Health and Care Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour for my two amendments to be grouped with that in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Blencathra. As the noble Lord has discussed the supply chain, I should declare my interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association, although I am not speaking on its behalf when it comes to my strongly supporting his amendment, which sets the context for my own two amendments.

We debated this issue very fully in Committee. I think that the House believes strongly that the commercial exploitation of body parts in all forms is unethical and unsavoury. When it is combined with mass killing by an authoritarian state, we cannot stand by and do nothing. In 2019, the China Tribunal, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, stated:

“The Tribunal’s members are certain—unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt—that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”


In June this year, 12 UN special procedure experts raised the issue of forced organ harvesting with the Chinese Government in response to credible information that Falun Gong practitioners, Uighurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians had been killed for their organs in China.

Currently, human tissue legislation covers organ transplantation within the UK, where we have a very ethical approach, but it does not cover British citizens travelling abroad for transplants, and British taxpayers’ money will pay for anti-rejection medication regardless of where the organ was sourced or whether it was forcibly harvested from prisoners of conscience.

I shall not repeat all that I said in Committee, but I have had a helpful meeting with Ministers for which I thank them. In that meeting and in subsequent meetings, the Minister was concerned that my amendment in relation to organ tourism would penalise vulnerable people seeking to pay for a transplant. I have thought about that carefully, but, in the end—and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, expressed so well why this Bill is highly appropriate for these kind of amendments—we have to draw a line in the sand. That is particularly so today, in the horrific circumstances that we meet. We have to draw a line in the sand and send out a powerful message globally that we will not support these abhorrent practices in any way.

My Amendment 162 comes later, but I shall seek the opinion of the House at that time.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has very effectively introduced the amendments to which I have put my name, Amendments 162 and 173, and I wish briefly to express the support of these Benches for those. We also support Amendment 108, to which my noble friend Lady Brinton has put her name.

As noble Lords know, we have been inching forward on these matters with Ministers, and I welcome that forward movement. I note, however, recent warnings from Ministers that, for example, there are “opportunity costs” in implementing these measures, as ensuring that proper standards are enforced requires effort and potential cost. I understand that. Nevertheless, we cannot allow ourselves to become complicit in any way in organ tourism where the source of those organs is forced or where selling the organ is to address appalling poverty.

Some say that this trade may be declining in and from China. If so, that is welcome and might reflect international pressure, not least on the Chinese medical profession. It is not clear that those involved in the China Tribunal and the Uyghur Tribunal would agree that it is declining.

Even if we were to accept that, and Ministers seemed to indicate that they thought that might be the case, we are also hearing now of an increase in the selling of organs in Afghanistan because of the dire situation there. There have been recent reports of journalists seeing the scars of those who have sold their kidneys. That is a terrible indictment of our walking away from Afghanistan and failing to address the appalling conditions that we have left there. How can we regard such potential “donors” as being anything other than the most extremely vulnerable? How can you put that up against the vulnerable who may need to have donations?

As for the bodies exhibitions, we have discussed before how distasteful they are—but then we realise with horror exactly where these bodies seem to have been sourced: among other things, from Chinese prisons. We should never have condoned that, turning a blind eye. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who argued in Committee that they should simply be banned. There is no reason whatever to agree to their continuation.

I now hear that the Government may argue—and this is incredibly familiar—that these amendments are flawed. As the noble Earl knows, often Ministers are given briefs that say, “This is a flawed amendment, so turn it back.” I am very familiar with them. In those circumstances, the best thing is for your Lordships to pass these amendments, because Ministers know, or should know, that the essence is extremely clear, and with government lawyers we can work out how best to sort out any unintended consequences. I hope that I do not hear anything about these amendments being flawed—and I say that to the Box. I therefore commend them to your Lordships.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, and I shall speak specifically and briefly to Amendments 162 and 173.

These amendments are updates to the Human Tissue Act, which was born out of public outrage following the Alder Hey scandal, when over 100,000 organs, body parts and entire bodies of foetuses and stillborn babies were stored in NHS facilities. The body parts of dead patients, including children, were removed without consent. Today, the Human Tissue Authority’s guiding principles, as set out in its code of practice, are consent, dignity, quality, honesty and openness. These principles should not only reflect how human tissue sourced from within our own nation is treated, we must treat human tissue and organs with the same principles when sourced overseas.

In China, as has been said, there is substantial evidence of Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs—as well as some evidence of Tibetans and house Christians—being killed on demand for their organs. Blood is taken off them for tissue-typing at the time when they were taken into custody, often with no idea why they were taken into custody at all, other than that they belong to one of those groups. There is no consent, no dignity and no transparency.

On 7 December last year, the British Medical Association released a statement on the abuse of Uighurs in China, expressing

“grave concern regarding the situation in China and the continuing abuse of the Uyghur population of the country as well as other minorities.”

It went on to state:

“We are particularly alarmed by the reports of organ harvesting, forced birth prevention, and the use of genomics data for racial profiling.”


It urged

“the UK government and international actors to exert pressure on the Chinese government to cease its inhumane actions towards the Uyghurs”.

If we do not pass amendments as laid before the House today, we will be complicit with these practices, because we will be looking at them with Nelson’s eye, with all the evidence that we have that they are going on.

On Amendment 173, on the exhibition of whole bodies using a plastinated technique, I suggest that there is no transparency whatever. Any attempt to claim that there has been consent is extremely suspect, because consent is very easily falsified. I went to one of these exhibitions because I thought you ought to go and see what you are criticising. This was not an anatomical, educational experience but a visual display of plastinated bodies in all kinds of different poses. But the one that horrified me the most was a pregnant woman, quite advanced in her pregnancy and with the foetus in her womb, which had been plastinated. I do not believe that that woman would have given consent for plastination. That raised real questions as to why such an advanced foetus was in the womb of a dead woman without something there explaining the nature of her death, the cause of death and the circumstances in which she had decided to consent to such a procedure.