Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord—I very much agree with the thrust of what he has said—I actually did have a Clause 3 stand part notice, to which the noble Lord signed his name, so I think we did debate it. Our problem is that we want to debate it again, and when we come to the fifth group, we shall want to debate it again and again and again.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord wish to continue to discuss Clause 3 stand part?

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall

Report stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I have received a request to ask the Minister a short question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister a couple of quick questions. The first relates to the additional money she mentioned today and in Committee that is going to local authorities to help to implement the legislation. Given what the NAO has said this morning, is she confident that local authorities will actually spend the money in the areas in which the Government wish them to? Secondly, on the question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about the jeopardy that women-only spaces in refuges are coming under because of local authority commissioning policies, will the Minister remind those authorities of the need to implement fully the Equality Act 2010 and not try to reinterpret it?

Coronavirus Act 2020 (Expiry of Mental Health Provisions) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend and I congratulate him on a fine maiden speech. As he said, he brings to your Lordships’ House a wide range of experience in the trade union movement, service on the GLC and as chair of ILEA, where he was a forceful champion of comprehensive education. However, I rather think that his being the first actuary to enter the Lords for more than 50 years will cause the most challenge to your Lordships. He will discover that we float figures around the House like confetti to justify whatever position we happen to take. Happily, this usually goes unchallenged, yet with my noble friend in place I suspect that we will need to be on our mettle and to expect robust scrutiny in the future.

As my noble friend said, it has not been necessary to use the powers in the regulations and their removal is warmly welcomed. Although the regulations are concerned with the requirements under the Mental Health Act 1983, this debate inevitably raises wider issues in relation to mental health provision during the pandemic and beyond.

We know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on the country’s mental health and well-being. What is the Minister’s assessment of this and what measures are being taken to restore services and deal quickly with the backlog of patients? Does he agree with the assessment of Scientists for Labour that there has been a stark decline in the availability of services? Research by Mind from May 2020 reported that the restrictions on seeing people, being able to go outside and worries about the health of family and friends are the key factors driving poor mental health. The Centre for Mental Health predicts that at least half a million more people may experience a mental health problem as a result of the pandemic. Does the Minister agree?

As part of the lockdown in March, dramatic changes were made by NHS mental health services, including discharging patients from in-patient community services and moving to online provision. Has the impact of that been measured? Does he accept that eye contact often plays an important role in cognitive behaviour therapy? We need to reflect on that before assuming that services can always be online in the future. Will the Minister agree to publish a comprehensive plan to restore levels of service, including a thorough assessment of what changes in demand for services are arising from the pandemic?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has withdrawn from the debate and so I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th October 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Once we have heard from the noble Lord, I will try one more time to establish contact with the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. However, I have to tell the Committee that so far we have not been successful.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. Could he say a little more about the Government’s overall patient safety strategy? He is saying essentially that the Bill is confined to medicines and medical devices regulation, yet underlying the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is the fact that patient safety has not been gripped. In a sense, he has given a technical response. We will come to more specific amendments relating to, say, a patient safety commissioner, but at some point it would be interesting to get an insight into government thinking about patient safety more generally.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, before I call the next speaker, I should just inform the Committee that we now know that the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, is unwell, and will therefore be unable to take part in the remainder of today’s proceedings. In due course, no doubt, we will know who will take her place in subsequent groups. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Can I just follow the noble Lord, Lord Lansley? Clearly, we are going to continue teasing out “attractiveness”. I have no doubt that I want the UK to be attractive in terms of the development of medicines and medical devices, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was absolutely right when he paid testimony to the underlying strength of our medical innovation and discovery, and indeed the life science sector as a whole. I think one of the questions we are going to consistently talk about is that we do have a problem with the attitude of the National Health Service to those very medical innovations that take place in this country. As I will touch a bit on procurement, I should declare an interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association, because clearly it is involved in procurement decisions.

As I think was discussed in the first day of Committee, the ABPI has reported that for every 100 European patients who can access new medicines in the first year, just 15 UK patients have the same access. It is a major problem that we are so slow to take advantage of developments in new medicines and devices, both in our country and globally. We are seeing in the NHS essentially an unprecedented level of rationing, both locally and nationally. My own view is that NICE has developed into more of a rationer than it was ever intended to be. Locally, clinical commissioning groups are making almost perverse decisions, ranging from cutting out health promotion programmes to being very restrictive on some operations or, again, on access to innovative drugs.

Of course I understand that the drugs budget cannot be open-ended, and the NHS must achieve value for money. But the fact is that we are at great risk of losing our place at the top table when it comes to medicines and medical devices innovation, despite the excellence of the people we have, which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to. At the moment, I think we have developed around 14% of the top 100 global medicines, but 20 years ago it was 25%, and the risk, of course, is that we go lower and lower.

Similarly, in relation to access to devices, we have a very innovative devices sector, but again it is utterly frustrated by the NHS’s record in adopting innovation. Its suppliers are forced to battle against a fragmented marketplace—they lack a clear route to market—budget silos that impact on buyers’ ability to release savings directly, and a short-term focus on cash-releasing savings at the expense of longer-term benefits. As an example, I was approached by the Urology Trade Association, which represents the suppliers of the majority of urology projects to the NHS, which pointed out that, in normal times, urinary tract infections are the greatest single cause of unplanned hospital admissions, so it has a big impact on quality and duration of life and on use of NHS resources. If we were prepared to invest in improved devices, it could have a major benefit. But essentially, whatever the Government say about procurement and value-based procurement, they always go for the lowest price, and I am afraid that we often buy the lowest-quality products.

The ABHI has told me of one company in the dialysis sector which now sees the UK as a second or third-tier sector, due to the prices it commands here. I know that on the first day of Committee the noble Lord said he cannot talk about reimbursement; the problem is that Ministers will never talk about reimbursement. It is interesting that, in general, if we are increasing staff—the numbers of doctors and nurses—I think Ministers tend to proclaim that as a good thing. However, increased budgets in devices and medicines is a shock, because the whole philosophy of his department and the NHS is to hold down the budget.

The problem is that, essentially, we do not invest in the great things that are happening. It is naive to think otherwise. There are a lot of things we can do to encourage the kinds of things that are happening in Cambridge—through tax incentives, for example, and schemes for faster access—but they relate only to a few selected medicines and devices. Overall, we are at great risk. I am afraid that the NHS has to face up to some responsibility for that, both in terms of the industry, and in terms of patients. Why should we in this country have to wait so long for medicines that in other European countries are available much sooner? This is a major issue which we need to tackle.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Patel. Lord Patel? Oh dear, we are not having a great afternoon. If we cannot establish contact with the noble Lord I will move on to the next speaker. Lord Patel, are you with us?

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 19th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the two amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Thornton. I have also put my name to Amendment 22 from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—she is currently in the internal markets Bill Second Reading debate—which links this to a definition of attractiveness, and to Amendment 39 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which focuses on clinical trials for rare diseases and the importance of alignment with the European Medicines Agency.

At the end of this debate, I hope we will have a better idea of the Government’s approach to the regulation of medicines and medical devices. I do not want to repeat myself, but, as my noble friend said, the big question seems to be that at the moment the EMA covers 25% of global pharmaceutical sales and the UK on its own makes up 3%. We know that the NHS is a very poor customer in terms of adopting new medicines. The UK market is pretty hopeless for pharma. If we are not going to be aligned to the EMA, what will this mean for UK pharma in terms of future investment? My guess is that it will snap off that investment.

This is the big issue, which we do not yet understand. What is the Government’s aim? Is it the idea that a no-deal Brexit is a good thing and UK pharma will survive with a hopeless home market and all the problems of dealing with Europe? Countries will clearly not come to the UK first when they have the EMA next door, unless we offer fast-track licensing, which brings us back to patient safety, which is why the two link so much together.

I hope that this time the Minister will give us some idea of what the Government are aiming for. The same applies to medical devices, although there are some specific opportunities, because at the moment the MHRA has no involvement in the pre-market phase of medical device development. Is the intention that the UK develops a proactive regulatory role for devices that is more akin to the licensing of medicines? If so, what will be the implications for industry and patient safety? Clearly, there have been many issues about medical devices in the past which have not gone through such a robust regulatory regime. Is it the intention that the UK goes through a more extensive regime in the future under its own steam? What will the general implications be?

Again, we know that Covid-19 is having an impact on clinical trials, a significant number of which have been paused. It is my understanding that only 45% of studies are currently open to recruitment and only 36% of them have successfully recruited patients since 1 June. The ABHI has highlighted the need for a sustainable plan and aims to return clinical research to pre-pandemic levels by spring next year.

This is important because, despite the size and growth of the global market for clinical research, the UK’s share of clinical trial applications and patient recruits has fallen since 2016. The UK is now falling behind the US, Germany and Spain for phase 3 commercial clinical trials. What is to be done about that? What is the Government’s approach? Again, how does this relate to the future regulation of clinical trials?

I hope that the Government’s intention is to stimulate the UK’s clinical research environment, but part of that must be enabling multi-state UK-EU trials to continue. The idea that we can have multi-state trials that do not involve some agreement with the EU seems fanciful in the extreme. Again, at this stage, we are entitled to know from the Government exactly what they intend.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey.