Health and Social Care Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, when I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was moving that this clause not stand part, I could not believe it—I thought that someone from Birmingham could not possibly be anti-fluoride. Having listened to him, I now understand what he is on about and that is a slightly different angle.

I am strongly in favour of water fluoridation. The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, tells us that he has been tabling questions for 15 years, but the issue has been before this House for much longer than that. We had probably the bitterest debate I have ever seen in my life in the House in about 1983, following the Strathclyde judgment. Strathclyde is a place in Scotland—given the current Leader of the House, I suppose I hardly need say that—where the council introduced water fluoridation. Suddenly, decay in children’s teeth decreased by 40 per cent. Then local people got very upset and said, “We don’t want this; it’s poison and it’s terrible”. The fluoride was taken out of the water, and immediately dental decay went right back up again. A court case was brought—I have not read the decision because it is 400 pages long—and the court ruled that fluoride was not a poison in the water, and after that other authorities put it in. As I say, though, the debate here was very bitter, and I am pleased that those who have spoken against fluoridation today have not shown the same bitterness that we had at that time, when people almost got up off their death-beds to come in and oppose it.

There are a number of other points that I feel I must take up. The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, was talking about the Australian comparison. I had an interesting visitor from Australia, the shadow Minister for federal health, or the federal Minister for shadow health—I think I have got that muddled up, but anyhow he is the opposition man on health. He was telling me that in Australia it has become very fashionable to drink bottled water, and they have found that people who are drinking that water are all getting dental decay back again, which again proves how effective fluoride is. I have a nephew who is a dentist in Sydney, and he tells me that he can tell if a boy has come from the country where all you would have to drink would be rainwater or water from a river—they come in with terrible teeth and you can spot them immediately.

The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, asked whether this is medication, and what about pure water? At one stage I was very involved with the water supply for London. Thames Water explained to me that every drop of water that we consume has been used eight or 10 times before—it may be more now. So there is nothing pure about it. It is not straight out of the river or anything; it has already been treated again and again. None of us stops to think about the chlorine in the water. Where I live in Oxfordshire, you have to fill the kettle the night before because otherwise the smell of chlorine in the water coming out of the tap is too strong. Chlorine is also a great thing for swimming pools. The answer to the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and others who really do not want to consume fluoride is that it does not matter whether the water in your bath has fluoride in it; you can go back to bottled water and have the Australian experience, and see what happens to your teeth then.

I also have been asking questions for a very long time. One question that is highly relevant is: what is the difference between the decayed/missing/filled rate—that is the dental classification—between Birmingham, which has the best teeth, and Manchester, which has probably the worst? The difference is vast. When I have asked the further important question, “What’s the difference in their health? Is there a difference in the pattern of what people die from or what illnesses they contract in Birmingham?”, the answer is that there is no difference. There is exactly the same health pattern in both these areas, but the difference is that one has better teeth than the other.

I still have a few questions to ask the noble Baroness. For example, we keep using the words “operable” and “efficient” everywhere, and asking whether something is or is not operable and efficient. Who will decide whether it is operable and efficient and what sort of criteria will be used?

I also notice that, in Clause 32(9), new Section (3A) refers to the Secretary of State wanting to make the fluoride proportion lower than the general target concentration. The target concentration is one part per million, and when water is being reused it is often required to reduce it to one part per million. However, that is not what this clause says. The clause says that the Secretary of State might want to reduce it to below the optimal point, which puzzles me. I should like to know in what sort of circumstances the Minister envisages wanting fluoride in the water but also wanting to reduce it. I could understand it if the time came when it was proved that there was some problem. That could then be the case but, if it were, surely new and urgent legislation would be needed immediately. People complain that there is too long or too short a time in which to test something, but you could not really say that the period since 1964 is too short. It really has been tested for a very long time without ill effects on people’s health.

It is very important that these clauses are kept in. I hope that the money will be found, and I am not really worried about where it is found from. There are small children in Manchester, often from ethnic communities, whose first presentation to the dentist means that they have to go to hospital to have all their baby teeth taken out under general anaesthetic. That is just not good enough and could be prevented if fluoride was in the water there.