Queen’s Speech

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be taking part in this debate following the gracious Speech, and I am particularly encouraged to speak more freely when I see the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in his place and know that he cannot answer me back or reply to my comments—at least not today. So if I do speak freely, I hope that he will understand.

Before doing that, I shall speak on two of the issues that are in the gracious Speech and in the notes accompanying it. The first relates to redundancy payments, particularly for public sector workers. We know that current statistics show that a quarter of the managers who have been given redundancy payments come back to some post or other, either as NHS employees or contractors. These are highly paid individuals and some of them were found not to be performing well. It is time that that was stopped.

My other comment relates to education. I welcome the fact that GCSE A-levels are to be reformed. Both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society have produced reports. The Royal Society report, which will come out on 26 June, alludes to the need for science and mathematics teaching in both primary and secondary schools. It also refers to the lack of appropriately qualified specialists in chemistry and other science subjects in both primary and secondary schools. Unless we tackle the issue, the comments we have heard from universities and employers about the lack of appropriately skilled people in science and mathematics and the lack of economic competitiveness as against our competitors will not be addressed. I hope we will have an opportunity to debate that.

I turn to the issues about which I can speak freely that were not in the gracious Speech. These represent missed opportunities. We have had draft Bills, and consultations and reviews conducted by the Department of Health, and yet nothing has come to legislation. Perhaps I may just list some of these issues because I do not have the time to go through them in detail.

First, the Law Commission report on the regulation of the nine regulators in health and social care. The Government asked the Law Commission to look at this in 2011 and it produced a clear report earlier this year which will be of benefit to both the regulators and, in the case of medicine, to improved patient care. The Government said that they were committed to bringing this in and yet there is no draft regulation or legislation and we do not know when we will get it. This will stop any further development or improvement in patient care, certainly as far as medicine regulation is concerned, because the current medical Act is draconian, bureaucratic and not fit for purpose. I do not know whether the Government can change this situation but I hope that they will at least produce a draft Bill before the next election.

My next point concerns caring, to which the Minister referred. Yes, we now have draft regulation and guidance, produced last week on 6 June, relating to Part 1 of the Care Act. Again, however, the legislation, guidance and regulation do not address the key issue—the vulnerability of old people who are abused through being provided with poor care and the lack of accountability of those who provide it. We need legislation to introduce a criminal offence and a penalty for those who do not treat old people properly. Some 500,000 elderly people are abused per year—50 per hour—and so, by the time we finish the debate, 250 more elderly people will have been abused. Regulation is required to fix this situation and I am sorry that I do not see it.

Parliament has said that it would like to see the plain packaging of tobacco products. There has been consultation and the Government produced draft regulation. I now realise that there has to be consultation time and, after that, the EU will have to have a consultation period. Therefore, the timescale is so prolonged that there is a risk that the issue will be kicked into the long grass if the Government do not produce something before the next election.

We have debated folic acid—I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is in his place—and it is clear now that the folic levels in the general population of this country are low. One-third of pregnant women do not take the precaution of having adequate folic acid pre-pregnancy. This results in more than 300 babies being born with serious neural tube defects, spina bifida being one of them. However, several hundred others have their pregnancies terminated because of such defects. It is time now to address the issue by putting small quantities of folic acid in flour. However, there is no legislation to enable this.

We have also debated mitochondrial disease. About 3,500 women in this country probably carry mutant genes of mitochondrial DNA, which accounts for less than 1% of total DNA. Diseases related to mutations in mitochondrial genes are severe and affect mostly the brain, heart, liver, kidney and nervous system. One of the ways to help those who carry a CBL gene mutation is to replace the mitochondrial DNA.

Three reviews that the Government asked an expert committee of the HFEA to produce, and the report from the Nuffield Foundation ethics committee, all said that there was no reason why mitochondrial replacement techniques should not be given the go-ahead. However, legislation will be required before this can occur in humans, even for the purposes of research. These are five missed opportunities on issues that we have already discussed.

I turn finally in one minute to—

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, there is an advisory speaking time of five minutes. Obviously the noble Lord could go beyond it, but in terms of courtesy to others, given the number of speakers in the debate, he might want to bear the time in mind.

[Lord Patel]

As a courtesy, I will not go any further. However, I have to say that NHS reforms have not worked so far and we should take the opportunity to look at the issues again. I hope that we will be able to discuss them further.