Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Today, we welcome wholeheartedly what the Government have done and the very important signals that are now being sent to the rest of the world. Like other noble Lords, I thank all those involved most sincerely.

[Baroness Northover (LD) [V]]

My Lords, praise will be ringing in Ministers’ ears from the first group of amendments, concerning the patient commissioner, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. There is praise again for listening on this issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, had the task, in the first instance, of rebutting the original amendment. I, for one, asked her to read the China Tribunal report to get a strong sense of the horrendous problem that was part of the context for this amendment. You could see that she was listening, and subsequent engagement has been very useful, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, have said. I am glad that the ministerial team has responded. It comes on the day that the Foreign Secretary has made a Statement in the Commons that focuses on human violations against the Uighurs.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for consistently, and with great political skill, taking forward this issue, as he has done on the scandal of the “Real Bodies” exhibitions. I also pay tribute to the others who have worked in this area, including the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and the noble Lords, Lord Ribeiro and Lord Alton. This is a terrible problem and one that it would be easy to turn away from, but those noble Lords simply do not do so.

We need to make further progress across this area, and I am sure this will be taken forward. Forced organ harvesting, which according to the China Tribunal has happened on a mass scale in China, is a horrific crime. Organs are removed from living victims by doctors in state-run hospitals for transplantation, inevitably killing the victim in the process.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, the China Tribunal concluded that many victims were Falun Gong practitioners. A brutal and systematic crackdown on Falun Gong was initiated in 1999, with the Chinese leadership ordering their eradication. Many disappeared without trace, which was when China’s organ transplant trade rapidly increased. As we now recognise, in recent years there has been a similar crackdown on the ethnic-minority Uighurs. They have been put into re-education camps and have endured forced labour, brainwashing, rape and torture. The China Tribunal stated:

“In regard to the Uyghurs, the Tribunal had evidence of medical testing on a scale that could allow them, amongst other uses, to become an ‘organ bank’.”


Our amendment aims to ensure that no human tissue or cells that have been sourced from victims of organ harvesting can be used in human medicines or enter the UK medical supply chain. This is the first time the United Kingdom Government will enact legislation in this area, and we must hope that it sends a strong and clear message internationally. Thus far, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, it is enabling, but the Government will know that many will be monitoring this area. We need to see those regulations in place.

I note the weakness of the HTA assessment of the “Real Bodies” exhibition, on which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Alton, will expand, and its acceptance of what it was told, seemingly at face value. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, also, rightly, pointed to this. The amendment that we are agreeing today will help move things forward. I am grateful to the Government and their lawyers for working on this, although, clearly, we will all need to be vigilant and there is still much to do.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con) [V]]

My Lords, like the noble Lords who have spoken before me, I thank the Minister and the Government for accepting our amendment. I believe it sends a powerful message, not only to China but to other countries such as Pakistan and India, to which I referred in my speech of 28 October in Committee. In discussion with the Foreign Office, through the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, we were reassured that the diplomatic strategy would be to continue lobbying as many countries as possible on the issue of human rights and the immoral practice of forced organ harvesting. With the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, we undertook to raise awareness with the British Medical Association and the surgical royal colleges.

It is worth noting the World Health Organization’s Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation. Any programme such as the kidney pairing exchange, which makes it possible to utilise kidneys that are biologically incompatible between patients and their genetically or emotionally related donors, must follow and respect the WHO’s Guiding Principles of practice, particularly principles 3 and 5, which are worth quoting.

Principle 3 says:

“Live donations are acceptable when the donor’s informed and voluntary consent is obtained, when professional care of donors is ensured and follow-up is well organized, and when selection criteria for donors are scrupulously applied and monitored. Live donors should be informed of the probable risks, benefits and consequences of donation in a complete and understandable fashion; they should be legally competent and capable of weighing the information; and they should be acting willingly, free of any undue influence or coercion.”


Principle 5 states:

“Cells, tissues and organs should only be donated freely, without any monetary payment or other reward of monetary value. Purchasing, or offering to purchase, cells, tissues or organs for transplantation, or their sale by living persons or by the next of kin for deceased persons, should be banned.”


In 2017, the World Health Assembly supported a concept of financial neutrality to protect vulnerable people from being exploited. That is the essence of what this amendment achieves, and I am grateful to the Government and to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for endorsing it. I hope that they will maintain their pressure on the WHO to end these practices.