European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Winston and Baroness Goldie

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

I think these businesses understand the very real and practical challenges that confront the Government in the unprecedented complexity of a process to leave the EU: that is, when we leave, we will not be part of the body of EU member states nor its regimes, agencies and institutions. However, there is no reason to imagine that in the UK post Brexit we will not continue to be at the forefront of the life sciences or that we will not have the most excellent regime of clinical trials regulatory structures. These will fall within our control.

[Lord Winston]

I am increasingly puzzled by this conversation. If you are doing a clinical trial, you have to harmonise all the arms of that trial for it to be randomly and properly assessed and for its statistics to be valid. Is the noble Baroness suggesting that we do our own small trials, irrespective of what is going on in a much larger pool of people? Does she not understand that, given the genetic diversity of the European population, the more people who are involved in the same trial, the more relevant the answers to the trial are, particularly in cases such as cancer, where they are all under the same rules?

[Baroness Goldie]

I am not in any way diminishing the important point that the noble Lord makes. I am pointing out that there are many types of clinical trials—for example, at the moment we are engaged in partnerships with non-EU countries. However, the Prime Minister has made it clear that we desire to have the closest possible relationship with the EU. We think that the systems we have been engaged in around clinical trials have been very strong, good and important.