being successful in serving the whole of the United Kingdom’s economy.

Breast Cancer Screening

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 3rd May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness asks an extremely good question. It is important in this instance to distinguish between the very correct questions that she is asking and the particular problem in this case. In this case the problem is not one of resource but of, unfortunately, an IT flaw in the interaction between the national screening programme database and its AgeX trial. I want to make that clear. But in response to her question, we had an opportunity to debate these issues in the House yesterday in an Oral Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. We are increasing and have increased the number of specialist cancer nurses, for example, by 1,000. Health Education England, in its cancer workforce strategy, has outlined a plan to recruit more radiologists, radiotherapists and so forth. Having more staff and higher-trained staff with the proper competency frameworks is clearly one way in which we can deal with the variations that she rightly highlights.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that the Government will be looking at public information campaigns to ensure that women who may not have captured the periodic screening letter that is sent out would be aware that they need to take the initiative themselves and find out if they should have been screened. But, if I understood him correctly, when the Minister gave the figures in the Statement, 270 was the upper limit of deaths that would have been caused. If that is the case, I am slightly perturbed in terms of frightening people. He would probably accept that, whatever the figure, it is impossible to be precise about the number of deaths that “would” have been caused. Perhaps he meant to say “may” have been caused—because screening of itself does not cure breast cancer. That is an important distinction to make.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an incredibly important point. To refer back to the Statement, I think that the word used was “may” and that an upper range was given. I want to distinguish between two things. The first is the national campaigns that take place—I think there were 14 in the past eight years—to encourage women to check for their own symptoms and take up opportunities for screening programmes. Those will continue; that is part of the overall programme. In terms of writing to the women who are still alive who may have been affected, that is a separate and discrete process. It will start with a letter. It is easy for us to track down those who are registered with a GP in England and we are working with colleagues in the devolved Administrations, as noble Lords would expect, to make sure that we can write to those who have moved to those countries, and to provide resources to those countries so that they can provide screening. A helpline is also included that has been publicised.

On the point about the number of deaths that may have occurred, it is a difficult issue. On the one hand, we have received advice that that may be the case and we felt that it was wrong not to be honest and transparent about it. At the same time, there is not a clinical consensus about the benefits of breast cancer screening for women aged 70 and over—that came as something of a surprise to me—because of the non-malignancy or low malignancy of some tumours that can be spotted and the harms that can follow from treatment.

So we need to be cautious. What we have projected as a range is based on statistical modelling and not based on scrutiny of actual case note reviews. Of course, we deeply hope that the number will come down as we carry out that inquiry.