Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Carol Monaghan and John Lamont(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (John Lamont)
The latest official figures speak for themselves and show sustained increases in both the import and export of goods between Scotland and the EU, with healthy results for services too.
John Lamont
No, it does not. Scotland continues to punch above its weight in exports, goods and services and foreign direct investment. Trade is now well above pre-Brexit levels.
Carol Monaghan
According to the Government’s own figures, new Brexit controls will cost the UK £330 million. Businesses in Glasgow are telling me they are already suffering from increased costs and red tape when importing parts and exporting goods. Can the Minister explain to businesses in my Glasgow North West constituency how Brexit is good for them?
John Lamont
The hon. Lady and the SNP really do have a brass neck speaking about business costs, given their own policy of setting up a hard border at Berwick, next to my constituency. That would risk thousands of jobs and force thousands of companies out of business—it would be a most damaging and reckless economic step. We will work through any short-term issues, but the answer is not the long-term decline proposed by the SNP.
PACE Trial: People with ME
Debate between Carol Monaghan and John Lamont(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Carol Monaghan
Yes. I will come on to how an appropriate trial could be done. First, I will mention the self-reporting that was a part of the trial. Questionnaires provided the data and measures of success. There were no physiological or scientific measurements. For patients the damage was done. I am a science teacher by profession and I always told my pupils that there are a number of stages to any scientific investigation: “Start with a hypothesis. Decide how you will test this theory, what measurements you will make, how you will record your results and how you will use these results to draw your conclusions. Those conclusions, which might be different from the original hypothesis, must be based on the evidence you have gathered.”
That did not happen in the PACE trial, which relied on patient self-reporting, rather than measurable physiological parameters. Furthermore, when the results were not as expected, rather than revise the original hypothesis, the investigators simply changed the success criteria. Thus patients participating in GET who had deteriorated during the study were considered recovered.
There are, of course, ways of measuring the physiological impact of exercise. The two-day cardiopulmonary exercise test can objectively measure post-exertional malaise. We know that a person with ME can perform adequately—sometimes even well—on the first day, but can have greatly reduced cardiopulmonary function on the second. The test requires the participant to exercise on a static bicycle, and allows data on oxygen consumption, workload and gas exchange to be measured. Two identical tests, separated by 24 hours, must be carried out to properly measure the impact of exercise. Results from a single test could be interpreted as a lack of fitness. Two tests change that to something quite different. A healthy person will perform better the second time; an ME sufferer will most likely be worse.
Of course, the failure of the PACE trial to do that could simply be put down to bad science, but unfortunately I believe that there is far more to it. One wonders why the DWP would fund such a trial, unless it was seen as a way of removing people from long-term benefits and reducing the welfare bill.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The hon. Lady is speaking very well about the challenges that this illness presents to people, but does she share my concern that in Scotland there is only one specialist, nurse-led ME facility and there are no specialist ME consultants? She raises an important point, but in terms of NHS awareness of the condition, we need to do more to ensure that people are getting the treatment that they undoubtedly need.