Health: Alcohol Minimum Pricing

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Wheeler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact of minimum pricing policy on the level of alcohol-related conditions and admissions to hospital.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the Home Office review of pricing policy found that increases in alcohol prices are linked to decreases in alcohol-related harms. The review also highlighted that this is a complex issue. The Government intend to ban sales of alcohol below the rate of duty plus VAT. This is a pragmatic first step towards setting the lowest level at which different strengths of alcohol can be sold. We estimate that it would mean about 1,500 fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions per year.

[Baroness Wheeler]

I thank the Minister for his response. However, two leading advisers from the Department of Health’s own network of experts recently wrote in the Lancet that the Government,

“lacks clear aspiration to reduce the impact of cheap, readily available, and heavily marketed alcohol on individuals and on society”.

They estimate that failure to tackle drink-related problems could cost 250,000 lives over the next 20 years. How will the Minister ensure that in future the health, well-being and recovery of people with drink-related problems take precedence over the lobbying of the drinks industry?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I make it clear that we neither have nor intend to have any sort of cosy arrangement with the drinks industry. The view that we have taken is that the food, drink and fitness industries, together with charities and public health experts, all have a huge role to play in improving our health. The industry has enormous influence in its own right. However, more than that, we believe that we have a collective responsibility to do something about this problem. That is why the industry has joined the Government in a partnership to promote and empower us all to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Through the public health responsibility deal, we are challenging industry to take action that will help consumers to live healthier lives in some areas where it is not possible or effective to regulate.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority/Human Tissue Authority

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Thornton for initiating this debate, as well as other noble Lords who have spoken with much experience and in-depth knowledge on this matter. It is particularly timely as the Government consider their response to the major concerns about the inclusion of the HFEA and HTA among the bodies to be abolished under the Public Bodies Bill, whose Committee stage discussions we are set to resume.

As has been stated, we on these Benches can speak with some authority on this matter, having, as the House will be aware, closely examined the case for merging the HFEA and HTA into a single body just over two years ago while we were in Government. We came to the firm conclusion that two distinct independent regulatory bodies needed to be retained to oversee the areas of human tissue and assisted reproduction.

As the BMA has stated, the UK has been well served by the HFEA and the HTA, and both have been used as models for other jurisdictions in dealing with extremely technical and legally complex areas of practice. The RCN has said in respect of the HFEA that the current high level of expertise and experience within the body is extremely valuable and that it would not be in the public interest to transfer regulatory functions to other organisations, as this knowledge might be lost to the detriment of patient safety. The HFEA’s chair, Professor Lisa Jardine, has described areas covered by the HFEA as the most controversial area of medicine apart from assisted dying, the most morally difficult and carefully legislated-for area and the most tightly regulated.

The HTA, born out of the terrible events at Alder Hey and Bristol hospitals, and the crisis in public confidence over unauthorised retention of babies’ organs and tissues, has in our view established hard-won trust and respect among the public and professionals. My noble friend Lady Warwick is right to express concern that this will be lost if the current clear focus of the HTA is diminished in the transfer of its functions and role.

This does not mean that we do not recognise the scope for review and change within either body, or how the regulatory framework may be developed in the future. Both bodies themselves acknowledge this. We also recognise that many in the key professional groups involved are supportive of such changes as bringing all medical research regulation, including embryo research, within the remit of a single medical research regulatory authority, as recommended by the Academy of Medical Sciences. However, time and space would be needed for independent examination and review of this and the broader issues of how functions should be delivered in future and the risks, benefits and costs, rather than just the current focus on how functions are to be transferred.

We are concerned that the Government’s process is to transfer functions to bodies that are as yet undeveloped and untested in this area of expertise. The Care Quality Commission is very much an organisation in transition and development, as it plans to take on a range of new duties and work envisaged in the Health and Social Care Bill. The role and possible functions of the new medical research body, and of the health and social care information centre, need much more work and development. All this is in the context of the Department of Health having its work cut out, taking on a huge volume of work, responsibilities and functions that will come its way from the abolition or reorganisation of many of the other bodies due to be axed in the Public Bodies Bill.

This is also at a time when the Government themselves are committed to large-scale staff reductions in the Department of Health. There are also key issues of accountability and independence at stake. Professional bodies and clinicians directly regulated by the HFEA, for example, of course have a key view of the changes needed, but they are not the only stakeholders, as speakers in this afternoon’s debate have underlined.

Dismantling the HFEA and HTA, diluting their accountability and handing over their powers to Ministers and civil servants on such sensitive issues needs public involvement and stakeholder conversation, as speakers have pointed out. How would the new organisations be independently scrutinised and accountable? How much money would be saved from transferring the functions of the HFEA and HTA to the CSQ and new bodies? Will the Minister explain in more detail the timetable that he is currently working to for consultation and development of the new framework?

We on these Benches again urge the Government to reconsider their position and remove the HFEA and HTA from the bodies to be deleted under Schedule 5.

Contaminated Blood (Support for Infected and Bereaved Persons) Bill [HL]

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, I, too, begin by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, for his tenacious and tireless work in campaigning on the issue before the House today. Indeed, no one reading back through the reports of the debates on the Bill in its previous passage to Third Reading in the House, as I have done in preparing for today’s debate, can fail to admire and be very humbled by his continued determination to ensure that the plight of those whom he has described as,

“arguably the most needful minority in Britain today”,—[Official Report, 23/4/09; col. 1607.]

is fully recognised and properly financially compensated.

We recognise the important and continued role played by him and other noble Lords who have spoken in today’s and previous debates. I refer particularly to the independent inquiry report of my noble and learned friend Lord Archer into NHS-supplied contaminated blood and blood products, which received widespread all-party acclaim, and whose report recommendations form the core framework of the Bill. Like him, we welcome the consensus in the House that victims have suffered for too long. We also value his insights into his report from the perspective of events that have followed its publication. Finally, I endorse the admiration expressed across the House for the work of the Haemophilia Society and the close support that it has provided to the people infected, their carers, widows and dependants.

The debates in this House and in the other place last week recount the very personal and tragic experiences of patients, their families and those who have died. Haemophilia sufferers were plunged into a nightmare of failing health, pain, suffering, financial hardship and social deprivation. The support and campaigning work of the society over the past three decades have helped to provide solace and constant, practical everyday support, and have led to real improvements in care and financial support.

However, we readily accept that there is much more to be done. This is unfinished business from the previous Government and we regret that we were not able to respond formally to the High Court judgment and to the related recommendations in the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, before we left office. Despite the sense of frustration at this and the belief that much more should have been done by successive Governments, the House will recognise the work undertaken by my noble friend Lady Thornton to progress through the Department of Health vital improvements such as in the administering, handling and safety of blood products and in developing further best practice and improvement in service provision for the ongoing treatment of haemophilia sufferers.

On behalf of these Benches we welcome the review announced last week by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, following the announcement and debate in the other place. It is a very positive step that will, I hope, take this matter forward towards achieving the closure that is desired in the House.

We welcome the inclusion in the review of the commitment to look at ex gratia payments made to those infected with hepatitis C, including financial support for dependants, issues surrounding the arbitrariness and injustice of cut-off dates for eligibility of the current scheme, and comparison with ex gratia payments made in the UK to those infected with HIV and their dependants. We also welcome consideration of the provision of life, mortgage protection and travel insurance for those infected in light of similar access available to other groups. As we have continually found, there is often a real difference between what insurance companies promise will be their actions on such issues, and what they actually do when considering individual cases.

In respect of prescription charging for those infected, noble Lords on both sides of the House will be aware of the previous Government’s commitment to introduce free prescriptions for people with long-term conditions, which would have included people infected by contaminated blood. I therefore ask the Minister what impact the announcement under the Government’s CSR that the free prescriptions programmes will not now be taken forward will have on the review’s consideration of this matter. Will the Government no longer honour this commitment to people infected by contaminated blood?

We also endorse the inclusion in the review of the provision of, and access to, nursing and other care services in the community for those infected. We hope this will lead to improved NHS and local authority service provision, coproduction and co-operation.

We welcome the Government’s commitment for the review to make recommendations to Ministers for their consideration by the end of the year. As noble Lords have stressed during this debate, it is crucial for this review to be conducted with the utmost expedition. I look forward to hearing further details from the Minister on who is to lead it, how it is to be undertaken, the relevant expert groups and external groups that were referred to in the other place by the Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Anne Milton, and how the views of those infected, their relatives and carers, and other representatives will be sought and taken into consideration.

The Minister emphasised her desire for the review to be dealt with,

“openly and honestly, with clarity, without party politics, with humility and with empathy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/10/10; col. 568.]

We wholeheartedly agree and look forward to it proceeding without delay. Will it include an overview of all the different compensation funds established to administer payments to people infected by contaminated blood to ensure consistency of approach and decisions?

Finally, on the question of continued government funding to the Haemophilia Society, can the noble Earl confirm that the current level of funding will not be affected by the changed basis for voluntary sector funding?

In closing, I again congratulate my noble friend Lord Morris on bringing back the Bill to this House and his dedication, determination and persistence—once again so much in evidence today. We look forward to working on the Bill in its future stages in the House.