Drugs: Black Review
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of Dame Carol Black’s Review of drugs part two: prevention, treatment and recovery, published on 8 July.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
On 27 July, the Government published an initial response to Dame Carol Black’s review, welcoming all 32 recommendations and setting out a clear cross-government commitment to the agenda. The Government have also committed to respond to the review in full by the end of the year and to set out a long-term drug strategy which will present our whole-government response to drive down drug supply and demand.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I also welcome my noble friend to his place on the Front Bench. With entrenched drug use driving half of the nation’s crime and people with serious drug addiction occupying one in three prison places, does he accept Dame Carol Black’s finding that the current public provision for drug misuse, prevention, treatment and recovery is not fit for purpose and that Her Majesty’s Government face an unavoidable choice: invest in tackling the problem or keep paying for the consequences?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the question and the point he made so forcefully. In January, the Government announced a £148 million crime package for 2021-22, which has been allocated to local authorities for drug treatment and recovery services, with a focus on improving services for offenders and reducing deaths. This is the largest increase in drug treatment funding for 15 years.
Osimertinib Cancer Treatment
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Osimertinib (Tagrisso), a cancer treatment drug recently approved by the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, will be available to residents of Northern Ireland (1) on the same timescale, and (2) with the same ease of access, as in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)
My Lords, the innovative lung cancer drug Tagrisso has recently had its licence expanded to include patients with early-stage lung cancer through Project Orbis. I am pleased to confirm that Tagrisso is currently available to all patients, including in Northern Ireland, at clinical discretion with no delays. The UK Government are committed to supporting parity of access to medicines across all parts of the UK.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, people will be reassured to hear that but the fact of the matter is, surely, that the use of this drug for early treatment of lung cancer remains subject to the approval of the EMA and access at the moment is available on application by clinicians on an individual-case basis, which is not the same ease of access as exists in the rest of the UK. While it may be of some assurance that the EMA is expected to approve the drug’s use for early treatment in the near future, that remains wholly outside the Government’s control. What does that say about the integrity of our National Health Service and for how long can this situation go on?
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, we estimate that there are currently just eight patients in Northern Ireland who would benefit from the expanded use of Tagrisso for early-stage disease. Perhaps I may reassure my noble friend that they will all have the same access as in the rest of the United Kingdom without any delay or restraint on that access.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation and Linked Households) (England) Regulations 2020
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we all look forward to a rapid vaccination of the population and a swift return to normality. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, Covid is likely to remain endemic for many decades to come. That means that improved drugs, care and treatment are necessary, with a view to driving down mortality rates even further than our excellent medical professionals have managed so far.
The British RECOVERY programme—RECOVERY as an acronym—is the world’s largest randomised Covid drugs trial. It has given us dexamethasone as the first drug clinically proven to help reduce deaths from Covid, and it has shown that other drugs thought likely to be useful have had little measurable effect. Results from further trials are likely to come through in coming weeks.
When I raised this topic recently in your Lordships’ House, my noble friend the Minister was generous in saying that the Government saw the importance of better treatment and were investing in it. May I urge him now—amid all the other pressures that he faces—to ensure that government heft and resource go with redoubled effect into supporting the development of new treatments, and to undertake to roll successful drugs out rapidly, even if, by contrast with dexamethasone, they cannot be procured for pennies?
Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall be voting with the Government tonight, conscious of the many concerns expressed by noble Lords, not least those recently expressed by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lady Altmann about the complete absence of evidence that the Government can produce for the ban on collective worship. We are at a point where something must be done and this is the only option in front of us, but I will make two points.
First, this has now ceased to be a matter fit for legislation. If you want a law to close pubs or restaurants, that is fine; it is nice and simple. However, when you come to micromanaging the lives of individuals and families, as Part 2 seeks to do, with 10 principal exemptions and numerous sub-paragraphs, it is simply absurd. It will be incomprehensible to families, police and enforcement authorities alike.
Many of these exemptions are common sense, but you cannot legislate for common sense; you can only ask people to exercise it. If any of these measures are to be continued after 2 December, they cannot be in this form; they need to be based on trusting people. That sounds like Sweden—I have never been a vocal advocate, or any advocate at all, for Sweden or its approach, but that is clearly where these regulations are pointing.
My second point is that Covid is a medical problem, requiring medical solutions. However, we have made it the prisoner of statisticians and geeks with models. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out, they are geeks who cannot agree on anything significant, except that a line pointing upwards will continue to do so if nothing prevents it. We have no choice, in practice, but to rely on improvements in treatment and care to reduce mortality, as is already happening, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, pointed out.
We cannot rely on a silver bullet: a vaccine that may be only partially effective—who knows?—or a test, trace and isolate system, which, even if it tested and traced effectively, cannot persuade people to isolate. Today is the day, and November is a write-off, but we cannot find ourselves in this position again. I urge the Government to use this month to consider a reset in their approach and lead us forward on the basis of trusting people and improving treatment and care.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2020
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who brings to the House her experience of the European Parliament, where she represented the north-west of England. Like many of her constituents there, she is and has been a doughty defender of Brexit and taking back control of our laws. She also has the unique distinction of being the longest-serving panellist on the BBC’s programme “Moral Maze”, dispensing ethical guidance to the nation. I am sure that if noble Lords felt they would like some ethical guidance, she would be willing to offer an open ear. She is a defender of free speech, as we have heard—a cause that must commend itself to your Lordships’ House, which manages to combine freedom from legal limitation on what it says with courteous and quintessentially rational debate.
On the subject of the Motion, the acid test is not infections but deaths. While these have been rising, they have been rising much more slowly than infections. For example, in the Evening Standard yesterday we learned that deaths in London over the past seven days have been running at a rate 1/50th of the height of the pandemic. This is good news, and we owe a great deal of that to the skill, experience and intuition of medical professionals, who have learned as time has gone on how better to treat and to care for those suffering from this dreadful disease. We owe them a great debt, as so often in this pandemic.
Mortality rates in ICU have come down from 40% to 15%. This points the way to the future, because while we would all like a silver bullet that will put an end to this pandemic, in practice we are much more likely to have to live with it for many years and rely on advances in care and treatment to make it ever less fatal. My question to the Minister is simply: can he assure the House that the Government’s attention is on improving treatment and care as much as on apps and vaccines?
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Very High) (England) Regulations 2020
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, since being introduced to your Lordships’ House last week I have been treated with generosity and kindness by noble Lords on all sides of the House. I am particularly indebted to my two supporters, the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, and my noble friend Lord Borwick, and to all the staff who have been so helpful since I appeared here—not least, and in fact especially, the doorkeepers.
Many people can point to a career that is a sort of linear progression, whereas mine has been more a series of happy stumbles. At the core of it is 28 years spent in local government—something that I stumbled into in 1990, becoming a councillor at that stage. That gave me the opportunity to have an insight into much of the hidden infrastructure, the amenities that make our civilised life possible—everything from waste disposal and parks management to roads, railways and aviation, all of them important to us and all fascinating operating businesses in their own right.
In 2008 the Conservative candidate was elected Mayor of London and he asked me to be the deputy chairman of Transport for London. There was a great deal to learn there as well, not only about the operation of railways but about tunnelling, construction and, most painful of all, automatic signalling. Meanwhile, back at my local authority I was writing a local plan and promoting development and new housing.
Now I have stumbled into your Lordships’ House, and I hope while I am here to be able to draw on my experience to give support to the Government as they pursue an ambitious and very necessary infrastructure strategy for the country. I will also be very keen to support them as they manage our exit from the European Union in such a way as to make us a properly self-governing country.
I turn to the matter in hand. Many noble Lords have spoken wisely. It is a matter of immense difficulty and delicacy for the Government at this stage to deal with this pandemic. At some point they will need to stand back and tell us that we can make our own decisions again. That moment is not now, but we must hope that it is not delayed for too long, or beyond the point that is good for us. For now, however, I am content to support this measure.