Future of Health and Care

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that there are distinctive qualities to social care and medical care, but the lived experience of most patients and residents is that those living in social care are very often heavy consumers of the NHS. As far as most of them are concerned, the support and treatment they are given needs to be much more closely linked. For instance, it is a strange anomaly that many living in residential social care have a completely different budget and sometimes completely different staff providing their medical treatment and their care treatment. This is not a functional distinction that we are seeking to overturn; what we are seeking is to get those teams of people and the decisions made about the care of individuals working much more closely together. We are not seeking to introduce a revolution in the funding of social care, and the financing of social care by local authorities and private individuals will continue, but we would like to see the distinction between social care and NHS medical care become more seamless, more joined up and, therefore, more effective.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. The justification for any reorganisation of the health and care system must be to improve patient and population outcomes. The current system, which has been unable to deliver the benefits of integrated care, is heavily regulated on the basis of distinct institutional boundaries and care settings. How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to address the regulatory impediment to the successful delivery of integrated care as part of the proposed reorganisation?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is entirely right that the regulation of both clinical care and social care is critical and key not only to good performance by both sectors but to the way in which they work together. That is why we will look at the CQC and its role in social care regulation. We will seek to enhance the way in which the CQC can look deeply into social care to set higher standards and to ensure that, when it comes to integrated care, social care is stepping up to the challenge as best it can.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments dealing with consolidation. I regard it as very important that the legislation that controls medicines, medical devices and veterinary medicines is consolidated in a way that makes it possible for an interested person easily to achieve knowledge of the regulations. After all, when you think of how important medicine is—we have just had a considerable debate about its safety—it is important to make sure that those who administer and operate the system know the rules. If you do not know what the rules are, the chances are that you will be misled into thinking that you know when you do not know at all. Therefore, it is important to make sure that we do everything we can to lay before those who practise these arts the true rule that has been set down, and it should be possible for them to reach it without too much research into a number of statutory instruments.

We just need to think for a moment about the current virus regulations. I have had occasion to look at them from time to time, and it is quite difficult to follow what is required at a particular moment in England, Scotland or other parts of the United Kingdom. If that is the position in relation to the virus, it is obvious that the general position in relation to these sciences as a whole will be even more difficult. Therefore, I regard it as vital—indeed, as a fundamental duty of government—to ensure that the regulations on these important matters are clear and the rules accessible.

I am not very keen on the sunset clause because, if it operated without consolidation, we would be in a pretty difficult position. Therefore, I regard it as vital to require consolidation.

I am aware of the difficulty of consolidation. For a short time, I was the chairman of the committee on consolidation and, when it sat, it was extremely difficult to get a quorum because people did not find the exercise interesting. But unfortunately, although it might not be very interesting or novel, in the sense that you are not doing anything very new, it is absolutely vital to allow the system to work properly. So I regard it as important that that is put into the statute as an obligation. If we are allowing the Government to legislate in these important areas by statutory instrument —the criticism has been levelled that they are doing so too much—that should be replaced in a reasonable time. Three years is probably quite reasonable, but I am very willing to hear whatever is said about that. I regard it as very important that this is an obligation on the Government as a condition of getting away with this method of legislating quickly in this area.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in support of Amendments 29, 36 and 63 in the name of my noble friend Lord Patel, to which I have added my name, and broadly for the principles of the other amendments in this group. This is a critical area of public policy, as we have heard in this debate and in the excellent debates on these questions in Grand Committee. We have also heard that the regulations—the legislation attending medicines, medical devices and veterinary medicines, and their regulation in our country —have appeared on the statute book as a result of facilitations through the European Communities Act 1972. These represent in many ways a haphazard patchwork of regulation, created over time, with good intention, but obviously with the need to be consolidated and brought to a clear and precise place, as we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, in such a way that any party interested in this vital area, which impacts on the lives of every citizen, can do so with simplicity, understanding obligations, understanding their rights and protections and being able to act confidently with regard to the rule of law.

The current regulations represent a challenge, and as a result of our departure from the European Union, there remains much contemporary regulation, agreed at the European level, with specific reference to clinical trials and medical devices, that has yet to be incorporated into domestic legislation, once again representing an important challenge with regard to the framework within which we are to proceed.

The Government rightly have stated that patient safety is at the forefront of their thinking when it comes to regulations regarding medicines and medical devices. To bring clarity will improve safety and will also achieve the Government’s other stated objective of ensuring that our country can continue to lead globally in the life sciences. We have seen the benefits of that leadership during the Covid pandemic, in terms of innovation, the application at scale and pace of that innovation for the benefit of our citizens, and the sharing of that knowledge globally.

Therefore, it is difficult to understand why Her Majesty’s Government would reject the opportunity to commit to consolidating legislation so that simplified, clear, effective and intuitive regulatory regimes exist in our country and can deliver the objectives that we all agree upon. In Grand Committee, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, an interesting proposition that the Law Commission might be approached to support the task of consolidating legislation in this area of public policy. We have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that when he chaired a committee of consolidation there was little interest in dealing with some of the more demanding and exacting elements with the fastidious nature that is required to create effective consolidated primary legislation. Has the Minister had an opportunity to explore whether the Law Commission might be approached on the basis of the Law Commissions Act 1965, to determine whether it would be in a position to propose and engage with the consolidation of legislation regarding medicines, medical devices and veterinary medicines, as part of its forthcoming 14th programme under the obligations and opportunities afforded by the Law Commissions Act?

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Grand Committee

Finally, I am also concerned about equivalence. We heard much during our review about medical devices. These devices were able to claim equivalence to an existing product and thus gain, in effect, automatic authorisation without any approval process. The equivalence arrangement is rather like a chain reaction. If a second product successfully claims equivalence to the original product, it may well be slightly different in composition or intended for a somewhat different use, yet it gains the ability to be marketed for the same purposes as the first product. A third product then comes along and is somewhat similar to the second, so it gains equivalence status, yet its composition or intended use is further removed from that of the original authorised product. So it can go on, and the products claiming equivalence can bear little relation to the original product. This can give rise to serious safety concerns. With that in mind, I ask my noble friend the Minister: how do the Government intend to approach the matter of equivalence in the field of medical devices once the Bill is enacted? I have given him notice of my question.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 97 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Patel. In so doing, I of course recognise the important points the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, made. I will answer some of her questions in a moment.

The particular purpose of Amendment 97 is to extend the reach of Clause 16, which already gives powers to establish information systems for assessing

“the safety and performance … of medical devices that are placed on the market”,

to include provision for the establishment of an information system for the safety and performance of medical devices before they are placed on the market via a form of provisional licence. It would provide for the Secretary of State to require, under certain circumstances, that new devices would in the first instance be given a limited approval based on clinical evidence and clinical trials. However, it recognises that further information would be required and that a provisional licence, or formal marketing authorisation, would therefore be given only for information gathering purposes. This would ensure that the level of evidence provided prior to broad unfettered use of a device would be much greater than is currently available.

This approach is both important and practical. It is important, as we have seen in the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, because implanted devices can have serious, harmful effects for patients. Not all devices have the capacity to be harmful, but where there is concern, where there are limited data or where the argument is based on equivalence using the kinds of arguments that the noble Baroness has made, the introduction of a device into routine clinical practice would be limited by a provisional licence, with the need for careful, pre-specified monitoring and evaluation, both for efficacy and for safety. This will protect the patient. It will protect innovation and it will ensure that we continue to facilitate innovation but in a responsible way.

Arguments are made about the practicality of such an approach. During this debate, we have heard that there are differences between the standards required for the authorisation for marketing a medicinal product compared with a medical device. The reality is that medical devices have profound implications for the management of patients. Implantable devices, in particular, also have profound implications for patient safety. The approach is practical because successive Governments have emphasised and prioritised the ability of the National Health Service to collect data and to develop its digital capacity.

We have seen the benefit of these investments and this emphasis during the Covid-19 national research effort. The regulator working, for example, with NHS Digital could devise integrated data-acquisition platforms and clinical research methodologies, potentially applied in specialist clinical centres. Data might then be collected prospectively to a high level and a high quality on the devices selected for such a provisional licensing process. These devices would also be used under appropriate and informed clinical supervision by experts before widespread adoption across the entire health system was allowed.

Rather than stifling innovation, which is a concern, I believe such an approach would ensure that our country could secure a position of leadership in the increasingly important field of medical devices development. These are going to play an increasingly important role in the delivery of healthcare. We would provide a fully facilitated environment for the appropriate clinical evaluation of medical devices, both their efficacy and their safety. In much the same way that the establishment of NICE and the Scottish Medicines Consortium, of which my noble friend Lord Patel was a founding leader, helped establish our country at the forefront of the evaluation of medicine and the responsible adoption of innovative medicines, the proposals included in this group of amendments and the proposal for provisional licensing outlined in Amendment 97 would allow us to develop unique leadership in the development, evaluation and responsible advocacy for the use of medical devices in a way that is clearly not available currently.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, made an important point about devices that are designed for implantation in a patient and whose removal is dangerous or practically impossible. What must be demanded here is a much higher level of evaluation in development and research—she made the clear point that equivalence is not an appropriate approach in those or any circumstances. Moreover, offering the opportunity after appropriate clinical evaluation for such devices to be introduced in a limited fashion—still in routine clinical practice but with careful, pre-specified evaluation and monitoring—ensures, as she said, that if there are early reports of adverse events, those might be identified quickly prior to any opportunity for such devices to be provided across the entire healthcare system, where reporting on their implantation and follow-up may be less rigorous. In a provisional system, data acquisition and reporting would be pre-specified, using platforms provided by the regulator and the NHS. With the remarkable capacity we now have for data acquisition and analysis in the NHS, such methodologies, applied in a routine fashion in appropriate circumstances, would provide the greatest opportunity to protect patient safety while driving forward innovation and making use of all the opportunities that the NHS provides in this regard.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow that excellent exposition of his and other amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar. I want particularly to speak in support of amendments aimed at putting post-marketing reporting requirements for medical devices on a par with those for medicines.

My noble friend Lady Cumberlege has again given a powerful and moving testimony of the reports that she uncovered in her review of the dangers for some patients of pelvic mesh, but severe problems have emerged in other medical devices, be that metal-on-metal hip replacements, PIP breast implants or elsewhere. They have shown how potentially dangerous medical devices, particularly, as other noble Lords have pointed out, those implanted into body tissue, are simply not regulated enough.

The regulatory regime for licensing medical devices distinguishes between different categories of risk. Higher-risk devices of course have to clear a higher bar, and the UK’s notified bodies are renowned for taking on such work—prior to Brexit, they carried out more higher-risk assessments than any other notified body in the EMA family. We therefore have potential strength in this area. However, these tragedies demonstrate that even this strong regulatory regime does not go far enough. We need a broader definition of risk which takes account of the nature of the device, the therapeutic ways in which it can be used and the places in a patient in which it can be put, as well as much better post-market surveillance and wider use of registries, including coverage of the independent sector, which is where some of the most acute problems arose.

It goes without saying that these are recommendations from my noble friend Lady Cumberlege’s report. Like other noble Lords, I strongly urge my noble friend the Minister and the Government more broadly to adopt them and reduce the unacceptable gap between the safety regimes for medicines and medical devices.

Having expressed my concerns the other day about access to experimental medicines, I applaud the intention behind the idea of provisional two-year licences, but we obviously have a job of work to do to reconcile these two sometimes competing imperatives—the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, explained how he thinks that can be achieved. It may be stealing the thunder of a future group of amendments that we hope to deal with tonight, but I wonder whether a better answer would be the expansion promised in the Conservative manifesto of the Cancer Drugs Fund into an innovative medicines fund more broadly, as well as continuing and early access to compassionate-use schemes for medicines post Brexit.

Both the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Kakkar, raised the idea of these conditional licences being applied to devices, and my noble friend Lady Cumberlege mentioned safety concerns which might apply. I wonder whether the right approach would be to open the innovative medicines fund up to devices, digital and diagnostics. It would mean a name change, but that presumably would not be a problem. They could then qualify as well as medicines, so the kind of early access possible under these two-year conditional licences could take place in that specific, heavily monitored and controlled environment that has already demonstrated huge value when looking at transformative cancer drugs before they have achieved their full licence. Within these ideas is the right approach to balancing these two risks, and in fact merging them and getting something stronger as a result. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to move forward on these issues.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

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

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly support Amendment 74 and similar amendments in this group. Nothing is more important than safety in all medicines and medical devices. First Do No Harm, the excellent report by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, highlights that patients should be listened to. They are the people taking medicines and using medical devices. In the last few months, coronavirus has cast a shadow over other needs, but safety is paramount for everyone. Masks and all PPE are in demand worldwide. Has the UK got an ongoing adequate supply?

The correct dressings for patients with wounds is an important safety issue. There is a lack of tissue viability nurses to give expert advice in rural areas. If NHS trusts and CCGs had joint working in local areas, this would increase capacity and save resources. If the correct treatment is not given, there can be long-term problems.

Patient safety will be improved if patient experience is listened to. Patient groups, academic researchers and medical research charities should work together to find the best solutions. Some of the technologies for blind people and people with speech problems are amazing. It is essential for the safety of patients that all staff and patients using medical devices should be trained in their use. A medical device turned off when it should be on can cause a disaster; the wrong substance in a drip can be fatal; and not listening to patients or their families about allergic reactions to medication, with doctors ignoring this information and prescribing the wrong medicine, can be a serious safety issue.

I hope that the Minister agrees that safety in everything should be paramount and should be the overriding consideration of this Bill. I hope that the Minister will do his very best to help with this matter.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to support Amendments 10, 12, 74 and 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and in so doing recognise the very powerful and thoughtful interventions by many noble Lords on this group.

It is clear that there is really no dispute in recognising that safety, availability and attractiveness are all important elements in securing, promoting and safeguarding public health. The question simply is whether safety should be given priority. The report of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, is clear in having identified, in a number of specific instances, why the system failed because safety was not at the forefront of the obligation and, in particular, the regulatory obligation.

The question is how best to ensure safety going forwards when as a country we have the opportunity to establish a new regulatory environment for medicines, medical devices and veterinary medical products. The four amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and other noble Lords provide the opportunity to explore the Government’s thinking in this regard.

Why would Her Majesty’s Government not prioritise safety over the other two important objectives? The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, in his thoughtful intervention, has suggested that there may be potential for patients to be denied experimental or targeted interventions as the result of inadvertent limitation by way of the regulatory regimen. At present, of course, we have the capacity to intervene with such medicinal products to ensure that, where it is appropriate, sensible and in the interests of the individual patient, interventions can be provided with less extensive clinical evaluation. However, as a general rule, for the entirety of the population where there is broad and relatively unfettered prescription, surely it is right that fellow citizens should expect that interventions—medicinal or medical devices—that are available to their clinicians for a prescription in their individual cases are, first and foremost, safe.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

We seem to have lost the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

Or is it that in some way—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

Lord Kakkar, please keep going. We lost you for a minute.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

Is the Minister able to indicate why there might be anxiety about giving priority to safety? Is it because methodology by way of clinical trials evaluation is not sufficiently well developed to make that a statutory principle for the availability of medicinal products or medical devices? Is it that there might be some basis for legal challenge that would make this ill-advised? If not, it appears that putting safety at the forefront is in the interests of patients, our healthcare system, clinicians and the standing of our country as a place to lead in the development of the life sciences.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, to which I have very much appreciated listening. I want to talk about Amendments 10, 12, 74 and 75, in the name of my noble friend Lady Cumberlege, on which I think I very much follow and share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar.

We are all agreed about what we are trying to achieve at this stage; the issue is how we go about putting it into effect in this Bill. My first point is on patient safety. In the excellent report of my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and her colleagues, what I read is the imperative to minimise harm and to stop avoidable harm. It is clear in the report that stopping avoidable harm is what is being sought and I am assuming that that is what is meant by the proposition that we must make patient safety a prime consideration. In my view, we are all agreed that patient safety is a consideration above those of availability of medicines and the attractiveness of the United Kingdom as a place for life sciences. I do not object to that; I think that that must be true. Indeed, as a number of noble Lords have said, the achievement of a regulatory regime that properly prioritises the safety of patients is absolutely right.

However, when we think about how we translate that into law, we have to look at all the considerations for a medicines regulator. Let me take two angles on that. First, what do my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and her colleagues expect the MHRA to do? In their report, they say that they expect the MHRA to engage with patients and understand better patient-reported outcomes and patient-reported experiences in order better to be able to assess the benefits and risks of the medicines that it regulates—I emphasise “benefits and risks”, not just risks. In that sense, I want the legislation to tell the MHRA that that is indeed what it should be doing.

Secondly, we start with the medicines regulations that we have from the European Union. To some extent, as noble Lords will have gathered from my incorporation of the phrase “safeguard public health” into Amendment 5, which we debated last week, I think that that proposition enables that consideration by the regulator to be incorporated into its operations. It should be there. Otherwise, how can safeguarding public health be demonstrated if one is not properly assessing both the benefits and risks of new medicines?

Indeed, one of the early paragraphs of EU directive 2001/83/EC on medicines for human use says:

“The concepts of harmfulness and therapeutic efficacy can only be examined in relation to each other”.


The end of the paragraph says that applications for marketing authorisation for a medicinal product must

“demonstrate that potential risks are outweighed by the therapeutic efficacy of the product.”

For this reason I wanted to incorporate safety and therapeutic efficacy in an early draft of my Amendment 5, since both are essential. It is correct to prioritise safety over availability, attractiveness or other considerations, but to attach to patient safety the proposition that it is an overriding consideration seems wrong. It is not an overriding consideration; it is an essential one, alongside the therapeutic efficacy of the current or new intervention being examined, whether a device or medicine.

That is not reflected in the amendment’s language at this stage, entirely due to where we are in Committee: we should understand that and decide how to capture that thought. It might be that we have done it already by capturing the proposition of safeguarding public health—in my view we have. However, we should make safety not an overriding consideration but a primary consideration for the medicines regulator. That is a difference. Perhaps my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and the Minister might like to think hard about how we might reflect that.

Finally, I think Hippocrates would agree. “Do no harm” is of course not in the Hippocratic oath, but it derives from Of the Epidemics, in which he wrote,

“have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.”

The two must be together. The medicines regulatory system must ensure that we can do good through better outcomes for our medicines and devices, but also do no harm.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

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 have added my name to Amendments 1 and 140 tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Thornton. As we are at the start of the Committee stage, perhaps I may remind the House of my membership of the board of the General Medical Council and my role as president of GS1 and the Health Care Supply Association.

I agree with my noble friend Lady Thornton about the clash between the first day of the Committee stage of this Bill and the Second Reading of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill in the main Chamber. Today we are dealing with some of the most important debates in the whole Bill and when we come back on Report there will be a need to give more time to allow those people who could not be present today to make a full contribution to these debates. I hope that the usual channels will take that away. I am not quite sure about the procedure in these unusual circumstances, but in normal times I would have asked that the Committee stage procedure be used for these introductory debates on Report in order to allow for interventions. However, since interventions are now limited, that may not run well, although I think that noble Lords will understand what I am getting at.

This is an important Bill on patient safety and the health of our life sciences sector. It is striking in its brevity and in the extensive powers to be given to Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, has spelled out the wide range of delegated powers contained in the Bill, while a pungent analysis by my local university, the University of Birmingham, points out that, while delegated powers may be needed to ensure responsiveness in the EU exit transition period and to meet the challenges of technological change, they should not be used indefinitely or relied on to implement matters of policy. I am not going to repeat what the Delegated Powers Committee or the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution have said, but it is rare for two Select Committees to comment at the same time and in such a critical way about the skeletal nature of a Bill. It is to be hoped that the Government will listen carefully to what is being said.

At Second Reading, the Minister suggested that the sunset clause as proposed by my noble friend would emasculate legislation

“meant to give regulators the powers to be effective and to future-proof medical regulation in a fast-changing industry for many years to come. We must understand the impact on an industry that needs regulatory certainty or else, as many noble Lords have noted, will move elsewhere.”—[Official Report, 2/9/20; col. 433.]

I have to say to the Minister that most of the regulatory uncertainty has been caused by the Government’s failure to be clear about what regulatory regime they want for medicines and medical devices. They have now had four years to think about this and we are still nowhere near knowing what regulatory system they want to put in place. Are they going to go for alignment with the European Medicines Agency or do they want to strike out on their own? Do they want to ally with the US FDA? What on earth are the Government’s aims? The industry is at risk because of this huge uncertainty. The idea that we should allow the Government willy-nilly to get this Bill through and make whatever changes they want without the House treating it as primary legislation simply will not wash. I am absolutely convinced that the long-term regulatory system must be subject to detailed primary legislation. As far as I can see, the amendment to bring in a sunset clause is probably the most appropriate vehicle to ensure that that happens.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, in contributing to the first day in Committee on this Bill, I draw the attention of noble Lords to my registered interests, in particular to those as a professor of surgery at University College London and as the chairman of UCLPartners.

I support Amendments 50, 67 and 115 tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Patel, to which I have added my name. The point has been well made by my noble friend that the ecosystem for the delivery of healthcare in our country and therefore the use of medicinal products, medical devices and veterinary medicines is a complex one that is attended by substantial legislation, much of which has been brought into force as a result of the European Communities Act 1972. It is therefore absolutely right, to echo a point made previously by the Minister, that there is a need for this Bill to ensure that such regulation can continue, so that we can continue to have a safe and effective healthcare system and take advantage of the essential requirement to avail ourselves of medicinal products and medical devices.

There is surely also an absolute obligation to ensure that regulation should avoid adding to the complexity that already exists. For those who have to labour under these regulations and ensure that they can present innovation and advances to benefit our fellow citizens within the context of the regulations, we should always be working to simplify them.

In this regard, we are all conscious of the fact that many different types of regulations touch on the healthcare system. There are those that pertain to ethics, and those that deal with the function and delivery of ethics committees and the evaluation of intervention at a local and national level. We have regulations that deal with the adoption and evaluation of innovation within the context of the MHRA, and with the evaluation of intervention and innovation pertaining to NICE. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the medical device regulations enacted in 2002, which codify and implement various EU directives in this matter, and the substantial amendment attending medical device regulations in terms of the legislation passed as part of EU exit regulations in 2019.

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[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 5, which would insert the words

“objective of safeguarding public health by promoting the availability and supply of human medicines”.

While the purpose of the Bill is to bring some sort of order out of the chaos of Brexit, it is vital that we put those words up front. In the first words on page 1, before Clause 1, the purpose of the Bill is described as

“the protection of health and safety, in relation to medical devices”.

Why does it not say, “in relation to medicines and medical devices”? That is why we need Amendment 5.

Government Amendments 2 and 7 are weak, in my view. For example, the words “promote health and safety” in Amendment 2 and “considering whether they would” in Amendments 7 and 72 are well meaning and better than the original but, I dare to say, legally useless.

The word “promote” also appears in government Amendment 68. In contrast, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, use the much stronger word “safeguard” in their Amendment 70, which I support. I also support their probing amendment for clarification in Amendment 76 that therapeutic practice is also included. I will be interested to hear whether the Minister can explain whether this is needed or, perhaps, not.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendments 5 and 70 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I seek further clarification on the Government’s purpose regarding the amendments proposed by the Minister.

First, what is the rationale for moving away from the current basis on which regulations in this regard exist, which states the purpose of safeguarding public health? Why do the Government not think that appropriate as the basis for legislation for medicines and medical devices? It has been the basis on which regulations have previously existed in domestic legislation and it seems counterintuitive to move away from that purpose, as so clearly explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

Secondly, there is this question of whether there should be an objective or a subjective test attending the purpose of legislation, all parties having agreed that it is of benefit to move away from simply having a power to clearly defining a purpose. There has been considerable debate and discussion about what is considered the frequent use of judicial review now and how in some way it undermines the position of Parliament and is less than helpful more generally in our country. It seems therefore intuitive for a Government who have concerns about what is sometimes considered excessive use of judicial review to try to provide legislation that would make it less necessary and less frequently turned to.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, made the point that clarity is essential. Surely an element of clarity would be to have in place an objective test—to safeguard public health—rather than, as currently, merely being “satisfied”. The need that the Secretary of State can make regulations if he is satisfied, as we have heard in this debate, is much more subjective and therefore must be open to much more frequent challenge.

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have only just learned that if we do not pass the government amendments in this group, we put at risk the required legislative consent order for Northern Ireland. I had intended to oppose Amendments 2, 7 and 14; I did not understand why Amendment 2 was necessary or had any real force or meaning—in any case, I much preferred Amendment 5 —and Amendment 7 seemed downright confusing, since its net effect is to impose an obligation on the Minister to have regard to certain things when considering making regulations but no obligation to consider the specified things when actually making these regulations.

I have spoken to the Minister and will now not oppose the government amendments. However, I feel that we have been bounced. I first realised the Government’s intention to move when I read today’s Chair’s guidance and I understood that there was a Northern Ireland problem when I was given, about 40 minutes ago, a copy of the note from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, from yesterday. We were not copied in on that note. I strongly feel that this is all very unsatisfactory.

The Minister has not really answered the question that I asked him in our impromptu interval of why we need to rush. Could he explain why delaying the start of the legislative consent order process until Report would be a problem? It is still not clear to me. I trust the Minister’s assessment but I do not understand how he arrived at it. In his note to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, he says, for example, that the delay would mean that we could not meet some unspecified timing objective but he prays in aid the notion that the minimum interval between Committee and Report is a contributing factor. We can change that interval; we could choose. Could the Minister explain again why it is necessary to do this today?

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[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to which I have added my name. Important arguments have been made with regard to the need to ensure that we can move away from the clinical trials directive which is currently the basis for such legislation in our country, and to adopt the clinical trials regulation to which our regulatory authorities have made such an important contribution over recent years.

On previous occasions Her Majesty’s Government, with specific regard to the 2018 EU withdrawal agreement Bill and the 2018 Trade Bill, made clear commitments that we should implement the clinical trials regulation in full as part of a negotiated agreement incorporating its legislative and non-legislative provisions; or, in the event that no agreement can be reached, that an element of the regulation would be adopted to the greatest extent possible on a unilateral basis in domestic legislation. We have received further reassurances in terms of the withdrawal agreement Act that the Government would give priority to taking the necessary steps to bring into UK law without delay all the relevant parts of the EU clinical trials regulation that were within the control of the United Kingdom. With regard to the Trade Bill, in September 2018, the House was reassured in the strongest possible terms by Her Majesty’s Government that a commitment was being made to implementing the regulation. However, when the Bill before us was considered in the other place, no such commitment was made and therefore, this probing amendment is vital.

I know that arguments have been made that not all the elements of the regulation are within the power of Her Majesty’s Government to implement, but as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, there is the opportunity to deal with the clinical trials portal and information system in a different way and to design, as other amendments propose, a system that might be agreeable. Arguments have also been made that the clinical trials regulation itself, although a substantial improvement on the current directive, is not perfect, and that the GCP and ICH guidance to which the clinical trials regulation makes reference need themselves to be advanced. Work is being undertaken in that regard.

The European clinical trials regulation provides for referring to guidance on the operational delivery of clinical trials or other guidance, so that should not be seen as an impediment. The real concern here is that while, unfortunately, impediments and hurdles to the adoption of the clinical trials regulation may be identified, that would be the wrong thing to do. The regulation is important. The current clinical research legislation under which we labour in our country is not ideal, which is why we have this regulation. On many occasions, Her Majesty’s Government have committed to the adoption of the regulation, so can the Minister indicate why the opportunity provided by this Bill should not be taken to fulfil those undertakings and thus provide us with the greatest possible certainty regarding the conduct of clinical research in our country? This is vitally important to patients, to the economy and to sustaining a viable life sciences ecosystem.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 38, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which I have added my name. I shall also speak to Amendment 39. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has already spoken, for lending his support. I have listened carefully, and I support what has been said about the issues raised, particularly about whether we remain aligned with the EU trials mechanism or whether we are to be part of that mechanism.

During the EU withdrawal debate this issue was discussed at length. In fact, there was an earlier opportunity for the amendment to be put—as noble Lords may remember, it was widely supported—but I withdrew it, because the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, said that at an appropriate time, when legislation was brought in, the Government would address the issue. By that I supposed he meant that they would address the issue of remaining part of the EU clinical trials regime—but this Bill does not do that.

What options are available to the United Kingdom? One of them, of course, is to remain and participate in the EU clinical trials regime, if that is possible. An alternative is silent participation, as in the EEA model. That would mean that we could not vote, we could not lead projects and we could not raise objections. The third option is to be independent and aligned. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to that, and I agree with him that the important part of the EU clinical trials regime is its portal—a portal that the UK played a major part in developing—through which companies can apply for clinical trials.

The fourth option is to be independent and divergent: the UK would create a new clinical trials system. There is no time to do that by the end of 2020, but over time the UK could create a new system and build alliances. However, the risks need to be clearly understood, and balanced. Where will the companies go? Will they go where they have a bigger market, and a bigger opportunity, with larger numbers of patients for the trials, or will they conduct their trials in the United Kingdom?

There might be novel ways to approach this, and I understand that the MRHA is discussing and trying to develop a novel way of conducting clinical trials, which might be more attractive to companies. But of course, as we do not know what those are and we are not being told what they are, we cannot comment on them.

Currently, what looks like the best option is to be part of the EU clinical trials mechanism. With clinical trials for rare diseases, it is even more important for the UK to remain aligned with, or to be part of, the EU processes for rare diseases in relation to trials, to the data that will be available, and to medicines—for example, treatments developed for muscular dystrophy and metabolic disorders.

About 3.5 million people in the UK suffer at some point from one of the 7,000 or so rare diseases. The number for which treatment is available is small; hence the great need for collaborative research, data collection and the development of medicines, because a larger population is needed for clinical trials. Companies such as Silence Therapeutics, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned, use gene silencing technologies for developing novel therapies for rare diseases. Others, such as Sarepta, use gene therapy for developing medicines. Companies such as Gilead Sciences are developing CAR T therapy; it was the first to introduce CAR T therapy for cancers in the United Kingdom. All those companies have said that they would wish to remain in the United Kingdom to do their trials, if the environment was right.

The treatments that will utilise innovative techniques, such as gene silencing, are often used to treat rare diseases that affect a limited number of people, as I said. The number of patients with a rare disease in an individual country such as the UK is likely to be low by definition. However, for clinical trials to work, they require large numbers. Unified and streamlined international processes are essential to ensure that the application authorisation processes of these clinical trials can continue to work both effectively and at pace.

By implementing the clinical trials regulation, the UK can remain eligible for access to the central EU portals and processes for clinical trials, which ensure that clinical trials can recruit enough patients for rare diseases and include submissions, reporting and authorisation requirements and, particularly importantly, inclusion in patient registries. Those were developed as part of the EU-wide MHRA initiative to develop registries for rare diseases.

The UK should also seek to maintain alignment with patient safety and pharmacovigilance standards, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to give patients and clinicians confidence in trials that are conducted in the UK and to support the UK’s ability to host trials that need to take place in multiple countries. Without this level of alignment, it is likely that clinical trials, particularly for innovative treatments such as gene silencing, will not be able to go ahead in the United Kingdom, denying UK patients access to new treatment options at an early stage.

I will end by saying a few words in support of Amendment 125 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly. Given the global nature of the Human Medicines Regulations, the UK should be a member of the ICH—the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use. Having recently joined as an observer on Project Orbis and the Access Consortium, the UK can work towards providing a leadership role on global regulatory standards, and it is more likely to do that if it is part of the EU clinical trials mechanism.

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[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we strongly support Amendments 4, 42, 52 and 92 in this group.

The proposal in the Bill to create new criminal offences by statutory instrument is completely unacceptable. It is a matter of basic principle that the creation of new criminal offences requires proper parliamentary scrutiny. The delegated powers affirmative procedure does not provide this or anything like it. This ought not to be controversial. The Government’s own list of the areas in which it is appropriate to use delegated legislation does not include the creation of criminal offences.

Our Constitution Committee has made its position very clear. It considers the use of delegated legislation to formulate policy or create new criminal offences or public bodies constitutionally unacceptable. The Government propose to do the first two of those things in this Bill; it is dismaying that they should so directly and bluntly ignore the conclusion of the Constitution Committee.

The Government appear, however, to have felt the need to modify their initial position somewhat. Their amendments in this group preserve the power to create new criminal offences by statutory instrument, but now cap any sentence for breach at two years. That is a category error. Our objection is to the creation of criminal offences by delegated powers. The length of the sentence attached is completely irrelevant and I am amazed that the Government think that capping the sentence might make the creation of criminal offences proposal more acceptable.

There is an obvious and fundamental principle at stake here. Criminal offences, no matter what penalties are attached, should not be created without full parliamentary scrutiny. They should not be created by the use of delegated powers. I urge the Minister to think again and to remove the offending provisions from the Bill. If he is disinclined to do that, I hope that the House will insist on Report.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has just said. In so doing, I support Amendments 4, 42, 52, 63, 69 and 92 in this group.

It seems counterintuitive at the very least for a Government to come forward with proposals to give a Minister powers using a delegated provision to create new criminal offences and, when challenged, to justify the position by saying, “Well, we will limit the sanction to two years’ imprisonment.” This completely misses the point, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. There is a clear principle at stake here, which has been well described by the Constitution Committee in its report on this legislation. Very simply, it offends liberty and the functioning of our democracy that a Government can propose to create criminal offences that would deny a citizen their liberty for one day, let alone a maximum of two years, and feel that there should not be proper parliamentary scrutiny in the accepted fashion for the creation of criminal offences. Her Majesty’s Government should think very carefully about what they propose to do here and bring their own amendments beyond the government amendments suggested in this group.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I just want to add to what my noble friend Lord Sharkey said. This is a matter of principle; from the two reports by the two committees that have been cited and from the Second Reading debate, the Government can be in no doubt about the strength of feeling on it. In the light of those, the Government’s response in the government amendments in this group is, frankly, rather pathetic and not at all acceptable.

The Bill represents an enormous upheaval for one of the critical areas of our industry. The pharmaceutical industry is of immense importance to this country. Apart from anything else, to add criminal offences created through delegated powers by means of a Bill that is so spare and lacking in detail does a huge disservice to people who want to continue to pursue not just high-quality but ethical production of badly needed medicines in this country and within international frameworks. If the best the Government can do is to table the amendments in this group, they do the industry a great disservice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 6 deals with human medicines. Amendments 53, 71 and 98 in the group make the same provisions as Amendment 6 but for veterinary medicines, medical devices and information systems. I will also speak to Amendments 143 and 144, which deal with the mechanisms that make Amendments 6, 53, 71 and 98 work. Our Amendments 135, 136 and 142 would replace the negative procedure in cases of urgency with the “made affirmative” procedure. I shall not speak to these because the Minister has more or less conceded the point in his new amendments.

Amendment 6 is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. I am immensely grateful for their support and regret that they cannot be present today because they are all speaking at the internal market Bill Second Reading in the Chamber. It is extremely unhelpful that the Government have scheduled two significant Bills for the same time slots. They should be decoupled to prevent future clashes.

Amendment 6 and its equivalents deal with the non-urgent scrutiny procedures currently set out in the Bill. They replace, in Parts 1, 2 and 3, the affirmative procedure for delegated powers with the super-affirmative procedure set out in Amendments 143 and 144 later in the Bill. The purpose of these amendments, taken as a whole, is to restore an element of parliamentary scrutiny to a Bill which so conspicuously lacks it.

This is a skeleton Bill. Parts 1, 2 and 3 contain no policy detail but give the Minister effective carte blanche. The Minister is given almost unfettered power to remake our human medicines, our veterinary medicines and our medical devices regimes. The reports of the DPRR Committee and the Constitution Committee were highly critical of this approach. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, chair of the DPRRC and speaking for it, said that

“the structure of the Bill is absolutely atrocious and an affront to parliamentary democracy.”

He went on to say that his committee was

“deeply concerned not only by the Government’s failure to provide sufficient justification for the adoption of a ‘skeleton bill’ approach—which would give Ministers sweeping powers to almost completely re-write the existing regulatory regimes … but also by their failure to acknowledge the breadth of the powers that the Bill would confer.”

He concluded:

“Parliament is effectively bypassed; that is a sick joke of good law.”—[Official Report, 2/9/20; cols. 415-16.]


Despite all this, it is likely that the Minister will choose to represent the proposed use of the affirmative procedure in this Bill as meaningful parliamentary scrutiny, but it is emphatically not that. Parliament cannot amend SIs and this House has voted down affirmative SIs just four times in the past 70 years. The Constitution Committee in its 2018 report The Legislative Process: the Delegation of Powers noted:

“Without a genuine risk of defeat, and no amendment possible, Parliament is doing little more than rubber-stamping the Government’s secondary legislation. This is constitutionally unacceptable.”


Affirmative SIs do not constitute meaningful parliamentary scrutiny, and the Government’s promise of wide, but unspecified, consultation on the powers in the Bill does not somehow magically restore parliamentary scrutiny. Parliament is still bypassed.

There is a delegated legislation procedure that allows for significant parliamentary scrutiny. This procedure, which comes in several flavours, is known to the Government as “exceptional procedures” and to Erskine May, in Part 4 Chapter 31.14, as the “super-affirmative procedure”. This is what our amendments propose should replace the existing affirmative procedures written into Parts 1, 2 and 3. Erskine May characterises the super-affirmative procedure as follows:

“The super affirmative procedure provides both Houses with opportunities to comment on proposals for secondary legislation and to recommend amendments before orders for affirmative approval are brought forward in their final form.”


It notes that

“the power to amend the proposed instrument remains with the Minister: the two Houses and their committees can only recommend changes, not make them.”

Our amendments follow this pattern and are more generally based on the variant of the procedure used in the Public Bodies Act 2011. Amendments 143 and 144 set out the details and the stages. First, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the proposed regulations and a document explaining them; secondly, he or she must request a committee of either House whose remit includes health, science or technology to report on the draft regulations within 30 days; and thirdly, in proposing a draft statutory instrument containing the regulations, the Secretary of State must take account of any representations, any resolution of either House and any recommendations of the committee to which the draft was referred. After the expiry of the 30-day period, the Secretary of State may lay before Parliament regulations in terms of the original or a revised draft. The Secretary of State must also state what representations, recommendations or resolutions were made in the 30-day period and give details of any such. He or she must also explain any changes made in a revised draft. After that, the normal affirmative procedure continues.

The Library records that the last insertion in a Bill of the super-affirmative procedure was by the Government themselves in October 2017 in the Financial Claims and Guidance Bill. When they are not doing it themselves, the Government traditionally put forward any of or all three routine objections to the use of super-affirmatives. The first is that it is unnecessary because the use of the affirmative procedure provides sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. Sometimes, this objection is elaborated by praying in aid extensive consultation. I remind the Minister of the DPRRC’s remarks in paragraph 45 of its report on the Bill where it says that

“we are concerned at consultation being presented as a substitute for Parliamentary scrutiny.”

It is quite obviously untrue that the affirmative procedure allows any kind of effective scrutiny.

The second routine objection is that the super-affirmative procedure is cumbersome. I take this to mean only that this procedure is more elaborate than the affirmative procedure, which is, of course, the whole point. It is necessarily more elaborate because it provides for actual scrutiny where the affirmative procedure does not. The third routine objection is that it all takes too long. This has force only if there is some imminent deadline. The Minister may argue that there is such a deadline at midnight on 31 December. At this point, the Government lose the powers conferred by Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act to modify the regimes, but does this really present a deadline? I leave aside here the issue of whether this Bill will have been passed by then, given its very slow progress and the sparse future scheduling.

The impact assessment helpfully sets out, in Annexe B, the number of times the Section 2(2) powers have been used. Between 2013 and 2019 they generated a total of 11 SIs. In each of the last four years they have generated just one SI. This is not an avalanche. Nothing in these figures shows urgency. Nothing suggests we need to rush regime changes by excluding scrutiny provisions from the Bill. Nothing suggests that using the super-affirmative procedure would cause significant delay or disadvantage.

The impact assessment notes explicitly, on page 5:

“policy development is at an early stage”.

This was in June. If policy development has made progress since then, perhaps the Minister can now tell the Committee what policy changes he intends to propose, using the delegated powers in Parts 1, 2 and 3.

If policy development has not made progress, it is vital that when it does, and sees daylight in SIs, those SIs are scrutinised as fully as possible, as the super-affirmative procedure permits. In the event that a policy or technical change is required urgently, the provisions of this Bill, with the latest Government amendment, should allow the use of the “made affirmative” procedure.

This is a skeleton Bill. It is an attempt to bypass Parliamentary scrutiny. It contains no policy details and has no special claim to urgency as a reason for limiting scrutiny. The affirmative procedure is not meaningful scrutiny, as our Constitution Committee has pointed out—but the super-affirmative procedure is. That is what these amendments propose. Parliament should not be bypassed. I beg to move.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and everything he has said in moving Amendment 6. These are clear matters of principle, and although one must accept that government Amendment 133 is an attempt to provide concessions on them, the noble Lord has set out clearly why adoption of even the affirmative procedure will not provide sufficient scope for appropriate scrutiny of what may turn out to be exceedingly important regulations.

The argument for adoption of the super-affirmative procedure has been well made, and I shall not repeat all the noble Lord’s arguments, save to say that in moving his amendment he also dealt with all the potential arguments that could be put against what is proposed in the amendments. In those circumstances, bearing in mind the importance of the issues that the legislation will cover, and the deep anxieties already expressed in Committee about the nature of the Bill, both in practical terms and in terms of its constitutional implications, Her Majesty’s Government should seriously consider accepting these important amendments.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendments 137 and 138 in this group are in my name. They have partly been answered by government Amendment 133, and I shall speak about all three. My amendments are probing amendments, which would prevent regulation exercise in respect of Clauses 6 and 15 in relation to the disapplication of certain provisions in the medicines and medical devices regulations where there is a serious risk to public health. The reasons for this are the same as those set out earlier on the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

The Government do not require the negative procedure to intervene swiftly in emergency scenarios, as the affirmative procedure is available, and safeguards parliamentary scrutiny. That is what the amendment is about. The Government have tried to respond to it, to some extent, through their Amendment 133, which removes subsections (3) to (9) of Clause 42 and inserts instead many new subsections, including a table detailing which specific provisions will be subject to the negative procedure, the “made affirmative” procedure and the draft affirmative procedure.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point about the rollout in the devolved Administrations. I do not have the details in my brief but I would be glad to write to her with them.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests. The Minister has alluded to the strategy, announced by Her Majesty’s Government earlier this month, of moving to mass population testing for citizens, regardless of symptoms. This is clearly predicated on having capacity for high-frequency testing, rapid reporting of results and a minimum threshold of accuracy for the test used. What assessment have the Government made of the threshold of accuracy in relation to sensitivity and specificity required to ensure that the mass testing strategy is successful—which is essential if we are to not only implement public health measures but save our economy?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the user cases for different tests are being drafted and interrogated as we speak. The user case, for example, of an anaesthetist going into a delicate operation would be very different from the asymptomatic testing of a large school, or of people thinking about going to the pub in the evening. Matching the tests with the user cases is an important and necessary step. Once that is agreed with all relevant scientific committees, we will publish those user cases so that manufacturers can make the tests according to the required dimensions and specifications.

Covid-19: Rise of Positive Tests

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Testing arrangements for care homes have, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, alluded to, risen dramatically. Testing is done in a large variety of ways. For large care homes, mobile testing facilities are put in place; for care staff, facilities at local NHS hospitals are in place; and we invite visitors to have tests in advance of visiting their loved ones. This is all overseen by the NHS Test and Trace programme, and the CQC remains the auditor of the care sector.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests, in particular my membership of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee. In his appearance before that committee in July, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser suggested that the higher the number of cases in circulation at the beginning of winter, the greater the likelihood of a significant peak of disease. What assessment have Her Majesty’s Government made of scientific evidence on the threshold at which the number of new cases might suggest that we can no longer be confident that the NHS will have sufficient capacity to deliver both its routine winter service and manage resurgent Covid-19 admissions?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we are well within the threshold that the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, alludes to, but we are concerned about winter. That is why we are putting in place new restrictions and new arrangements to stop the spread of this disease, protect the NHS and save lives.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill. In so doing, I remind noble Lords of my registered interests, particularly as professor of surgery at University College London and chairman of UCLPartners.

The Bill is important, as has been emphasised on so many occasions during this debate, because at its heart its purpose is to secure patient safety. Beyond that, it has the objective of ensuring a regulatory environment in which our life sciences industry can thrive. That is important because, beyond financial services, the life sciences are the second-largest contributor to our economy. However, patient safety comes first.

A number of issues in the Bill should have enjoyed detailed debate at Second Reading, but the way we are forced to conduct Second Readings at this time and the limited time we have to explore these issues make that impossible. However, I will identify and bring to your Lordships’ attention two specific issues that will need to be explored in Committee.

The first is the question of clinical trials. Twice in your Lordships’ House, Her Majesty’s Government have given very clear assurances that the clinical trials regulation that will at some point be adopted and implemented in the European Union would have its provisions reflected in UK legislation. It is regrettable that the new clinical trials regulation will not be in place by the time we leave the European Union and therefore not automatically become part of EU retained law.

The important issue here is that the trials regulation replaces the current clinical trials directive, which is defective. It seems unfortunate and unacceptable that, having lobbied so strongly in Europe to replace the current directive with the new regulation, our country, our patients and our researchers will be left with the defective current directive on the statute book. Why do Her Majesty’s Government not wish to use the current opportunity of this Bill to undertake implementation of the key improving provisions of the clinical trials regulation so that our research community and patients can benefit from an enhanced and much more effective clinical trials regulatory environment as we move forward?

The second issue is regulation of medical devices. We have heard much discussion about this problem during this debate. It is quite right that Clause 16 of the amended Bill, having completed its passage in the other place, provides for the opportunity to create registries to look at marketed device products to ensure that they can be traced and patients identified, but it does not deal with the important question of what level of evidence for the safety and efficacy of a device should be necessary before marketing authorisation is provided in the United Kingdom. This is vital.

There are trial methodologies beyond clinical, randomised trials which could be instituted that provide the opportunity for limited authorisation of new devices with patients included in prospective registries with very careful follow-up. The comparison of data from those patients with broader patients with similar diseases and conditions would allow for a proper safety evaluation of newly marketed devices and, ultimately, broader marketing once those initial data were made available. That would be the appropriate approach to patient safety. I hope Her Majesty’s Government will consider using the Bill to provide that kind of certainty.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I thank the noble Lord for his searching questions. The role of the MHRA on both medical devices and medicines has been massively upgraded, and the review process for new medical devices has been improved. However, medical devices have different criteria from medicines.

One of the most important things that we have sought to do is to include a registry of the medical devices themselves and a registry of the medical devices inserted into individuals. Compliance with both procedures are the most important steps for clinicians embarking on new products.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering questions on this Statement and in so doing remind noble Lords of my registered interests. In her excellent report, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, identifies concerns about the lack of evidence that is required prior to the granting of marketing authorisation for many medical devices, where all that is often required is demonstration of equivalence to an already marketed product. The noble Baroness highlights the striking difference that exists with regard to the situation for medicinal products, where robust evidence of efficacy and safety is required before a medicinal product can be marketed. Are Her Majesty’s Government content with this situation—this difference between the level of evidence required before a product and a device can be marketed as regards patient safety? If there are concerns, what approach do Her Majesty’s Government propose to take with regard to ensuring that there is proper evidence of both the safety and efficacy of a device prior to its broad marketing and use in large populations of patients?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord alludes to an extremely difficult balance that we have to seek to make. He is entirely right that medical devices and medicines operate on different criteria. The most important thing is that the MHRA resources for focusing on the approval of medical devices have been improved and the procedures enhanced. However, medical devices remain an important area of potential innovation, and we are concerned not to suffocate this area of potential improvement as it has been suffocated in other areas. At present, the Government believe that we have struck the right balance, but we remain keenly focused on it and it is under constant review.

Contraceptives and Hormone Replacement Therapy Drugs

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness is entirely right to express her frustration. It is enormously frustrating for those concerned and for our medicine supplies. Medicine production is a long-term business. There was a point when HRT consumption went down, but then demand grew exactly when some production facilities had backed off their supply. It was an incredibly unfortunate combination of events that has led to this situation, but I reassure the House that we are working extremely hard to provide alternatives and to replace those most favoured products that are in short supply at the moment.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords of my declared interests. Has thought been given to whether novel therapies that might soon become available from research elsewhere in the world might be applied to the management of patients infected with coronavirus in our own country? Is the Minister content that the current regulations that govern the use of medicinal products in man are sufficiently flexible to allow for drugs that not only currently exist but might be repurposed for this, and for novel and innovative therapies, neither of which might be licensed for use in the United Kingdom at the current time, to be made available without further impediment if that was thought to be a useful intervention?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, is entirely right to stress this point about regulation. I assure him and the House that we are working extremely closely with Public Health England and the MHRA to ensure that there will be no regulatory hurdle that prevents the swift introduction of proven, safe products into the UK market. This is a massive priority that has had great scrutiny from both the department and Downing Street. It is one that we are focused on and will continue to focus on.