Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his questions. On remdesivir, I will be glad to find out whether any UK funds were used in its development and will write to him. I will also be glad to write to him about Crown use licences.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a quite passionate debate and I am profoundly grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in it. The debate goes to the heart of how we see ourselves. We are a kind, caring compassionate country that also abides by the rule of law, whether that is national or international law. That is why I thought it was right to include our ratification of the ICESCR—the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Stunell, both invoked that treaty as being an important and fundamental part of Britain’s reputation abroad. The amendment reminds us quite forcefully that a ratified international treaty is national law. That is quite a topical point as we debate this Bill in step with United Kingdom Internal Market Bill.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his contribution, which was a real tour de force. It was informed by many years as a human rights activist and by his membership of the International Relations and Defence Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. He reminded us that the African continent imports 94% of its pharmaceutical requirements. That figure struck me quite profoundly because the next figure that the noble Lord quoted was 96%. That was the finding of the YouGov poll of the proportion of the country that supports what we are trying to achieve here—equitable and fair access across the world for essential medicines. That is a very important reference point for the Government to bear in mind.

At all costs, we must avoid the unseemly debacle that we saw across the world in the early days of Covid-19 as countries scrabbled to get hold of scarce PPE. We must think ahead, put logistics planning in place and up front and support the global effort that seeks to do that.

The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley reminded us that public health safeguards were built into the TRIPS agreement because, as my noble friend Lady Barker noted, countries in the least developed parts of the world are right at the back of the queue when it comes to the development of medicines that are desperately needed.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley also highlighted that the insertion of the amendment in Clause 1(2) would mean that the Government would need to have regard to the provisions of the amendment. That is an important point. In his reply, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said that we have such a right already—of course we do—but the issue is that existing price control mechanisms are not used effectively enough at the moment; otherwise, we would not see the recurring incidence, which many noble Lords referred to, where the NHS is regularly held to ransom in trying to negotiate prices. While those negotiations go on, with all the delay involved, patients suffer and some patients die.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, who from his deep health expertise spoke passionately about the ways in which pharmaceutical companies bend the rules and how patients suffer as a consequence. I repeat the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and by my noble friend Lord Stunell. Why is it that Gilead can get away with charging £2,350 per dose, when the Liverpool University work shows that £9 per dose would reap sufficient profit?

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her support. I agree that we ought to listen to Professor Mazzucato on how to approach global challenges, because she understands global economics and can explain it in a way that I find very compelling. My noble friend Lord Sharkey gave a superb summary of the issues at stake. He highlighted, yet again, the moral imperative: it is so true that no one is safe until everyone is safe and, if nothing else, enlightened self-interest must compel us to act more collaboratively on the global stage.

On the issue of C-TAP, the waiver requested by South Africa and India at the TRIPS council meeting speaks to the need to have some way of overcoming the issues in respect of sharing IP rights, data, know-how and the expertise that is lacking at the moment. They would not be asking for that and would not be pushing for it unless it was necessary. Without that, we will not immediately be able to ramp up manufacture of the vaccine when we need it, which will be immediately.

In conclusion, this is a reputational issue for Britain, because it speaks to who we are as a country. I am with the 96%. If we truly want global Britain to be seen as a force for good, we must take this opportunity to join others, to lead from the front and to throw our heft—our quite considerable heft—and expertise behind the global collaborative effort to keep control of Covid-19. And when we are good, we are very, very good.