Scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords

Debate between Jim Shannon and Patrick Grady

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I suppose I ought to begin by wishing my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) a very happy birthday, based on what he was saying about the birthday present he has just received.

Madam Deputy Speaker, as you and other occupants of the Chair often remind us, topical questions are supposed to be short and to the point. But I having been unsuccessful in catching Mr Speaker’s eye during topical questions to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office last week, and following my point of order later that day, he kindly granted this Adjournment debate to explore what would otherwise have been a very short topical question: where is the Foreign Secretary and why is he not answering questions in this House? We now have the opportunity to explore that in a little more detail, and I am grateful to Mr Speaker for that.

We might as well acknowledge at the start that, even though we have more time than might have been expected to explore this issue, I suspect that the Government’s response will be relatively short, and that the Minister will simply suggest that the House must wait patiently for them to publish their response to the Procedure Committee’s recent report on this issue within the usual timescale.

However, that does not change the reality that the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary in the House of Lords has had immediate and practical consequences for Members of this House, and it raises wider questions about the relationship between the two Houses, the accountability of Ministers more generally, and the kind of precedent that his appointment has set. The Government should be prepared to answer those kinds of questions at any time, and they should certainly have thought some of those things through before the appointment was made. If they are going to smash up conventions by appointing a Foreign Secretary from the Lords, they should not have to hide behind conventions about timescales for responding to Select Committee reports before trying to justify that decision and deal with its consequences.

There are therefore two interlinked themes that it is worth exploring. First are some of the practical implications and consequences relating specifically to the current Foreign Secretary being a member of the House of Lords, but there are also the wider principles involved about how Ministers—especially those who sit in the Lords—are scrutinised by the elected House.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I spoke to him beforehand, and I well understand the issue he brings to the House. There is a clear disconnect between the essence of elected democrats and the scrutiny of Secretaries of State who sit in Cabinet, and moreover the electorate. Does he agree that in order to tackle this issue and ensure that all Secretaries of State are liable to answer to Members of the House of Commons, more must be done to overcome this issue in future and ensure that it does not become a regular occurrence?

Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases

Debate between Jim Shannon and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I think that the point he makes will come through in all the contributions and evidence that we hear today.

The evidence shows that, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it is the poorest and most vulnerable and marginalised people in remote communities, and particularly women and girls, who are affected most by these diseases. For example, noma, which was added to the WHO’s list of NTDs just a few weeks ago, in December, is a severe gangrenous disease of the mouth and face that primarily affects malnourished children between the ages of two and six years in regions of extreme poverty. Hookworm, a type of soil-transmitted helminth, affects one in three pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa and can cause anaemia and lead to death during pregnancy. Schisto-somiasis, or bilharzia, which is slightly easier to say, is very common in Malawi, where we visited; it can lead to female genital schistosomiasis, of which there are 56 million cases worldwide, which can triple the risk of HIV and cause infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and in some cases maternal death.

The human cost of these diseases is incredibly high. On our visit to Malawi, in the Salima district we met a number of people who had lived with trachoma, a bacterial infection that can cause eyelashes to draw in, damaging eyesight and even causing blindness. People affected in that way can very easily lose their independence, and their family and friends have to dedicate time and resources to caring for them. If it is caught early, trachoma can be treated with antibiotics or surgery, and it can be prevented by good water and sanitation for health practices. The key lesson, which the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) just mentioned, is that trachoma can be eliminated altogether. That gives us another acronym, SAFE: surgery to treat the blinding stage of the disease, antibiotics to clear the infection, facial cleanliness and hand hygiene to help reduce transmission, and environmental improvements to help stop the infection spreading.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman. He is right to say that.

As you do over the holiday period, I watched lots of films. One of the advertisements on the channel that I was watching said that, at a small cost—I think it is as little as £11—a surgical operation that stops eyesight loss can be offered. That is a small cost to pay for a long-term health gain.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and we will come on to that as the debate continues. It is exactly as I was saying: we met people who had been affected by trachoma, but interventions supported by the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust’s trachoma initiative helped to restore their sight through are exactly the kinds of operations and access to medicine that he is talking about. Since 2022, trachoma has been eliminated as a public health concern in Malawi. It is the first country in southern Africa, the fourth country in the WHO Africa region and the 15th country globally to achieve that milestone.

What we witnessed was not just individual transformation —men and women whose sight had been restored and who could again live independently—but community transformation, because they could go back to actively contributing by caring for their grandchildren and helping with other tasks around the home. In turn, their families benefit from that support and can focus their time and energy back on education or employment. That is the reality of the statistics, which demonstrate both the value of taking action and the cost of continuing to neglect these diseases.

Many of the researchers and practitioners who are taking an interest in this subject have told us, as the hon. Gentleman just suggested, that investment in NTDs really is a best-buy in global health intervention. The campaign group Uniting to Combat NTDs reckons that, in some cases, investing just $1 in tackling these diseases could unlock $25 of benefits. Brighton and Sussex Medical School has calculated that the economic burden to a patient with podoconiosis, which is a form of elephantiasis, can be up to £100 per year, but that the one-off cost of a single treatment is just £52. A study by Deloitte showed that, if Nigeria met its NTD elimination targets by 2030, it could add $19 billion to the value of its economy. If we want to achieve the sustainable development goals, unlock wasted economic potential, change the nature of aid flows and release new forms of finance to help developing countries drive poverty reduction and grow their economies, investing properly and effectively in tackling NTDs is essential.

The fight against malaria is one of the best demonstrations of that point. The all-party group’s visit to Malawi was not my first visit, or even my last visit to that beautiful country. I first lived and worked in Malawi nearly 20 years ago. The prevalence and impact of malaria has always been evident throughout that country’s history. Those of us who came from Scotland and other countries where malaria is not endemic were affected, because we were strongly encouraged to take prophylactic medication—at that time, Lariam—which is not without side effects. Daily, we saw kids in the school where we taught missing class because they had contracted malaria. Sometimes it would affect the teachers, too, so that whole classes missed out on their education or relied on some of the volunteers to pick up the slack, which might have been okay if it was a maths or English class, but was slightly more complicated if it was Chichewa lessons.

Malaria, like so many of these diseases, is preventable and curable, yet there were 249 million cases in 2022, which is five million more than in 2021 and 16 million more than in 2019. Malaria still kills around 608,000 people around the world each year, most of them young children. That is approximately one child a minute, or 90 completely avoidable deaths in the time set aside for today’s debate. There has been progress, but more can be made. Many of the required interventions are, in principle at least, very straightforward: for example, using bed nets is very simple and effective. The New Nets Project, developed by a number of UK institutions including the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, a Liverpool-based product development partnership, along with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London, has developed nets with dual active ingredients that combine insecticides to respond to growing resistance to insecticides among mosquitos.

In Malawi, in Mtira village in the Balaka district, we witnessed indoor residual spraying of insecticide, and in the local clinic—a small, brick, thatched building with one room—a chart was proudly displayed showing the dramatic decline in the incidence of malaria patients in the village in just the four years since the spraying began. Outside Lilongwe, in Mitundu village, we visited the clinic where some of the very first doses of the new RTS,S vaccine against malaria had been dispensed, starting in 2019. We were very privileged to meet young Evison Saimon, who is now five years old and had benefited from the vaccine.

These success stories have come about only through the incredible effort of and collaboration between a range of partners and funding bodies, including national Government ministries, UNICEF, the WHO and private or charitable organisations including GlaxoSmithKline and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. What they all have in common is security of funding and a clear goal.

Around the world, however, more money is still spent on treating male pattern baldness and curing hay fever—I and a few other hon. Members in the Chamber have lived experience of both conditions—than on tackling malaria. Hay fever can be debilitating, but it is rarely life-threatening, and the main symptoms of baldness can be readily treated with a hat. That speaks to some of the serious challenges in how the pharmaceutical industry approaches these diseases and how research and development can be properly carried out.

Many of us know about researchers’ frustration with the lack of certainty around funding. The product development partnership model funded by the former Department for International Development worked to overcome shortcomings in the commercial research and development sector and was seen as a leader in funding such efforts through public ODA until the axe began to fall in 2021. Since then, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been able to provide funding guarantees only one year at a time, which causes massive uncertainty for projects that require long-term funding. Clinical trials cannot be turned on and off like a tap; they take time and effort in the field and have to run over defined periods of time. They cannot be driven by political funding cycles.

Where trials work, there have been and continue to be breakthroughs. The drug discovery unit at the University of Dundee, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) will be familiar with, has worked with the PDP Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop cabamaquine, which could not only treat malaria with a single dose but potentially protect people from contracting the disease and stop its spread. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative has revolutionised treatment for sleeping sickness with fexinidazole, a simple oral cure, instead of the only available previous treatment, which was toxic and cumbersome and could kill up to one in 20 patients. For those kinds of innovations to be effective, there has to be sustained, effective and targeted investment. Without it, we find an ever-changing environment where the malaria virus continues to adapt and evolve, and buzzes about just like the mosquito that carries it, frustratingly difficult for the scientists to whack it against the wall, even though they can see and hear it.

We know that elimination of malaria and other tropical diseases is possible, because it has already been done. Many diseases that were once endemic here in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world have been eradicated. Individual countries and regions, as we saw in Malawi with trachoma, have been able to make progress and eliminate certain diseases as public health threats, but if we allow progress to stall, we risk undoing the good work that has already been done, and new, stronger and more difficult to treat variants of these diseases will emerge.

That is before we take into account increasing challenges such as climate change. Last year, for the first time, the World Malaria Report included a chapter on climate change. Malaria and other tropical diseases are extremely sensitive to the environment, affected by temperature, rainfall and humidity. Locally acquired malaria has been detected in Florida and Texas in recent years, while dengue fever has appeared in France and other parts of Europe. All of a sudden, commercial pharma-ceutical companies are taking more interest in many of these diseases, but a purely economic or profit-driven approach on its own will not be enough to tackle these diseases properly. For example, investing in a vaccine for dengue fever that would benefit tourists travelling to affected areas is very important, but for countries such as Bangladesh or the Philippines, an effective, immediate treatment for people who have already contracted the disease is more of a priority.

In all of this, we have to consider the role of institutions and organisations in the United Kingdom and the role of the UK Government in supporting them and global partners. There can be no hiding from the impact of the cuts to the ODA budget. Any of us who speak to partner organisations or to those who have previously received funding and put it to such good use, continue to hear of the long-term impact of short-term decisions. We all welcome the White Paper, the new tone and focus of the International Development Minister, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and his team, the reinvigoration of the SDGs and the determination to build a new consensus, but at the end of the day, stakeholders ask us when 0.7% will return. That is a question both for the Minister and for the official Opposition, and for all our manifestoes in this election year.

The next replenishment cycle for the Global Fund will be in 2025. At that point, we hope that the UK will be in a position to meet the requested funding, rather than the 29% reduction that it provided last year. Can the Minister make similar commitments for multilateral initiatives such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Unitaid? The UK has signed up to a number of commitments on neglected tropical diseases, including the 2022 Kigali declaration, the G7 leaders’ communiqué and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting communiqué, so what steps will the Minister be taking to drive these commitments forwards?

The SDGs are a welcome focus in the White Paper. SDG 3.3 sets a target of ending the malaria epidemic and achieving a 90% reduction in the number of people requiring interventions against NTDs by 2030, so how are the Government leveraging funding and working with partners to meet those goals? In practical terms, can the Minister commit to multi-year funding for research and development in these areas, particularly for product development partnerships? What steps are the Government taking to build and support R&D and manufacturing capacity in affected countries? On our visit to Malawi, we saw the world-class Blantyre-Blantyre facility, which was developed in partnership between the University of Glasgow, in my constituency, and the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, and funded in part by the Scottish Government. That is real innovation, genuine partnership and the empowerment of a new generation of young local researchers, clinicians and academics, and it was inspiring to meet a number of them during our visit.

The Government must recognise the importance of cross-sectoral approaches, and ensure that there is co-ordination and collaboration between malaria and NTD programmes and existing investments in nutrition, education, WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—disability inclusion, and maternal and child health. In all of this, we have to address the structural issues, including the climate emergency and the growing debt burden on developing countries. We have debated a number of these topics recently in Westminster Hall, and it shows the interconnectedness of so many of the challenges around achieving the SDGs.

In November’s debate on African debt, which was led by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who I am delighted to see present, I said that Malawi is one of 21 African countries that are in or at high risk of debt distress. Its external debt effectively tripled between 2009 and 2021, and we can see the impact of that in the country’s inability to get moving. How different the country might be if the payments it is making on debt, or even just on debt interest, could be invested instead in primary healthcare and in eradicating not just trachoma, but malaria and all the other endemic diseases affecting its population.

All of these challenges are created or, at the very least, exacerbated by the actions and decisions of people, which means that the challenges can be overcome by the actions and decisions of people—whether that it is each of us as individuals practising basic hand and face hygiene to help prevent the spread of disease, or Government Ministers making decisions about millions of pounds of aid spending. Malaria and many other tropical diseases have been neglected for far too long, which means that the people most affected by these diseases have also been neglected for far too long, but all the evidence shows that we can cure, prevent and, ultimately, end the scourge of these diseases. For relatively little cost, we can achieve a massive return on investment, both in long-term savings on the costs of chronic treatment and in the actualisation of the economic and social potential of people who are no longer confined to a sick bed or, worse, to an early death, but who are working for the betterment of their families and communities.

Many, if not most of us, present for the debate will have witnessed malaria and tropical diseases at first hand on delegations or through our own personal experiences, so I look forward to hearing the contributions from other Members and how the Minister responds. I hope that when we get to World NTD Day at the end of the month, the Government will be able to draw on the experiences of Members and their contributions to today’s debate, and endorse this year’s theme that we should all unite, act and, ultimately, eliminate malaria and all neglected tropical diseases.

Enabling Community Energy

Debate between Jim Shannon and Patrick Grady

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure, Sir David, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) on not only their efforts to secure this debate but their ongoing championing of the issue of reforming the energy market to support community production and distribution. They have consistently demonstrated, and have done so again today, the wide cross-party and cross-country support—I think every nation of these islands has been represented in the debate today, and every party, more or less—

[Jim Shannon]

Better together.

[Patrick Grady]

Some might say that. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) might have slightly different views. This is all about devolving and empowering local communities, so I suppose it depends on what level we want to devolve it down to—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend is very sorry that he cannot intervene, but we can see him on the screen.

One of my local communities, which I am sure would quite happily be an independent country if someone would let it, is in Partick, in the west end of Glasgow. It is very supportive of the idea of the community council there; it backed a related Bill in the last Session and wants to see it come back again. Indeed, the Scottish National party as a whole support that; our usual spokesperson on these matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), sends his apologies for not being here today, but we can all be assured of his ongoing support, too.

Very briefly, in order to leave time for the Minister to respond to the debate, I will look at the importance of the principle and the concept of community energy, and at some of the experience that we have heard in Scotland. I also have a few questions for the Minister.

One of the best descriptions of the concept of community energy that I have come across came from the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative. Its share offer successfully completed on 18 June; it had over 170 applications and raised £30,000 of financing, which is helping to put solar panels on the roofs of a number of schools in the city. It has said:

“For us ‘community energy’ has a double meaning. Glasgow Community Energy aims to connect and empower local people through community-ownership and democratic involvement in our renewable energy co-operative, as well as by inspiring and sustaining community activism through our Community Benefit Fund.”

So, for the Glasgow Community Energy co-operative, community energy is about not just providing energy for the community but harnessing the energy of the community as well—that galvanising effect, that psychological effect if you like, which the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) referred to.

Of course, behind that are the long-standing pressures for reform of the electricity market, or the electricity bureaucracy as my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar said. There is a need for energy production and supply to be reformed, particularly in the face of rapid climate change. The need to get to net zero, as we heard right at the start of the debate from the hon. Member for Bath, requires low-carbon production and transmission. In the year of COP—the year when the UK is supposed to show global leadership—this is an incredibly important opportunity.

Community energy is also important for other reasons, including for energy security, so that we are not dependent on imported gas or electricity, or any other form of energy from overseas. Increased domestic energy production is safer and better for everyone. It is also important to tackle fuel poverty, which is a growing problem. Community energy also relates to the concept of localism, ownership and democratic control. We heard from a number of the Conservative Members that this process could be seen as part of what is supposed to be the Government’s levelling-up agenda—I think the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) said that, and he was quite right to do so. We also heard about international examples; Germany and Denmark were referred to by a number of Members, including the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). All of that speaks to the economic benefit that can be gained by local energy production companies. Employment opportunities also come with community energy, in installation, management, maintenance and so on. It is a win-win situation.

The Scottish Government fully back and fully reflect all of those positions, particularly the importance of decarbonising the entire energy system. Their most recent local energy strategy was published in January 2021 and says that the Scottish Government

“recognises that local energy cannot be delivered in isolation. It is not a standalone policy, but one that integrates and aligns with other key policies, including energy efficiency, eradicating fuel poverty, heat decarbonisation, local heat and energy efficiency strategies, and consumer protection. It will develop alongside and within a vibrant national energy network.”

The Scottish Government had a target of 500 MW of community and locally owned energy by 2020; that amount has been exceeded, so now we intend to increase the target to 1 GW for 2020 and 2 GW for 2030. Progress towards these targets has been positive, but changes to some of the UK Government’s subsidies, not least the closure of the feed-in tariff scheme, has undermined that progress. However, we continue to encourage shared ownership models as a means of increasing community-led involvement in commercial projects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar will be very happy to hear—indeed, I am sure he already knows—that the Scottish Government are particularly committed to helping the communities on our islands to become carbon-neutral. Indeed, some of the pioneering work in this area has been done on the Isle of Gigha, with its early adoption of wind power. The SNP manifesto for the recent Scottish election said quite clearly:

“We support Carbon Neutral Islands which would be in the vanguard of reaching net zero emissions targets by 2045. This will include pilots for some islands to run on 100% renewable energy, to create circular economies tackling and processing waste, and exploring more sustainable transport options. We will work with at least 3 islands over this Parliament to enable them to become fully carbon neutral by 2040.”

My hon. Friend has the opportunity to lobby for many of the islands he represents in his archipelago to take part in that pilot.

That brings us to the Government. The short question coming from all hon. Members is, why not? What is the harm? I thought the Tory Government was supposed to believe in the free market, entrepreneurship and the flourishing of local enterprise, so why do they seem to be in hock to the big players? Why are they in hock to the traditional companies, who perhaps have the most to lose?

The simple ask coming from Members today is to let the Local Electricity Bill progress. It has wide cross-party support and a wide range of civil society support, from the Churches through to different manufacturers of the technology that would be used, and more. The Bill provides a very simple framework that would overcome existing barriers to entry into the market.

There are other things the Government could be doing as well. They could look at a replacement for the feed-in tariff that was so important in bringing so much renewable energy to the market in the first place. They could also help to stimulate demand for better local, greener energy by diverting funding away from damaging new nuclear technologies.

At the end of the day, much of this is about a vision—a vision for a fairer, cleaner, greener, locally led energy future. Unfortunately, that seems to be a vision that the UK Government are currently sorely lacking.

Covid-19: Religious and Ethnic Minority Communities

Debate between Jim Shannon and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we can raise the educational standards and abilities of young people we will give them the aspiration to do better? For instance, if they gained the educational standards to start with, they could be teachers or nurses or go into many other jobs. That is why, when it comes to addressing covid-19 and its effect on religious minorities, there is a greater plan, and education is part of that plan. With that, people are given the chance to do better.

[Patrick Grady]

I agree entirely. That is what the global agenda of sustainable development goals is for. We can raise standards around the world on education, health, access to water and sanitation, and gender equality, in particular. If we can do those things, the world will be much more resilient to all these challenges, whether pandemics, natural disasters or the likelihood of oppression and discrimination.

Some of those factors are the root causes: poverty and a lack of understanding and education are among the root causes of the challenges that we face. If we can tackle them, we are building that resilience. That is why we cannot just let go the point about 0.7% and the Government’s commitment to aid. That was world leading; now we are the only G7 country that is cutting our aid budget. The Government have to recognise that. Perhaps the Minister can say when the Government envisage restoring that target, as they have pledged to do.

The Government also need to end arms sales to any regime where there is doubt about how those arms are being used. If arms manufactured and sold from the UK are being used to oppress people and abuse their human rights, that is very dubious under international law, and the Government need to set the highest possible standards.

This comes back to all the global issues that we are not unused to discussing in Westminster Hall. If the Government take the attitude I have described and show leadership, recipient countries and the organisations that deliver aid and support can meet their commitments and plan effectively for the future.

In the context of the pandemic, we often say that nobody is safe until everybody is safe. That safety includes respect for freedom of religious belief and the rights to worship and to practise a faith. As we have said, the virus does not recognise boundaries or religions. We should recognise everyone’s right to identify with and be part of their communities and to practise their religion and belief. I welcome the opportunity we have had to highlight that today.

St Patrick’s Day

Debate between Jim Shannon and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

I believe it is. When I asked for this Adjournment debate—Mr Speaker kindly agreed—I felt there was a need to tell the history of St Patrick and how St Patrick’s Day came about, because his message is the simple message of the gospel, to all mankind, wherever they may be, of all political aspirations and of all regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. His message is simple but it is a true message and we all need to hear it. That is why I wanted to have this debate. There are two parts to the story, of course; I will tell the first, about the gospel message, but I also want to tell the second story about what he does and can do.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

As one of the Patricks in the Chamber today, I think it is right that the hon. Gentleman is acknowledging this. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) spoke of St Patrick’s breastplate, and it was fitting, and worth getting on the record, that our new Chaplain led us in that prayer at the start of business today. It was a fitting thing to do, especially in these times, given what the prayer invokes.

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, I noticed that today. Indeed, I said to my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell)—who intervened as soon as I got three words into my contribution—that it was interesting that the Speaker’s Chaplain used St Patrick’s prayer this morning. It was really nice. I want to finish my comments with that prayer, and it is important to do so.