Draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Quality and Safety of Organs Intended for Transplantation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 Draft Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 General Committees

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. My hon. Friends have made very pertinent points about the draft regulations, and I absolutely agree with the contribution from the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West.

I used to be Public Health Minister, and this is one of the policy areas I used to cover. Does the Minister agree that one of the aspects of this subject is the contribution the UK has made to wider EU policy in this area? Some of the standards we have set have been very positive in promoting wider understanding among the 27 countries, plus us, in the European Union about the necessity for safety and precaution in this area.

Unfortunately, we have heard terrible stories about how lax systems can lead to all sorts of consequences for individuals and for health policy generally. The UK and some other EU members have played a positive part in addressing that. Does the Minister agree that, in many respects, although we are transposing this policy into UK law, it is actually a law that we were at the forefront of pushing in the first place?

It is absolutely right that the Government should take a precautionary approach to ensure that, in the event of no deal, we have adequate provisions on the statute books to continue to provide services and maintain the safety of current arrangements. However, does the Minister agree that, for all sorts of reasons, there is a danger of a combination of factors leading to a no-deal situation by default, even though a majority of Members claim they do not want that?

The answer to all this is for people to work together across parties for a satisfactory deal, to ensure that we give certainty to businesses and those in public policy areas—particularly social and health policy—that when we reach the end of March there will be a transition period in which more detail on other arrangements can be sorted out, and to allay people’s fears about falling off a cliff edge. It seems to me that there was cross-party support for that—in fact, my party argued for a transition period and many Members, including some of my colleagues here today, also argued for avoiding a cliff edge.

As someone who is on the organ donor register and is a blood donor—I hope everyone else in the room is, too—I think it is really important that we address the positive here. As we leave the European Union, we should get a positive deal that asserts our independence but recognises that, in areas such as this, working across 28 nations within the EU, we have developed some law that we want to continue, regardless of whether we are in or not.