Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was happy to add my name to this amendment to give it a bit of cross-House balance. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I am an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus. In the last two years, we have had a bellyful of coronavirus; we have heard ad nauseum about the problems and the tragedies that it has created and encompassed, and that is partly what leads to this amendment.

It is self-evident that the United Kingdom, and most of the rest of the world, was unprepared. Countries that had experienced SARS, particularly in south-east Asia, had a better idea of what they were getting into. Frankly, however, for most of us in the West, it was the blind leading the blind. Looking in the mirror today—and accepting our failings, and the unease that we in the developed world should surely feel for largely having prioritised looking after our own—is for me, certainly, distinctly uncomfortable.

The aim of Amendment 174 is very simple: equitable access to affordable health technologies for all. One of the biggest challenges is how to deal with the exclusive intellectual property rights that exist in the healthcare sector. Only 7% of people in low-income countries have been double vaccinated. Only an additional 14% have had one dose.

Noble Lords should remember where the variants have come from. The exception, of course, is alpha, for which global Britain is responsible, so that is something that we can be proud of. Beta came from South Africa, gamma from Brazil, delta from India, and omicron is truly global because it started in about 10 countries simultaneously. The two countries that went it alone, rather proudly, in developing their own vaccines—China and Russia—have produced manifestly inferior vaccines, which have not been subject to proper, clinical peer scrutiny.

I give two examples of the problem we face. First, Pfizer’s new antiviral treatment excludes most Latin American countries, and generic versions—unless Pfizer does something about relaxing its intellectual property—may not be available in those countries until after 2041. Secondly, Tocilizumab, an antiviral manufactured by Roche, which is based on UK government-funded research, is unable to be manufactured in countries with established production capacity because Roche is enforcing its patents in these countries. There is a global shortage of this particular treatment.

Tackling the complex world of healthcare intellectual property is not easy. In my past career as a headhunter, I worked with clients that were large, complex, well-funded, international pharmaceutical companies, so I know full well the level of intellect and resource that they put into their intellectual property defences. We must apply ourselves in a disciplined and determined way at an international level; this is a chance for Great Britain to prove that it is indeed global. As an aside, during Oral Questions this morning, some of us on the Cross Benches were playing a game where, every time somebody from the Government Front Bench mentioned global Britain, another notional £10 clinked into the pockets of the Cross-Bench Christmas drinks fund; this afternoon, we had a particularly fruitful Oral Questions. As a mantra, it is meaningless unless it has real content behind it.

We need to develop a rapid response plan for the next pandemic. We will demonstrate that we have intellectual and moral myopia if we fail to do it. In a nod to Amendment 170, which we debated earlier, we should not show that we are content to let the less-developed world suffer from what I would describe as unassisted dying. That is unacceptable.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to offer Green support for this amendment, which I would have signed had there been space.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, referred to today’s report that a watered-down version of the India-South Africa proposal for a TRIPS waiver looks likely to go through the WTO. I quote Max Lawson, co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance:

“After almost 18 months of stalling and millions of deaths, the EU has climbed down and finally admitted that intellectual property rules and pharmaceutical monopolies are a barrier to vaccinating the world.”


Bouncing off the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I think that the Cross Benches might find an even larger drinks fund if they go for “world-leading” as the key phrase to identify. The comment from Mr Lawson shows that, collectively, the world has done very badly throughout the Covid pandemic and done very poorly by the global south. If the Government want to be world-leading, they could leap in right now and accept the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lawrence and Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on supporting and promoting this amendment. Its explanatory statement says:

“In the event of a public health emergency of international concern, this new Clause requires the Secretary of State to support domestic and international knowledge-sharing, to combat the emergency.”


I cannot see why anybody would object to that.

I would like to say one more thing. The former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has led this country on how one should respond to a global pandemic with his work at the World Health Organization on the importance of sharing knowledge, vaccines and technology across the world. This amendment is about the pandemic that is coming down the track as well as the one we are dealing with at the moment, so we on these Benches certainly support it.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, whose contribution reflects her extensive wisdom and knowledge in this area. I just want to say that I commend my noble friend Lady Sugg for her leadership in bringing forward the amendment. I, too, will listen to what the Minister says in reply this evening, but instinctively I support what my noble friend is seeking to achieve.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 183. My background in this goes back to March 2020, in those difficult, scary, early days of the pandemic, when your Lordships’ House was operating on a skeleton crew. That led to me, as very new Peer, moving the amendment to the coronavirus regulations that would have allowed for telemedicine. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, who I note has signed this amendment, for supporting me through that process, because I had little idea about what I was doing in terms of your Lordships’ House. It is worth noting that we were doing that in part in acknowledgement that women would not otherwise have access to the necessary medical service of an abortion, but also because we knew that NHS resources were going to be enormously stretched. We are still in a situation where NHS resources are enormously stretched. Earlier we were talking about the Ukrainian refugees whom we will be welcoming here and the medical services that they will need.

Of course, we want to say that, in this area of medicine, we should be putting resources into all the NHS services that women need, but the evidence is overwhelming that telemedicine abortion is giving women a better service. I pick up the point made by the right reverend Prelate that there may be safeguarding concerns. There is evidence, particularly from MSI Reproductive Choices, reporting a major uplift in safeguarding disclosures, including from survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, with telemedicine.

On the medical side of this is a simple clear fact: since telemedicine has been introduced, complication rates from abortion have fallen by 20%. You do not have to listen to just me on this; permanent provision of abortion telemedicine is supported by eight royal colleges and medical societies, including the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Association. I also point out that abortion telemedicine is going to continue in Wales and Scotland, based on the evidence. The arguments are simply overwhelming: this is the best option.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak on this, but I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and that encouraged me to stand up and speak, together with other noble Lords who are a bit cautious about all of this. I was a vicar of an inner-city parish in which there were a lot of teenage pregnancies, and those who made them pregnant tried to force them to have abortions. The only person they felt they could tell was the vicar, not their parents, because their parents would hit the roof. Some of them would get corporal punishment as a result. I found myself in difficult, tricky situations, but I was fortunate, because in the congregation we had midwives and doctors. I simply said, “I listened to what you are saying to me, but I am not medically qualified to give any advice. We have experienced people who can give you that advice.” I was grateful that those midwives and doctors were able to accompany these teenage girls and help them come to a more sensible position.

I speak as somebody who is not against abortion, because the welfare of the mother and her rights need to be protected, but I am concerned about a measure that was brought in because of extreme circumstances. The Government were right, during the pandemic, to allow the kind of arrangement that was set up. But I am with the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, that we should not change overnight a tradition and circumstances that were accepted by the majority who see the right of abortion. We should not say that we will now go down this almost administrative route as the norm. Most people would be very concerned if we were going down a particular route.

I strongly believe, because of my experience of those teenage pregnancies in Tulse Hill, that the role of doctors, specialists in counselling and others is absolutely vital. You cannot do away with that because it is easier at the end of a telephone. You may not believe it, but young boys who had made girls pregnant would put pressure on them to have these abortions, for no reason other than that they wanted to move on to the next young girl. I still find that unacceptable.