Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
We absolutely endeavour to fulfil the Cabinet Office guidelines on the publication of contracts, and I can provide that reassurance to the noble Baroness. It is my understanding that the structure of test and trace has been published. I will look into finding a link to that and would be glad to send it to her.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, it feels a bit like déjà vu. The Minister complained on Tuesday about my use of rhetoric. At the end of this, he might wish that I had stuck to rhetoric rather than moving on to facts, so here are some facts. Fifty million facemasks could not be used as they did not meet the specifications: fact. Britain’s safety watchdog felt political pressure to approve the use of PPE suits: fact. One million hybrid masks were withdrawn as unusable: fact. There was contract inflation of 1,392% for the same product: fact. The Government have got this wrong, and I would simply ask: if they have nothing to hide, will they put all the facts about the contracts into the public domain?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, there was a global epidemic: fact. There was a breakdown in the global supply chains: fact. There was a need for PPE on the front line of healthcare: fact. We were prepared to do whatever it took to make people safe: fact.
NHS: Pay
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the percentages are unbelievably complicated. It is difficult to stand by one single number to represent pay that goes to hundreds of thousands of different nurses under different circumstances. However, I agree completely with my noble friend. What is at stake here is not just one pay rise in one year but the entire package of circumstances in which nurses do their job. We are determined to ensure that that workplace package is as good as it can possibly be. We acknowledge that there are cultural challenges of working in the NHS, which we are fighting hard to improve. We recognise that training opportunities for nurses should be better and we are working hard to improve those. We recognise that nurses have little capacity for holidays, which is why we are recruiting a very large number of new nurses. It is the entire package that we are focused on, which is why we have put forward the affordability argument as we have.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, Ministers have time and again stated that supporting our nurses is a top priority but, as unions have pointed out, an offer that amounts to £3.50 per week looks more like a kick in the teeth than a top priority. I am sure there is one thing we can all agree on: nurses and other healthcare professionals have had to work in some of the most difficult, demanding and dangerous circumstances, and they have done so with astonishing care, compassion and commitment. The Government have got this badly wrong, and I urge them to reconsider their meagre, miserly, measly 1%.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I reject the rhetoric of the noble Lord. We absolutely do support nurses, which is why we are focused on recruitment, training, culture and opportunities. It is not right to think that one pay rise represents the entire and sum contribution to the welfare of nurses. That is the response we get from nurses themselves, what the public understand, and what the Government’s guidelines are about.
Social Care Funding (EAC Report)
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
That completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving.
Medicines and Medical Devices Bill
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride ExcerptsTuesday 12th January 2021
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
I have received one request to ask a short question. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, to ask a short question for elucidation.
Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]
My Lords, I want to say one or two things very quickly. I thank those who have spoken; it has meant such a lot to me. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Hunt, have been there since the very beginning of this journey.
I say to the Minister, as I should have said at the very beginning, that I will withdraw my amendment. I have no wish to take it further. I do think that the Cabinet Office would have provided us with more independence, but my noble friend the Minister said at the very beginning that this was a red line and it was no good my pursuing it. I took that hint and I have not argued it anywhere. Hearing the Minister talk about independence today—getting it on the record—has been really important. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, of course influence matters as well, and I take that.
I will say a very quick word about the timetable, which is critical. In our recommendations we wanted to set up a task force to implement this under the aegis of the Department of Health and Social Care. That has been rejected by Ministers. That is a tremendous pity. Noble Peers are concerned about the timetable; so am I.
It has been said that this has been very quick. No, it has not. Those of us who have run companies know what “quick” means: if your company is to survive you have to act very quickly. This is not quick. I will put pressure on through other means, particularly the all-party group, to get this implemented as soon as possible, because people are suffering. People are in dire straits and we have to stop this awful damage that is being done to lives. The quicker we can do this, the better. I am sure my noble friend will agree with that.
I know when I am beaten, but I also know what needs to be done. I do not want to go through the point of view of the Cabinet Office, but it is absolutely critical that this appointment is made speedily, because people are suffering and we should avoid that if at all possible. I believe that the patient safety commissioner will grasp this issue and ensure safety, which, as my noble friend the Minister said, has run through the Bill. I thank him for that, but it will not happen until this appointment is made. I am afraid that I will press very strongly on that.
I thank all noble Lords for taking part. I wish I could go through this in detail, but it is not my remit to do so. I thank noble Lords so much for their support.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 2. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.
Clause 1: Power to make regulations about human medicines
Amendment 2
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
After the next speaker, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I will call the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar.
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.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 7. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear during the debate.
Amendment 7
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this debate follows a very interesting one in Committee, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, posed some searching questions about the potential for designing new drugs that are less harmful for the environment, whether in their composition, their impact when they escape into the environment, or in their packaging. Today, she also argues that the expectation of this approach should be built into legislation.
In Committee, the noble Baroness gave some very interesting examples. I was particularly interested to hear that in Sweden—
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We appear to have lost connection with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We will give it a few seconds. We have now reconnected but we missed about 30 seconds of his speech; perhaps the noble Lord could take us back about 30 seconds.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]
I thank the noble Lord; that is a temptation to be eagerly accepted. I was referring back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said in Committee and the example in Sweden of Stockholm county council, which grades medicines on their environmental effects. Doctors can choose to prescribe a drug that is less harmful in relation to the environment where that option exists.
We have also had the 2014 report by UK Water Industry Research, which found that in most of the 160 sewage treatment works studied, several common drugs were present in the final effluent in concentrations high enough to potentially affect ecosystems. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, referred just now to the amount of pharmaceutical effluence entering waterways, and according to a 2018 study by the Delft Institute for Water Education, that could increase by two-thirds before mid-century.
In Committee, my noble friend Lady Wheeler referred to the Environment Agency also having found examples of contaminated hospital waste being illegally exported to developing countries such as Malaysia for disposal. What steps are we taking to prevent the illegal export of such waste and ensure that we dispose of our own waste in this country? There are also concerns about the use of incinerators for hospital waste and the health impacts on those living nearby. We must ask whether the Government are doing enough to ensure that chemists and GPs’ surgeries provide a secure depository for unused medicines, so that they do not contaminate the water supply by being washed down the sink or ending up in landfill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said today that the Government’s approach has been to say that legislation is already on the statute book regarding the impact on the environment more broadly, including legislation to address the impact of producing and disposing of manufactured goods such as medical devices. But there is a persuasive argument that we should go further and that it is appropriate that in this Bill on medicines and medical devices there should be a way of ensuring that the environmental impact is not a damaging one. I hope that the Minister can respond with a positive reflection that this is an area that needs further exploration.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 10. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to push this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.
Amendment 10
Nutrition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(3 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee and thank the Minister for his explanation of the regulations which are being introduced primarily to implement the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland and to address the deficiencies in retained EU law. I agree with the Minister that it is important to protect public health.
I will concentrate on the areas that have an impact on the Northern Ireland protocol and the intersection with that particular common framework. I have certain questions that I would like the Minister to answer. If he cannot provide answers today, perhaps he will provide them in writing to me. I underscore the point again that public health is of vital importance. Therefore, where do the regulations intersect with the Nutrition Related Labelling, Composition and Standards common framework, which is currently subject to ongoing consultation? Was cognisance taken of this provisional framework in drawing up this statutory instrument? From what I gathered from the Minister, that was the case. I contend that there are issues and therefore a need for ongoing scrutiny and parliamentary reports where such intersections occur.
While Northern Ireland officials, Ministers, and particularly in this instance the Department of Health and Social Care and Minister Swann will no doubt participate fully in this framework, does the Minister anticipate any issues related to policy divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK at the end of the transition period? I note that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, referred to certain issues to do with divergence in relation to the protocol.
What was the nature of the consultation with the Northern Ireland Executive and particularly the Department of Health and Social Care and the Food Standards Agency regarding the content of this statutory instrument? It is interesting to note that although Annexe 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol states that EU nutrition rules will continue to apply to Northern Ireland, I could not find any reference to that in the initial documents in the provisional common framework. That may have been corrected in the further documentation on this. Why is that the case? The likelihood of divergence will increase over time and could potentially have serious implications for the future operation of the UK-wide framework as well as for public health.
I come at this from a position of not wanting a border in the Irish Sea, and I come politically from the point of view that I do not want a border on the island of Ireland between the UK and the European Union. But issues thrown up yesterday by the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium have been amplified by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in letters to the European Commission. There are currently two lists of foods: prohibited and allowed. If we want to ensure that public health is promoted in Northern Ireland, it is important that those foods on the prohibited list, such as seed potatoes and other types of seeds, can go on to that allowed list to ensure a continuation of a varied diet and varied access to foodstuffs and food supplies for all consumers in Northern Ireland. That is vital.
Two weeks ago at Oral Questions, I asked the Minister for the Cabinet Office, the noble Lord, Lord True, about this issue, and he said that it was a matter of ongoing negotiations. As we are just five weeks from the end of the transition period, I ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, whether there has been any progress on those negotiations or any definite outcome. It is vital to not only our retail industry, but to public health, diet and food standards in Northern Ireland.
It is important that flexibilities are introduced to ensure that certain foods are moved from the prohibited to the allowed list to ensure good public health as well as a buoyant economy, and that local consumers have access to affordable food supplies and are not forced to resort further to food banks.
I am as guilty as the next person in these debates in traversing and travelling in various directions. As well as this statutory instrument on nutritional matters, there is the other common framework about food and feed policy approaches that throws up issues about the Northern Ireland protocol. I am simply asking for equality and access to all the same foodstuffs that we currently have, so that all consumers can access a good-quality diet at an affordable cost.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, will be followed by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 3.45 pm. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room.
Mental Health Services: Young People
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the digital gap in social care, particularly for older people, is enormous, and the noble Baroness is entirely right. NHSX has a large programme called Joined up Care, which is seeking to help bridge that gap. It includes, for instance, the provision of a large number of iPads to social care homes. However, the noble Baroness is right that that will not be enough to provide the care for those for whom digital access is simply too challenging or unavailable, which is why we will continue to support face-to-face and direct forms of care when necessary.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it should be alarming to know that suicide rates in the UK have soared to record levels, with the highest rates over the past two decades recorded at the end of 2019. I hope the Minister will share my concern that these alarming figures will only continue to rise post lockdown and that everything needs to be done to prevent that. Can the Minister say what Her Majesty’s Government are planning to do to tackle specifically the risk of increasing suicide rates post lockdown?
Lord Bethell (Con)
We are deeply concerned about suicide; any suicide is too many. The noble Lord will be aware that the increased numbers recently are in part due to the recategorisation of suicide among the coroners’ courts. Nonetheless, we take this issue very seriously. The programme to help people identify those who show the markers of suicidal thinking has provided a very important impact on this issue. We are deeply concerned about Covid, and we continue to support suicide charities.
Covid-19: Vaccine
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord McNicol of West Kilbride
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that UK production facilities are able to develop and produce sufficient quantities of any vaccine for COVID-19.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, vaccine development is moving very rapidly but is still at a very early stage. The Government are working closely with industry to assess UK manufacturing capability for a range of potential new vaccines. The type of capacity and specific route needed to take this further will be determined by the technology used to produce the vaccines and the types of vaccines produced.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. The Question is about not just the production of vaccines but the production facilities to mass-produce them. Understandably, the priority now must be supporting those infected and the front-line staff with the production of ventilators. However, we should be planning for what comes next, as the Minister said, and the development of vaccines is part of that. What discussions have been had, or decisions made, between the Government and UKRI about scaling up? When we get the vaccine, that will be fine, but what about the ability to scale it up? We will need to build the factory now; normally that comes after. Can we explore a little further whether the work on scaling up is happening, as well as the development of the vaccine?
Lord Bethell
The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, is entirely right to focus on the importance of vaccines. The Government are extremely concerned that the entire public have a clear line to having confidence that they can rid themselves of the threat of the virus so that we can all get back to work and normal life. That will not be possible until we have a vaccine. If I may digress for a moment, one consideration is that, for a vaccine to work, it will have to be taken by billions; for that, it must be as safe as houses. I contrast that with the vaccine for Ebola, where the death rate was at nearly 80% and a just-about-good-enough approach could be taken. However, the coronavirus has a relatively low mortality rate and the introduction of an added risk factor into the population is something we can avoid. For those reasons, the development of a vaccine is considered to be at least a year or 18 months off. However, the noble Lord is entirely right that planning for the production of the vaccine, when it is fully developed, is front of mind for the Government.