Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Winston

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for bringing forward Amendment 163, and thank other noble Lords for outlining their support for or concerns about it. The amendment refers to publishing a report on alcohol labelling to improve consumer knowledge.

Government data comparing pre-pandemic and post-pandemic figures has shown that sales of alcohol increased by some 25%. This is, as we know, a booming market and consumers need to be equipped with the right information to make informed choices. They have a right to know what is in their drinks and decide what and how much to drink. The consultation promised by the Government, with this in mind, remains something of a consultation in long-overdue waiting.

Currently there is no requirement for alcoholic drinks to include health warnings, drinking guidelines, calorie information or even ingredients. As my noble friend Lord Brooke said, this is very much out of step with any other information on what we consume. There is, as always, a balance to be struck between health improvement measures, consumer information and industry regulation, but this amendment supports a necessary move in the right direction and I hope the Minister will agree to it.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, as a doctor and a wine drinker, I have serious concerns about this amendment, particularly, for example, when it comes to the use of fine wine—I think there is broad understanding in the House of what that is—where, in every case, those bottles are labelled with the amount of alcohol. One has to accept that labelling bottles in this way does not change behaviour. We have had committees looking at behaviour change, and the only time we managed to induce behaviour change was with smoking—certainly never with labelling. That is the only time it happened and there were all sorts of reasons for that.

Much of the evidence for alcohol being harmful in minor doses is still dubious and, more importantly, there is real concern that a lot of the so-called evidence is not being put to the real test of whether it makes a difference to behaviour. I must say to the House that I think the noble Lord—I am afraid I do not know his name; my eyes are bad enough not to have been able to see his name on the screen—is right that this is unworkable. It would probably do all sorts of untold damage to what is, for me and no doubt many others, a very fine drink. We need to look seriously at whether we can simply label all bottles.

I just remind the House that there is one amendment that I could have put down. In in vitro fertilisation, embryos are cultured in culture media, which are in fact commercially made and a commercial secret—nobody knows exactly what the composition of those media is. My laboratory is looking at this at the moment. It is really interesting, because some of the products in those culture media may indeed be quite dangerous in terms of epigenetic effects. To me, that seems far more important to regulate than what we are trying to do here with bottles of wine, which is probably not really workable.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Merron and Lord Winston

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Howarth on bringing this subject before your Lordships’ House again. I am grateful to noble Lords from all sides of the House for providing their support for embedding the conditions and opportunities for art, creativity and culture in improving public health. These amendments provide something of a focus for action and I hope will be regarded seriously as such.

We know that the practices relating to creative health can be very effective and good value for money. Some 20% to 30% of all visits to the doctor are for non-medical reasons; for example, social isolation or loneliness. Therefore, the potential that we have in the United Kingdom is huge. Indeed, evaluation of the Arts on Prescription scheme suggested an average return of £2.30 for every £1 spent.

These amendments support the idea that art-based approaches can help people to stay well, recover more quickly, manage long-term conditions and experience a better quality of life. I hope that the Minister will be able to take these amendments on board.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, if I may, I will introduce a slightly discordant note, seeing as my name has been mentioned. I did not intend to speak, but I do think we need to be a little cautious about all this. I congratulate deeply the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on her remarkable work in this area, and nobody would doubt for a moment that everybody here is speaking in very good faith and for the best of purposes.

However, as medical practitioners, we must say that the placebo effect is very powerful and can cure people or improve their health in all sorts of ways and with all kinds of activities, not only dementia. Feeling well is not a simple matter. One concern is that we might spend much more money than we expect on these activities, without coming to the gist of why and whether they work, rather than something that substitutes for them.

I remind the House of one thing. For many decades, the health service supported homeopathy. Homeopathy—like cures like—has been widely used across the world and many people have great faith in it. There is actually no evidence at all that it has any genuine medical or chemical benefit; it is probably essentially a placebo effect. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should not look at exercise, music and all the other things, but I implore the Government; if we do this on the health service, there is a duty to ensure that research is done as well, because we must have a health service that looks at evidence-based medicine. That is fundamentally important.