David Fuller Case

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As my noble friend anticipated, I am afraid I do not have a detailed answer. I am sorry; I wish I did have the answers, but I will write to him.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has quite correctly said that Sir Jonathan Michael has great experience of the NHS. Sadly, it is in the nature of this shocking case that his inquiry will have to range more widely than the NHS. Will the Minister therefore suggest to Sir Jonathan that he consults the National Association of Funeral Directors? It has a lot of experience, through the guidance it has issued on access to mortuaries, and advice that it could give the inquiry. I think it would welcome consultation. We must do all we can to restrict access in mortuaries to only those people who have an essential reason to be there.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion. As far as I understand, the inquiry will be as wide ranging as it can be and wants to include input from as many people and stakeholders as possible who are affected by, or will be affected by, the implications of the investigation. There are already a lot of calls. A number of people have spoken to me today informally, for example, with a number of suggestions, making me recognise how much wider this goes. It is not just about the storage of bodies in hospitals but in other places, including funeral directors’ premises. I am sure that the suggestion will be considered, but I will confirm that.

Public Health England (Dissolution) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2021

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

During the period of the pandemic we have had far too much retrospective legislation—a brief debate after certain things have come into force—but to have no proper discussion of the issues we are touching on tonight, which are the subject of an entirely justifiable regret Motion, is appalling. We have had enough of this. It is something up with which we should not put for much longer. I hope my noble friend will convey this message. It is a fairly empty House, but I think I speak for a lot of those who are not here in deploring this tendency. I trust my noble friend will talk to the Secretary of State and others and say that this must not happen again.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly to support my noble friend’s Motion to Regret. She has outlined the government by press release approach that has been taken. I find myself in considerable agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. In fact, I remember him reacting last week or the week before to a Statement that had in its title on the annunciator “Announcement to the media”. The noble Lord quite rightly said that it is not the business of this House to have to debate something that has already been put out to the media. Ministers are supposed to come to the Dispatch Box and give the House the information directly.

I entirely agree on the issue of secondary legislation as a way of making progress rather than primary legislation. Although there are difficulties with primary legislation—look at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is a mega Bill if ever there was one, so there are disadvantages even for large Bills—in general I support my noble friend’s Motion to Regret. Although this is not a matter for a vote, I hope the Minister will take back something of the cross-party unease expressed by the noble Lord, with which I find myself in considerable agreement.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo my noble friend Lord Howarth’s tribute to Mr Duncan Selbie, the former chief executive of Public Health England. He is a very fine public servant who led PHE with great skill and aplomb over a number of years. I feel very sad indeed that his career ended in the way it did. Shame on Ministers who allowed this to happen.

I also have to say shame on Ministers for the way in which Parliament has been bypassed in relation to these crucial decisions about the future of our national public health arrangements. Were it not for the fact that staff had to be transferred, there would be no parliamentary debate or scrutiny whatever about these important changes.

Why did it happen? It would seem to me that it was simply a panicked reaction which was merely a front for Ministers’ own mistakes, and the attempt by Mr Hancock and his fellow Ministers to shift blame for their own inadequate leadership in responding to the pandemic is really all too characteristic of the way the Government approached it. It was dishonest because Ministers pretended that PHE was an independent body that had its own life, but it did not. I know that PHE’s record is not without criticism, but the fact is that it was fully part of the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, legislated for that and deliberately wanted to make it like that, and for Ministers to try to shift the blame from them to a group of officials —and they are officials—was simply not acceptable.

My fear is that the new arrangements are being set up in the same way, with the same uncertainties about who is actually accountable for what they do. The UKHSA is an executive agency sponsored by the department, so it is the same category of organisation as Public Health England, which was described on the Government’s website as

“an executive agency with operational autonomy.”

It is noticeable that, on 13 July, the Government published a document setting out UKHSA’s remit and priorities, in the form of a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, to Dr Jenny Harries, the UKHSA’s chief executive. It stated that:

“UKHSA is accountable to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Innovation”,


which I think means to the Minister, but unlike PHE, the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, made no reference to UKHSA having operational independence from the Government. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, whether that omission was deliberate.

I have the same question about the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. We are not debating that tonight, but it comes within the package of new measures that are being brought in. This is not, I understand, an executive agency but is described on the Government’s website as “a high-profile group”. The website does state that

“OHID is part of the Department of Health”,


So, again, there is no pretence at independence.

We are at risk of repeating the same mistakes that occurred with PHE. Ministers proclaim these new bodies, they are given a veneer of independence, but as soon as something goes wrong, or Ministers do not like the messages—and they often do not like the public health messages these bodies give out—Ministers jump in and attempt to micromanage. Accountability is confused, reporting lines are blurred, the public are certainly confused and Parliament is unable to scrutinise them effectively because they come within the Minister’s responsibilities as part of the department.

Of course, the ultimate test of these arrangements is how they will work if another dreadful pandemic hits us, or in relation to how we will improve the overall health of the people of this nation. Clearly, the jury is out on that—we do not know—but I would have more confidence if these bodies were more independent and subject to much greater parliamentary scrutiny than they are apparently going to be.

Covid-19 Vaccinations

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Apart from the technical hitches in getting data on to it, which a number of noble Lords have referred to, the NHS app has a record of vaccination, which is important. The measures to which the noble Duke refers are being considered as part of plan B, but at the moment the advice is not to move to plan B but to focus on getting people vaccinated. The Government are concerned that other messages may confuse the picture somewhat. The message is simple: get vaccinated—vaccine one, vaccine two or booster. If there are any problems, please let me and others know so that we can push. Sometimes people do not always talk to each other—let us put it that way—so let us make sure that this is as joined-up as possible.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister about the latest advice received by the Government from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. First, has SAGE advised the Government that Covid is moving into its endemic stage or does it continue to advise the Government that we are dealing with a pandemic, which needs additional measures? Secondly, does the Minister regret the resignation of Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust and an eminent scientist, from membership of SAGE?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government welcome advice from a range of stakeholders and have listened to SAGE and others throughout to balance their different views. In fact, I remember that when Jeremy Farrar was resigning he insisted that his departure should not be interpreted as a fresh disagreement with the Government. The Government listen to a range of views and balance them all.

Covid-19 Update

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for sharing her experiences from Germany. We are relying very much on a range of scientific advisers to tell us whether we need to move to plan B but at the moment, because we are not where we were last winter and because we have broken the link between cases, hospitalisation and deaths, we would prefer to try plan A. If we have to move to plan B, we will—on the advice of our range of scientific advisers—but there are also some concerns, as the House can imagine. I think it was Professor Mark Pennington of King’s College London who said, when assessing Covid-19 and the response to it, that you have to look at it as a complex system. When one thing happens, there might be a reaction elsewhere but also unintended consequences.

One concern we have heard about mandating face masks at the moment is: who enforces that? Do we suddenly have more police enforcing it and become a police state? Transport workers are also concerned about having to approach certain people and ask them to put their mask on in the proper place, for fear of abuse, so we have to get the balance right. We will try to stick to plan A, given that we have broken that link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths, and encourage more people to get vaccinated while reaching out to those hard-to-reach groups. But if the numbers and the various indicators are there and the scientific advice tells us to move to plan B, we will do so.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is such a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood, to whom I had the pleasure of referring by name a week ago today in my maiden speech. SAGE is so crucial to the advice given to the Government. So far as I understand it, in the first half of this year SAGE met on at least a dozen occasions. Yet since July it appears to have met only three times. Is it true that SAGE has not met since 9 September and, if so, why? On 9 September, SAGE’s official advice was that the epidemic was

“entering a period of uncertainty”

because of waning immunity and “changes in contact patterns”—which meant people going back to work and children going back to school. SAGE then

“reiterated the importance of acting early to slow a growing epidemic.”

When SAGE advises the Government, as it did on 9 September, that

“Late action is likely to require harder measures”,


does the Minister agree?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount for his question and welcome him to the House. The Government are taking a range of advice, including from SAGE, but also from the Chief Scientific Adviser, the Chief Medical Officer, the UK Health Security Agency and the NHS. We have to balance a number of different views. We want many scientific experts to contribute directly to ministerial discussions and believe that we have benefited from that wide range. I know that SAGE has met regularly; I do not have the latest date for when it did so but I can forward that information to him.