Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I shall speak to all three amendments in this group. I declare my interest as chair of the Human Tissue Authority, whose work is so much affected by this Bill. At the start of the passage of the Bill, there was much confusion over its purpose and the future direction of travel for many of those arm's-length bodies listed in it. Much progress has been made during the passage of the Bill. The Government have given due attention to concerns raised, thought through the potential outcomes and clarified many issues for all of us. I want to thank the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the attention he has paid to our specific areas of interest: the HFEA and the HTA. I particularly welcome his statement in the letter he sent to my noble friend Lady Thornton in which he recognised the need for our preferred option, which is to keep the functions of the HFEA and the HTA together, and gave a commitment to discuss directly with the HTA any potential movement of our research-related functions to another organisation.

I believe we are nearly there, but I feel that these amendments are necessary and will act as a safety framework for the Bill as it enters the other place and then goes onwards for external consultation. We are seeking a set of reassurances and safeguards from the Minister to ensure that the hard work everybody has done to shape this Bill will not be lost further down the road.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, have already set out the main arguments in favour of the amendments. I support them and shall not reiterate them. The amendments suggest measures by which the Government could assess the cost-effectiveness of the proposed moves, and I urge the Minister to consider utilising them. In his letter to my noble friend Lady Thornton, the Minister addresses the need for an impact assessment, but he proposes only a partial assessment. I believe that a full and thorough assessment is needed in order to give a true picture of cost-effectiveness. We are all looking for ways in which to reduce costs and bureaucracy and therefore see an increase in cost-effectiveness as the gold standard we should aim for in the public services we provide. If a saving is made in one area only to increase costs in another, that would be unacceptable. It is for this reason that I urge the Government to conduct a full impact assessment, not a partial one.

The HTA is already recognised as an efficient regulator with a clear focus on improving value for money. We are a lean organisation costing only £1 million in government grant in aid and we will reduce that by 14 per cent in cash terms this year. We have reduced our licence fees across all sectors this year, including a 30 per cent reduction in the research sector. I have already raised and evidenced my concerns that any proposals to transfer the HTA's research functions would not achieve either simplification or financial savings. Indeed, we estimate that it would impose additional regulatory and financial burdens on around 200 establishments across various sectors. So I suspect it will not surprise your Lordships to know that I am concerned to ensure that cost-effectiveness is real and not just perceived as an outcome of this assessment.

I now turn to the amendment that deals with setting up the new independent health research agency. As I mentioned, I seek reassurance from the Minister in a set of safeguards. The Government have set out a draft transfer timetable, and have made clear their intention to cause the least amount of disruption to all involved by enacting all transfers of the HTA and HFEA functions at the same time. None of this can happen until the health research agency has a legal basis in its own right and it has been decided whether any HTA functions should transfer to it. Will the Minister therefore outline a more specific timetable for its establishment, and reaffirm his commitment to hold off transfers until then?

In addition, the amendment would require that a separate ethics committee be established within the new agency to undertake the ethical considerations of any functions that are transferred. This would be paramount in ensuring that we do not lose public and professional confidence through this period of change and that we continue to ensure that tissues and organs are used safely and ethically and with proper consent. Finally, therefore, is the Minister minded to establish such a committee and so accept this amendment in full?

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, I support both this amendment and the two related amendments that follow it. They would guarantee in one way or another that the enormously valuable work of precisely the present ethics committee of the two bodies is continued. I speak in general, so far as a Bishop can ever speak, for the Christian churches and for other faith communities for whom the human embryo and human tissue have moral significance. That is not to say that the present ethics committee is in the pocket, so to speak, of the Bishops or of any faith community leaders. It is not, and the range of views and commitments of its members is and should be wide. However, it would be a serious mistake not to have an ethics committee or expert body specifically to weigh the moral as well as the medico-scientific questions that are involved in this very proper research, not least into the tragedy of infertility.

Also of great significance for me is the serious support of the relevant professional bodies, so I urge the Government to consider these amendments very favourably.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I declare an interest because my wife is a pathologist who works in the National Health Service. She does no forensic work. Nevertheless, I declare that interest appropriately.

A number of noble Lords have mentioned the importance of the role of the House of Lords in considering such difficult and complex matters. We had plenty of evidence of that even before the Bill came to your Lordships' House, at least in debate on these two issues. Indeed, we had a very fruitful debate on 1 February this year in the Moses Room on the questions. There is a great deal to commend the amendments, although I have some difficulty with the fact that they link the two bodies. They are quite different in many ways and have a somewhat different track record and set of relationships.

I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, and I do not disagree with any of it. She put forward her case clearly, but she focused in particular on the HFEA. A whole set of very important issues are involved there, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister may be able to give some kind of comfort to her and her colleagues, because I have a lot of sympathy for her case, as I do for much of what the noble Lord, Lord Walton, said. However, one of the difficulties has been that although there is clearly a need for legislation and for a body that undertakes these matters—the operation of the HTA in Scotland has been rather better than it has in England—it is important to draw to the attention of your Lordships' House that the impact of the way in which the legislation has been interpreted and conducted by the HTA has not inspired confidence, particularly among pathologists. I heard what my noble friend said about that proving what a good thing it is, but that does not show a very nuanced understanding of what is going on.

Hospices and Palliative Care Services

Lord Bishop of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, the hospice movement and the burgeoning of palliative care and research are indeed developments in which we lead the world, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, said.

I declare an interest as a member of the council of King’s College London. This year the Princess Royal opened the Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care at King’s College Hospital. This is the culmination of 15 years’ work at King’s and was funded through the Cicely Saunders International charity, the Wolfson Foundation and other charities. It is the first palliative care unit in the world, as far as I am aware, where patient care, teaching and research are all conducted under one roof.

As a Bishop I also speak—and other Bishops could say the same—of hospices in my diocese: Woking, Sam Beare, the Princess Alice in Esher, the Phyllis Tuckwell in Farnham and the CHASE Children’s Hospice in Guildford. Hospices, as noble Lords have already said tonight, are wonderful places. They are places of peace and joy, more profound than trivial bonhomie. I think of a little girl, Tamsin, singing “Away in a Manger” two Christmases ago, only a few days before she died.

I do not need to rehearse the Christian inspiration for the hospice movement and the concomitant development of palliative care through pioneers such as Dame Cicely. It may be worth noting, however, that one recent development in our excellent hospices is the significant increase in palliative care offered in the home. The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and the noble Lord, Lord Howard, alluded to this. There are now more out-patients being cared for through our hospices than before. A good death and quality of life well before death, with loving care and the alleviation of pain, can be and are being provided extensively within the homes of patients. It should be, wherever possible, extended, although I accept the caveat of the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, as to the appropriateness for some who prefer to be in the hospice itself.

The availability of palliative care is, as we all know, subject to the lottery of the postcode. I therefore warmly welcome the interim report and look forward to the final report next year on how dedicated palliative care can be funded so as to be available to all. The interim report, which we look forward to and which was trailed by the noble Viscount, is looking at a national funding system locally delivered.

The content of palliative care is defined in holistic terms, including psychological, social and, indeed, spiritual care—I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on that. The signs from the interim report are therefore good and far-reaching. The question for the future after the definitive report in the summer will be implementation. As TS Eliot put it:

“Life you may evade, but Death you shall not”.

There can be a good death and that should be available to all.

Queen's Speech

Lord Bishop of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, I must first express my sincere gratitude for the personal welcome that I have received from all sides of the House, especially from the Minister this morning—and especially now that our respective wives have been sorted out. To this, I add my most sincere thanks to the officers and staff of the House. I thank especially Black Rod, who briefed me just a day before his tragic illness, which I know your Lordships' House most deeply regrets.

It is, however, with a certain sense of surprise that any Bishop of Guildford stands before this House, as an examination of Hansard for July 1927 would reveal. The creation of my diocese of Guildford out of the ancient diocese of Winchester, together with that of Portsmouth, had been discussed for many years in the earlier part of the past century. The creation of a separate diocese of Guildford, comprising the county of Surrey excluding its eastern corridor but including north-east Hampshire, was aimed at what was interestingly called at the time “better shepherding” and “spiritual efficiency”. The church, like the constitution of the realm, continually changes and develops as circumstances require. After its safe passage through the Church Assembly and the other place, the then Bishop of Winchester, Theodore Woods, newly translated from Peterborough, introduced the Church Assembly Measure into your Lordships' House. But an unexpected and eloquent ambush was executed by the then Bishop of Durham, Hensley Henson, which would have had fatal consequences had not the swiftest tactical action been taken by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, who successfully proposed an adjournment. Two weeks later, after a long debate and with powerful support from the Archbishop of Canterbury, your Lordships' House was “Content”, but only by a margin of 10 votes, that there should be such an entity as the diocese of Guildford. I stand before you.

I begin here because a debate concerning culture should take into account the importance of knowing our history. I know that the Minister, originally a historian, will support that—in a different vein, I refer noble Lords to the earlier comment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. To understand who we are and where we are to go, we need to know where we have come from. This is true of communities and society as well as individuals and indeed a diocese.

The diocese of Guildford includes within its boundaries two excellent university establishments, the University of Surrey and Royal Holloway College, the latter a pioneer of women’s university education, with particular strengths today in the creative arts and in interfaith relationships and chaplaincy. The University of Surrey—I speak not only as a member of court but as a personal friend of the former and present vice-chancellors—has recently rejoiced in the opening of its Surrey Sports Park with world-class facilities, not least for swimming and pre-Olympic training. It includes training and sports facilities for the disabled, including world-class sportsmen and women with disability. It is an important development. Another recent development there has seen the association of the Guildford School of Acting with the university. At the University of Surrey, we are further engaged in an innovative, multi-faith centre where people of all faiths will be able to pray in their distinct sacred spaces but also to meet together, eat together, discuss together and work together—faith and academy working together to enhance social capital and cohesion. At Woking, incidentally, also in the diocese of Guildford, we have the oldest mosque in the country. In Guildford, there flourishes a fine school of contemporary music; at Oxshott, at the other end of the musical scale, is the Yehudi Menuhin School; and at Farnham there is the University for the Creative Arts. Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre is well known, and Woking’s New Vic Theatre hosts National Theatre productions and Glyndebourne on tour. Also in Surrey, uniquely for this country, is the Wintershall Passion play.

I must also mention fine museums throughout Surrey, particularly the awardwinning Lightbox in Woking—presently offering a Walter Sickert exhibition—and the Watts Gallery at Compton, where Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recently graced its restoration “topping out” ceremony. I particularly commend the Watts Gallery’s community outreach programme, as befits the memory of the painter GF Watts, who had a very serious social conscience.

One of the most interesting observations that I made when I moved to the diocese of Guildford five and a half years ago was of the Surrey social conscience. In the cathedral there is a memorial to the Jarrow marchers of the depressed 1930s and the Surrey collection for them. In fact, Surrey and north-east Hampshire were relatively poor before the coming of the railway. That, I know, takes a little bit of believing. There was of course a vein of prosperity running through the county: the wool trade. As I stand in your Lordships' House, I am reminded that the arms of my see include no fewer than 12 woolsacks. With the railway, Surrey, in the words of Arthur Mee, became London's nearest neighbour and we became commuter-land for Waterloo and the City of London. Today, we lie between the airports of Gatwick and Heathrow, and Surrey has become a global, multinational commuter-land. This does not mean that there are no pockets of deprivation within Surrey and north-east Hampshire. Researched evidence of this can be found in the report, Hidden Surrey, commissioned by the Surrey Community Foundation, of which I declare I have the honour and responsibility to be a member.

In this debate, I would be remiss if I did not draw your Lordships’ attention to that considerable heritage of which I as bishop, with the clergy and lay people of my diocese, have some responsibility for: the parish churches of Surrey and north-east Hampshire. Guildford's cathedral, by Edward Maufe, has been unduly neglected, but no longer do people speak of it disparagingly as akin to a power station—in any case, cathedrals ought to be power stations. Pevsner rightly speaks of the cathedral’s interior as “luminous”. In that interior sings a cathedral choir of national excellence and space is also regularly inhabited by local musicians such as the Guildford Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras with their choruses, as well as national orchestras.

Pevsner, it has to be said, spoke of Surrey as “doubly unlucky”. He meant by that its contemporary proximity to London and its ancient remoteness from anywhere else, thus its comparative paucity of grand architecture. But he rightly excepted its ancient village churches and surrounding houses. In networks today made up largely of metropolitan and global commuters, the village green and the parish church, not to speak of the disappearing pub and post office, are important icons of human continuity and community. They are for all the community. But such a precious built heritage is enormously costly to maintain—I speak now of the parish churches rather than the pubs. About £110 million a year is spent annually simply by the Church of England on keeping up listed places of worship, to which local congregations contribute two-thirds. This is a good working partnership. Nationally, as well as in Surrey, the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, which refunds the cost of VAT on repairs to all such buildings, has been enormously important in maintaining the fabric of these churches, open for all. Three recent grants in Guildford diocese were concerned with additional community facilities. The scheme is due to end in March next year, with no replacement in sight, which seems like a curious blindness to the contribution of faith communities to the wider culture and well-being of society. Some years ago, the bishops in the West Midlands were invited to scrutinise a draft regional description of cultural activities. Church buildings did get a perfunctory mention, but its drafters had forgotten the Three Choirs Festival, the oldest cultural festival in the country. I urge Her Majesty's Government to avoid such partial blindness in respect of a continuation of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.

In conclusion—and speaking of seeing—I offer four ways of seeing the diocese of Guildford. There is the magnificent view of Surrey and north-east Hampshire from the Hog's Back, but do not stop too suddenly on the dual carriageway. There is the extraordinary view of the North Downs from Newlands Corner, with range after range of hills beautifully composing themselves like a Claude landscape. Alternatively, although I am not sure that I can recommend this, an excellent view can be obtained, if only momentarily, at 200 feet up on the rollercoaster at Thorpe Park. My recommended choice is from the top of the tower of Guildford Cathedral, with views over the downs as far as Epsom to the north-east and Hampshire and Sussex to west and south. This last vantage point I shall be happy to arrange a visit to, should any noble Lord so desire.

Should today’s debate overrun its scheduled timing, I beg the indulgence of your Lordships' House and the Minister if I leave in the early evening to be at an engagement leading a service of worship for Corpus Christi at one of my parish churches.