Jimmy Savile: NHS Investigations

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Earl Howe

Thursday 26th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness’s last point. My understanding is that each survivor and each victim has had an apology, but I will look into the possibility of my right honourable friend adding to that.

As regards the civil servants involved, only one has been identified: Mr James Collier, who was, at the time, deputy secretary of the DHSS. Dr Gerard Vaughan, who was the Minister most closely involved with the building of Stoke Mandeville’s spinal injuries centre, assigned Mr Collier to ensure that the project went ahead. The inquiry found that Collier’s role was essentially to remove obstacles to the project. In effect, he was both an enabler and an instrument of the whole project. However, the report says:

“If criticism is to be levelled at James Collier it is because he did not just sweep aside bureaucracy to enable the project, he was instrumental … in sweeping aside some legitimate concerns raised by statutory bodies such as the Oxford Regional Health Authority”,

once he had been placed in charge of the project. So the duty of a senior civil servant to “speak truth unto power” was not, I am afraid, one that he fulfilled. Mr Collier is still alive, and I do not think that it would be proper for me to criticise him other than in the terms that the inquiry has done, but essentially the investigation concludes that,

“it would appear that Savile’s authority was given at the behest of politicians and then made possible by senior civil servants”.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, in congratulating my noble friend and his department on the fullness of the information contained in these reports—their very fullness makes one wonder how so much of the evidence passed people by—perhaps I may make one suggestion of presentation. When you read the two reports side by side, the grey-blue report about Stoke Mandeville contains far more upper-case letters as the initial letters of words. The pale mauve report of Kate Lampard is not addicted to that. The consequence is that it is much more difficult with the Stoke Mandeville report to recognise the comparative importance of the information given because it is always in headline elements.

[Earl Howe]

I understand the point made by my noble friend. At the same time, it is clear from the executive summary of Kate Lampard’s report that Stoke Mandeville is by far the most important and salient element of the report and I had hoped that that would have guided readers’ attention towards the section of the report that deals with Stoke Mandeville. Nevertheless, I am sorry that my noble friend has found it necessary to say that and I understand why he has.

Health: Neurological Conditions

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Earl Howe

Monday 27th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

As the noble Baroness may remember, the National Service Framework for Long-term Neurological Conditions set out as a principal requirement the need for an appropriately skilled workforce to manage the care of people with long-term neurological conditions. At the moment that is the responsibility of primary care trusts. The good news is that full-time equivalent numbers of consultants have been rising steadily. According to the Information Centre census, there were 523 in 2010, an increase from 517 the previous year and from 449 in 2004. To answer the latter part of the noble Baroness’s question, I can say that the Centre for Workforce Intelligence will feed into Health Education England, which will in turn inform the local partnerships that we intend to establish under the reforms, so that there is both a national and a local input on workforce numbers and the numbers we need to train to deliver the service that patients require.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, in the context of the all-party report to which the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, referred, is my noble friend aware that, of the time invested in the production of that report, some 97 per cent was provided by Members of your Lordships’ House? Does he think that that has any relevance in the context of discussion about the future of the House of Lords?

[Earl Howe]

I am sure that my noble friend will introduce that and other considerations when we come to debate House of Lords reform. I will observe that, when I was on the opposition Benches and used to attend all-party group meetings on neurological conditions, practically the only people there were Members of your Lordships’ House.

NHS: Management Consultants

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Earl Howe

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the age-old aphorism among management consultants, of whom I was once one, although not at McKinsey, that 10 per cent of the work is diagnosis and 90 per cent is persuading the client to accept the advice?

[Earl Howe]

We have been on the look-out for that and I hope that we have not fallen victim to it.

Life Sciences

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Earl Howe

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord mentioned that part of our initiative. As he rightly said, we have undertaken to develop a strategic road map that will set out the timeframe and actions required to establish a world-leading synthetic biology sector. That will be published in spring 2012. To oversee the delivery of the road map, we will establish a synthetic biology leadership council, co-chaired by my ministerial colleague David Willetts, the Minister for Science and Innovation, and Dr Clarke of Shell Global Solutions. I am told that the total timeline for this is 12 months. We therefore intend to move forward on this with some speed. I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for its potential.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend on having omitted a reference in his Statement to a valley of death fund. Secondly, having picked up the reference to big pharma in this welcome Statement, I called to mind the historic and dramatic decision of the late Austin Bide of Glaxo to increase the planning horizon for research in that company from five years to 25 years. The Statement makes clear the acceleration that we shall see in drug development. Can my noble friend hazard any estimate of what effect today’s announcement will have on the planning horizon of research, in the manner of the late Mr Bide’s remarkable extension?

[Earl Howe]

The planning horizon for research, as my noble friend will know, has always been a long one. With the increasing cost of research, particularly in later stage clinical trials, companies end up making an extremely significant investment in order to bring one molecule to the market. What we seek to achieve for big pharma in this package of measures is a sense that we in the UK have, as it were, an unrivalled ecosystem that brings together business, researchers, clinicians and patients to translate discovery into clinical use for medical innovation within the NHS. What we want them to appreciate is that the UK provides an environment and infrastructure that supports pioneering researchers and clinicians to bring innovation to the market earlier and more easily so that this country becomes the location of choice for investment. I am thinking here particularly of our proposals for setting up academic health science networks that will span the NHS. That is our ambition. I am thinking of the early access scheme for medicines, which was mentioned in the Statement. We want to break down the regulatory barriers to speeding up clinical trials that have beset the industry. For all those reasons, I should like the industry to see this as facilitating a shorter time horizon. However, we cannot do anything to get around the essential safety and quality standards that the patient and the citizen rightly insist upon.