Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

Because we believe that there should be a mixture of carrot and stick. We believe that the soft drinks industry levy has been successful, but we are also working with the industry on reformulation across the board. I recently visited Suntory, which makes Lucozade and Ribena. If we work with industry, we see transformative results for companies and for the people who buy their products.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

A few years ago, I initiated a debate on this issue in Westminster Hall. Since then, no progress has been made on childhood obesity. Would the Minister care to outline what he thinks will happen in the lifetime of this Parliament in terms of achieving the objectives that he has set out?

[Steve Brine]

We assess the plan all the time, and we make progress reports on it, as we did last month with the sugar report. However, when I addressed the Health Committee recently, I could not have made it clearer that we think there has been progress.

This is a world-leading plan. When we talk to other people around the world, they are very keen to hear about what we are doing and very interested, and we are interested in learning from them. If we do not take action, one of our biggest public health challenges will get worse and worse, and that will have implications for the health service and for all our constituents.

Infection Prevention and Control

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend is right. I hope that hospitals will take note of what is said in this debate and take action accordingly. It is all very well a visitor washing their hands almost to the point of obsession—every time they go out and come back in again—but hopefully that same level of hygiene control is being done by the hospital as well.

When I notified him of the debate, Professor Didier Pittet said:

“In the early 2000s, the NHS was the first ever health system to use a hand hygiene promotion strategy modeled on the World Health Organisation’s. This strategy went on to be active in 186 of the 194 UN member states. I call for the UK and the NHS in particular to reinvigorate hand hygiene promotion as the main strategy to reduce infections. The WHO hand hygiene promotion strategy saves between 5 and 8 million lives in the world every year, and will save hundreds of thousands in the UK.”

So, the importance of the debate is clear.

I spoke to the Minister before the debate and gave him a copy of my speech, to make him aware of what we are trying to do and the questions I want to ask him. I have absolutely no doubt that the shadow Minister and all of us here will be saying the same thing. We are looking for the same thing. There are some pilots in place and some recommendations coming from across the NHS, and we want to look towards those as well.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend talks about similarities and about issues being the same. Does he agree that, on the various standards—all of which are improving all of the time across the United Kingdom—we should all strive for best practice, with the most successful practices being replicated right across the United Kingdom in all the devolved institutions?

[Jim Shannon]

What my hon. Friend says is wise—we always hear very wise words from him, no matter what the debate. If we have best practice in Middlesex, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Newtonards, Bangor or Belfast—wherever it may be—let us replicate it everywhere else. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

It is true that here in the UK we have made good progress in reducing the number of healthcare-associated infections over the past 10 to 15 years. The introduction of mandatory reporting of infections in the early 2000s has certainly helped to track the trends. When we look at some of the things we have done, there is good news. In 2003-04 the average quarterly count of MRSA bacteria was 1,925, but by 2008 it had reduced by 57% to 836—a significant reduction. Although that should be a cause for celebration, rates of healthcare-associated infections remain stubbornly high. Today’s debate is really about getting to the stubborn hard-core hygiene-related infections that do not seem to want to move.

The results of the most recent point-prevalence survey show that the number of patients contracting an infection in hospital is staggering. Every one of us knows how important the matter is. When my dad was in hospital for a time, he was always catching infections there. I am not saying that that was the fault of anyone, but I had thought that the possibility of infection would be greater at home—in hospital you expect it to be lower. Unfortunately, in the cases that I am aware of of people going into hospital with an illness, the rate of infection is high. People worry about that. My constituents worry about it, and I believe that everyone else’s do as well.

One in every 16 patients contract an infection in a UK hospital. That is only 6.4%, but it is 6.4% too many. There are 5,000 patient deaths every year from healthcare-associated infections. That is the thrust of the matter. If we are having deaths in hospital due to these infections we need to address the issue, and I look to the Minister for some thoughts on how we can do that. I am confident that he will come back with something that will help us in our debate.

The human cost of infection goes without saying. However, healthcare-associated infections also have a significant financial cost, which cannot be ignored. The health issues are one consideration, but the financial spin-off is also great. If we can address the infections early on, we can reduce the financial implications and also the deaths and infections. At a time when the health service is facing an unprecedented strain on services, reducing that financial burden is all the more pressing. It is estimated that hospital-acquired infections cost the NHS in excess of £l billion a year, which is 0.8% of the health service’s total budget. That is not an insignificant amount; £1 billion would change a lot of things for the health service and also, I believe, for people’s lives. That amount includes the immediate costs of treating patients in hospital, and also downstream costs due to bed-blocking—we all know the problems with bed-blocking. The costs are especially relevant, given the challenging winter that the NHS has just come through, with hospital capacity reaching 100% in some cases.

If I ask my constituents back home, where we unfortunately have a non-functioning Assembly, what the key issue is for them, they will say that it is health, and it will continue always to be health. If I may make a political statement, but not for any reason other than to illustrate the point: if Sinn Féin were to grasp what is important—and health is one of the things we can agree on—we could move forward together.

Cancer Targets

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Baron]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support. I have been non-partisan on this matter, as I have been as chairman of the all-party group. Both sides have been guilty of trying to score political points on the back of process targets, because no Government have met them all in their entirety; we play this short-term political game when in reality what we need to do is, as best as possible, take the NHS out of politics and encourage long-term thinking. The best approach, at least with regard to cancer, would be to get the NHS to focus on those one-year and five-year survival rates. We could then stand back and say, “You are the medical experts and we are the politicians. We will hold you accountable, but use your expertise now to come up with the best plans to improve your one-year and five-year figures.” That would certainly encourage longer-term thinking and funding.

I am conscious that other hon. Members want to contribute, so I will not bore everyone with the ins and outs of the all-party group’s efforts to encourage the Government to break the link between the 62 days and the transformation funding, because discussions are still ongoing. However, I will share with the House the fact that I raised the issue at Prime Minister’s questions back in December. During a positive subsequent meeting in March, the Prime Minister agreed that all transformation funding should be released immediately, provided that relevant cancer alliances promised to produce a 62-day plan—the promise is the important thing; they did not have to produce them.

I am now in discussions with officials from No. 10 and the DHSC, because the system has been slow in following through what was agreed at that meeting. Following my further question at Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday, the Prime Minister has agreed to meet me again, should we continue to make insufficient progress. Negotiations are now in train and I hope that we can get the funding released as quickly as possible, without waiting for the alliances to actually hit the 62-day target. The Prime Minister clearly said that she wants the transformation funding released on the promise that they will produce a plan to hit the 62-day target.

In the long term, the NHS needs to rebalance its focus away from process targets in favour of outcome indicators, such as the one-year cancer survival rates, that best help patients. If outcome measures are good and being hit, it follows that the processes will also be good; one cannot have good outcomes if there are not good processes. Patients will be seen and diagnosed in a timely fashion appropriate to their illness. These outcome measures will also have the benefit of allowing the NHS to design services and pathways flexibly, and without the straitjacket imposed by blunt process targets. That is the key issue here: focusing on the outcomes encourages the NHS at the frontline to devise ways of encouraging earlier diagnosis, including better awareness campaigns, wider screening uptake, better GP referral routes and better diagnostics. The NHS is encouraged to make those decisions at the frontline in order to drive forward earlier diagnosis.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and on the excellent work that he has done, not only with the all-party parliamentary group, but on a wide range of events over recent years. On the transformative nature of events, does he agree that we need to see international best practice, which he alluded to earlier, employed in the United Kingdom to ensure that cancer sufferers here, and their friends and families, can see the benefits?

[Mr Baron]

I completely agree. Our inquiry into cancer inequalities in 2009 found that the NHS is as good as any other healthcare system internationally, if not better, at treating cancer once it is detected; the problem is that we do not detect it early enough and we never catch up. The line of international averages compared with UK averages shows that we are always behind, and there is little evidence that we are catching up. We get behind at that early one-year point, because we are not diagnosing as early as other healthcare systems, and no matter how good our treatment, we do not catch up. That is how we are losing those tens of thousands of lives, because we are not matching the European averages for survival rates.

NHS Blood Cancer Care

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Wilson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I commend the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) on securing the debate, which, as we have heard, is particularly timely, given today’s launch of the report by the APPG on blood cancer, “The ‘Hidden’ Cancer: The need to improve blood cancer care”. I was happy to be a small part of that. The report makes significant recommendations, all of which I, as a member of the APPG, fully endorse, about improving care for blood cancer patients on their journey from diagnosis to treatment and through to recovery.

I shall focus my comments today on the commissioning of stem cell transplantation and the inconsistencies in post-transplant care. There is a common misconception that if a blood cancer patient finds a matching donor and undergoes a stem cell transplant, they are out of danger—that that is the beginning of the end of their journey, the point from which they get better. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Although a stem cell transplant is a potentially curative treatment for blood cancer patients, recovery can be a long and difficult journey. Many of those living post transplant will experience severe and debilitating physiological and psychological side effects from their treatment, not only in the first few days, weeks and months after the transplant, but many years down the line. Indeed, a transplant patient is often described as “a patient for life”.

The side effects include physiological problems, such as graft versus host disease and a higher risk of second cancers, infections, infertility, premature menopause and fatigue, as well as psychological effects, including isolation, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Patients dealing with the impact of a stem cell transplant, and particularly those receiving an allogeneic transplant, therefore require ongoing support from appropriately qualified health professionals.

The problem is that the provision of high-quality post-transplant care varies significantly across the country, leaving vulnerable patients at the mercy of the often fragmented and inequitable postcode lottery NHS, in which some get very good support but others get very little.

Recent research by the charity Anthony Nolan reveals that many patients are struggling to access the services that they need post transplant. It is particularly concerning that only half those who need psychological support, such as counselling or group therapy, receive it. The same is true for practical support, such as help at home or with getting back to work; and one in five is not offered any specialist care to help with elements of their physiological recovery, which includes access to physio- therapists, dieticians and fertility experts.

To address the areas of unmet need, we must reform the commissioning of post-transplant care. Currently, responsibility for commissioning services transfers from NHS England to CCGs after only 100 days. There is evidence that that arbitrary cut-off leads to gaps and variation in the care and support that hospitals are able to provide, despite their best efforts. That increases the burden on patients and their families, making their recovery much more difficult. As recommended by both the APPG report and Anthony Nolan, it is essential that NHS England reviews the 100-day cut-off in order to eliminate the inconsistencies and fragmentation in post-transplant care across the country. I hope that the Minister addresses that point in winding up the debate.

As part of the process, we should consider the creation of a national care pathway for patients for at least five years post transplant. That pathway should ensure that patients have access not only to the full range of physiological, psychological and practical support services after their transplant as well as before and during, but to a clinical nurse specialist—or equivalent model of support—who can help them through their recovery journey, managing their care and plugging some of the gaps that would otherwise exist.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is talking about the system required in a post-transplant period. Does she agree that every individual is obviously significantly different and there may well be a significant difference in the amount of time required immediately after the transplant and subsequently for a period of years, and that that needs to be taken into account as we go forward?

[Colleen Fletcher]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Yes, I agree. People are totally different. Some, I know, have sailed through with few problems, and others have had many problems occur after the 100 days.

People may know that my husband, Ian, had a stem cell transplant more than three years ago, just after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. What I have said today reflects his journey. He has been a beneficiary of cutting-edge research, which has allowed his cure, but we have also experienced some of the inconsistencies along a journey that has been too long to narrate today. It is from that experience, and from my heart, that I ask the Minister to look at a fully funded care pathway for at least five years post transplant, with the specialist care needed to allow people the chance to live their lives again as fully as they can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) on securing this debate and on the hard work that he has done to promote this issue in the House and further afield. I am happy to be a member of the APPG along with others in this Chamber today and to support him in the role that he plays.

As the Democratic Unionist party spokesperson for health, I felt it necessary to make a contribution, even though the onus of where we are is probably England-based. We need to highlight some issues with regard to the NHS and blood cancer care. My father, who is dead and gone almost three years, had cancer—not blood cancer—on three occasions, but he survived those three occasions owing to the skill of the surgeon’s knife, the care of the nurses and the prayers of God’s people. Clearly, we have made great advances—some magnificent advances—in cancer care over the past few years.

May I say to the Minister, the shadow Minister and the proposer of the debate that I, along with others, have a meeting with the Prime Minister at half past three, so I need to get away for that occasion?

I was delighted to receive information on blood cancer and I take this opportunity to thank all of those who are working so hard to highlight the issue and bring about change, and who supply such enlightening and helpful information. There are almost 250,000 people living with blood cancer in the UK today. Although many forms of blood cancer are rare, as a group blood cancer is Britain’s fifth most common cancer and third biggest cancer killer, claiming more lives each year than breast or prostate cancer. Those figures surprised me. We are all grateful for the advertising that highlights breast and prostate cancer, which affects us men. Unfortunately, we are probably loth to see the doctor, but the Minister’s Department encourages us to be more active and forthcoming about the problems that we have. Advertising keeps these things fresh in our minds and educates us as to the symptoms to be aware of, but the fact is that blood cancer kills more people and we need to be mindful of that when finding additional funding. The Minister always responds in a positive fashion to the debates in Westminster Hall and tries to help.

Northern Ireland has an average of 123 cases of leukaemia diagnosed annually. That may not seem much, but when we take into account the small size of Northern Ireland it is clearly something that is taking its toll. It is also clear that the aftercare of those cases is essential. Although we are discussing NHS England, there is a need for devolved bodies to work together to ensure that we do not have a UK postcode lottery for the treatment of blood cancers and that an equal level of treatment is available UK-wide. Can the Minister outline whether he has had any co-operation with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland? If not, is he willing to undertake to do that?

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

On the issue of co-operation, does my hon. Friend agree with me that the excellent news of the opening in the past year of the North West Cancer Centre in Londonderry, which offers opportunities and the skills of many in the nursing profession both in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic, is a perfect example of that co-operation and is widely welcomed in the community? Does he agree that that is an exceptionally good development?

[Jim Shannon]

My hon. Friend has mentioned a supreme example. That is something that we all welcome in Northern Ireland, and indeed across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I have been contacted by Myeloma UK, which asked me to highlight its cause and needs. I am happy to do so in Westminster Hall and for the Hansard record. Some 5,500 new cases of myeloma are diagnosed in the UK every year, which equates to 15 people a day. Although myeloma is a rare cancer, it is the second most prevalent blood cancer, which has no cure as such. It is important to highlight that in Westminster Hall today and with the Minister.

In the past 10 years, with improvements in treatment and care, survival rates are increasing faster than in most other cancers, so there is some good progress, but there is a long way to go. Myeloma remains a very challenging cancer to live with and to treat. To truly get to grips with that cancer means dedicating funding to finding the cure, but also providing a quality of life for those who suffer from it.

In our debates on cancer the one thing that always comes up is early diagnosis. Whether it is prostate cancer, breast cancer, myeloma or bowel cancer, getting it early is the secret. I mentioned us menfolk earlier and how we respond to things. Maybe we need to be a bit more eager to tell our doctor when things are wrong with us. I commend the many charities and groups such as Marie Curie and Macmillan. Along with those charities we also have many church groups and organisations that help and give succour and support to families at a time when one of their loved ones is very ill.

Another issue is that of the 100-day care by NHS England after treatment, which must be reconsidered to ensure that there are no gaps in service, as has been highlighted by the Anthony Nolan trust. The Minister is nodding; I know that he and others in this Chamber are aware of that. The briefing that was provided made it clear that the steps taken by the Government have been welcome, and yet more leeway is needed to allow complete care packages to be in place. If that means going over the magic number of 100 days, there needs to be a mechanism that allows that to take place. Will the Minister fully consider that request—I know he will—and provide a detailed response outlining his decision as to whether the extension of care before transfer to local CCGs can be achieved?

I believe we can make decisions in this place, in this House, in Westminster Hall, in the House of Commons and across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that will allow blood cancer sufferers to have a better prognosis and a better treatment plan. We must do all that we can to bring that about.

Junk Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Maggie Throup]

I agree completely. We need to consider prevention, cure and treatment. It is a huge problem, and it will not go away unless we tackle every aspect of it. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

The debate in Parliament on the impact of junk food, by which I mean food high in fats, salt and sugar, is not new. I talked to somebody just last week who gave me the insight that we have been discussing it for getting on for 15 years—probably more than that, if we backtrack even further—and we still do not have the courage to ban the advertising of products with such a major impact on the health of our nation and our future generations.

Recently, the Select Committee on Health held an inquiry and produced a report, “Childhood obesity—brave and bold action”, followed up in a short report early last year. Both reports contained a strong call for a ban on junk food advertising before the 9 o’clock watershed, yet that was sadly missing from the Government publication “Childhood obesity: a plan for action”, introduced in August 2016.

I am delighted that new rules on advertising were introduced by the Committee of Advertising Practice in July 2017—their impact is still being analysed. The rules banned the advertising in children’s media of food or drink products high in fat, salt or sugar. The restrictions now apply across all non-broadcast media, including print, cinema, online and social media, but that does not solve the problem. In 2015, Public Health England recommended extending current restrictions to apply across the full range of programmes that children are likely to watch, rather than limiting them to children-specific programming. Yes, restrictions apply to advertising high fat, salt and sugar products during prime time, but only when the audience is made up of 20% children or more.

A recent study commissioned by the Obesity Health Alliance found that 59% of food and drink adverts shown during family viewing time would be banned from children’s TV, yet hundreds of thousands of children are exposed to them every week. In the worst-case example, children were bombarded with nine adverts for products high in fat, salt and sugar in one 30-minute period. Adverts for fast food and takeaways appeared more than twice as often as any other type of food and drink advert, while adverts for fruit and vegetables made up just over 1% of food and drink adverts shown during family viewing times. The study also showed that the number of children watching TV peaks between 7 pm and 8 pm, definitely not when children-only programmes are shown.

Although I recognise that advertising restrictions in the UK on high fat, salt or sugar products are among the toughest in the world, we need to be even tougher. The childhood obesity plan published by the Government in August 2016 states that it is only the start of the conversation. This debate aims to help continue that conversation and focus on other measures that the Government can take to stop and reverse the obesity epidemic.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate, which is similar to one that I secured six years ago in Westminster Hall. The situation has worsened considerably in that time. Does she agree that the plan that she just elaborated on needs action points from the Government along the lines that she has intimated? We need outcome targets so that the next generation of children will see a significant improvement, rather than the deterioration in the current generation.

[Maggie Throup]

I agree completely, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was always taught that measures put in place with no targets or goals to meet are meaningless. We need to know where we want to be, and by when.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that very moving case. We have no evidence at this stage that those drinks cause such outcomes, but we know that all stimulants, whether alcohol or caffeine, have consequences that can affect people’s mental health. That is something that bears examination.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

What discussions is the Minister having across the United Kingdom to ensure that best practice in dealing with suicide rates, and in particular the escalating rates in the regions of the UK, can be replicated across the United Kingdom as a whole?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I am always keen to learn from areas of the United Kingdom where things are going well. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, our suicide prevention strategy is very much rooted in local prevention plans. Although 98% of the country is covered by those plans, we really want to do a proper audit of how good they are. That will enable us to share best practice across the nations.

Drug Addiction

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the human and financial costs of drug addiction.

This is an expansive subject, with a huge number of facets, and is covered by a huge amount of UK and international data. Pleasingly, two Members raised drugs issues at Prime Minister’s questions today. They probably sought to steer us towards their views about liberalisation and legalisation, which I must say are somewhat the opposite of mine.

I thank the Minister for being here to respond to the debate. This issue cuts across many Departments. It is not just a health issue; it cuts across policing, justice and home affairs, health, border matters and education, and it is even an issue for the Treasury. I thank the many organisations that supplied data and their interpretations in advance of this wide-ranging debate, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Release and the House of Commons Library, which has considered data from a huge variety of sources.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He talks about data. Does he agree that the information from the Library about the increase in male mortality from drug misuse, particularly in the past five years, is alarming and demonstrates the urgent need not only for this debate but for action to be taken after it?

[Craig Mackinlay]

The hon. Gentleman highlights one of the key tenets of my speech. I am most concerned about death rates.

I thank the Library for its diligent service; it is an invaluable source of information. I also received information from Smart Approaches to Marijuana, or SAM, a US agency that has done a lot of work on how decriminalisation of cannabis in particular has affected various states in the United States. I consulted papers by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse and by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and the National Audit Office evaluation of the Government’s 2010 drugs strategy, which is a seven-yearly document. I also consulted the Government’s July 2017 drugs strategy.

The real trigger for me calling this debate was the rising death toll in the USA due to the use of opioids and their derivatives—notably fentanyl, with which I am sure many hon. Members are familiar—whether they are legally obtained or illicitly produced. Some 64,000 drug-related deaths were recorded in the US in 2016, an increase of just over 21% from the year before. There was a 33% rise in one year in the state of Ohio alone. There were 4,050 deaths in Ohio, which has a population of just 12 million. To give Members an idea of scale, the entire US military losses over the 20 years of the Vietnam war were a fraction under 60,000. Scaled up to the UK population, Ohio’s current death rate would represent 22,000 deaths in the UK each year. Thankfully, the figure here is lower; according to the last reported data, there were 2,677 deaths in 2015.

Medicines Regulation

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing the debate and on introducing the topic in such a comprehensive manner.

This debate is both timely and hugely important. It is timely due to the announcement yesterday that Amsterdam is to become the new home of the European Medicines Agency when it leaves London—a relocation that is necessitated by our departure from the EU, and which also symbolises the changing regulatory environment—and it is hugely important because, although the word “medicine” conjures up images of bottles of cough medicine being bought over the counter, it encompasses the whole range of drugs and pharmaceutical products used to treat the many different illnesses, diseases and chronic conditions that could affect each and every one of us over our life course.

If we think the EMA leaving London is bad, the potential implications of the UK leaving the EMA are far worse, and we should be clear—leaving the EMA is precisely what the Government envisage happening. As the Health Secretary said when he appeared before the Select Committee on Health in January this year, he does not expect us to stay in it. The Prime Minister’s ideological red line on European Court of Justice jurisdiction makes it impossible. The loss of 900 jobs and all the associated economic activity brought to our country as a result of the EMA being headquartered in London pales into insignificance when we contemplate the possible consequences of withdrawing ourselves from the EMA’s pan-European drug-licensing processes and its supervisory and compliance mechanisms, which have a key role in ensuring that medicines on the market here are safe and effective.

The Government have given little information about how their desired future close co-operation with the EU might work on medicines regulation. Indeed, as recently as July, the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the national regulatory body that works alongside the EMA in the UK, suggested that two options were being considered by the Government. One is a partnership approach, where presumably the UK would seek to mirror future EU authorisations in order to maintain regulatory equivalence going forward; the second is a stand-alone system, whereby the UK could diverge from EU regulations, perhaps aligning itself more closely with American, Australian or Canadian systems.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Would the hon. Lady agree that, whatever route the Government decide to take, one of the things that we must protect—this was alluded to earlier in the debate—is the excellence of the research and development facilities that we have across the United Kingdom? That must be paramount in the considerations by the Government, as we go beyond March 2019.

[Heidi Alexander]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but when I speak to scientists at institutions across the UK, they are already seeing the effect of last year’s referendum result in terms of EU-wide partnerships being withdrawn and being harder to secure.

It would be helpful if the Minister could update us on which of the two approaches the chief executive of the MHRA talked about in July the Government now favour. It would also be helpful if he could tell us what discussions he has had with Ministers in the Department for Exiting the European Union or with the EU negotiating team about future co-operation on medicines regulation. Has the Minister or anyone from the Department of Health had contact with Australia and New Zealand about potential alignment with their regulatory systems?

I have a lot of questions for the Minister today. Can he be clear about the Government’s plans for the so-called transition period that the Prime Minister thinks will follow the conclusion of the article 50 negotiations? After all, it is a mere 16 months away. If pharmaceutical businesses will have to deal with only one set of changes, as the Prime Minister promised, presumably the licensing arrangements for new drugs will stay the same for that period.

I see two main problems in setting up some sort of stand-alone replica system to fill the gap vacated by the EMA if we leave the EU. First, will UK patients get the same quick access to new innovative drugs that come on to the market? Secondly, will UK patients benefit from the same high levels of safety and compliance checks that the EMA currently performs for already-authorised medicines in its role in enforcing standards in the pharmaceutical manufacturing process and at clinical trial sites?

I fear that we could see delays in new drugs being launched in the UK. If a small pharmaceutical company has to choose between paying to get a licence in the EU, which accounts for 25% of the global pharmaceutical market, and paying for one in the UK, which accounts for 3% of the global market, which will it choose? The UK is currently a priority location for launching new innovative treatments, but how long before we become a second-tier country?

What guarantees can the Minister give about the next phase of immunotherapies, which are three to four years away from coming to market? They are potentially twice as effective as current immunotherapies and could give cancer sufferers an extra three to four years of life. Will UK patients in a post-Brexit regulatory environment get them as quickly as they would if we were still part of the EMA? Can the Minister guarantee that adverse effects among uncommonly used drugs will be picked up as quickly if the expanded patient pool that would be available for checks across the EU is limited to the UK? Will the UK still have access as quickly to orphan drugs to treat the rarest of diseases, for which pharmaceutical companies have less of an incentive to develop products? What about the participation of UK patients in pan-European clinical trials, which are critically important, full stop, but all the more so for rare diseases and illnesses in children, for which the patient pool is smaller? At the moment, a quarter of cancer research clinical trials involve one or several European countries. Will we comply in the future with the new EU clinical trials regulations, which have been postponed and may not be implemented until March 2019?

The Minister needs to answer many questions if the Government intend to diverge from European processes, but there will be basic problems no matter what new system is put in place. How much will all of this work to reinvent the wheel and beef up our regulatory bodies cost? Will we have to ask UK taxpayers to pay a greater amount for this process, given that we currently share the cost with 27 other member states? What preparatory work has the MHRA done to ascertain what the impact of leaving the EMA will be on both its income and its future staffing requirements? What training of staff will need to be done so they can take on responsibility for tasks they have not previously performed? What impact will the relocation of the EMA have on medicines regulation across the whole of Europe?

I read the EMA’s Brexit preparedness business continuity plan yesterday, and I admit to having a feeling of utter shame about the disruption that our decision to leave the EU has forced on that agency. The huge upheaval will undoubtedly have an impact not just on this country but on others, too. As anyone who has ever moved office knows, projects get put on hold and the basics become harder to deliver.

There are so many questions to ask, and I am sure I have not touched on even half of them. I would like to finish with some more general observations. In 10 years’ time, when we have delayed access to new cancer treatments, compared with, say, France or Germany, will the fact that we have blue passports make up for it? Children with rare diseases will not be able to get new drugs as quickly or easily as they can now, but is that a price worth paying for coming out of the jurisdiction of the ECJ? This is all utter madness. Ministers can bang on about creativity in the negotiations all they like, but we need certainty and clarity. Pharmaceutical companies and patients need certainty and clarity, and the mums and dads of seriously ill children need that, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I thank my hon. Friend, who speaks with great passion—I know that she has tragic personal experience. I will be meeting the British Lung Foundation shortly, and I am happy for my hon. Friend to join that discussion or part of it. As I said, one of the NHS’s priority areas, as set out in the outcomes framework, is reducing early deaths from respiratory diseases such as IPF. I understand that the number of cases has risen in recent years, which is rightly a cause for concern. She is right to raise the matter, and I look forward to meeting her.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I have long been a supporter of COPD groups in my constituency in Northern Ireland, but what help is the Minister offering to voluntary groups and families? In particular, what is he offering to the tens of thousands of young children diagnosed as asthmatic to help and assist with their condition?

[Steve Brine]

Respiratory illness affects one in five people in the UK, and it is responsible for around 1 million hospital admissions annually, so it is very much in our interest, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), to implement the outcomes framework. I look forward to having further discussions with the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), and I am happy to meet him if he wishes.

Vaping

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson]

I am not aware of that report, but I think there is an inherent problem with pregnant women today having to wait three years to make that decision. My gut feeling is that the best approach would of course be for pregnant women not to smoke anything at all—not to smoke any tobacco products, and not to vape. I am not qualified to say whether it is beneficial for pregnant women to vape instead of smoking if they are unable to give up tobacco, so I would not want to comment on the report the hon. Gentleman mentions, but it throws up interesting questions. That is why I believe that this whole debate should be based on facts and evidence, rather than on an instinctive dislike of tobacco products that leads to lumping vaping in with them.

The British Lung Foundation has also commented on vaping:

“Given half of long-term smokers die as a result of their habit, using vaping to help someone quit smoking could literally save their life.”

The British Lung Foundation is also clear that vaping should not be seen as a permanent alternative to smoking or promoted to non-smokers, but nor should it be banned in public in the way that smoking is.

Public Health England famously—or famously in the vaping world—said clearly that it believes vaping to be 95% safer than smoking tobacco. The Royal College of Physicians and Action on Smoking and Health have chipped in with similar comments, so there is plenty of evidence that such products have potential, but they have to be judged on their own merits and should not be in the shadow of tobacco products. That is why, in my view, the EU tobacco products directive was wrong to incorporate vaping, which should have been dealt with separately.

That ludicrous approach is illustrated in the regulations that companies have to follow. If someone buys a vaping machine, the machine has to have a warning on it that it contains nicotine. The one I have here, which was sent out by a company called Totally Wicked, says,

“This product contains nicotine which is a highly addictive substance”.

They all have to comply with that requirement. The silly thing is, of course, that the machine does not contain nicotine—but it says it does, because it has to as a consequence of the EU directive. It contains nicotine only when e-liquid is added to the product; it is not included in the product. Companies have to put a caveat at the bottom of the product to say that the statement is not true, so that they do not get prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. That is one illustration of the ludicrous nature of an approach that lumps vaping products in with tobacco products, and that expects vaping organisations to act in exactly the same way as those involving tobacco.

The EU directive also imposes a requirement to sell e-liquid only in small quantities with a maximum of 20 mg of nicotine, which I understand some heavy smokers find insufficient. I do not want to turn this into a Brexit debate—we have enough of those taking place in the House of Commons at the moment; there are plenty on today and tomorrow, if anybody is interested—but we have to recognise that there is an opportunity after Brexit to depart from some regulations, where appropriate. I ask the Minister to put March 2019 in his diary, so that he can consider which of the regulations can be looked at again, are unnecessary or can be altered.

The rules on advertising are also inconsistent. An advert on a bus is fine, but an advert in a magazine or newspaper is not. The trouble is that it sends out a mixed message, which helps neither the public nor the industry and adds to the problem whereby increasing members of the public believe that vaping is potentially more harmful than smoking tobacco. That ultimately stops the benefits that do seem to exist, according to people far more qualified in the medical field than me.

Most people agree that there is a necessity for more evidence, and I am pleased that the Select Committee on Science and Technology is about to carry out an inquiry on vaping, which aims to collate the available information and give recommendations. I hope that it will look at studies on the health implications and give its view on which studies are the most and least credible. The public should not have to rely purely on whichever report is given the greatest prominence in the press. The inquiry will be important, but what is ultimately needed is more fully independent assessments of the health considerations around vaping.

The Government have launched a tobacco control plan, which I am sure the Minister will mention. I welcome the aim in that plan to reduce the number of people smoking in the UK, and it is to be welcomed that the usefulness of vaping is recognised in the plan.

To conclude, although vaping is not risk-free, it has been found to be a useful tool for millions of people who want to stop smoking. It should therefore be given the recognition it deserves. It has huge potential to save lives. I therefore ask the Minister to meet the vaping industry as soon as his diary allows, to discuss how vaping can be best utilised.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Before he comes to a conclusion, would he agree that part of the traditional problem with smoking has been that when the number of smokers declined and we got down to about 20%, it was then difficult to make further inroads? Similarly, if a third of smokers have still not moved to vaping, again we have the problem that we have reached the hard core of people on whom more work is needed. I also congratulate him on taking a responsible attitude to the issue of vaping, rather than endorsing people moving from non-smoking to vaping.

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman’s point does seem to be correct. Ultimately, if people want to smoke, are aware of the risks and are happy to take them, that is entirely their right as adults. I do not seek to dictate how people should lead their life. However, in my experience, most smokers do want to stop but find it very difficult to do so. That is why we should embrace the potential of vaping as an important tool in enabling people to give up. Patches, chewing gums and all those things—even a bit of willpower every now and then—are all very useful, but vaping potentially offers the most successful method for people to stop smoking, should they wish to do so.

We need an objective, logical and fact-based approach to vaping. In short, we should follow the evidence, which at present shows that it is an opportunity simply too good to ignore.