The NHS

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, it is fitting and symbolic that the debate was opened by three of the foremost medical experts in this House. We thank the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, for initiating the debate. He was followed by the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, and the noble Lord, Lord Winston, who, although not a surgeon himself, is a great expert on his own subject in the medical field. We thank them for their remarks. I must give a strong word of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, for his inspiring introduction. He covered a lot of ground and dealt with a lot of things. I agree with his implication—possibly it was even stronger than that and was a full expression—that we can all be proud and sentimental about the amazing National Health Service and what it has achieved but, at the same time, call for modernisation, efficiency and so on. I hope and pray, however, that we will avoid yet another upheaval of the administrative structures, which would drive people mad. That all comes together, and there is no sense of shame in saying that this taxpayer-funded service should receive more funds in the future. The period of austerity from this Government has been very painful for the National Health Service and we need to get over that now.

The noble Lord, Lord Darzi, mentioned his connection with the Royal Marsden. In 2003, for very sad family reasons, I had occasion to experience the Royal Marsden Hospital and its superb and wonderful treatment of people facing cancer. To a lay man like me, an example such as that remains in your memory for ever. I have always tried to avoid private healthcare, although I suppose that on occasion there is an emergency or one needs something quickly and therefore has to agree to a date being fixed if the NHS asks you to wait a bit longer. However, the service provided by the NHS is superlative. Even private medical companies often use its facilities and equipment because they do not have the same range of skills, equipment and expertise.

I commend the very good briefing note by the Library. It reminded us that the cost of the NHS as a percentage of GDP is similar to the EU average and very similar therefore to other leading countries. The cost of private healthcare is much more expensive for self-evident reasons, and I do not think it can ever match the efficiency of the NHS, despite it being funded in the way that it is. It is an amazing achievement.

I conclude not by trying to be clever for its own facile reason but by genuinely linking the dangers of Brexit with the National Health Service. Although there is no obvious connection at all between them, I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, for his letter to the Guardian today referring to these problems. He talked about the degradation of the physical economy and GDP as a result of the falling size of the economy already because of Brexit—it has already started and it is going to get worse if Brexit is to occur—and the departure of nurses and doctors from this country back to where they came from or elsewhere because they fear there will not be a positive future for them if we are not members of the EU. He quite rightly concludes by saying:

“Of the 52% who voted leave, few, if any, voted to sabotage the NHS”.


I am sure that is right. Therefore, that must be yet another collection of reasons why we have to think about the future of the NHS but also the future of the country.

Brexit: Health and Welfare

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the speeches so far in this debate, which has been serious and solemn but also moving. I am very grateful, like others who have expressed their gratitude, to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for launching this important debate.

If I may say so, without sounding in any way unctuous or sentimental, I was struck by the fact that not only are there eight noble Baronesses speaking in this debate but, just behind the Clerks’ table, we have three of the experts in this House on the National Health Service, because of both their own personal experiences and their deep knowledge of all the subjects that come within the NHS ambit. I was very moved by the description from the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, of her earlier years and how she coped with them. Those things will register, too, because the NHS is a most precious institution in this country, which the Government tamper with or undermine at their peril. People would not forget it if they did it any damage in the future.

Having said that, I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, a colleague for many years, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for being among the three mere males in this debate. It is an interesting reflection that women really know far more about the National Health Service than men do. That is a silly comment on my part, and I apologise for the tweets and comments that I may get on the internet from male practitioners in the NHS, saying “That’s not fair”. However, there is some connection there with the knowledge women have, given that so many women work at all levels of employment, including as technicians or the so-called unskilled. But as someone said earlier in the debate, those workers are very skilled in their work even if they are cleaners, because cleaning medical premises is a skilled job. The majority of all those people tend, I believe, to be women, including those who come from overseas.

The National Health Service is a precious institution. I was going to say that everybody in the debate is anti-Brexit except the Minister, who has to pretend to be in favour of Brexit because that is his portfolio task. I thank him for being here.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

It is worse than that; I am in favour of it.

[Lord Dykes]

The Minister has confirmed that he is in favour of Brexit. It is nice to have the odd view given in a debate where everybody else is in favour of staying in the European Union, but I thank him for his personal efforts in this field as a Minister. I attended the meeting he held at the beginning of this week on the new death certification procedures that are coming in. We were grateful, since he is very busy. He is highly regarded in this House for the detailed and caring answers he gives to many complicated NHS questions. In that spirit, I hope that he will forgive my frivolity in referring to his official duties. We will see what happens in the future with those.

It is important for us to reflect on what is at stake here, with the damage done by this foolish decision to proceed with Brexit. There are still Ministers who are in denial psychologically about the damage already done to this country. The economy is already in the beginnings of what might even be a slight recession because of the decisions made by enterprises of one kind or another, mainly putting a halt to their long-term investment plans or transferring overseas.

I share the contempt enunciated by previous speakers—including the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, herself—for the infamous red bus used in the pro-Brexit campaign, with Boris Johnson triumphant and chortling at the untruths written on its side; we now know that to be so. As a keen European as well as a patriotic Britisher, I am glad to say that there is now a different red bus travelling around this country with a different slogan for Europe. It is getting a tremendous reception everywhere it goes and has been a great success so far.

The NHS does millions of transactions every week. Most of them are carried out very well despite the pressures on employment, the reduction in the number of staff and so on and the huge pressure that NHS staff, doctors and specialists are experiencing because of the Government’s austerity cuts. There are millions of successful transactions every week. They are not noticed by the right-wing papers in this country, which pounce on the slightest unfortunate incident. Incidents are bound to happen, given the many different transactions that take place in our wonderful NHS. It is probably the best in the world, although there are many other good examples in smaller countries and in Scandinavia. In this country we are lumbered with six extreme right-wing newspapers—whose overseas owners do not pay UK personal taxes—with repetitive and boring editorials urging us all to be very patriotic. They always pounce, whenever they can, if something goes wrong in the health service. It is quite right for the press to follow up legitimately, but not when saying that there is something wrong with the National Health Service is propagandistic; millions of satisfied patients and customers—if I can use that word—know what it is like.

My personal experience has been twofold. I have had to go to A&E at St Thomas’ several times and I have used the European health insurance card, which other speakers in this debate have mentioned. The way St Thomas’ A&E is organised is utterly brilliant—it is fantastic. I have been there late at night when it is under huge pressure, and I pay tribute to it. There are numerous other examples of A&Es that are under very severe pressure nowadays that manage to cope. The European health insurance card is precious to so many British people and has reciprocal effects for those coming here and using our facilities. The idea that it would be in any way dented at the margin because of this foolish Brexit plan would be intolerable for many members of the public.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for missing the last two minutes of her speech because I had to take an urgent phone call. I shared the pleasure of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, at the fact that she has medical connections and connections with Hamburg. She is a great European spokesman and I thank her for what she did in the European Parliament. I know she has always been interested in the health service and therefore believes that these things matter.

Are we not lucky in this House to have the excellent Library briefing service? The document on health and welfare in the UK is outstanding, and I shall refer briefly to two items in it. I could mention its author but perhaps I should not in this parliamentary forum, because she is an official of the House; however, I thank her for the quality of the report. In the third paragraph on page four there is a reference to the December 2017 agreement that the Government reached with the EU negotiators:

“that EU citizens living in the UK before the UK withdrawal date of 29 March 2019 would have the right to remain and to apply for settled status after a period of five years. In a subsequent document, the Government proposed that EU citizens who arrived in the UK after the withdrawal date … but before the end of the subsequent transition or implementation phase should be allowed to enter the UK on the same terms as before the withdrawal date”.

I hope that will not change and that the Minister can confirm that that is the position, to reassure the many people who have been so worried about it that they have already left this country, having given good service and paid taxes as NHS workers, or in the care services in general.

Page six of the Library Note refers to the total budget. There is always the canard, the misleading reference to one of the richest countries in the EU, like Germany, France and now Italy, I believe, paying more into the EU budget—which is a very virtuous budget because it has no deficit and its receipts equal its payments—because it is wealthier than new countries coming in that need money to go to them. We now see, therefore, that an enormous amount of that money has to be deployed in the future in the health service in this country. The Government need to reassure us on this; I hope they will also have second thoughts and stop this nightmare happening at all.

Health and Social Care

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure we all feel enormous gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for introducing and leading this debate because she is one of the great experts in this House on the subject, particularly in covering doctors. I look forward to hearing from other expert voices, too, in this important debate and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, for his wise words on the problems and dilemmas facing the dentists. My remarks may be more general because of my lack of specific, detailed expertise in the various medical and social care fields being discussed. None the less, that in no way reduces the anxieties of lay observers of the scene, such as myself, over what will happen in the dilemma now facing our medical and social care services as a result of the decision made by the people in June.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, implied, as time goes on we seem in the Lords to have more and more debates on Brexit and its consequences on different sectors and in general terms. They are having them in the Commons as well, thank goodness, but ours may be more numerous. Next Thursday there will be another debate here about the agonising dilemmas of Brexit. We face a grotesque, difficult and almost unassailable situation with what happened at the end of June and the Government’s attempts—I feel sorry for the Minister, who is directly involved, and for the Prime Minister—to deal with these huge and sometimes insoluble dilemmas.

All the time, we are approaching that horrible date when Article 50 will launch the actual negotiations. This will be some time in March, according to the Government’s latest pronouncement. I have tabled a Question for 19 December asking whether they might kindly give an exact date by then, but maybe that will be too early. Until that date comes this is really a phoney war in one sense, but one of the greatest importance as the doubts and second thoughts begin to develop. They are at very early levels. I have tremendous respect for the people’s decision on 23 June—that is of course axiomatic for all right-thinking parliamentarians of both Houses—but there are indications that second thoughts and doubts are beginning to creep in.

I refer particularly to the excellent submissions we have had from the medical field in preparing for this debate. In the time available, I should like to quote from the briefing that the BMA sent us in some detail. Page 2 of that briefing says:

“It is important to acknowledge the contribution made by European migrants, including doctors, in delivering and sustaining public services, such as the NHS, care services, and our universities. Doctors from the EU have become essential members of the UK’s medial workforce and the NHS is dependent on them to provide a high quality, reliable and safe service to patients. These highly skilled professional have enhanced the UK health system over the years, improving the diversity of the profession to reflect a changing population, bringing great skill and expertise to the NHS and filling shortages in specialties which may otherwise have been unable to cope. We unreservedly condemn the xenophobic attacks by individuals who have taken the referendum result as a green light to attack the NHS staff who care for them”.

I wholeheartedly endorse that, as I think others will.

The dark forces unleashed by the elements in that decision which are not the general elements of a generous population in the British political system in normal times have to be taken into account as time goes on. It will not be easy. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who are experts in these fields, are on the Opposition Benches to guide us along these difficult paths. If NHS employees and professionals from the EU, the EEA and non-European areas are excluded from the results of negotiations which are not very successful after all, that would be a calamitous decision for this country in every way.

All the Ministers on the Government Front Bench are good listeners, but the noble Lord, Lord Prior, is one of the best. I am sure he will be kind enough to respond at the end of the debate if I ask him two direct questions. First, what guarantee will the Minister give that EU citizens currently working in the UK—there are 90,000 in social care alone—will have their right to live and work in the country maintained after the UK leaves the European Union? That applies, of course, to other people. Secondly, will the Minister make maintaining mutual recognition of medical and social care certificates a red-line issue for Brexit negotiations? Not much has been said so far, apart from some vague allusions to the subject and some hints here and there, in a very disconcerting and disorganised way, so we need that guidance.

Things are going to get worse as time goes on and as the public begin to manifest second thoughts, to which I have referred, about this whole, unhappy, nightmare business of trying to negotiate leaving the European Union. Most people in this country increasingly realise that we do not need to leave the European Union to maintain a figment of imagined sovereignty that probably last existed in this country and in other countries in about 1912. Even then, a few years later, British Armed Forces were under the control of a French commander-in-chief in the First World War.

So many letters and emails are now pouring in, grumbling about what happened at the end of June and asking what parliamentarians are going to do about it. I shall quote just one of them. I shall not give the name of the person who wrote it because I have not had time to contact him in order to do so. He writes: “We must assume that this is an irreversible notice, yet these are the issues. Sixty-three per cent of the electorate did not chose to leave the EU in the referendum. This Government is proud of running the country, but it does it on the basis of 24% of the population, the lowest figure in the post-war period. In Europe, that cannot be other than a minority Government. Of the 37% who chose leave within the binary option available, how can we know that they intended a hard Brexit? Even the top leave campaigners have rejected that possibility more and more rapidly from now on. I know it is difficult to believe this, but even Nigel Farage has admitted that he knew that the referendum was and is advisory only. Finally, Brexit campaigners have created a dangerously toxic EU debate where facts do not matter”.

That is just one example of the letters and emails that are beginning to pour in. I believe that the national petition has now been signed by well over 4 million people and that number will grow as time goes on. There may be plenty of time for these negotiations, but if they get plenty of time for sensible decisions to save this country in the future, I for one—not only for medical and social care reasons—will be deeply grateful.

NHS: Cancer Patients

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, considerable research is going on into precisely the area that the noble Lord refers to. He talked about prevention, which is a hugely important area. Early awareness is also very important. We are running these Be Cancer Aware campaigns; at the moment there is a campaign going on around lung cancer to get early detection. I will investigate further and see what we are doing to investigate the root causes of cancer—whether there is any link to pesticides, for example.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

Further to the opposition spokesman’s comments, will the Minister confirm that in terms of prevention, treatment and cure, we are well behind the coefficients of most other advanced countries?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

There are lies, damned lies and cancer statistics. It is extremely difficult to make comparisons on survival rates with other countries. There is evidence that we are behind the best in Europe on five-year survival rates. There is also considerable evidence that we are making good progress—but, of course, other countries are making good progress at the same time. If we implement the cancer task force recommendations, it is estimated that we will save an extra 30,000 people’s lives per annum. We have a very ambitious programme to improve cancer outcomes, but I accept that we are starting from some way back from the best performance in Europe.

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital: Redevelopment

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Dykes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and honour to follow the former Secretary of State, whose analysis I agree with entirely. It is good to focus on these issues again. The analysis given by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, who we thank for initiating the debate, was exactly spot on about the problems facing a hospital that I thought would be redeveloped and modernised years ago. I remember the speeches I made on this—one from 1984 was referred to, but there were many others after that. I had the great honour of being a member of the board of governors in the old days of the teaching hospital. Subsequently, I was chairman of the save the hospital action committee when there was a threat of closure in the 1980s. I had the pleasure of being president of the league of friends for many years.

When I first went to the hospital in 1972, I immediately fell in love with the place. Its history is magical, given what it achieved in the war, what it did for brave airmen and other service men and women who were injured—incredibly hideously sometimes—and its work of repair. Subsequently, in inadequate buildings, the amazing achievements of this hospital have been really stunning. I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was able to make his tribute to its work as well as to offer his analysis about the facts and figures. I remember exchanging correspondence with him when Margaret Tebbit went there for the first time. I was so glad about the treatment she received after that horrific incident. The noble Lord has been a good champion of the hospital ever since.

It really is now time. The analysis has gone on for so long. When I was defeated in the 1997 election, I never believed that it would take so long for this to get going. There is no reason for any further delay. The amounts of money are minuscule and modest. I also rather share the apprehension of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, about the amount of money to be realised by property sales. In that area, where property values are stupendous, if it is a free market syndrome—presumably it will be in the final analysis when the transaction is completed—then it should be done on a much higher basis. Maybe that can be looked at again, although I am not in any way criticising the present management team because it has dealt with this for a long time and knows all the ins and outs.

However, there is now no excuse or reason for any further significant delay. This is a magical specialist hospital with a wonderful history. It has a future that will be even greater. We are also getting to grips with new technology and new invention possibilities, particularly in spinal injury cases. An exciting scenario is opening up with the recent developments that have been announced in many parts of the world, including, of course, in the United States. That, too, is an opportunity for this hospital to shine again as it has done over so many years.

There is a lot of local loyalty. It is interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said that there is no campaign against redevelopment, which there often would be if suddenly there was going to be an urban sprawl created around a hospital. Not a bit of it: there is a lot of local geographical loyalty and a history of support in the London Borough of Harrow as well. This hospital needs to remain separate but specialist, with modern buildings and new facilities, to build on patient care, especially that of physically injured children, which is a very important area.

I conclude by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for this debate and repeat the sagacious advice of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, to the Minister to get on with it please.

Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the amendment. It will further emphasise that, in order to be lawful, medical innovation must be responsible. The criterion of responsibility has been the essence of the law on this subject since the judgment of Mr Justice McNair in the Bolam case in 1957, when he said that a doctor,

“is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art”.

That may provide some reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, that the courts will easily understand what is involved in the amendment.

The amendment will reassure many of those concerned about patient safety. The words will further confirm what I understood to be the Minister’s statement in Committee that the Bill is not intended to alter the substance of the Bolam test but to provide a practical means by which innovative doctors can take steps in advance of carrying out the treatment.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Winston, I am less confident than the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, that this Bill will have much, if any, beneficial effect. I am doubtful that the fear of litigation deters responsible innovation, but I have been reassured by the amendments that the Bill will certainly do no harm. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, for the responsible manner in which he has responded to concerns about the Bill by welcoming amendments of this sort. I also thank Mr Daniel Greenberg, a former parliamentary draftsman, now an expert consultant, for the assistance that he has provided to many noble Lords, including myself, on the issues raised.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

I hope my memory is not at fault when I recall that I have attended all the previous stages of this Bill but deliberately not spoken because I preferred as a lay man to listen to what the medical experts were saying. We have had considerable testimony from them in the previous stages which has helped us make progress. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, again. I know it has been done before but it is important to record our thanks for his introduction of this extremely interesting legislation, which will be very useful and important to humanity in the future—although it is difficult at this early stage to tell exactly how it will develop and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is right in expressing certain reservations about it.

We all have experience of the sufferings of friends and families in cancer cases and the Bill, not only in a moving way but in a scientifically respectable way, makes progress in widening the ability of medical experts, operating under the strict safeguards that have been agreed in the previous stages, to make sure that people can be helped more than the already marvellous help that doctors give within the existing framework. I am glad to support the amendment.

Health: Clinical Commissioning Groups

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, CCGs will be statutory bodies and so the answer is yes.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, will the Minister reassure the House that the nationality rule will be maintained to make sure that British people are on the boards and that American advisers do not get too heavily involved?

[Earl Howe]

As my noble friend may remember from our debates on the Health and Social Care Bill, we have undertaken to ensure that no member of a commissioning support organisation may also be a member of the governing body of a CCG. Having said which, it is important that CCGs have the freedom to take advice on back-office functions and other matters that will assist them in their clinical decisions.

EUC Report: Healthcare Professionals

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, from these Benches, I thank most warmly the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, and her sub-committee’s members for this excellent report in what is an incredibly complicated area. A good deal of thought has gone into its construction. I think that the evidence taken from a large number of very impressive people helped the sub-committee’s deliberations. It is good also to see, as usual, the chairman of the European Union Select Committee in his place listening to this debate.

As noble Lords have said, what is striking about the report is that it is not just to be put on a shelf and then forgotten; this is a matter of crucial importance where the report has breathed life into the Government’s own deliberations and conclusions, some of which I am sure we will hear from the Minister today. We will then await the European directive.

I also thank from these Benches the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, for his comments, partly because of his very close connections with and experience of the medical profession and well known hospitals. He has acquired great knowledge over many years. I hope that we can perhaps use instead of “single market dogma” the more congenial “single market objective”, because that is a legitimate objective of the European Union—indeed, it is set down in European Union law and applies to us as well because we obey European Union law, I hope, in all respects. When all the complexities have been ironed out, the mobility of healthcare professionals will be an important part of the growing single market not only in the European Union but in the EEA as well. Therefore, we await the terms and contents of the directive.

I commend the way in which the Commission has very patiently and carefully conducted its hearings and produced its Green Paper. It has consulted and listened to all sorts of advice in a way that happens more often in Brussels than in member states, where Governments sometimes legislate too quickly depending on the individual characteristics of the parliamentary system that they enjoy or suffer from, as the case may be.

This process will lead to a directive and member states will then bring in their own national legislation. That will be the crucial moment for HMG to implant into it those important requirements that we have heard about at the beginning of this debate and the primary considerations of the committee as described by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey.

I again thank the chairman of the European Union Select Committee. I think that it is now in order to quote a letter from him to the members of the committee because it is in the public and parliamentary domain. The last but one paragraph of his letter of 16 March, referring to the report from the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, states:

“The Committee considered that to ensure that professionals’ qualifications and skills were adequate and reflected modern practice, the training requirements of the Directive needed updating”.

That will surely be one of the most important components of the directive that we await. The letter continues:

“The Committee proposed that mandatory use of the Internal Market Information System by competent authorities in Member States to exchange information about healthcare professionals would be simpler and more cost-effective than the European professional card”.

From these Benches, I agree with that very much indeed. In the longer-term future there may be a European-wide single market healthcare professional electronic identity card that can be used, but that is further down the track.

Public confidence is important, not only in this country. There are individual medical stories in the dramatic press in other member states too about things that go wrong with a doctor, healthcare professional or nurse practitioner where something tragic happens—or if someone suffers prolonged illness rather than the tragedy of death. Those people have come with inadequate language qualifications, or other details of their training were substandard, and therefore they were not able to perform as the public would want.

But there are very small numbers of those cases. The press with its lurid headlines is bound to highlight them. In this case it does a good service. We often grumble about the press and its dramatic headlines, but in this case it is good to make sure that patients’ safety is the real priority. But it is a small number, so we should not go too far down the other path. That is something to which we are prone in this country, with our excessively nationalistic press: saying that in all respects British standards are higher and better than in other member states, including large member states in the European Union where more and more now the standards are getting very similar. There is a high level of quality and of protection. It is easy and tempting to go down that path, but it is a flawed path and misleading and one that I think the Government would be wise to discourage as much as possible and explain the realities behind these matters.

We wish the report well. We look forward to the final judgment of the Commission, the publication of the proposed new European directive and the Government's conclusions pro tem today. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for coming here only three days after the end of his herculean efforts on the Health and Social Care Bill to deal with this important matter. We thank him for that and support the conclusions that he may lead us to this afternoon.

EU: Economy

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what conclusions they have reached from the discussions of European Union Finance Ministers in Luxembourg on 4 October concerning the case for member states to work together to solve their current economic problems.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, the Government support the euro area’s commitment to ensure financial stability of the euro area. A comprehensive and sustainable solution is urgently needed and is in the UK’s interest. This can be achieved only by the euro area working closely together. The Government also recognise the urgent need to boost growth across the EU and are pushing completion of the single market, promotion of trade, reduction in regulation and greater innovation.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and the whole Government for having shown steady and firm solidarity with our eurozone partner countries and for their strenuous efforts to solve current financial and economic problems. Does he agree that such a firm stance must be maintained to stop deep market panic despite the monumental shock of the Greek referendum decision?

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to my noble friend for recognising the constructive role which the UK Government have played in pushing forward the many strands of important discussion in the EU at the moment. I indeed agree that the agreement signed last week has to be delivered by all member states, including Greece. We will be working hard to play our part to that end.