Covid-19: Obesity

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I defer to the noble Lord’s expertise and authority in speaking on behalf of those who live in deprivation. He is a valued spokesman for people in such conditions. However, on his analysis, I do not think that poor people cannot lead healthy and fit lives. I do not believe that they cannot make the right decisions for their futures. I have the utmost respect for those who live in poverty; it is for us to give them the inspiration and knowledge that they need to make the right decisions.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now move to the fourth Oral Question.

Care Homes: Guidance

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I completely sympathise with the noble Baroness’s point. She is right: this puts huge pressure on residents and their families. I am heartfelt when I say that I completely agree with her that this has an impact on the mental health and well-being of residents. However, their health, their safety and their actual lives take priority, I am afraid. We are at a moment where, even with the rollout of the vaccine, there is still a high infection rate in the country. If the virus gets into a home it has a potentially devasting effect, spreading very quickly within the confined spaces of the home among people who, typically, are highly vulnerable. That is why we have to put in place these serious protocols. This is done with huge regret and we review it constantly. It is my sincere hope that we can lift these protocols as soon as we possibly can, but until the day when the evidence is conclusive, we have to have them in place in order to protect lives.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and that brings Question Time to an end.

Folic Acid

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I accept the challenge from my noble friend, who articulates his point extremely well. I can see in front of me the timeline on this issue. I can only say that we are trying to approach this in a way that creates a durable, long-lasting solution that is endorsed by mill owners, paediatricians and all the relevant stakeholders. It takes time to build that sort of consensus but we totally recognise the importance of this issue—1,000 NTD deaths a year is far too many. I undertake to put pressure on the department to ensure that this issue makes progress as soon as possible.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

Covid-19: Vaccination Programme

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I do not have the precise figure to hand. Those in group 4 will include those with Down’s syndrome and other CEVs; those with severe or profound learning disabilities will be in group 6. As we know, group 4 has had an extremely high conversion rate and, although I do not think it is exactly 100%, it will be an astonishingly high amount and, if those figures are available, I should be glad to write to the noble Baroness with them.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, sadly, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

Food-related Crime

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord undoubtedly knows that, since January 2021, the FSA has been running a 12-month pilot of the new model of working with local authorities on trading standards in order to improve the work between the FSA and trading standards to address any gaps there may be in that collaboration. On the noble Lord’s question about honey fraud, I completely endorse his shock and outrage that the honey that we buy in the supermarket may be adulterated. It is sometimes said that there is 10 times the amount of manuka honey on sale than could ever be possibly made by the bees of New Zealand. There are challenges on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy allocations, as the noble Lord undoubtedly knows. We are working extremely hard with both Defra and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist to put pressure on international authorities to align the data needed in order to investigate honey more closely.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. That brings Question Time to an end.

Dentists: Covid-19

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that account of the Northern Ireland statistics, which tell a very similar story to those in other parts of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord is entirely right that those statistics tell a story of the massive challenge dentists face in order to increase the number of appointments per day. We are looking at a number of measures to try to improve that, including ventilation, which was referred to earlier by the noble Baroness. Testing is another option we are looking at. We are trying to put in place the kind of pre-appointment and point-of-care testing that can protect both the employees of dental practices and their patients. I hope that will help accelerate improvement in this area.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I regret that the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Covid-19: Over-75s

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, that is slightly beyond the reach of the Department of Health and Social Care, but I appreciate the noble Lord’s point.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed and we now come to the second Oral Question.

Osteoporosis: Treatment

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is prescient to raise this issue on a day like today, which is slippy and dangerous for those who may take a fall. He is entirely right that the early diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis are critical for those suffering bone fractures as well as for the system as a whole. The fracture liaison service can play a key role in reducing the risk of fractures in patients and to this end it has been promoted and recognised as best practice by NHS England. As part of the falls and fragility fracture audit programme the fracture liaison service database measures participation and standards in fracture liaison services.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bull.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, last year we launched a massive campaign, the Better Health campaign, to encourage healthier living with respect to both eating habits and fitness—I can report to the House that I have committed myself to that campaign and it is bearing some good fruit. We are spending hundreds of millions on marketing, we have engaged dieting services for those who wish to be involved in them, and we have mobilised a huge number of exercise regimes, including the park runs. These are bearing up well, but I encourage all those who wish to have a healthier life to do more.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Covid-19: Vaccination

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the testimony of the noble Lord, but I would probably put it slightly differently. Listen, we are in Act I, and I do not think it is quite the right moment to take curtain calls and bows just yet. The NHS has stepped up to this challenge absolutely magnificently, but there is still a huge amount to do and to get through. In addition to the praise that the noble Lord rightly gave the NHS, I also pay tribute to other parts of government, and particularly to the Army, local authorities and the private sector, which contributed the vaccine in the first place, all of which have worked together in a great spirit of collaboration. It is only through that spirit of collaboration that we have been able to deliver what we have.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed, and we now go back to the third Oral Question.

Covid-19: Variant

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The exchange of information between the scientific community has worked extremely well during this pandemic and epidemic, and I pay tribute to it for the open-hearted and transparent way in which it has exchanged data across political, cultural and national boundaries. In terms of transmission, the noble Viscount alludes to something that is very difficult to pin down. It is not clear what proportion of the disease is transmitted through the air and what proportion by touch and manual transmissibility. That is a very frustrating conundrum. The CMO guides us to believe that there is more transmissibility through the air than by touch, but it is absolutely essential that people keep their distance and wash their hands.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.