Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Carolyn Harris

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 25th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I welcome the Bill, but there are issues with it and those need to be improved.

Clause 1 goes to the heart of trying to stop the wild west that we have in this sector, but my concern is with the get-out-of-jail card for medical practitioners. Again, while most will follow the rules, there is clear evidence that we have medical practitioners signing prescriptions for botox and then selling them on. If we had a robust GMC or regulator that was clamping down on this, that would solve some of these problems, but I have seen no evidence of that at all.

The Bill will make a start on improving this situation, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks said. There are existing regulations, but they are toothless. Do they provide the powers to intervene? Yes, I think so, but that is not happening. Certainly, the situation with prescription botox needs to be tightened up.

The problem I have, as I said in my earlier contribution, is the allowing of medical practitioners to administer these products to under-18s. I understand that there are perfectly good medical reasons that they are needed, and it would be wrong for the Bill to block those altogether, but I believe that regulation on this could be strengthened, and I know the hon. Lady and the Minister said that they will look at that.

I do not know whether this is something that the Minister could talk to the GMC about or whether we could get it into the Bill, or indeed if it is in the regulations that go alongside the Bill, but before an under-18 is prescribed these treatments, there should be a written prognosis giving the reason that they are needed. There should also be a clinical treatment plan outlining how and why those will be administered over a certain period, as well as a written statement relating to the supporting evidence, the consent of the patient and their guardians, and an agreement with the patient in advance on the expected outcomes. That would strengthen the rules.

Most practitioners will abide by the rules, but I have been looking at the sector for five or six years, and frankly, my experience is that there are medical professionals out there who are just out to make money.

[Carolyn Harris]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the practice of remote prescription serves only to further damage the reputation of the industry? During a recent evidence session, a GP stated that they were offering a lifetime botox prescription for £50. That is a dangerous practice and it needs to be considered very deeply before we move forward on the issue.

[Mr Jones]

I agree. There are adverts on Amazon in this sector, and treatments offered include fillers, although certain other terms are used. People are not allowed to advertise botox, but they get around that by advertising consultations. In response to the question, many practitioners are not qualified at all and hold no medical qualifications, so how do they get access to botox? They do so because people are signing prescriptions. I fear that a situation may arise in which that practice continues, although it needs to stop.

Another issue is that under the definition the botox can be bought because this is basically a free market, as I see it. A practitioner could then administer the botox to a young person with no regard to that individual’s medical history. A medical practitioner, under the definition, could even be defined as a dentist. That needs tightening up. I do not think that would be onerous for doctors, who are quite rightly prescribing botox injections and other things for perfectly legitimate medical use. Doctors and patients are protected when those uses are laid out.

If I had more faith in the GMC to clamp down, I would be content to leave the situation as it is. I am sorry, but having seen the way the GMC operates, I see that the organisation is not friendly to the complainant or to the patient organisation. It protects the doctor. We took self-regulation away from solicitors, and I have concluded that self-regulation should be taken away from doctors. I did not start with that position, but have come to it.

The Minister promised a Bill on GMC reform in the last Parliament, and one is certainly needed, because frankly, the patient is at a disadvantage in a host of areas, not just this one. It cannot be right that it took my constituent’s case five years to reach the GMC, with huge hurdles to overcome to get there. I hear what the hon. Member for Sevenoaks says, but we should try to tighten things up a bit. The Bill will certainly be improved if we can.

Police Grant

Debate between Lord Beamish and Carolyn Harris

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly do agree with my hon. Friend. I appreciate the work that he has done with the police service parliamentary scheme and know that he understands what real policing is really all about.

No wonder that only last week the outgoing head of the Metropolitan police said:

“It’s getting difficult…The bottom line is that there will be less cops. I can’t see any other way…There’s only so much you can cut and make efficiencies and then you’ve got to have less police…I’m not sure that's wise”.

We do not believe it is wise either.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the pain has not been distributed equally across the country? In Durham we have lost 25% of our police officers since 2010. Nationally, the average is 12%, although Surrey, I understand, has lost only 1% of its officers.

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly agree. I think the method is shambolic.

I turn to broken promises. Let me give a bit of history. In 2011, David Cameron said:

“There is no reason for there to be fewer front-line officers.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 335.]

Yet the number of police officers fell by almost 21,000 after he became Prime Minister. The total size of the police workforce has fallen by over 46,000 since 2010. Following a successful campaign from the Labour Benches led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), told Parliament at the autumn statement in 2015 that

“now is not the time for further police cuts…There will be real-terms protection for police funding.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1373.]

Today’s figures show that he has broken that promise to Parliament. In fact, between 2015-16 and, going forward, 2017-18, the total amount of real-terms Government grants for police forces has fallen by 4.4%. The real-terms cuts we have seen in the past two years come on top of real-terms cuts of £2.3 billion—25%—in the preceding five years, as shown by the National Audit Office.

Policing and Crime Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Carolyn Harris

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th April 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Carolyn Harris]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 46

Child sexual exploitation: assessment of needs for therapeutic support

‘(1) Where police or a local authority have received a disclosure that a child who has been sexually exploited or subject to other forms of child abuse, police or the local authority must make a referral to a named mental health service.

(2) The named mental health service must make necessary arrangements for the child’s treatment or care.

(3) The Secretary of State must by regulations—

(a) define “named mental health service” for the purpose of this section;

(b) specify a minimum level of “necessary arrangements” for the purpose of the section.”

This new clause enables the Future in Mind report’s recommendation that those young people who have been sexually abused or exploited should receive a comprehensive initial assessment, and referral to appropriate services providing evidence-based interventions according to their need.—(Mr Kevan Jones.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.