Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Friday 18th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, yet again the Government are using this House as a rubber stamp. This is not what should be happening in a democracy. Despite repeated insistence from government Ministers that this will not become routine practice, it has become precisely that. All these regulations remove citizens’ rights and freedoms, so it is essential that parliamentarians can question them. For example, how many fines have been imposed on organisers of peaceful protests of more than 30? What criteria are used to determine whether the organising body is a political one and therefore exempt?

These regulations were laid only one or two days before they came into force, giving the public and business owners little chance to understand and prepare for them, and they have now been superseded. Is it any wonder that people are confused?

I want to ask the Minister about an aspect of the messaging that came up in evidence to the Lords Science and Technology Select Committee on Tuesday. It is clear that a proportion of people who have had the virus continue to have serious health issues long after the initial infection is over. These include chronic fatigue, damage to lungs, heart, kidneys, liver and central nervous system, as well as mental health issues. Yet the impression has been given, especially to young people, that patients might feel unwell for a couple of days or weeks, or maybe not at all, and then they will become immune. That is not the end of it for many people. Will the Government change their messaging to emphasise that this virus can have serious long-term effects with which the NHS will struggle to cope? What preparation is being made to allow the NHS to cope with long Covid?

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely and utterly reject the noble Lord’s suggestions. I remember well the nay-sayers, the sofa epidemiologists and the sceptics who, when we had testing at the level of 5,000, poured cold water on the idea we would get to 100,000. We hit that target. We have made amazing progress since and we will continue to push for more testing.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has blamed the recent failure of laboratories to process tests in a timely way on members of the public who are not eligible—as he calls it—seeking to take a test. Is this not another example of Ministers blaming someone else for their failures? How do people know if they are not eligible? If they are concerned about something, what system is in place to enable testing centres to know who is eligible, so that they can refuse to test those who are not?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right, but it is sometimes difficult to know whether you have the symptoms of Covid, the flu or something else. That is why it is a complicated matter. What we have seen through our engagement with the public in the last few weeks is people who show no symptoms of anything but who seek a test to provide themselves with reassurance. It is not a question of blame, but rather of clarification: we simply do not have the national resources to support that kind of activity.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, often during the recent series of local lockdowns the voice of the local authorities has not been heard. When eventually it is heard, such as in the recent case of Bolton and Trafford, changes have been at such short notice as to confuse local people and make them much less likely to abide by the new restrictions. Local authorities must give reasonable notice to the public and businesses about closures. How can they do that if the Government change their mind with 12 hours’ notice?

Recently, many businesses have gone to enormous trouble to protect their clients with cleaning and distancing arrangements and PPE, which have cost them time and money, and yet sometimes they must close because of the behaviour of others or virus spikes at the far side of a large local authority area. I want to ask about their rights in those situations. According to these regulations, they can appeal to the magistrates’ court. How many such appeals have there been, and how long have they taken to be considered? What training have magistrates been given in considering these cases? Have any closure notices been overturned by a magistrate because of the rigorous safety measures being taken on the premises? Proprietors can also appeal to the Secretary of State. How many such appeals have there been, and how long have they taken to be considered? What steps have been taken to inform those running premises of their rights in this matter?

The enforcement section of this regulation contains an increasing list of fixed penalties, depending on the number of offences. What discretion do magistrates have to consider the case of an organiser or a participant in a peaceful protest where all possible precautions have been taken to protect public safety?

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. The Bill covers a multitude of issues, but apart from giving massive powers to Ministers it provides very little detail. It is an empty bucket. Henry VIII would have been proud of it.

Like others, I have read the Delegated Powers Committee’s report on the Bill. I have rarely read a report from this respected committee that is so trenchant in its criticism of a Bill and of the government memorandum, which failed miserably to justify those elements that the DPRRC finds to be “inappropriate”. The powers given to Ministers are not just for transferring EU regulations into UK law; they are extensive—almost unfettered—powers to amend, extend or disapply regulations, breaking many of which would be a criminal offence carrying a two-year prison sentence.

Many of these regulations would be laid by the negative procedure, with the excuse that they might be urgent. Even those that carry the affirmative procedure do not allow Parliament to scrutinise them or amend them in the same way as we would if they were done by primary legislation. Ministers claim that there is no alternative other than putting all the detail of all the regulatory changes into primary legislation. This is nonsense and the Government know it.

I have to agree that it is not always possible or even desirable to use primary legislation for technical changes, but there is no detail at all in the Bill about what changes the Government intend about human and veterinary medicine and very little about medical devices regulations. The Government even plan to disapply some regulations simply by introducing a protocol, thereby completely bypassing any parliamentary scrutiny at all. It is rightly described by the DPRRC as “camouflaging legislation”. Its overall conclusion is that the Bill transfers powers from the European Union directly to Ministers, completely bypassing Parliament.

If this is what the Government mean by taking back control, it is exactly what remainers feared when the EU referendum was put to the people. Control is going to Ministers, not Parliament. In a parliamentary democracy, that is unacceptable. Under the Bill, Ministers could completely rewrite the regulatory frameworks for medicines and medical devices, so it is not surprising that noble Lords have received so many very concerned briefings from the field.

Having in mind the fact that patient safety must be at the heart of the legislation, what constraints do we find on Ministers in the Bill? In making regulations, Ministers must have in mind three issues: patient safety; the availability of medicines and medical devices; and the attractiveness of the UK for clinical trials and the supply of medicines and medical devices. I was surprised when I first read the Bill to find the word “attractiveness”. I have never seen it in a health Bill before—a trade Bill, yes, but not a health Bill. My primary question to the Minister is: is this a hierarchy of issues and is patient safety paramount? I would not want rigorous regulation of the safety of medicines to be subservient in any way to the ability to attract producers or researchers to come to the UK to take advantage of a more lenient regulatory regime.

Frankly, if the Government want to attract people here to do research and clinical trials, I can think of no better way than to remain as closely aligned as possible to the EMA and set up the safest, fairest, most rigorous and transparent regulatory regime in the world. This Bill does not do that. I ask for detail, transparency, appropriate parliamentary oversight and the whole package of recommendations from the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, while I appreciate the need for rapid action to contain new outbreaks of Covid-19, I too am very concerned that these regulations have come to Parliament for approval so long after they have been put into action and amended. How often will such measures be reviewed and what arrangements will be made to obtain parliamentary approval of such measures if they occur when Parliament is not sitting? These regulations, for example, are due for review tomorrow.

What are the Government’s criteria for creating further local lockdowns, and what is the role of local decision-makers in such decisions? Will workplace information be collected by test and trace, so that local officials can identify outbreaks in workplaces? How many local lockdowns would need to be in place before the Government considered a national lockdown necessary? What special measures will be put in place in local lockdown areas to protect care homes? As the Minister knows, patients in care homes have been very badly affected in the first wave. What is being put in place to ensure that these most vulnerable people are not put at risk again?

Covid-19: Response

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Baroness invites speculation; I wish that I knew the precise answer to that key question. We are extremely vigilant in a large number of areas, including the measures to release a degree of social distancing and on foreign travel, as she knows. We know that if the country remains committed to the basic principles—hand washing and hygiene; social distance; and isolation when necessary—those three principal pillars will be the ones that defend us from the spread of the disease. We are doing everything we can to shore up those pillars, and that is particularly true in social care, where we have massively boosted testing for both staff and patients and brought in hygiene control, particularly around PPE. We will continue to support the sector financially to ensure that agency workers can be used as little as possible.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, there are still issues about the length of time it takes for test results to be returned and contacts traced. Is the Minister aware that a four-week pilot scheme for the OptiGene saliva test in Southampton was completed a week ago? This test takes only 20 minutes to process. Since it does not rely on throat and nose swabs, there are less likely to be false negatives because of faulty swabbing. Can the Minister give the House the results of the pilot, which was referred to by a witness to the Science and Technology Committee as a potential game-changer? Are there plans to make the new test more widely available? In light of the latest news about travellers from Spain, will the test be given at the airport to all passengers returning from non-exempt countries so that they can be followed up quickly at the address they have given on the passenger locator form, and should they not have another test a few days later?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, I pay tribute to colleagues at Southampton, who have been managing this exciting trial of saliva-based LAMP testing. The LAMP process is extremely exciting, as it removes the time-consuming RNA extraction process from the testing; turnaround times are therefore dramatically reduced. Saliva is a much more accessible vector for the virus than swabbing and therefore has potential for mass appeal. We are extremely interested in the pilot of the OptiGene technology. It is, though, at an early stage. I would not want to raise expectations too quickly on this, but it remains one of a great many similar exciting technologies that our innovations and partnership team is looking at. I am extremely optimistic about the speed and scale of innovation in our test and trace programme, and I believe that we can move more quickly, at bigger scale and with more accuracy than we ever have before in the very near term.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, plenty of virus is still in circulation. At the Science and Technology Select Committee this week, witnesses emphasised that we have two months to prepare for winter, when we are likely to have a second wave alongside flu and other seasonal respiratory ailments. They recommended that, in preparation for winter pressure on the NHS and the Test and Trace programme, we must suppress the amount of virus circulating by September. The committee has written to the Prime Minister about this. How will the easing of restrictions in these regulations achieve that? Will government ensure that the planned walk-in test centres will be located in the vicinity of all these newly opened venues and every airport?

I am also concerned about the criminalisation of peaceful protest. I would like to see peaceful protest exempted and protesters given access to a pop-up test centre.

Smoking

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Government propose that pubs should aim at two metres between smokers and non-smokers when outside. However, the Minister should know that social distancing is already being flouted when alcohol is involved. Is he concerned that this so-called compromise is supported by FOREST, which is funded by the tobacco industry, and will he answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and ensure that the guidance will be issued by the Department of Health and Social Care rather than by MHCLG?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

I take a different view from the noble Baroness on the success of pubs’ efforts to introduce social distancing. I spent the weekend in a number of pubs and I was extremely impressed by the measures that publicans have put in place. That is why we support the role of local authorities in judging the right measures for the right pubs and why we will support the government amendment.

Medicinal Cannabis

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I cannot comment in detail on the specific situation the noble Lord refers to. I recognise the high costs of medicinal cannabis, and we have done an enormous amount to bring those costs down and to regularise the transport and regulation of those drugs, but this is the way our medical arrangements are made in this country. Private prescriptions are an option for those who can seek them, and we are working hard to get more of these medical cannabis treatments on the NICE schedule, but they require clinical trials.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the existing protocols and regulatory mechanisms suitable for most pharmaceutical medicines are not capable of handling medical cannabis, which has multiple active ingredients and is therefore not suitable for the usual randomised control trials? Does he therefore agree that a new regulatory system is required for medical cannabis, as there is in many other countries?

[Lord Bethell]

I do not think the noble Baroness is right. There are always groups advocating that their medicines are different from every other type of medicine, but the processes of clinical trials have served medical science extremely well. I share her frustration that the process of medical trials around cannabis has not moved quickly enough. That is why NIHR is looking again at the way these trials are funded; I have spoken to it about how this can be accelerated.

Ultra-processed Foods

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Baroness is entirely right to say that Covid has focused our minds on obesity and the role of diet. However, voluntary approaches are necessary. We have to take people, industry and government with us. That is the core of our approach and it will remain our approach.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, will the Prime Minister’s proposed obesity strategy include the full range of obesity services up to tier 4 in all areas, plus ensuring prevention measures such as calorie labelling, portion size, reformulation and the restriction of price promotions of HFSS foods? Will there be independent evaluation of the measures to be proposed?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, it is not my role to pre-empt the Prime Minister’s strategy formulation, but the noble Baroness has articulated a very reasonable list of the potential measures. We are closely focused on this area. We are measuring ourselves keenly and our objectives are clearly laid out. The focus is on getting movement on this important area.