Health and Care Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has very effectively introduced the amendments to which I have put my name, Amendments 162 and 173, and I wish briefly to express the support of these Benches for those. We also support Amendment 108, to which my noble friend Lady Brinton has put her name.

As noble Lords know, we have been inching forward on these matters with Ministers, and I welcome that forward movement. I note, however, recent warnings from Ministers that, for example, there are “opportunity costs” in implementing these measures, as ensuring that proper standards are enforced requires effort and potential cost. I understand that. Nevertheless, we cannot allow ourselves to become complicit in any way in organ tourism where the source of those organs is forced or where selling the organ is to address appalling poverty.

Some say that this trade may be declining in and from China. If so, that is welcome and might reflect international pressure, not least on the Chinese medical profession. It is not clear that those involved in the China Tribunal and the Uyghur Tribunal would agree that it is declining.

Even if we were to accept that, and Ministers seemed to indicate that they thought that might be the case, we are also hearing now of an increase in the selling of organs in Afghanistan because of the dire situation there. There have been recent reports of journalists seeing the scars of those who have sold their kidneys. That is a terrible indictment of our walking away from Afghanistan and failing to address the appalling conditions that we have left there. How can we regard such potential “donors” as being anything other than the most extremely vulnerable? How can you put that up against the vulnerable who may need to have donations?

As for the bodies exhibitions, we have discussed before how distasteful they are—but then we realise with horror exactly where these bodies seem to have been sourced: among other things, from Chinese prisons. We should never have condoned that, turning a blind eye. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who argued in Committee that they should simply be banned. There is no reason whatever to agree to their continuation.

I now hear that the Government may argue—and this is incredibly familiar—that these amendments are flawed. As the noble Earl knows, often Ministers are given briefs that say, “This is a flawed amendment, so turn it back.” I am very familiar with them. In those circumstances, the best thing is for your Lordships to pass these amendments, because Ministers know, or should know, that the essence is extremely clear, and with government lawyers we can work out how best to sort out any unintended consequences. I hope that I do not hear anything about these amendments being flawed—and I say that to the Box. I therefore commend them to your Lordships.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, and I shall speak specifically and briefly to Amendments 162 and 173.

These amendments are updates to the Human Tissue Act, which was born out of public outrage following the Alder Hey scandal, when over 100,000 organs, body parts and entire bodies of foetuses and stillborn babies were stored in NHS facilities. The body parts of dead patients, including children, were removed without consent. Today, the Human Tissue Authority’s guiding principles, as set out in its code of practice, are consent, dignity, quality, honesty and openness. These principles should not only reflect how human tissue sourced from within our own nation is treated, we must treat human tissue and organs with the same principles when sourced overseas.

In China, as has been said, there is substantial evidence of Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs—as well as some evidence of Tibetans and house Christians—being killed on demand for their organs. Blood is taken off them for tissue-typing at the time when they were taken into custody, often with no idea why they were taken into custody at all, other than that they belong to one of those groups. There is no consent, no dignity and no transparency.

On 7 December last year, the British Medical Association released a statement on the abuse of Uighurs in China, expressing

“grave concern regarding the situation in China and the continuing abuse of the Uyghur population of the country as well as other minorities.”

It went on to state:

“We are particularly alarmed by the reports of organ harvesting, forced birth prevention, and the use of genomics data for racial profiling.”


It urged

“the UK government and international actors to exert pressure on the Chinese government to cease its inhumane actions towards the Uyghurs”.

If we do not pass amendments as laid before the House today, we will be complicit with these practices, because we will be looking at them with Nelson’s eye, with all the evidence that we have that they are going on.

On Amendment 173, on the exhibition of whole bodies using a plastinated technique, I suggest that there is no transparency whatever. Any attempt to claim that there has been consent is extremely suspect, because consent is very easily falsified. I went to one of these exhibitions because I thought you ought to go and see what you are criticising. This was not an anatomical, educational experience but a visual display of plastinated bodies in all kinds of different poses. But the one that horrified me the most was a pregnant woman, quite advanced in her pregnancy and with the foetus in her womb, which had been plastinated. I do not believe that that woman would have given consent for plastination. That raised real questions as to why such an advanced foetus was in the womb of a dead woman without something there explaining the nature of her death, the cause of death and the circumstances in which she had decided to consent to such a procedure.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 108, while supporting the other two amendments introduced so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lady Northover, and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke so eloquently.

I am completely in support of those amendments, but I wish to speak briefly to the genocide amendment today. On various occasions during the Covid pandemic questions were asked of the then Health Minister about the procurement of PPE. He was not able to give me a straight answer to say, “We can guarantee that no PPE procured could have had anything to do with slave labour or could have come from Xinjiang.”

The NHS seeks to be world leading. We all support it and want it to be able to deliver for every citizen in this country. But that should not be at the expense of the lives of those in other parts of the world. It is not good enough to say that we have the Modern Slavery Act if that will not lead to a change in practices. It is absolutely essential that our supply chains do not include anything that comes from forced labour.

If one looks at what is going on in Xinjiang, it is possible to barter to get numbers of people, just as it was 200 years ago during the slave trade. That is not acceptable. It may be the case that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, pointed out, we will be told, “This is not the right piece of legislation.” If it is not, what will the Government bring forward that will mean that every point of our supply chain—every part of government procurement—ensures that we are not procuring things that have been made using slave labour?

We must not be complicit. This House should support the amendments, and if the Minister is not able to support the amendment, perhaps he could come back with a revised and better version of the amendment that will do what we all seek to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that this provides noble Lords with further reassurance about the Government’s approach but, more than that, I hope that the undertaking I have just given, combined with the statements I have made to the House about the extensive work now in train across government to bear down as hard as we can on modern slavery and the abuse of human rights across the world, may persuade the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to withdraw Amendment 108.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Before the noble Earl sits down, may I apologise to the House? I should have declared that I am the UK chair of Commonwealth Tribute to Life, which aims to establish a memorandum of understanding across the Commonwealth over ethical transplantation.

The Minister, in his reply, spoke of seven patients who are known to have travelled abroad for organs. Most of those were legally arranged, so the numbers are very small; yet the clinical services in the UK are not aware that it is illegal to arrange to purchase an organ abroad if most of that transaction happens in the UK, or to procure the travel to go. I wonder whether the Minister would be able to undertake to work with us in NHSBT to ensure that all the clinicians working in the field are aware of this and can brief patients appropriately at the time they sign up to be on the transplant list, so that they understand that, although they are eligible for a transplant, they should not be seeking transplants in other countries, even when tempted to do so. It can look quite alluring, and I am concerned that, within the profession itself, there might be some misunderstanding. I realise this is a difficult question and the Minister might prefer not to answer it now; it might be something we could discuss later.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, that is a perfectly valid question from the noble Baroness, and I would be happy to take that back to those in the Department of Health and Social Care who have direct responsibility in this area.