Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will present five bases of rejection to the Bill. The first is the evolution of the Bill in the other place, which we can hardly call Parliament at its best. It was deemed to be a Private Member’s Bill, but I am sorry to say that I think we are being fooled here; it is quite obviously a government Bill in disguise. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, indicated this last week in his fine speech, when he referred to the Civil Service assistance he had had to date, which is more than unusual for any Private Member’s Bill.

From the start, Committee in the other place was stilted in its composition, and many respected institutions that will be operating in the space of the Bill were denied their opportunity for input. What worried me more than anything else were the joyous, tear-flecked celebrations by some parliamentarians of the passing of the Bill in the Commons; it is a Bill of death. I found that quite bizarre and chilling. I should not be surprised, however, as many of the same people are jubilant about the opportunity to home-conduct abortions up to full term without sanction. I celebrate life rather than death.

The Bill as originally drafted had 16 Henry VIII clauses; that has now grown to 42, including many that will allow ministerial powers and secondary legislation to create criminal sanctions. Noble Lords will be aware that this is just not right in legislation; this should not happen without great cause, to create criminal sanctions by secondary legislation. It is usually widely condemned.

My second objection is the reality of what we have seen in other jurisdictions, where we have seen a loosening throughout—whether that be in Australia, Canada or most certainly Belgium. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, predicted last week that only 1% of deaths would be through legalised suicide within 10 years. That does not fit very well with Australia’s 3% and Canada’s just under 5%. In all jurisdictions, “I don’t want to be a burden” has become bigger and bigger. In Belgium, children as young as nine are being euthanised under similar legislation—let me repeat that: in Belgium, children aged nine are being euthanised. I have grave concerns about the human rights industry in this country, where whatever happens in Parliament gets overturned through judicial activism. I am absolutely sure that this would be watered down to death on the state on demand in due course. That is my great fear.

My third grave concern is inheritance. I am professionally trained and licensed to do probate work through the Institute of Chartered Accountants; believe me, post-death battles over inheritance can get very ugly. I am fearful of the coercion of the elderly and the vulnerable. It is so obvious.

Fourthly, I am worried about the six-month time limit. We have a similar thing in the DWP for end-of-life PIP, where you have to have an assessment that you may live for only up to 12 months. The reality is very different: the average is over two years, and very commonly people live for three when the assessment was just a year. Are we really going to terminate lives earlier than may be the case? The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, gave a fine speech last week: a personal account of his father. What he is looking for, and what I would be looking for, is that very end-of-life solution where things can be put right, the making a person comfortable, that we know happens, sort of, today. If that is the bit that needs codification into legislation, that is fine; we should be considering that.

Fifthly and finally, I am concerned that we want to embed an option for death within the NHS, where its modus operandi should be for life and for doing its bit, obviously, when palliative care is needed. To have this as an option is very dangerous. I would like to see—if we have to have this at all—a separation, because unfortunately the NHS would have skin in the game in terms of costs and staff problems. This is an unwholesome Bill, and I will oppose it.

Prosthetics for Amputees

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that amputees receive appropriate prosthetics at an appropriate time.

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I have declarations to make. These are TASKA hands, and they are on long-term loan from Steeper Group. Similar, Steeper Group paid for me to attend a prosthetics conference in France just a couple of weeks ago. As ever, we owe thanks to our library facilities—both the House of Commons Library and, this time, the House of Lords Library, which provided some data for this debate.

Some 55,000 to 60,000 people attending UK clinics have some form of limb loss. We are not entirely sure of the figure. The NHS is a great organisation for collecting a lot of data, but it has not quite managed to collect the data on why people have lost their limbs, which is a little remarkable. There are a number of reasons why people may not be fully limbed or may have suffered limb loss after they were born. There are congenital reasons, obviously: people may not have fully functioning limbs. Indeed, not having limbs at all can be a feature. The examples of limb loss that we are more familiar with, of course, are those caused by trauma, such as car accidents or injuries at work.

I always ask why Leeds seem to be a centre for the whole prosthetic and limb loss industry, if there is such a thing. Leeds hospital is at the forefront of hand transplants. Of course, that is because of the industrial past of that part of the world; we may have a greater population in the south-east, but we do not have those types of industrial accident at quite the same level.

Of course, we see a huge expansion in limb loss during wartime. We saw that during the Afghan and Iraqi wars, with IEDs and mines, which are certainly good at one thing: taking limbs off very effectively. The Ukraine war, though, has come up with some new reasons for limb loss. Some 80,000 soldiers in Ukraine have lost limbs—one can only guess that, in Russia, it is a similar amount—but there is a new dynamic of antimicrobial resistance. If you get a limb injury, it should not kill you; it should just pass. However, because we have an increased amount of resistance, that can lead to limb damage and loss. Then there is the use of field tourniquets, where the urgent decision of saving life, not limbs, is taken; the limbs then die and have to be taken off.

The classic cause is diabetes; it is one of the main reasons for limb loss. When I was in my clinic, the amputee rehabilitation unit just over the river in Kennington, the classic example was that of older men who had lost limbs to diabetes—not living as well as they should, shall we say. You can also lose limbs with cancer.

However, the cause that is of great interest to me is sepsis. The trouble with sepsis is that you often lose limbs in pairs. You do not lose just one: both go at once, whether that is two legs or two arms. If you are really lucky and get the quad, you lose all four, like me. The provision of legs is somewhat easier. I am very lucky in that mine were lost below the knee, so I have knees; that makes life incredibly different. The NHS has been good at bringing forward microprocessor-controlled prosthetic knees, which are known as MPKs. They have been widely provided for some years, and people get on well with them. They have become standard kit.

So NHS provision, particularly on legs, is okay once it is on track. However, it is one of extreme delay. I can tell you the story of the legs that I am on. They are private legs. Thankfully, I have been able to get them. I am 10 months on from a cast and still have not got a leg that fits on the NHS. If I had not been able to get these privately, I would have been in a wheelchair for the last 10 months, with mental health issues, unable to go to work and probably suffering severe muscle wasting.

We have a problem in our clinics. The age profile is poor; it is old. It is not an industry that youngsters feel enthused to enter. The pay is not great, and although it may not be much more, if any more, in the private sector, that sector is growing and there is a feeling there of greater reward, greater ability to do your craft and better morale.

We have university provision for prosthetics. The two primary ones are those in Salford and Strathclyde. Within clinics that I have been to there has often been someone shadowing from their university course. However, the drop-out rates are appalling. We can look even further to the technicians, who make the sockets. It is all very well having a great prosthetist for the mould, but you need a technician. The drop-out rate there is even worse and the pay truly dire—often little better than minimum wage. As a country, we concern ourselves with how NHS provision is, particularly regarding our nurses. We have done a lot to try to improve nurse morale and nurse pay, but we have not had that same focus on the problems facing prosthetists and technicians.

This country used to have transferrable old skills. I come from north Kent and the Medway towns. I attend the Medway NHS clinic. In days of old, you would have had those transferrable skills from, say, the dockyard, which closed in 1983. In fact, they would have been greater skills of knocking stuff up in fibreglass, wood and whatever else. This would have also been true in parts of the country with car industries that have, perhaps, now gone. Those craft industries were very good at providing technicians for making prosthetics, but those days are gone.

Noble Lords can imagine my frustration that we still use those old ways, which work, of a plaster cast that is prised off and manufactured manually by a skilled artisan, yet we are short of those skilled artisans. Staff are the limitation. I hear all the time, “We’re short of staff”. There are new CAD techniques to direct 3D printing. I talk to various private companies that do NHS provision, such as Steeper Group, which I mentioned, and which is supporting me. Opcare is another. Those companies are still using those old techniques. I am trying to encourage them, if they have a shortage of people, to take people out of the system as far as they can.

If you lose one arm, you might get away with it. However, you could call losing two something of a catastrophe. I am a quadruple amputee. My worry is that we will see more people like me. My sepsis was very severe, and I was lucky to live, but years ago, if you had severe sepsis, you would simply have died. Now, with a greater understanding, greater knowledge and better drugs, you will get survivors, in states such as mine or that are even worse, yet the system is not preparing itself for keeping people alive. If you are going to keep people alive, let us try to get them on a pathway to recovery.

My experience of upper limbs is really poor. In the brief time I have, I will tell the Committee the story. One is that I was given a pair of what I can only call William the Conqueror-designed arms, with a rubber end. If you have one arm, you might get away with it, but being given two of those was the lowest part of my rehabilitation. You are then told, “Within a few months we might think about body-powered hooks”, which are straps around your shoulders—I would not be able to put them on by myself, of course, as I have two limbs missing—and you use your shoulder to open and close them. They are circa 1790. You then progress to a 1950s-style myoelectric. You have to use that for a year before you can be considered for what I have now, which people with two arms missing need at the earliest possible stage.

We have to go through those hoops. Those early hoops are paid for by the local NHS trust; my hands are paid for by NHS England. My experience was to attempt to make a discretionary appeal, as my condition is as bad as it is, to NHS England. It said, “After 10 months of trials, surely we can just get going with NHS-provided multifunctional hands”. The answer from NHS England was no, so I am very pleased to see the end of NHS England because we have to do better.

I have a final few words. If you go into A&E with a wound on your arm, the staff do not reach for a 1920s hot bread poultice; they give you up-to-date drugs, topical solutions and antibiotics. So please stop giving out pre-Victorian prosthetics.

Draft Health and Social Care Information Centre (Transfer of Functions, Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2023

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 General Committees

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham.

Interoperability of data across different systems in the NHS between GP surgeries and hospitals has always been somewhat of a vexed issue. I note that the regulations relate to NHS England. A number of differences were highlighted during the covid period relating to certification in NHS Scotland—I note that no member of the SNP is present. Are moves afoot to make sure that data fields maintain some degree of regularity across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? If the worst happens to any of us, our constituents or our families when we are in one of the devolved areas, can we expect that there is half a chance of data readability across the systems in different parts of the United Kingdom? Or, as time goes on, are processes getting more and more diverse and more complex? That would be a great sadness in my view.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I think the approach that we have taken to mask wearing, which I have set out, is the right one.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

We seem to be on a slippery slope towards lockdown based on precisely no real data, which is a worry. It seems to be the precautionary principle gone completely mad. However, I will give my right hon. Friend credit in that I am very pleased that daily testing is going to replace the self-isolation proposed just a week ago. I am sorry to say to my right hon. Friend that he is looking a little silly on these things as we shilly-shally between different rules. Could he answer me this: is he proposing a reformulation of the vaccine and then keeping these or similar restrictions in place for the period until that new vaccine is in arms, then in a year’s time when we get a new variant, we do it all over again ad nauseam—like a stuck record, only more annoying?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree with me that one of the reasons for these measures is precisely to avoid a lockdown. We all want to see a lockdown avoided for all the obvious reasons, and taking the right proportionate measures now will certainly help to do that. On the vaccine, I am not proposing reformulation. I think the most important thing right here and now, and more important than even before, is the booster programme—not a reformulation, but getting a third shot to boost everyone’s immunity. On the future, where I see vaccines going is multi-variant vaccines, a number of which are already being developed. Just as we see that with flu, I am sure we will see that with covid.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes. That facility may not be in the app—it may be through a letter or a process—but it will still provide what is needed in terms of travel for that age group. That hopefully will start next week.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I fully understand that my right hon. Friend is treading water until we know more about the omicron variant, its response to the vaccines and its virulence, but can I press him on the nature of any likely Government response if those answers are poor? We know what lockdowns mean: damage to youngsters, damage to businesses, damage to lives and damage to liberties—not least the £400 billion while we waited for the vaccine and got it rolled out over a seven-month cycle. Can he please assure me that under no circumstance will we do the same all over again and hope for a different outcome? He knows as well as I that there will be yet another variant some time down the line.

[Sajid Javid]

I do not want to pre-judge the review, but I know that my hon. Friend would agree that our best form of defence is our vaccine programme, and the fact that we are doing better than any other country in Europe in our booster programme gives us a really strong level of defence.

Public Health

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Graham Brady]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a very serious concern that we might be entering a world where we lurch from one set of restrictions to another, where no business and no individual can get used to the idea of the freedoms they are able to exercise or what restrictions might be in force at the time.

What really concerns me—I think we all know and recognise this—is that we are dealing no longer with a pandemic, but with an endemic virus that will be with us for many, many years and probably forever in some form. Further variants will emerge. They might do so every couple of months or every year. We tend to have a new flu strain on an annual basis and some are much worse than others. But surely, we need to get back to an assumption that people will make decisions for themselves and have control over their own lives. We cannot move, as we appear to have done, to an environment in which the Government simply assume they can instruct us whenever there is the first small evidence from anywhere in the world of a new strain that might behave in a different way, and new and potentially swingeing public health measures are put in place. I ask Ministers to consider the implications of that and for looking at other diseases. Will we start to treat other diseases and viruses in the same way, assuming the best thing to do is to compel people and instruct them on what actions they need to take?

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is starting to explore the issue of what happens when there is a variant. What we see from the Government thus far is a load of new measures and, possibly, the pharmaceutical companies saying, “We can make a new vaccine for that within about 90 days”. We would then have many months to get it in everyone’s arm. Having done that and gone back to a sense of freedom, another variant would emerge and we would be on that track all over again. Has he considered the madness of that type of policy?

[Sir Graham Brady]

We should all be afraid of the madness of that kind of policy. The difficulty is that 18 months ago, when some of us started raising these concerns, it was possible for some people to suggest that we were being fanciful. We have now lived it for 18 months and we can see this reaching ahead. We think back to when the Coronavirus Act 2020 was renewed again, taking us through to spring next year, and the assurances we were given that that would be the last time. I thought we would not need this kind of legislation again, but we see the Government’s immediate assumption that they should reach for new controls, new compulsion and new rules to inflict on the British people. We need to move away from that and back to a world where we trust people, engage with the public and recognise that the Government are there to serve the people, not the other way around.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitford]

I was not claiming that it was, because genomic testing takes a couple of weeks generally and it is therefore too late for someone to isolate. What I am saying is that with this variant, as in alpha but not in delta, the missing S gene means that on that initial test—which takes six hours or until the next day, or whatever it is—we already get a heads-up that we are dealing with an omicron case. We can go on to do the genomic analysis, but we can say to the patient, “We think you have this variant. You need to isolate thoroughly and for longer.”

[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing her medical knowledge to the House. It is very interesting, particularly on the S gene. I do not know what magic goes on in a lateral flow test. We put the drips in at one end and then one band, hopefully, appears and not two. Could a lateral flow test be adapted to be specific for this type of variant?

[Dr Whitford]

I think we would be talking about redesigning the test for a whole new antigen. I mentioned just one advantage that we get from PCR testing, which basically looks at genes—I will not talk about the whole long name and what PCR stands for—and the benefit is that we get a heads-up. I do not think it is feasible on any reasonable timescale to change lateral flow tests, so we are lucky that this one has S-gene dropout and that we will get an early warning.

One issue with focusing only on a day-two PCR and then, if someone is negative, they are released—unlike what is being discussed for domestic isolation—is that the incubation period of covid, generally, is much longer than two days. It has generally been reported as an average of five days and it can extend for longer. If someone who may have had contact arrives in the UK, gets a negative PCR result on day two and then goes about their business, there is a real danger that that is a false reassurance. That is why the Scottish and Welsh Governments have asked for a Cobra meeting to debate the evidence on a four-nation basis and to discuss having at least an eight-day isolation period for travellers, with a negative day-eight test required before people can be released.

The Prime Minister should listen on that, because one issue that we had in Scotland when we tried to maintain stricter and broader hotel quarantine was that the majority of long-haul passengers arrive through hubs such as Heathrow. The devolved nations have no ability to have an impact on that and we should be working with the Republic of Ireland to make the whole common travel area safer from the point of view of how we move about inside it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I understand the dilemma that the Government face and are in. There are two main questions that we need to ask and to which we all—including the Government as much as anyone—want to know the answer: first, what is the state of the omicron variant’s resistance to our vaccine programme? Secondly, if someone becomes infected, is their illness weaker or worse than it would have been with the delta variant that we have got used to? In some ways, it does not matter what happens with the vaccine if the omicron variant does not cause bad illness. Frankly, if it does not cause bad illness, I do not care about this thing at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) just made an interesting point: if, as we all hope, the omicron variant is weaker than the delta variant in terms of illness and effect, we are going backwards a long way today, because we will all have to lock down when we get the text, email or phone call to tell us we have been close to somebody with the new variant. That makes little sense at all.

Let me address the proposals before us in some sort of order. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), I do not have too many concerns about the face-mask regulations: they are an extension of rules that we have pretty much got used to and there is very little difference from what I have been doing on public transport, where I have been wearing masks religiously. I am still a little bemused as to how a fairly flimsy mask with a filter size that is far greater than a coronavirus particle can somehow be the salvation, but so be it. I am not terribly concerned about that.

We are, though, left with a gross absurdity that will perhaps face everyone in the House over the next few weeks. When someone goes to the off-licence on the way to a party later, it might take them only 45 seconds to get their tiple of choice but they will have to wear a mask on pain of a fine. They can then make their way to a house party, with 100 people or perhaps more—perhaps an infinite number of people—where it will be enclosed, warm, cosy and friendly and they can take that same face mask off. Really? It is an infantile proposal and we are in danger of falling down the same absurdities as we fell down before, with the madness of the couple who could walk across a golf course but dare not play on it. This is the absurdity that I have voted against previously and will vote against again.

Let me move on to the self-isolation requirements. I am afraid that the proposals mean we are going to fall into a new pingdemic. There is nothing in the regulations, in anything the Minister has said or in anything else I have heard to date to say that the testing regime will be backed up with proper genome sequencing at the right rate, so we can get back to a situation in which people can be told, “No, your contact was not omicron. You’re fine.” My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester picked up on a very dangerous phrase in the regulations, and that is “suspected of”. I do not know what that means. I know what “confirmed as” means—to be confirmed through a proper genome-sequence test—but what about “suspected of”? When people get that phone call, text, email or ping from the NHS—if they have been daft enough to have the app on their phone—are they now going to hear, just because the words “suspected of” have been added, “Thou shalt be held indoors for 10 days”? This is where we end up with mission creep and the chilling effect that my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned.

I am going to be somewhat concerned about going to that Christmas party or that pub, because I have friends and family coming round for Christmas day. This legislation is going to have a dangerous pingdemic effect, either through a proper pingdemic or just through the effect of fear. I asked the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who spoke for the SNP and is knowledgeable on these matters, whether we might be able to get a new lateral flow test that is specific to omicron, but I think the answer is possibly no. We are in a confused state and I am concerned that the regulations will shatter businesses that are getting ready for Christmas. With the support of Opposition parties, sadly the regulations are likely to go through.

I am somewhat confused, as are many other Members, that we are not considering the regulations on travel today. It seems somewhat bizarre. There is a new requirement for a PCR test within two days. I am afraid we have seen far too much of what I call wild-west behaviour out there when people try to obtain a test. We have a well-established, well-working, accurate and fast PCR network that has stood up throughout the whole country. For instance, I can go on the NHS website and organise a PCR test tonight, probably within a mile or two of where I live, and I would probably get a result back tomorrow. The system works very well and that is to the Government’s credit. We went down a stage, for good reason, and said that lateral flow tests for people who travel in are fine. We are now back to the confusion—do lateral flow tests work or do they not work? If they work, surely that will do; if they do not work—if they are not reliable—why on earth have we spent billions of pounds over the past few months and why are everybody’s draws and cupboards full of these things, which are handed out like candy in the streets? It is something of a nonsense.

We have not yet discussed the regulations on the travel restrictions, so perhaps we have a chance of changing them for the good. We are introducing new requirements so it is only fair that we offer the ability to meet those requirements within the NHS PCR testing system, either for free or at a minimal cost. That way, we will not have these situations involving what I have described as wild-west companies that have not served us well.

Sadly, we are allowing ourselves to go back into a rabbit hole, and I am concerned that we will never get out. Last year, before we had the big vaccine roll-out, there were reasonable reasons, although I did not support them, for the levels of restrictions: we were waiting for the cavalry of the vaccinations and wanted to protect the NHS from being overloaded. We did that, it all worked and we got back to a semblance of normality. But we have a new variant, so we introduce new measures, then await a new vaccine formulation, then wait another few months to get that into people’s arms, and then we might be able to go back to normality—but then we will find another new variant and do it all over again. This has to stop. We have to live with this ever-changing virus. Enough is enough: it is done.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

National Health Service

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic argument, as he always does in this place. I have interweaved these new regulations into where they would fit in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and the 2014 regulated activities regulations, and have found that we are asking care homes to be the policemen of delivery people, plumbers and window cleaners with a possible £4,000 fixed penalty fine. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend was aware of the extent of the fine that backs up these regulations.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that information to the attention of the House.

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, because Mr Deputy Speaker wants to make sure that we get everybody in. My final point is that, coming back to the consultation that took place, it is very clear that most of the people responding did not support these proposals. They were very concerned about them; certainly, the care homes and those involved in the sector who I have heard from are very concerned about them. The proposals do not command wide support, so I say to the Minister that I would listen to the concerns that are being expressed, take these proposals away, and come back with some well-thought-through proposals to secure the support of the House. If she presses them to a vote today, I regret to say that I will be forced to vote against them.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady raises the importance of vaccination, and she is right to do so. As I mentioned earlier, according to the ONS, nine out of 10 adults in this country have antibodies, which are part of the wall of protection.

The hon. Lady is right to mention that cases will rise in this wave. We have been very open about that. I hope that she heard earlier in my statement that there is no perfect time to start opening up. The risk is that, if we do not do it now and wait until after the summer, the schools will be back, and if we wait longer it will be winter—there is a real, serious risk, which we have been advised about, that the wave could be even bigger than what is anticipated at this point. Many more people would then end up getting infected and, by extension, getting long covid.

I hope that the hon. Lady can consider all that together in a balanced way. If she would like to meet any Ministers or officials in my Department to understand the situation better, I will be happy to arrange that.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

From previous answers given, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is now looking at the underlying settings of the Track and Trace app—I ask him to do that as a matter of urgency. Those settings take no account of vaccination status or any other behaviours; it is just a blunt, bluetooth signal. It might have had value when there were few other tools in the box, but it must now be highly questionable to condemn potentially millions of people to unnecessary self-isolation and the economic impact thereof.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that he noted my comment that, precisely for the reasons he set out, given the high rate of vaccination, we are taking a fresh look at the app. I have asked for advice—and have just started to receive some of it—about how we can take a more proportionate and balanced approach.

Coronavirus

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I want to discuss two sides of the science—science as the liberator and science as the captor. We have seen through this process that new vaccines have been created using messenger RNA of a completely new type that will, I am sure, serve us well globally into the future. We have rapidly created them, tested them and rolled them out, and that is all to the good. We have repurposed existing drugs such as the very cheap steroid, dexamethasone. We have used antivirals that were used before, remdesivir being just one, and we have discovered new treatments such as monoclonal antibodies. We have created a testing regime that enables us to rapidly test vast numbers of the population for their covid status.



These were the new tools that I had hoped would prove science as the liberator, and the results are extremely good. Let us look at those facts again. We have heard them many times, but I think they are worth putting on record once more. With just one dose of any of these vaccines, protection is good. With two doses, it is truly exceptional at over 90% protection against hospitalisation. Even those who do find themselves in hospital after vaccination are generally not finding themselves dreadfully unwell. We have seen hospitalisations reduced. We have less than 1,000 people in hospital, or 1,000 or thereabouts, which is just 1% of NHS capacity.

I am sure Ministers would respond to that by saying that this is the way they want to keep it, but I am afraid that argument will never end. We have a death rate of about 10 deaths per day out of a background death rate in the country of 1,100 per day, which is currently under the usual average. However, let us look at those 10 deaths per day within 28 days of a positive covid test. They are husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, parents and friends. Each is a tragedy, each is a family loss and each is a dreadful event. But surely with such low levels we should now be provided with the data as to why: what were the deeper underlying reasons behind those deaths? I certainly hope that Ministers have been provided with that information. There is a world of difference, and a difference of interpretation that this place would make, between the death of a young, fit person and that of somebody with comorbidities, perhaps in a hospice with life-threatening conditions.

Let us examine science as the captor. Our ability to sequence the genome is incredible. The UK is a world leader. Hundreds of variants have been discovered, and doubtless once the delta variant has passed through, just as the alpha Kent variant has been and gone, we will discover more. Will it be a Californian one, a Buenos Aires one, or the epsilon or the zeta? I am sure we will simply run out of Greek alphabet over the coming months. However, each one causes hysteria, and the media go berserk. With the scientists, it is like having the decorator in your house: you get sucking of teeth and shaking of head, and you know there is bad news around the corner. We have seen the modelling. The five key modellers have come up with a road map, published in February, which the Government understood, and it led to the road map we are on, but every one of our figures are better than that, and that makes this statutory instrument so unintelligible.

I would rather trust the people. What if we were to go for freedom on 21 June? What would I do, because I think I am pretty normal? Would I be throwing away my mask in the supermarket? I very much doubt it. I carry sterilising gel in my pocket, and I can say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that more alcohol goes through my hands on a daily basis than on a night out with George Best and Oliver Reed. Would that stop? No, it will not. The public outside this bubble have already moved on. They have broadly given up on these pettifogging rules. We should trust the public, and I will not be supporting the Government this evening.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Mackinlay of Richborough Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have not set that out yet, because while our general approach is to vaccinate, as soon as possible, as many as possible of those who are vulnerable to this disease, and to then be able to lift restrictions, as I said in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), the exact timing depends on the roll-out of the vaccine and its impact on bringing down the rate of transmission. The change in the dosage schedule from four weeks to 12 weeks means that we can get the protection to as many people as possible sooner, and in a more accelerated way, than we would previously have been able to do.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

The approval by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is great news at the end of a truly wretched year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the speed of roll-out should be governed only by the rate of vaccine production? Will he assure me that his Department will cut through all and any pettifogging rules and bureaucracy to ensure that newly retired nurses and doctors, or those on career breaks, can be approved as vaccinators, so that the only limiting factor is vaccination production, not the availability of vaccinators or locations?