Cannabis Oil
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s kind words, and I will indeed take that patient feedback back to the department. I reassure her that this is an area where patients have undoubtedly led the way, and clinicians have to catch up. In doing so, there will need to be a meeting of minds and regulation in areas that are open to patient interpretation. In that period, there will undoubtedly need to be compromises on all sides.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the law changed over two years ago. The then Home Secretary said:
“We have now delivered on our promises … we will work with the NHS to help support specialists in making the right prescribing decisions.”
But they have not; it has been a hollow promise for terminal brain cancer sufferers such as my nephew. NHS doctors will not prescribe medical cannabis, and the BMA advises medics not to prescribe it, yet I understand that the UK is the largest producer of medical cannabis in the world. Just how many prescriptions have been issued for unlicensed cannabis medicines, other than those subject to randomised control trials, in the last 12 months?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is being a little unfair; Health Education England published a medicinal cannabis education package on 8 August 2019. But we cannot force clinicians to make prescriptions. That is not how the health service works. We need to work on clinical trials to put in place the correct authorisations and to give marketing authorisations for these important and promising drugs. That will require collaboration between government, the regulator and industry, and I call on industry to step up to that challenge.
Covid-19: Vaccinations
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the mathematics done by the noble Lord are interesting but not quite a reflection of the strategy. It is undoubtedly true that the NHS is, wisely, taking the start of the deployment with great care. This is an extremely complex vaccine to deliver, but hospital hubs, local vaccination services and vaccination centres will be rolled out around the country. The kind of ambition that the noble Lord describes—quite rightly—is exactly what we seek to deliver; we will update the House as that deployment plan rolls out.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I want to urge early access to the vaccine for the terminally ill. On Tuesday, in response to my noble friend Lady Thornton, the Minister said that there was a powerful case but any further refinements to the priority list will “create profound operational challenges”. That is not a good enough answer for my nephew, Matthew Walton, who has stage 4 brain cancer. Surely his two young children should be able to spend their remaining time together without the additional threat of an early death, which could so easily be averted by a vaccine—unlike his cancer. Will the Minister please press this powerful case?
Lord Bethell (Con)
The noble Baroness makes the case extremely well; I pay tribute to her personal testimony. I looked into this matter after giving my answer to the question last week. I assure the noble Baroness that those who are terminally ill are, of course, clinically vulnerable by nature. We will ensure that those who are clinically vulnerable will get the vaccine when it is clinically appropriate to do so, which I hope brings her some reassurance.
Covid-19: People with Learning Difficulties and Autism
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness puts it extremely well, and it is an area we are deeply concerned about. We have commissioned Public Health England to carry out an analysis of the existing data on those who have suffered under Covid. We will be reviewing that data extremely carefully to understand the phenomenon more deeply. In the meantime, the Chancellor has announced £750 million to support the charity sector in response to the pandemic. Some of that money has been targeted specifically at charities that are supporting those with learning difficulties to ensure that they get the support that they need.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, many families really struggled to get effective support or even to know where to go to find out what is available. I understand that evidence gathered by concerned charities like Carers UK and Carers Trust shows that many family carers have had no effective support or advice since the end of March, yet they look after some of the most vulnerable in our society. Will the Minister and his colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care meet with these organisations to discuss what could be done to improve this very sad state of affairs?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the learning disability and autism advisory group for its social care task force. Its recommendations have informed the development of the social care winter plan, which provides specific provisions for those with learning disabilities and autism. I would be very glad to meet whichever groups the noble Baroness recommends, because this is an important issue that we care about immensely and are determined to get right.
Covid-19: Social Care Services
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on calling this vital debate at a very difficult time in our history and I thank her for all the work that she has done on this issue. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the trade body that represents not-for-profit housing associations in England.
The spread of this virus is indiscriminate, but its impact on our society’s most vulnerable people is pernicious. I pay tribute to all those who, despite the risks to themselves and their families, are still faithfully working to help those in their care. Many of us have reason to be grateful to them and their families for their sacrifice.
Like many, I have found the number of fatalities in care homes alarming and distressing. Earlier this month, reported deaths from Covid-19 in care homes quadrupled in the space of a week, and we know that this is not the full picture. We need a clear plan in place to reverse this trend.
Some 50,000 care home spaces in England are provided by not-for-profit providers, such as housing associations. They also provide 76% of all supported specialist and sheltered housing schemes for older people, people with disabilities and people with mental health needs. They support people in homelessness, hostels and domestic abuse refuges. All of these are vital components in our social care system beyond those services regulated by the CQC. All of these care settings are currently grappling with the enormous challenges that this virus brings. We should not let them be forgotten or neglected.
Accessing PPE is a significant ongoing challenge for all these workers who have daily contact with those people who are being shielded. While we quite rightly prioritise NHS staff, it must be extended to others most at risk. I welcome recent government guidance on testing in the community. I know that housing associations hope that it will stimulate greater availability of tests for their front-line staff. Those working with our older and more vulnerable population need to know that going to work will not put their safety and residents’ safety at risk. We owe it to people working in care settings to value and publicise their work and to put it on a financially secure footing, now and in the future.
The statistics on the effects of the virus on those in care homes must be a wake-up call to take action on the questions about our social care system that have dogged our country for so long. Housing associations are already mobilising for this. A root-and-branch review of how we provide care to the most vulnerable in society has never been more critical. Will the Minister commit to it now? Without it, we remain as unprepared for any future health crisis as we were for Covid-19.
Queen’s Speech
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on the humble Address. I want to talk about housing. I declare my interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the trade body for housing associations in England.
A week after the general election, it was reported that the number of homeless households in Britain had risen to over 68,000. At Christmas, more than 135,000 children did not wake up in a safe home to call their own. Each one of these children and their families need us to act now to invest in decent, affordable and high-quality housing. Given the ambition of this Government, I am hopeful that we will see the investment needed to build the homes that will fix the housing crisis.
The election made clear that voters want to see a change in the status quo. We have seen a real shake-up in traditional heartlands. These constituencies voted for a greater amount of investment in their schools, hospitals and infrastructure. I welcome the Government’s commitment to high levels of investment in infrastructure, but this must include a bold and ambitious plan to fix the country’s housing crisis.
The morning after the election, the Prime Minister made a welcome commitment to address the concerns of utmost importance to voters who may have voted for the Conservative Party for the first time. Polling by the National Housing Federation during the election revealed that 65% of undecided voters who backed Labour in the last election and voted leave in the EU referendum support the idea of spending billions of pounds a year on new social housing. This investment would not only be the right thing to do to help millions of families in England, it is also what voters have been asking for.
In the past 20 years, many communities in the north and the Midlands have been “left behind” while cities have thrived. I welcome the Government’s plans, including regeneration, to level up the regions in England. Housing associations work as economic and social anchors in their communities. They build the vital homes we need, and, just as important, they support existing communities and empower their residents. They add £16 billion to the British economy each year and they support over 250,000 jobs distributed right across the country. Does the Minister agree that housing associations will play a key role in the Government’s aim of levelling up the regions?
But of course our drive for new homes must not detract from ensuring that existing homes are of the utmost quality and safety. It is imperative that people are safe and feel safe in their homes, and I am pleased to note two new pieces of legislation in the Queen’s Speech that will contribute to this goal. Since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, housing associations and indeed local authorities have worked swiftly to identify unsafe ACM cladding, and work has begun or been completed on the vast majority of these buildings in the social housing sector.
But we face failures throughout the building safety system well beyond ACM cladding, as the Hackitt review has shown. All social housing providers have made it an absolute priority to deal with safety of entire buildings, together with tenants and residents. Not surprisingly, that presents considerable financial and operational challenges. We cannot ignore the sector’s capacity to do this while continuing to build new affordable homes and investing in communities up and down the country.
The wholesale failure of the building safety system should not hamper the ability of housing associations and councils to build the affordable homes of the future. The Government’s plans to resource remediation work must take this into account. It is a complex and extensive programme of work that needs renewed strategic leadership from government. For their part, housing associations remain committed to working in partnership to get this crucial work done. Let us all be clear in our focus on what matters most of all: the safety of the people who call these buildings their homes.
I am glad that the Government have reaffirmed their commitment to the affordable homes programme. Delivering hundreds of thousands of affordable homes needs the certainty of sustained support and specific funding for building homes for social rent. Ahead of the upcoming Budget, will the Minister speak with his Treasury colleagues to ensure that the affordable homes programme is financed effectively to build the homes this country needs?
The election result will continue to be dissected, but the Government have accepted the clear message for change and a greater political focus and action on the communities that have been ignored for too long. We know that when you have a safe, quality and affordable home to live in, everything else follows—as the Minister herself quite rightly said. It is right that the Government are finally listening to these voters, and I hope that we will see the investment desperately needed to deliver the meaningful change these communities have been calling for.