Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for that statement, which is extremely helpful. I am alarmed, or surprised, that we are at this stage looking at a grey area about whether or not it is necessary for these amendments to be moved and accepted. It is very important that that is clarified, and I would just like to make one or two other points.

Grand Committee is for probing; it is for consensus, and then it is up to the House to take the decisions on Report about that. These amendments, which we are being asked to nod through, really are not consistent with what the Companion says Grand Committee is there for, so the clarification that we will have to return to these at a later stage is, of course, absolutely necessary.

However, that also means that on Report we will have a Bill before us that is not the same Bill as we have now. It will have been significantly amended in some very significant areas of policy. So I am writing to the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee today to ask them to look again at the Bill. When the amendments have been accepted, it will not be the same Bill as we have now.

We will not negative the amendments today, because I accept the noble Earl’s statement and, on the balance of risks, the Opposition would not wish to delay the Bill for three months, into next year. We can see the dangers that that would represent. However, I ask the Government to examine the proposal made by my noble friend Lord Hunt to the Minister and the Bill team in a meeting to discuss the issue. That was that they should look at paragraph 8.127 of the Companion and consider removing from the Bill all the government amendments concerned with this issue. We could then take those in a group at the end, on the Floor of the House. That would give us time to do the stuff we have not yet done and discuss the substance of the amendments.

If the Minister and the Bill team had come to us a month ago and said, “We’ve got this problem with the Northern Ireland consent process, and this is what it means,” we would not be having this discussion now, because we would have worked out how to resolve that problem. I regret that that is not what happened and I hope that we will now move forward in a more positive way. Finally, we will look carefully at what is added in Grand Committee as a result of these very particular circumstances and we may seek to delete or amend some of the government amendments at the next stage of the Bill.

[Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]]

With the Northern Ireland component, a time constraint was imposed on the Committee, and people have been looking at ways of solving the problem since our previous meeting. Since 8.30 am I have been in various meetings with various people looking for ways forward. The one described by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, is on the table and has been agreed by all party spokespersons. It was finally agreed at a meeting with the Minister and others at 1.30 pm. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his help in resolving this issue.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their responses. I think that this provides a basis on which to proceed with our Grand Committee debate today, pending further clarification on the matters that I referred to earlier between now and Wednesday, our next Grand Committee day. I can assure noble Lords that my colleagues and I will endeavour to achieve that clarity, which we will disseminate at the earliest opportunity.