Care Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Campbell-Savours(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will tolerate a short intervention. I was for 30 years a trustee of the charity the Public Interest Research Centre. I think I am correct in saying that in the 1970s and 1980s it was the only independent charity carrying out extensive research on the matters under discussion here. I agree with every word said by the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Turnberg, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler. There is, to some extent, a disparity of arms between the huge pharmaceutical companies and the regulatory authorities. Frankly, I see no harm and some potential good in the amendments to try to rectify the balance of power and to avoid a repetition of the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, which is extremely sobering but by no means unique. A number of instances that we confronted in the 1970s and 1980s mirrored that example, if not on quite the same scale.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I want briefly to intervene with a thought to which the Minister may have a response. When you have medicines prescribed under the National Health Service—indeed, when you buy medicines—there is a leaflet inside the package setting out the need for the product and the circumstances in which it can be taken. However, there is also a section that deals with risk. I have often wondered whether that section on risk assessments, which lays down varying levels of risk, dependent on the incidence of conditions that might arise under use of the medicine, is based on the original clinical trials carried out by the manufacturer. If it is, it may well be that there is an argument for more frank information to be made available. If the element of risk is linked to the original research, it would obviously be very interesting to the wider public. I wonder whether the Minister might be able to help us there. Is there a connection?
Queen’s Speech
Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Campbell-Savours(12 years ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
The noble Lord refers to two defeats in two years. However, he is conveniently forgetting that many amendments are accepted by the Government in the other House. They do not go to a Division.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
That is true, my Lords, but many of those concessions derive from amendments to Bills made in this place, which gives the boys and girls down there a bit of leverage over Ministers. Indeed, you hear it said that a lot of the most contentious stuff in relation to education Bills, health Bills and so on, is left for us to deal with because it is then somehow easier for them to deal with it when it goes back.
As I say, these are complex issues. I repeat that I have come to a slow but certain conviction that to elect this place directly would not even be a leap into the unknown because we know what is happening at the other end and we know that the partisanship would come up here. We also know that if you had a different majority at each end, that would constitute the deep blue sea. What would happen then? The pretence that legitimacy would be retained, as many noble Lords have said, is a total figment of the imagination because legitimacy lies not in the written word but in the hearts and minds of the people of this country. It is in the eye of the beholder. If we were elected, the man in the street would accord equal credence to us as he does to those in the other place. For those reasons if for none other, I fear that I will be a steadfast resistor of election if that time comes.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Campbell-Savours(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, has just quoted from a Boundary Commission document, which states that this is achievable.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I hesitate to interrupt, but the quotation was from a report not of the Boundary Commission but of our own Select Committee on the Constitution, which is rather more important in this respect.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Campbell-Savours(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
To be frank, I do not understand that either. However, I asked that question and I understand that it is because of the way that votes are counted manually. One returning officer in a seat in Scotland told us that he had different buckets into which he placed different votes and, as the tellers went from count to count, they moved the votes from one bucket to another. Perhaps that has something to do with how they count the additional preferences. As I said, I have not been able to trace that information up to now.
As I said, remember that we are dealing with what are normally STV local authority arrangements where there are by-elections in individual seats. Let me take six seats that were up for single-member election. In Glasgow Ballieston, of those who voted: 100 per cent —obviously—used their first preference vote; 51 per cent did not use their second preference vote; 68 per cent did not use their third preference vote; 84 per cent did not use their fourth preference vote; 91 per cent did not use their fifth preference vote; 92 per cent did not use their sixth preference; and 93 per cent did not use their seventh preference. At another Glasgow Ballieston by-election, of those who voted: 47 per cent did not use their second preference vote; 74 per cent did not use their third preference vote; 83 per cent did not use their fourth preference vote; 92 per cent did not use their fifth preference vote; 93 per cent did not use their sixth preference vote; 94 per cent did not use their seventh preference vote; 94 per cent did not use their eighth preference vote; and 95 per cent did not use their ninth preference. What a system. People are not using their additional preferences.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am slightly perplexed by that argument, which seems to point in the direction of second and further preferences being purposive. One of the noble Lord’s earlier arguments was that they were inconsequential.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
The argument that the noble Lord is advancing suggests that the use of second and further preferences is purposive—that is, the voters are exercising a real choice. If voters are indifferent to some candidates, they may not use their other preferences at all. That is surely right and good, but it works against his earlier argument.
Lord Campbell-Savours
The noble Lord is correct and has hit the point right on the head. Voters often use their second preferences. That is why we go back to the supplementary vote. Under the supplementary vote system, all the second preferences for all the other candidates are transferred to the top two, whereas under the AV system, that is not the case.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Campbell-Savours(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
If it could be shown that by changing the electoral system in favour of STV or AV, turnout did not rise, would that in any way influence how the noble Lord thinks about the proposition on the table?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Yes, of course it would, but the noble Lord cannot demonstrate that until we have tried it. It is no good telling us about Ireland or Iceland.
Lord Campbell-Savours
If it could be shown that in Scotland turnout did not rise, would that influence the noble Lord?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
It would influence me to some extent but I would want to know a great deal more about it before I admitted anything more than that here and now.
Lord Campbell-Savours
I hope the noble Lord is able to attend our future debates on this issue.