Personal Protective Equipment: Procurement

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I do not really recognise the noble Lord’s technical-speak interpretation of the NAO report. In fact, the report is crystal clear. Yesterday, I quoted from its references to Ministers and conflicts of interest, and I do not think that I need to repeat it: it was crystal clear. However, perhaps I may reassure the noble Lord. I do not pretend for a moment that every single piece of paperwork got done on time during the pandemic—quite the opposite. We rewrote the guidelines on 18 March and reissued them: there is no way that you can jump through the hoops of a normal tendering process when you are in the middle of a massive global land grab. I am not pretending that; I am saying that there were not conflicts of interest, that Ministers were not involved in the procurement decisions and that the nation should be proud of the way in which we responded to the pandemic.

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, what taxpayers will really want is a list of the Covid contracts that went wrong, either because the goods and services were not delivered or because they were not up to standard. They will want to know, in each case, the value of the contract, the amount of public money paid to the contractor, the amount reclaimed by the Government because of failure and the amount recovered for the taxpayer. Will my noble friend agree to produce such a list—eventually, at least—and put it in the Library of the House so that everybody can see it?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. Such lists will be published. Eighty-nine per cent of the contract award notices have already been published under the Official Journal of the EU; I would be glad to send my noble friend a link.

Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to focus on one aspect of the economic consequences of this lockdown: youth unemployment, or, to be more precise, the outlook for the young people who will be leaving full-time education next summer. There will be about 200,000 of them; it would be a terrible tragedy if a significant number of them can find no job to go to. I believe that HMG have as great an obligation to mitigate their lot as that of any other group, for many of whom the Chancellor has already made most imaginative and generous provision.

My proposal involves our Armed Forces, who have performed magnificently in organising the construction of the Nightingale hospitals. Next month will see the 60th anniversary of the ending of national service in the UK. Those of us who were privileged to serve for 18 months or two years in uniform know what a huge benefit it was to us as individuals, whether or not we ever heard a shot fired in anger.

My proposal is that the Government should task the Ministry of Defence to prepare a scheme for school leavers next summer to be able, if they wish to, to join one of Her Majesty’s services for either one or two years. Many young people have already been in Cadet forces at school. I want to quote from the head teacher of a middle school in Suffolk who in the 1980s said:

“I used to be opposed to Cadet forces recruiting in school. After two years, I have become a convert. You take young people who frequently are not achieving, have low self-esteem and can be in trouble, and you give them a framework, self-discipline. They learn teamwork and start achieving. They go on to become active members of the school.”


My suggestion could give a magnificent start in life for some who might otherwise suffer long-term disadvantages from this wretched pandemic. It ought also to produce some valuable recruits for the Regular Forces. It would certainly improve job opportunities for others. As the Swiss have believed for many years, to have a trained militia can be very useful in times of peril. As we have seen increasingly in recent weeks, we face times of real peril to come. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will pass on my suggestion to his ministerial colleagues for action this day.

Health: Electronic Patient Records

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right that the National Data Guardian produced her report last summer. There has been the intention to reply to that report but purdah has had an inevitable impact, unfortunately. She made points in that report about the simplified process for opting out but was also clear that vital uses can be made of suitably anonymised data which benefit patients directly, particularly through medical and clinical research, and about making sure that patients know about that so that they can choose to have their data shared. It is encouraging that at the moment, only around 2% of all patients have opted to have their summary care records not shared. This suggests that when it is explained properly and there are suitable safeguards, people are happy to share their data.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, on the subject of records, my noble friend on the Front Bench will have studied the February House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report, NHS Treatment for Overseas Patients. The PAC is chaired by the Labour Party at present. It identified a leakage of up to £2 billion a year in the treatment of patients who are either not entitled to NHS treatment free in Britain or whose treatment should be reimbursed by the countries from which they come. The target which the Government have for this leakage is only £500 million a year, or 25%. Will the Minister undertake that in the event of the Government being successful in the election they will make a real effort to stem this leakage, which is diluting the impact of the health service on the British people?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am obviously not going to make any commitments for any future Government but I can tell my noble friend about the work that the Government have been doing on this issue. We are making sure that there are identity checks for overseas patients in hospitals to ensure that those people who are not entitled to free care, either through reciprocal arrangements or by some other means, pay for the care that is provided for them, while making sure that at all times anybody who is in need of urgent care has that care given to them, even if they then have to pay later.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in the questions that he put. I remember, when the NERC Act was going through, the lengthy debates that we had on how many representatives of the national interest should sit on national park authorities, what role councillors from the principal local authorities should have if, for example, they lived outside the park and so on. Many of the issues are worthy of deep consideration and consultation. It seems unfortunate—I know that it is just how the timing has worked out—that we will have to agree or disagree with the drafting here, before the consultation is completed. Up until now, the governance of national parks has evolved in a way that has carried support. My fear is that if it changes and becomes the subject of ministerial decree that consensus will be lost. I am very concerned, and I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, put his questions.

[Lord Marlesford]

I support totally what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and by my noble friend. There are very few things which I mind so much about as the national parks; I have been very much involved in them for a long time. The national parks, along with the planning legislation of the same period of 1948-49 were one of the two great achievements of the Attlee Government—the other being the creation of the National Health Service. Let us remember that we created our national parks only some 50 years after the Americans created theirs in, I think, 1898.

I am afraid that it would be absolutely unacceptable for the Executive, whichever Government were in power, to make crucial changes to the organisation and administration of the national parks without specific parliamentary approval in each case. Of course, one is not saying that there should not be any changes at any stage, but I am afraid that my suspicion of Executives is such that I would never agree to something as crucial as changing the national parks without specific parliamentary approval.

It is quite interesting that the national parks and the Broads Authority are mentioned separately, and I am sure that all noble Lords know why that is. The national parks were formed under the 1949 Act and, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has pointed out, the Broads Authority was formed in 1988. I was very much involved in that because I was on the Countryside Commission at the time. The only reason that the Broads Authority was not a national park at the time was, first, because the original definition of “national park” was a wild area, which the broads clearly were not, and, secondly, because initially there was a lot of suspicion and opposition in the broads that commercial interests concerned with boating, although perfectly legitimate, might be interfered with by its becoming a national park. Therefore, frankly, it was something of a concession to say that the broads were not a national park and that they had their own separate Act of Parliament.

I am not saying that I would necessarily die in a ditch for that to continue. The crucial thing is that the national parks, including the broads and the parks created since the 1949 Act, should continue to have the complete protection at the pinnacle of our hierarchy of designation of countryside areas. Of course, they are obviously followed by heritage coasts and areas of outstanding natural beauty and so on, but they are so precious to this country that we need a lot of reassurance regarding exactly what powers the Government are seeking and reassurance that those powers will not be exercised without reference to Parliament in each case.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

I very much support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred to the quality of our national parks. We all consider them to be an essential characteristic of this nation, and the benefits that they bring to our urban and rural societies are huge. To my mind, their quality depends very much on the maintenance of the very delicate balance between local and national interests, which have been thrashed out over the years since 1949. Here, the Government are giving themselves—and, more importantly, their successors—powers to modify the constitution of national parks authorities without having to revert to Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, those are open-ended, and that must be wrong. This Government may not have any malicious intent vis-à-vis the national parks but there is no sunset clause and I look forward to hearing the answers to the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Judd.