Industrial Strategy

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for having secured this debate and in welcoming the opportunity to listen to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rosenfield. I will confine my comments to the life sciences sector and in so doing draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests, in particular the fact that I am chairman of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research and King’s Health Partners and actively engaged, outside this House, in biomedical research.

It is often argued that it is difficult to find a true position for an industrial strategy, as we have heard, that does not define a top-down impact by government and the state on what ultimately needs to be entrepreneurial activity to drive opportunity, growth and innovation in many sectors. But in a sector as complicated as the life sciences, where we need to bring together the universities, our health service, the commercial sector, big pharma, biotech, health tech and medtech, commercial sectors, entrepreneurs, financiers and legal and other professionals, it is essential that a framework exists so that government intervention can facilitate the creation, for instance, of a highly skilled workforce, the environment in which science can be delivered at scale and pace, a health service that can make an appropriate contribution to the delivery of life sciences and, indeed, the appropriate data infrastructure to ensure that a life sciences strategy and its broader contribution to our economy can be delivered.

Is the Minister content that His Majesty’s Government’s strategies, over many iterations, such as Life Sciences Vision and other commitments over the last 10 to 12 years, are actually delivering what has been anticipated? This sector is vital to our economy. It is estimated that some 250,000 highly skilled jobs attend the life sciences sector currently, contributing over £80 billion to our economy and sustaining some 63,000 organisations. It is anticipated that if the life sciences vision can be fully implemented over the next 30 years, there will be a further £68 billion contributing to our GDP, and there will be a 40% reduction in attributable burden of disease—not only wealth creation but health gain.

Regrettably, many of the indicators suggest that we are not sustaining our position. Is the Minister content that we are doing enough to ensure that we remain globally competitive?

Climate Change

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Krebs for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced the debate. I declare my interests as chairman of the King’s Fund and chairman of King’s Health Partners.

I will focus, over the next three minutes or so, on the question of adaptation to climate change and the potential impact on the delivery of healthcare in our country and the health of our fellow citizens. It is quite right to be thoughtful and measured in considering these matters, but there is no doubt that we saw a substantial impact in Europe during the last heatwave of 2022, with the reported excess deaths associated with heat. Indeed, last year we saw in our own country some 2,500 reported excess deaths associated with heat-related conditions.

The impact of climate change can be seen very much as having a multiplying effect on underlying predispositions to poor health outcomes. For instance, a predisposition to heart disease or respiratory conditions can be exacerbated by the impact of alterations in climate. We also know that the nature of the diseases that we will experience as the climate changes in our own country will need to be carefully planned for. For instance, in the future we will see more vector-related diseases, mosquito-related diseases—such as Zika virus and West Nile fever—and, potentially, malaria, if the predictions are correct. Tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease, will be seen more frequently. There is an important need to ensure that, with the potential for flooding, other waterborne diseases are properly recognised and can be treated early, and that appropriate public health measures can be employed to mitigate against them.

There is also the question of how the public health system more broadly is to prepare itself. It is clearly important that we have appropriate surveillance mechanisms in place through the Health Protection Agency to identify and to characterise the changing frequency, occurrence and regional distribution of such diseases. With the risk, more broadly, of global climate change comes the establishment of newer zoonotic diseases, as animals and humans are forced to live in much closer proximity. Much of what we learned during the Covid pandemic needs to be retained and applied in a thoughtful and appropriate fashion to ensure that those surveillance mechanisms are in place, so that when diseases occur and when individuals develop those conditions, there can be appropriate measures in place—for instance, establishing the sequence of novel viruses and so on which might occur as a result of those climate impacts.

There is also a very important opportunity for us to start adapting the built environment of our hospitals. His Majesty’s Government are rightly committed to a major hospital-building programme. That provides the opportunity to start designing our hospitals so that they can provide services to our fellow citizens in the future that may be much more like services associated with the management of acute infectious diseases. That includes the management of patients who have underlying chronic conditions; they may see acute exasperations, such as exasperated respiratory illnesses, in periods of a substantial climate change and climate variation.

I will ask the Minister two questions. First, are His Majesty’s Government content that the Health Protection Agency is now properly mobilised and constructed in such a way to be able to provide the kind of surveillance and acute interventions that are required to protect us? Secondly, is the Minister content that the hospital-building programme is building in such a way as to deal with the potential consequences of climate change?

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced his Private Member’s Bill and declare my interest as a former chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission between 2013 and 2018 and as the current chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission, which is a statutory body. It has already been recognised by many noble Lords in the debate that there is growing anxiety about appointments to your Lordships’ House, both about the number of appointments being made and the nature of those appointments.

HOLAC, as we have heard, is an advisory body to the Prime Minister but makes a determination of nominations it receives, either from the public or from the political party leaders in the case of political nominations, in two ways: through the assessment of individual propriety; and through a determination of suitability. Propriety tends to be the easier of the two, because it is more objective. The determination of suitability is more subjective. In the case of independent Cross-Bench Peer nominations, that determination of suitability is made using publicly published criteria, available on the commission’s website, used at the time both of sifting nominations and then, for those candidates who are called for interview, through the interview process. For nominations received for political Peers, that determination of suitability is not made by a single individual or body but by the individual political party leaders, and there is an inconsistency in the way the determination of suitability has been made.

My commission suggested to Prime Ministers and party leaders that the assessment of suitability should be made using the criteria that HOLAC uses for the determination of suitability of Cross-Bench nominations. The current commission has suggested that the application of the Nolan principles and their assessment be the basis for determination of suitability. If no consensus can be achieved on that, it is only right to consider the provisions in this Bill for the establishment of a statutory commission that will be able then to apply the criteria and the determination of suitability consistently across all nominations for appointment to your Lordships’ House, be it those received by the general public or those received by political party leaders, and put to the Prime Minister, who ultimately has the responsibility to advise the sovereign on these matters.

However, I think that in Committee we must consider a particular problem with putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis; that is, the potential risk that decisions that HOLAC makes will then be subject to judicial review. There is an increased risk that they become justiciable—this is in fact our experience at the Judicial Appointments Commission. That would potentially leave the House of Lords Appointments Commission in a position where nominations are made and, indeed, accepted, and then challenged by judicial review. If that process turned out to be successful, we would have a very difficult situation where someone might have already been appointed and that appointment is found wanting through our legal system.

Beyond that, we would have a system where the judiciary became potentially much more deeply involved in appointments to your Lordships’ House. That would run contrary to the principle that has been established where we have a separation of powers, and it could become a regular matter that judges had a role in appointments to your Lordships’ House. That is not to say that these matters cannot be addressed in some way in Committee, but they are important issues that need to be addressed because, ultimately, the current appointments process is doing the best that it can protect the reputation of your Lordships’ House and, in so doing, protect the reputation of Parliament more generally. Of course, in providing advice to a Prime Minister, it also helps to protect the Prime Minister himself or herself and, indeed, protect the sovereign, who is ultimately responsible for accepting and making appointments to your Lordships’ House.

House of Lords: Appointments

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for drawing those points to the attention of the House. In respect of today’s Question, I say that the commission’s role was to provide advice, and this was duly provided in the usual way. However, we have heard what my noble friend had to say.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my previous role as a past chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It is the responsibility of the individual party leaders to assess the suitability of their individual nominations to serve in your Lordships’ House. Does the Minister believe that the adoption of common criteria to make that assessment of suitability might achieve a greater degree of consistency and confidence in those nominations?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, the commission is an independent advisory committee, and the Government consider its advice carefully in whatever form it is given. The Prime Minister is democratically accountable and must have the final say on appointments. Of course, we are all due to debate my noble friend Lord Norton’s Private Member’s Bill, and while the Government have reservations about it, we welcome that opportunity.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate I declare my interests as professor of surgery at UCL and chairman of UCLPartners. As my noble friend Lord Patel indicated, there was real anxiety among the science community in the United Kingdom about no agreement being reached, so the co-operation and trade agreement as it pertains to science has been broadly welcomed. I shall focus my comments in two areas: first, our participation in Horizon Europe; and secondly, the question of clinical trials regulatory alignment.

It is envisaged that we will participate in Horizon Europe through an association agreement, but that agreement has yet to be negotiated. It is possible that applications for funding to the new Horizon Europe scheme will commence this spring: what arrangements do Her Majesty’s Government propose to make in case the agreement has not been fully negotiated with regard to our provisional participation and, indeed, interim funding to ensure our science base is not undermined? The current co-operation agreement also states that withdrawals from Horizon Europe can be initiated by either party with 45 days’ notice. This risks undermining confidence in the programme and, indeed, our global science base. How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to ensure that the science base is secured, and funding secured, for the entirety of the period to 2027 in case of early departure?

It has been recognised throughout discussions on the withdrawal agreement that alignment of the regulation of clinical trials is critical. What arrangements do Her Majesty’s Government propose to make now to secure that vital alignment of regulation? How do they propose to prioritise that within the context of the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill currently being considered by your Lordships’ House?