Government Policy on Health
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for sharing her experience of consulting widely. It is certainly entirely legitimate for government departments to do just that. However, those who do not have a formal role are not required to declare interests; it is different for those who have a formal role. Requiring them to do so would mean, for example, us sending forms in advance to Cancer Research UK before it comes in to talk to us about cancer and to assist us. Would we want that? We would not. Of course, where there is a formal role, we absolutely do that.
It is probably worth saying that a particularly high-profile invitation went from the Secretary of State to the noble Lord, Lord Darzi. He will report shortly on the true state of the National Health Service. He does not have a specific role in the department but he has been invited by the Secretary of State to assist; I believe that he will assist both your Lordships’ House and the other place.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, when the Green Party consults on health policy, among the organisations it consults are the Socialist Health Association, Keep Our NHS Public and 999 Call for the NHS—all organisations that are greatly concerned about the continuing privatisation of the NHS. Can the Minister tell me whether the Secretary of State or she herself have had meetings with any of those three organisations since coming into government?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I cannot answer that, I am afraid. I would be very happy to look at it for the noble Baroness.
Vaginal Mesh Implants: Compensation
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I join what I am sure will be a chorus of praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, both for securing this debate and for her brilliant work over many years on these issues, particularly that of vaginal mesh. I started working with the noble Baroness during the passage of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act. If we think back, many of the things the noble Baroness was pushing for have since been achieved. However, today we are addressing some of the things that still desperately need to be dealt with.
One of the noble Baroness’s achievements was the appointment of a Patient Safety Commissioner. Dr Henrietta Hughes is doing a brilliant job and, as has already been referred to, brought out a report in February urging that the compensation schemes for both sodium valproate and vaginal mesh be brought in as soon as possible. I will just do a little bit of advertising for Dr Hughes. She still has a consultation open on the principles of better patient safety and there is one more day for a chance to respond to that, if anyone would like to do so. It is such important work that it deserves to be highlighted.
I want to put this in the broader context of where we are now. We seem to be hearing weekly about a cascade of official and government failures: the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Horizon scandal, the infected blood disaster and the Hillsborough tragedy. Obviously, we have a new Government and they do not bear direct responsibility for any of those circumstances, but it presents them with an enormous challenge: the challenge to respond sensitively, appropriately and at sufficient speed to do everything possible to ameliorate the circumstances of the victims.
These cases also throw up the challenge of acknowledging that the talk about “cutting red tape” that we have been hearing for so many years is a deeply dangerous approach. We need rules, regulations and controls to keep us safe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, drew attention to, we need to keep under control what those who make profits are doing to increase them.
We also need to listen to the people who are adversely affected when things start to go wrong. The reality is that so often—we know this is particularly the case with female patients—for years and years people said, “There’s a problem here”, and officialdom said, “No, nothing to see here; it’s all fine”, sometimes even saying that it was all in their head. The Government really need to stamp on that tendency.
I understand that it is early days for the new Government, but I have noticed—this is not directed at the Minister in particular, but at the Government more generally—that when I put down Written Questions and get the Answers, I seem to get essentially the same Answers as I got a few months ago under the previous Government. I urge Ministers, both individually and collectively, to please be curious and challenging. If an Answer was given six or 12 months, or two years, ago, ask if it is still the right one, if indeed it was the right one in the first place.
I have some specific points. A number of people referred to the recent settlement in the court case against the manufacturers. One of the issues that raised was the fact that hundreds of women were unable to make a claim due to a strict 10-year time limit from the date that the product was manufactured. Are the Government planning to do something about that?
I join the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, in paying great tribute to Sling The Mesh and other similar campaigners. Is the Minister ensuring that her door is open not only to that group but to many other campaigning groups? It would be great to hear that that is the case.
A further point is that Dr Hughes recommended at least an interim payment scheme for vaginal mesh and sodium valproate. The question everyone is asking is, when are we going to hear about that?
The Independent reports that June Dunne, a 64 year-old, has been waiting for corrective surgery since 2019. What are the waiting lists now like?
Finally, the official government figures say that there are 127,000 mesh implants. The campaigners say there may have been many more. Are the Government looking into making sure that they have the proper records of all people affected?
Vaping Products: Usage by Children
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for securing this very important debate and reminding me that I should declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
Seeing this on the Order Paper took me back to a moment when I really saw how much of an issue vaping is becoming. I was on a local train in the West Midlands when a young woman, maybe 18, was chatting on her phone to her friend. I remember the vehemence of the sentence that she stated then, talking about vaping: “You just need it so desperately; it’s much worse than cigarettes”. That point of addiction in the way that vaping is experienced by young people was driven home to me by that individual circumstance. This is a significant health issue.
It is worth looking at the fact that behind this is a semi-success story. The indoor smoking ban that came in in 2007, fairly strong labelling laws, education, and provision of cessation help have had a big impact. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, says, we seem to have hit a brick wall in making progress.
What has happened, as happens so often when regulating big business, is that an escape clause was levered out: vaping. It has become a new method of keeping big tobacco in business. All bar one of the giant tobacco companies have made substantial investments, as outlined by the Tobacco Tactics project of the University of Bath. I must ask the Minister a question here: are the Government concerned about the potential lobbying impacts of big tobacco on the operations of Government and Parliament? Do they intend to act on that level of influence, which is a threat to future action?
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, accurately said that there is a huge amount of uncertainty and that future research is needed. I was looking at a 2022 state-of-the-art review from the British Medical Journal, by Andrea Jonas, titled the “Impact of Vaping on Respiratory Health”. A sentence in it really struck me:
“The public health consequences of widespread vaping remain to be seen”.
We need to apply a precautionary principle, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Young people, who still have underdeveloped lungs, are taking who knows what substances into their lungs—certainly the Government do not know; no one really knows. Basic common sense says that this will certainly not be good.
It is worth looking at the figures. I am relying on the extensive briefing from the British Medical Association, which I am sure most noble Lords have received: 7.6% of 11 to 17 year-olds are vaping regularly or occasionally. That compares to 1.3% 10 years ago, so this really deserves the term “epidemic”. The YouGov survey quoted in the very useful Library briefing shows that 18% of 11 to 17 year-olds have tried vaping. That is nearly 1 million children. This is not a fringe concern.
As other noble Lords have said, many children are buying these products from shops illegally. This is very clear. It is also clear that many products are sold that do not meet health regulations. It is worth looking at the context in which this operates. I note a recent interview with the chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, in which he pointed out that trading standards are not protected in local government budgets in the way that adult social care and children’s services are. Those two elements make up 80% of the budgets of many local councils. Trading standards are just one of the many essentials that have been squeezed and squeezed again.
This is a really useful case study in taking on the rhetoric that we hear all too often about how terrible red tape is. Protecting our children from dangerous substances and making sure that the law is enforced in shops is what some would call red tape, but I say that they need to be properly funded and supported. Among the many briefings that we have received is one from the Association of Convenience Stores stressing the cost of fully enforcing vape legislation. I was not entirely clear about where it was coming from, but it makes the point that, if we are going to do anything about this, we cannot just pass laws; we also need to fund their enforcement.
I noted in the King’s Speech in July that a tobacco and vapes Bill would be reintroduced. Can the Minister indicate whether that will include the promise of enforcement for whatever that Bill contains?
I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, about the need to future-proof that Bill. We are already seeing, in expectation of restrictions and controls coming in particularly on single-use vapes, that companies are adapting. We are seeing reusable replacements for these disposable single-use vapes already on the market, carrying the same brand name and looking very similar in product design. It is very hard to tell the difference between the single-use and the reusable. This is one of the ways in which people are attempting to intervene before the restrictions come in.
Another area that we need to look at very closely is nicotine pouches. Usage in the UK is relatively low compared to some other countries, but people in the social media world tell me that this area is exploding. We need to look at what restrictions might be placed on those products and how we stop creating an open door to be driven through.
As a Green, I feel that I must finally pick up a point made in the introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about environmental impacts, particularly of single-use vapes. We are talking about children’s health, but plastic in the environment is significant to the health of all of us, particularly children. I point to a recent study; I urge noble Lords to look it up if they have not seen it. A study of a sample of human brains found that they consisted of 0.5% plastic. Microplastics are everywhere: they are in testes, placentas, breast milk and brains.
Think about the world in which our young people live. In the UK, 1.3 million of these battery-powered devices, usually plastic, are discarded every week. Some 10 tonnes of lithium are thrown into the environment, which is sufficient to manufacture 1,200 electric car batteries a year. As with so many issues, this is a public health issue, an individual health issue and an environmental health issue. We need to look holistically at many of these issues from that one-health frame.
Coronavirus: UK Deaths
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts(3 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we have not heard from the Green Benches yet.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I thank noble Lords. Following on from the question from the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, about long Covid, and of course continuing new cases are arising even from apparently initially mild infections, we also face the threat that I hope the Government are watching closely of H5N1 in terms of other respiratory diseases, and we know it is only a matter of time before another respiratory pandemic faces us. What steps are the Government taking to look at air filtration and ventilation systems to provide a better public health system that is more resistant to future diseases in schools and other public buildings and perhaps to provide ways for people to assess in premises they visit how good the ventilation and filtration is for them to be able to go into those environments?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
The noble Baroness offers some helpful suggestions as to areas that we can be looking at, but this for me all comes under the headline of resilience and certainly we are monitoring potential emergencies, including the one that the noble Baroness refers to. I can assure her also that preparedness will not just focus on respiratory means of passing on disease but will now look at all of the five routes of transmission, and I feel that will make us a much more resilient country.