Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Friday 16th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Not a day goes by without those practising medicine in our national health service innovating. Talk to any doctor, and especially any surgeon—in fact any registered medical practitioner—and they will show how they have been innovative and, in being innovative, how they have helped those they are trying to treat. The levels of innovation are, without doubt, inspiring.

Let me give an example to demonstrate what I mean. An eminent surgeon was telling me only the other day of how he had helped a patient who came to him with a particular stomach tumour. At the time of surgery, he found this tumour to be so large that if he had continued with his original plan of removing it, it would probably have killed the patient. This surgeon had just a few nights before read about a drug called Glivec. Glivec creates a mutation called C-KIT, common in chronic leukaemia, where it is a succeeding treatment. Reports appeared indicating that the type of tumour this patient had carried had the same sort of mutation, so rather than trying to remove the tumour, a bypass operation was performed to overcome the obstruction and allow the patient to take the drug.

When the surgeon put his patient on this drug, the tablets were tolerated. The tumour disappeared. Years later that patient occasionally visits his surgeon to say thank you for being innovative and saving his life. In fact, as that surgeon will confirm, there is only one thing wrong with what happened that day. There was no way of recording the innovation on a database that could share it with other surgeons preparing for a similar operation and show how it had worked.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the doctor in that particular case would have had to obtain his patient’s consent before proceeding with that innovative treatment?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I believe that the decision was taken while the patient was unconscious, but there would then have been a conversation, absolutely, because the doctor would have acted responsibly, as would any surgeon.

This was a life-saving decision, but there was no simple, quick way to tell anyone about it and, in so doing, perhaps save someone else’s life. Earlier this year, when we in this place were getting excited and building up to some sort of election campaign, the House of Lords was passing Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill. It passed through all its stages in the other place and, as with many Bills, ideas were refined and concepts were introduced in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading. One of the new ideas that was introduced into the Bill is the central idea that I have plagiarised for my Bill—namely, the introduction of a database for innovative treatments conducted by registered medical practitioners.

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[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am not sure I do. I would like to think that this Bill completely clarifies how this database can be set up and builds a foundation on which the Secretary of State can do such a thing. My Bill does not build this database; all it does is confer on the Secretary of State the power, which the hon. Lady talks about, to build such a database. If the Secretary of State for Health chose to use the power, it would only be after detailed consultation. However, as we would all expect, when given the opportunity to take a private Member’s Bill through into law, any Member of Parliament, myself included, would endeavour to consult widely on the matter in hand. Thus over the summer I have met pretty much everyone who has expressed an interest in this Bill—either for or against—to endeavour to allay any concerns about its content and direction of travel and to listen to what they have to say.

[Mr Nuttall]

Is it the case that the introduction of the database into this Bill is really in response to the concerns that were expressed in the other place when Lord Saatchi’s Bill was being debated? There were concerns that, if his Bill was allowed to go through without the database, there would be difficulties? Is that not the case?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Absolutely, my hon. Friend is completely right.

The Minister will be pleased to hear that I have been working closely with some of the excellent officials in his Department to ensure that there is a little more detail in the Bill specifically to deal with some of the concerns that have been raised with me. First, after a great deal of thought and research, I suggest that the database is held by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The HSCIC has experience of dealing with big data, and although a number of details would have to be worked out, it seems that it would be the obvious place in the existing health infrastructure to hold such a database.

How the database would work would be detailed outside my Bill by those best placed to do so. However, it is envisaged that a registered medical practitioner, having consulted with his or her patient, would flag up on the patient’s notes that they were innovating. I recognise the pressure that medical practitioners are under, so I am determined that this database should not add much to their already heavy workload, and, hopefully, through this system it would not.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre already has in place a strong set of legal safeguards to protect privacy and confidentiality, which, again, makes it an ideal organisation to host the database. Clearly, privacy issues will be a core part of any consultation that takes place on the detail of the database.

Importantly, the Bill stipulates that outcomes, not just the process of innovation itself, will be on the database. Successes and failures would be recorded on an ongoing basis. There are a number of very, very good reasons for doing that. Of course sharing success is simple to explain. Sharing ideas is in itself a great idea. Letting others see that a treatment has been a success when that treatment might not be widely known is clearly helpful, perhaps even lifesaving. When we know that treatments can differ between NHS trusts and between individual surgeries, it seems clear that we should be encouraging a spread of the good innovation that comes from every individual medical practitioner, such as the surgeon I mentioned earlier and his use of the drug, Glivec.

We must also realise the potential of transparently sharing all outcomes of innovation—not just successes, but failures too. Critics of Lord Saatchi’s Bill were rightly concerned about “quackology”—their term, not mine. There are some doctors who sell to desperately sick people treatments that do not work and that, in some cases, are dangerous. Having a database on which the whole of the registered medical practitioner community can see what an innovation is and then watch the results come in removes quackology from the database in a stroke.

I might well be on the lookout for someone who can cure my male-pattern baldness. Undoubtedly, it would require an innovative treatment; some would say a miracle cure. Currently, there are many treatments on offer to people such as myself. Many adverts will offer me an innovative cure, but there is no way of checking on the successes or failures of the treatments on offer.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

As always, it is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who has set out with his usual clarity the reasons why the Bill should receive the support of the House today. I too rise in support of the Bill.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) on his success in coming second in the ballot for private Members’ Bills and on choosing such an important subject to bring before the House this morning. As we have seen, it is a Bill that is not without some controversy. Often, private Members’ Bills are technical and minor in nature and do not receive much public attention, but it is fair to say that this one very much has. It brings before the House—I think that I am right in saying that it is the first time that these issues have been debated on the Floor of the House—the issues that were considered in the other place when the Lords debated the Medical Innovations Bill, which was piloted through all its stages by the noble Lord Saatchi in the previous Parliament. I note, incidentally, that the noble Lord reintroduced his Bill on 8 June. I hope that he does not fear for the possible success of this Bill; perhaps he is just hedging his bets. I certainly hope that this Bill will proceed safely through this House and arrive in the other place.

The Bill builds on the work of Lord Saatchi’s Bill in that it deals, I think adequately, with some of the criticisms of it. The purpose of this Bill, as we have heard, is to promote the use by doctors of innovative medical treatments and it does that by allowing for the establishment of a database of such innovative medical treatments and by setting out the steps that doctors can take to demonstrate that they are acting responsibly in carrying out such treatments.

I have to admit at the outset that an impressive array of bodies have lined up either in outright opposition to the Bill or with at least some reservations about it. When I was considering the evidence, I had to take that into account. I had to decide whether in the light of that evidence I should simply go with the flow and decide that if all those people said that it is a bad thing, it must be a bad thing, or whether I should think about the other side of the coin. I did that, and on balance, I came down on the side of what I like to think of as my constituents’ view. I believe that the Bill has the potential to improve the lives of my constituents if they are struck down by a rare disease that means that they require innovative medical treatment.

It is appropriate to try to deal with the concerns that have been raised by so many eminent bodies in the medical world. As we have heard, last year, many organisations responded to the consultation on Lord Saatchi’s Bill. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I shall try to deal with some of their concerns. The professional body for doctors, the British Medical Association, often described as the trade union for doctors, said in its consultation response to the Medical Innovation Bill:

“The BMA believes strongly in the value of innovation in medicine. Whilst the BMA would have concerns if the draft Medical Innovation Bill was to become law, if there was a need identified, we would support the exploration of other initiatives through which responsible, safe and effective innovation can be promoted to doctors.”

In its 2014 response to the consultation on that Bill, the AMRC, the Association of Medical Research Charities, a national organisation made up of 137 leading research and medical charities from across the UK that, incidentally, spends about £1.3 billion a year on research, welcomed the ambition of the Bill but was concerned about its unintended consequences. In February this year, it welcomed the idea proposed in the other place about the importance of collecting data. I am pleased to note that the Bill we are considering today appears to address that concern by establishing a database to collect the results of innovative medical treatment.

Without wanting to create confusion, I want to refer to another body that raised concerns, another AMRC—not the Association of Medical Research Charities this time, but the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, a body that comprises 20 medical royal colleges and faculties from across the UK and Ireland. It agrees with the idea that research and innovation are vital to the NHS, but does not support the Bill as a whole because, in its words, it is not clear what it is trying to achieve.

It is therefore a considerable challenge for my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry and those of us who support the Bill to demonstrate the need for it. To put it simply, I believe that it will provide access to innovative treatments to best meet a patient’s desires and needs when other treatments might not achieve the best results. People might well ask why we need the Bill now. The law on medical negligence has not changed for decades and in those decades medical innovations have been made. The law might not have changed much, but society certainly has—it is more informed, less deferential and more litigious. The number of lawsuits filed against the NHS has doubled in five years and last year’s pay out, which has also doubled in that time, was £1.2 billion. The Treasury provision for claims against the NHS has now reached £26 billion, so it is no surprise that doctors increasingly feel frightened of being sued and therefore, understandably, feel less likely to be able to innovate.

It is worth noting that back in 2013 the Health Service Journal stated:

“It is a popularly held view that the NHS is resistant to innovation. Despite several laws and policy directives and many successful examples of innovative approaches resulting over the years, the NHS is still seen to a late adopter of innovation—inventive but not creative.”

I believe that the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill has the potential to counter that problem by putting innovation on a statutory footing.

NESTA, the independent charity in the UK that works to increase innovation in the UK, considered the whole question of innovation in the healthcare system in its 2014 report, “Which doctors take up promising ideas?” It highlighted the early adoption of drugs by general practitioners since 2010 to treat conditions such as diabetes, chronic constipation in women and deep vein thrombosis as well as to prevent stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation as an alternative to warfarin. The study also found that 86% of doctors found out about other innovative treatments from other doctors. It is a crucial component of this Bill that it places a responsibility on any doctor wishing to undertake innovative treatment to talk to another doctor about the proposed treatment.

NESTA’S report also recommended that there should be clear instructions on innovation to encourage early adoption, which is what I believe that the Bill aims to do, to provide reassurance, and to provide instructions to doctors to allow them to adopt life-saving treatments only when it would be in the best interests of their patients. The Bill would extend and encourage the idea sharing that is already going on between doctors and give them confidence in that process.

One of the key objections made by bodies such as the BMA was the “unproven threat” of litigation against doctors. In the summer, it was reported in the press that between 2010 and 2013 there was a 64% increase in the number of complaints to the UK medical regulator, the General Medical Council, and a 42% increase in the number of doctors struck off or suspended from the UK medical register. Let me make it clear that I believe that patient safety must be paramount. It is right that patients have access to our world-class justice system if, sadly, things go wrong. It is, however, a curious observation to make that there is an “unproven threat” of litigation when the bill for legal fees paid out over clinical negligence claims in 2013-14 was £259 million, with many believing that there is an increasing culture of litigation.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists expresses a common view:

“Without unequivocal GMC and NICE support, ophthalmologists are understandably concerned that they may be assuming unacceptable personal liability by using a unlicensed drug when a licensed alternative exists … Consequently, patients may not be getting treatment when they need it and not getting the best results.”

Of course, the Bill must not be seen as a licence to experiment on patients, which is one of the more sensational claims I have seen about the Bill. I believe it clearly preserves the existing safeguards of the common law, which protect the patient while giving the doctor the option to take steps to demonstrate that the action they have taken has been taken responsibly before carrying out any innovative treatment.

As the guidance notes make clear, if another qualified doctor expresses reservations, those would have to be taken into account or, quite appropriately, the prescribing doctor could be found negligent. I do not believe that this Bill is simply a “get out of jail free” card for negligent doctors. It does not override the Bolam test, which was first set out in the leading 1957 case of Bolam v. Friern Hospital Management Committee. In that case Justice McNair said in his judgment that a doctor

“is not guilty of negligence if he has acted in accordance with a practice accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical men skilled in that particular art”.

Therefore, a doctor would be negligent under the current law if they treat or manage a patient in a way in which no responsible body of doctors would have acted. That test was extended to include a requirement that they must also act in a logical manner, which is called the Bolitho test, established in the case of Bolitho v. the City and Hackney Health Authority.

I believe the Bill contains the appropriate reassurances that doctors cannot use it to run roughshod over the existing law. The necessary reassurance is contained in particular in clause 3(5), which explicitly states:

“Nothing in this section permits a doctor to carry out treatment for any purpose other than the best interests of the patient.”

To ram home that point clause 4(1) clearly states:

“(1) Nothing in section 3—

(a) affects any rule of the common law to the effect that a departure from the existing range of accepted medical treatments for a condition is not negligent if supported by a responsible body of medical opinion, or

(b) is to be read as limiting the circumstances in which any such rule of the common law may be relied on”.

I do not believe, therefore, that the Bill would limit redress in the event of negligence. A doctor would still be negligent if they acted in a way that was not in the best interests of their patient. However, the Bill would put into legislation a workable framework to allow responsible innovation where that would serve the best interests of the patient when a conventional treatment or lack of treatment might not meet the same goal.

I turn to the concerns of the Royal College of Surgeons, a professional membership organisation and a registered charity, which exists to advance surgical standards and improve patient care, with 20,000 members in the UK and abroad. That body has issued a parliamentary briefing on the Bill and one of its concerns is:

“The wording of the Bill confers the decision-making power on the doctor rather than the patient. There is a risk it misunderstands the doctor-patient relationship.”

The RCS may think there is such a risk, but having read the Bill and the guidance notes I fail to see that. As I have mentioned, the Bill clearly states the importance of the doctor acting only in the best interests of the patient and consideration being given to the patient’s views.



Clause 3(2) states:

“For the purposes of taking a responsible decision to depart from the existing range of accepted medical treatments for a condition, a doctor must in particular . . .

(c) obtain any consents required by law to the carrying out of the proposed treatment”.

The guidance notes for clause 3 clarify that that means that

“the Bill does not affect the legal requirement for a doctor to obtain a patient’s informed consent to any treatment proposed”.

It could not be clearer. The Bill does not affect that legal requirement for a doctor to obtain the informed consent of a patient. Indeed, only this year in the Supreme Court was the issue of consent and a patient’s understanding of treatment considered in the case of Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board, when it was held that it would be a mistake to view patients as uninformed, incapable of understanding medical matters, or wholly dependent on information from doctors. It was said that an adult of sound mind was entitled to decide which of the available treatments to undergo, and their consent must be obtained before treatment is undertaken. Doctors are under a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that their patients are aware of any material risks involved in proposed treatment, and of the reasonable alternatives available.

This seems to be in accordance with guidance from the General Medical Council which, as one would expect, provides lengthy guidance on the question of consent and outlines the steps a doctor should take to communicate in

“clear, simple and consistent language”

to a patient and to work on the presumption that patients have the capacity to make decisions about their own care.

The RCS is also concerned that

“the emphasis in the Bill is on proving the doctor’s decision was responsible. Courts are not asked to deal with whether a patient’s treatment has been negligent.”

I do not understand that comment. It seems to me that the courts would clearly be invited to deal with the question of negligence if something went wrong and the patient could establish that the necessary steps had not been taken by the doctor. I cannot see how the courts would not be asked to deal with whether a patient’s treatment had been negligent. As I hope I have demonstrated, the Bill makes it clear that it does not seek to override the law on negligence. The focus is all about providing a framework in which a doctor can act responsibly.

NESTA’s 2014 report found that 73% of GPs surveyed said that they would be most likely to collaborate with other doctors when adopting innovations. Therefore, three out of four doctors—the vast majority—are already familiar with talking to their peers and working with them in a collaborative manner in this area. The requirement for consultation is simply what for them would be the natural course of action.

With people becoming ever more inclined to look for someone to blame when things do not turn out how they had hoped, and therefore with the threat of legal action increasing, it must be right that this House looks across the board at ways of making the vital work that our doctors do easier. I believe that allowing for responsible innovation as a means of treating patients who wish to receive such treatment is a positive way to help them.

A further concern from the BMA is that it believes doctors can already innovate as much as they need to. It states:

“The BMA has received anecdotal reports from members that funding requests for innovative treatment are submitted and approved, often on condition that the results will then be distributed, adding to the wider body of medical knowledge.”

I think that the very use of the word “anecdotal” suggests that we need a much greater degree of standardisation of approach. As far as I can see, that is precisely one of the problems that the Bill seeks to address: the fact that, at present, there is no standard basis for the recording of innovative medical treatments.

I am pleased to see that one of the changes in the Bill, compared with Lord Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill, is the establishment and maintenance of a database, to be held and managed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, because I believe that will provide an additional method of evidence-building for doctors. I note that the Royal College of Surgeons has suggested that a clinical society might instead manage the database, if it is limited to one area of medicine. Although that suggestion might warrant further examination, I have a couple of concerns about it.

First, taxpayers’ money has gone into the establishment of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which is an executive non-departmental body under the care of the Department of Health. It is the national provider of information, data and IT services for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in the health and social care sector, so it seems to me to be the ideal body to carry out that function. I have no doubt that taxpayers would expect it to carry out that work.

Secondly, I believe that there are considerable advantages in having a single database that doctors can consult, as the Bill proposes, rather than several. A database that shares innovative medical treatments would help improve the spread of best practice. The Government’s competitiveness indicator report showed that medicines in the third year after launch were used in the United Kingdom at a level that was, on average, only one third of the average usage in the comparator countries, which included France, Germany and the United States. I believe that the creation of the database would go some way towards closing that gap.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has expressed a concern that the database would be a substitute for research and might even sidestep clinical research. I take the view that the purpose of the database, which is to be a collection of reports on individual innovative treatments outside conventional methods, would not have that consequence. The academy has also expressed concerns about the complexity of establishing a database and maintaining confidentiality. There is no doubt that the confidentiality of medical records is something that we must all take seriously. However, I do not believe that just because something is complex is grounds for us not doing it at all. I appreciate those concerns, given the roll-out of the care.data scheme, but the database proposed in the Bill would be very different. It would be much smaller in scope, in terms of the number of people it would relate to, than the care.data scheme, which has the records of virtually everyone, unless they have opted out.

The Royal College of Surgeons accepts the need for research to be made available, but it does not see the need for the database proposed in the Bill. It states:

“Surgeons in England have been the first in the world to publish their individual outcomes from surgery. We support this level of transparency in all areas of surgery including research and innovation. The College expects all researchers conducting trials, including those we directly support, to register the trial in a publicly accessible database. However, we do not see the need for a new database of innovative treatments in surgery. A number of audits in surgery already exist and it is unclear what different data this additional database would cover. It would be helpful for the Government to clarify what data it envisages collecting under this Bill”.

I am sure that the Minister will cover that in his remarks later today. I believe that most patients who benefit from a particularly innovative treatment, especially if they are the first to benefit, would have no objection to their treatment being recorded anonymously.

The Royal College of Surgeons also states:

“We believe the Secretary of State already has the power to establish a non-statutory database of innovative treatments without legislation.”

Well, if that is the case, there is nothing in the Bill for it to worry about. What is clear is that if the Secretary of State does have that power, he has not used it. Indeed, I believe that there is scope to strengthen the Bill, if it proceeds to its later stages, to clarify when the establishment of the database can be expected.

The NHS’s 2011 publication “Innovation: Health and Wealth” lamented

“brilliant examples of pioneering work”

so often being “isolated examples”. As a principle of furthering innovation, therefore, surely gathering evidence in the database would be helpful to medical advancement. If treatments look like they are working, it must be right that the public and, of course, doctors know about it.

As with any new piece of legislation, we must be mindful of the cost to the public purse. That is one of the areas where I believe we still need more information at this stage. We do not yet have any real sense of what the financial implications would be, although I note that a full impact assessment is promised before the Bill goes to Committee. NHS England has forecast an annual cost increase for drugs in specialised services of 11%, rising from £2.4 billion in 2013-14 to £4.5 billion in 2019-20. I sincerely hope that the impact assessment will give some estimate of the impact that increased use of innovative treatments will have, for example on drug expenditure in the longer term.

I also believe that the impact assessment should consider what effect the Bill would have on the early access to medicines scheme, which was not in operation when the Medical Innovation Bill was first debated. The scheme allows patients to access medicines at an earlier stage in their development, following a risk-benefit assessment and subject to ongoing data collection.

A lot has been said about this Bill being potentially dangerous for patients. Yet doctors are currently prevented from carrying out reckless or dangerous treatments by the risk of proceedings being taken against them—either civil proceedings or, in the worst cases, criminal proceedings. Nothing in the Bill makes that risk any less likely. All the safeguards that are in place in law at the moment would simply remain in place.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely underline what my hon. Friend is saying. If a doctor is acting responsibly, they have nothing to fear; if they are acting irresponsibly, this Bill does not help them, and they will suffer the consequences of their actions.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful that the sponsor of the Bill agrees with me on this, because it is the key point of the whole debate. Those who oppose the Bill have alleged that it will somehow put patients at risk. If that were the case, I would not be supporting it. I am supporting it because having read it carefully, and having considered all the evidence and all the views of all the professional bodies that are ranged against it, I have come to the conclusion that patients would have all the safeguards after the Bill has been passed that they do now.

The Bill has the potential to increase and improve the range of medical treatments available to my constituents.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The arguments are finely balanced. As he said, he has constituents who support the Bill and constituents who are against it. If the Bill receives its Second Reading, as I hope it will, the concerns of those who have reservations about it, and those who go further and are outright opposed to it, can be considered in detail in Committee and, if possible, reflected and taken into account by way of appropriate amendments at that stage or on Report.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I assure my hon. Friend and all other Members who have spoken, and everybody I have been in consultation with to get the Bill to this stage, that should it get through its Second Reading, I will continue to consult, to listen, to talk to and to take advice from all organisations with an interest to make sure that we take into account and deal with as many as possible of the concerns outlined by him, by other hon. Friends, and by Opposition Members.

[Mr Nuttall]

I hope that my hon. Friend’s intervention will go some way towards satisfying the concerns of those who are opposed to the Bill.

From what we have heard, there seems to be a general acceptance of the principle in the Bill that there should be greater access to medical innovation. Even looking at the views of the various medical bodies—an impressive array, as I said—the best interpretation is that some are outright opposed and others are ambiguous. Either way, they all share the view that medical innovation is a good thing. It seems to me that the devil is in the detail. I hope that my hon. Friend’s confirmation that if the Bill proceeds he will be generous in speaking to people and looking at all possible ways of dealing with their concerns will persuade the House to give it a Second Reading.

Research and innovation are crucial to the continued success of healthcare. The NHS faces increasing demands: a growing population with an increasing lifespan, which is a good thing; an increase in its own capability, fuelled by advances in knowledge, science and technology; and ever-increasing expectations from the public it serves. We should not shy away from new ideas that put the patient first and offer chances that they may not otherwise have. This Bill will increase the likelihood of life-saving solutions being found where they did not previously exist. It will mean more choice for patients—for my constituents. It will provide doctors with a mechanism to enable them to use innovative treatments giving them the best possible chance to do what they do best—help patients. I support the Bill and trust it will receive its Second Reading.

Draft European Union Budget

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is a difficult ask for us to explain to our constituents why no money is forthcoming for reasonable projects in our areas, when we are giving money to richer areas across the European Union through the regional structural funds. That is an aberration that we should look at seriously.

We were the second largest net contributor to the European Union in 2010. Germany was ahead of us with €11.95 billion. Behind us were France with €6.48 billion and Italy with €5.84 billion. Obviously, Italy is not the richest country in the world at the moment, so it, too, is trying to do something about its net contribution. The largest net recipients in 2010 were Poland with €8.17 billion, Greece with €3.44 billion and Spain with €3.1 billion. So there are lots of fiscal transfers across the 27 member states.

Many other costs are hidden in the European Union budget.

[Mr Nuttall]

The figures that my hon. Friend quotes show that, in essence, we are transferring the entirety of our net contribution to Greece and Spain.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

If it was done as a simple transaction, that would be the case.

The Commission’s budgetary expenditure is divided into five headings. “Sustainable Growth”, which mainly involves the EU structural funds, and “Preservation and Management of Natural Resources”, which relates to agriculture and the environment, are the biggest items and accounted for 87% of EU spending in 2012. “Citizenship, freedom, security and justice”, which relates to social policy, crime and policing, and “The EU as a global player”, which involves foreign policy issues, were the smaller items of the budget. The heading, “Administration”, relates to the finances of the staff of the European Commission and other institutional expenditure, such as that of the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, the Economic and Social Committee and various other EU agencies and quangos.

Drugs (Roadside Testing) Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Friday 10th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

That is indeed a problem, because caffeine can be regarded as an intoxicant, as indeed—I was very surprised to find out—can water. Those apparently harmless substances, if consumed to excess, can result in intoxication, so the definition in section 11 captures not just the obvious drugs that we think of when we hear “drugs”.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

The road haulage industry is in a quandary, because a number of lorry drivers drink high-caffeine drinks, such as Red Bull and Relentless. Is there not a danger that such hauliers, who are just trying to ensure that they are very aware of what they are doing as they drive down the road, and just trying to do the best that they possibly can in maintaining control of their vehicle, could be subject to the Bill and find themselves breaking the law?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. I appreciate that he says such drivers are not doing anything wrong, and are just trying to do their best in their job, but medical evidence may well show that, although they think they are doing the best they can, by ingesting so many intoxicants, which is what they are doing according to the definition, they are putting themselves in a state of well-being whereby they are prepared to take chances that they might not take if they were completely sober.

It would be for a court to weigh up the evidence of whether a person was driving under the influence of drugs, which, under an earlier section of the 1988 Act, is the offence in question, and one can easily see how a bench of magistrates or a jury might decide that a lorry driver who had drunk several cans of highly concentrated caffeine-based drinks had subjected their body to such external influences as to result in their having driven under the influence of drugs.

The fact that the definition in the Road Traffic Act is so widely drawn is one of the reasons it is necessary to bring this Bill before the House. I suspect that it is also one of the reasons there has been such a delay in having a device approved by the Secretary of State for the carrying out of a preliminary drug test within the scope of section 6C. Perhaps when that that legislation, and the amendment to it, was drafted, section 6C should have used the word “devices” instead of “device”, because that might have made it easier for scientists and developers to devise and manufacture one device to deal with one set of drugs and another to deal with another set of drugs. The use of the word “device” has meant that the manufacturers, the scientists and the Home Office Scientific Development Branch have had to work towards coming up with a catch-all machine that is capable of detecting any number of substances. The Act is drawn so widely that a large number of substances could be termed a drug.

Apart from all the obvious drugs, which I will, for ease of reference, call illicit drugs, it is arguable that, as we have heard in my hon. Friends’ interventions, the definition will cover other substances—not only substances that we take in every day, such as coffee and water, but prescribed medical drugs. Intoxication is one of a number of conditions that come under the umbrella term “substance-related disorders”. Of course, the drugs most likely to cause impairment are those whose use is prohibited by law. I want briefly to explain the different ways in which such drugs can affect people. Different drugs affect different people in different ways, and the effects can last for several days, sometimes without people even realising it.

Cannabis slows the actions, affects concentration and often has a sedative-like effect resulting in fatigue and affected co-ordination. I would not be surprised if somebody suggested that cannabis was rather like one of my speeches on a Friday. The parliamentary correspondent from the BBC might put that in one of his reports.

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[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes the valid point that a drug that for all other intents and purposes is illegal becomes legal if it is prescribed by a GP. As Members on both sides of the House will be aware, we are often lobbied by those who feel that cannabis should be more widely available to make it easier for those with certain medical conditions to bear the symptoms. I understand that cannabis can make it easier for people to bear certain symptoms that are otherwise unbearable.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

To return to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), is the problem not that the Road Traffic Act deals with whether a drug impairs someone’s ability to drive and does not prescribe a limit for how much can be contained in the blood or urine?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. With alcohol, the law sets a specific limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. It is relatively easy to test whether someone has more or less than the proscribed amount of alcohol in their blood, whereas a subjective decision has to be taken on whether someone is driving a vehicle under the influence of drugs. The 1988 Act is specific about that. That is indeed part of the difficulty that the Home Office has faced in proposing an appropriate device, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, no standard for device specification has been set. As I will say later, some studies show that as little as 1 nanogram can adversely affect one’s ability to drive.

Fortunately, those who have to draw up the specification will be aided by the fact that some research has been carried out on the appropriate level to be set. A research programme was initiated by the Department for Transport, the Home Office, the Coroners Society and the Association of Chief Police Officers, aimed at establishing systematically the incidence of drug use among fatal road casualties—not just illicit drugs but those that are prescribed or sold over the counter. The interim results were released in February 1998 and included in the road safety White Paper entitled “Tomorrow’s roads: safer for everyone”, published in March 2003. That White Paper stated:

“Studies have shown that compared with ten years ago, five times as many people killed in road accidents had a trace of an illegal drug in their body. Cannabis was by far the most common illegal substance found. However, whilst it is likely that shortly after use the active ingredient of cannabis impairs driving, traces of the drug can remain in the body for up to four weeks, long after it has ceased to have any effect. This can present difficulties for enforcement until we have further research findings.

Class A drugs are most likely to have an adverse effect on driving. According to interim survey results, they were found in 6% of cases (compared with 12% for cannabis). This was a small increase compared with 10 years ago.

In the studies of road accident fatalities referred to above, it was found that there had been no change in the incidence of medicinal drugs over the period. There is scope, nevertheless, to improve enforcement and to make people more aware of the risks of driving while their ability is affected by drugs.”

The RAC has also surveyed a group of young drivers and found that young people are twice as likely to have been driven by someone who has taken illegal drugs than by someone over the drink-drive limit. A Transport Research Laboratory report on the effects of cannabis on driving was published in December 2000, and found that there were measurable effects on driver performance and that drivers could be impaired. A report on the effects of cannabis and alcohol was published in 2002, which confirmed the earlier observations and judged that the general medical examination and standardised impairment testing applied by police surgeons were generally effective in determining impairment.

It may well be that those reports led the Home Office to think that the testing that was already being done was generally satisfactory, and that the matter was therefore not as urgent as supporters of the Bill feel it is. However, there have been several other small-scale qualitative and quantitative studies that have examined patterns of recreational drug use and driving. I wish to refer in particular to one, undertaken by the Scottish Executive. It was published in 2001 and examined aspects of driving while under the influence of recreational drugs. It identified general patterns of personal drug use. When stopped on a toll bridge, some 3% of survey respondents aged 40 and over, and 13% of those aged 17 to 39, had taken an illegal drug in the previous twelve months. Among those attending dance clubs, 76%—three out of every four—had taken illegal drugs in the previous month. Drug-driving was particularly evident among those attending nightclubs.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. The statistics that I mentioned show the importance of the police monitoring closely those who seek to drive a car after leaving a dance club where drugs must clearly have been available.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I would hate the public listening to this debate to think that everyone here believes that anyone who goes to a club for a good night out is much more likely than others to take illicit drugs and then drive illegally when impaired by them. Most people go there for a damn good time, and they manage to do that. They might well have a drink or two, and they might well have a good boogie in what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) might refer to as a discotheque, but most of them are law-abiding citizens just enjoying themselves on a night out.

[Mr Nuttall]

I could not agree more. I am merely drawing the House’s attention to the findings of a particular survey. I do not seek in any way to draw any further conclusion from it, but there is clearly a problem if that survey—and it is only a single survey—is to be believed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is perhaps one that those with greater knowledge of the workings of the criminal law—particularly as it relates to road traffic offences—would be more able to deal with.

There are two more recent cases that I would like briefly to raise, because I do not want people to think that everyone convicted of driving while under the influence of drugs is sent to jail. There was a case reported in the Dudley News of a Dudley man who was handed a suspended jail term for driving while unfit to do so through drugs. He was given a six-week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and banned from driving for 18 months. To run consecutively, the defendant was also jailed for six months, suspended for 18 months, for possession of a class A drug, heroin. He was ordered to pay £600 compensation and court costs at Dudley magistrates court.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My hon. Friend has been generous in giving way to me throughout this debate, which I very much appreciate. He has listed a whole bunch of terrible tragedies that no one in this place would wish had happened, although the criminal justice system has then caught up with the characters involved and punished them—perhaps not accordingly, but it has at least punished them. Surely the art in this case is in stopping people taking drugs and getting in a car in the first place. Even the devices that he was talking about earlier do not do that. Perhaps we need a much stronger education campaign about the effects of drugs on drivers.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Such education starts at school, with teachers and parents explaining the dangers of drug taking and the terrible damage that it can cause to the individual and, if they get behind the wheel of a car, to others. We would do well to send that message out loud and clear this morning.

Let me turn to the very heart of the Bill: the drug-testing device. For about a decade now, the Home Office has been developing a type approval specification for a drug- screening device—known as the “drugalyser”—that will help police at the roadside to detect the presence of drugs. A Metropolitan police trial took place between January 2001 and 2002. It had some success, but was hampered by the fact that testing had to be voluntary. In their February 2007 review of road safety, the then Labour Government stated that the first devices developed to specification could be available by the end of 2007, and that the Home Office was developing a prototype device that could both screen and analyse samples, and which was likely to be ready in two to three years. In February 2008, the then Minister told the House of Commons that the Home Office scientific development branch,

“in consultation with the Department for Transport, continues to discuss possible improvements to the field impairment test currently used by the police…HOSDB continues to investigate a possible impairment measuring device through established contacts working in this area. Opportunities for partnership with a suitable university or other outside agency continue to be sought.”—[Official Report, 19 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 582W.]

This is rather like a mirage of an oasis in the desert—the nearer we get to it, the further away it appears to be. The Times subsequently reported that the Home Office was “preparing to approve” hand-held drug-screening devices, and that

“Philips…announced that it will start deliveries to police next year”—

that is, 2009—

“of a machine that detects five different drug groups, including cocaine, heroin and cannabis, in just 90 seconds from a single saliva sample”.

However, no type approval has yet been given. There is the rub: the Home Office might have thought that it was about to approve such a device, but, as we know, that never happened.

I have seen a picture of the machine, and it is a very simple device. A person is asked to provide a sample of saliva, which is placed into a small tube that is inserted into the machine. The sample goes into the measurement chamber, which contains magnetic nanoparticles coated with ligands that bind to one of the five different drug groups. This delivers test results in one and a half minutes. Philips had apparently been busy developing that device since 2001. It was built as an optical device that would be easy to mass-produce for law enforcement purposes.

Sir Peter North’s review reported on the problems as follows:

“To date a type-approval specification for such a device has not been produced. Consequently, while a range of commercial drug screening devices is available, none is suitable for enforcement purposes in the UK.

Home Office Scientific Development Branch has been working on the development of a roadside screening device based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) over the last 10 years, both in house and externally. A SERS based device would be a considerable advance over existing commercially available devices in that it would be capable of identifying any drug.

Following an expert peer review in 2008, the in-house development by HOSDB of the SERS substrates required for such a device was halted and the emphasis placed on developing external technologies, including those based on SERS. Following two calls for research initiated at the start of 2009, two external research contracts were placed, with the aim of developing prototype devices within the next three years.

With regard to drug screening devices for use at the roadside, the preferred matrix for analysis is oral fluid, which is easy and convenient to collect, and any drugs detected in this medium are indicative of recent use.

Early trials of roadside drug screening devices based on oral fluid…concluded that none of the devices tested at that time was suitable for use in enforcement at the roadside. However, recent evaluations of drug screening devices have highlighted continued improvements in sensitivity and the general performance of oral fluid drug testing devices, but also that the reliable detection of cannabinoid use and benzodiazepines still remains problematic.”

Mr Deputy Speaker, you can imagine my delight when I discovered that the long tentacles of the European Union had found their way into this subject. I promised my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that I would touch on this matter. It appears that there is a project funded by the European Commission—using some of the billions of pounds that we contribute to the EU each year—and I hope that you will not think that I am straying from the subject if I mention the word “DRUID”. It is actually an acronym for the project funded by the European Commission, and it stands for “driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and medicines”—[Laughter.]

[Mr Nuttall]

It is a kind of organised acronym. We have the D and R from “driving”, and the U from “under”. Then we miss out the “the”, adopt the I from “influence”, miss out the “of”, adopt the D from “drugs” and miss out the “alcohol and medicines” bit. That is how we get to DRUID.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think the correct acronym should be IAMADRUID.

[Mr Nuttall]

But I am not a druid! I am a practising member of the Church of England. I am not sure whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has commented on this matter yet, but no doubt he will later.

The DRUID report includes an analytical evaluation of several on-site oral fluid screeners. The final report is still in production but early results suggest that police evaluations of the devices tested were broadly positive. Eight of the 13 evaluated devices were rated as “promising” and were subsequently included in a scientific evaluation focusing on sensitivity and specificity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am sure that my hon. Friend is completely correct—[Interruption.] Let us not go back down that route; I will stick to where I was going.

It is impairment of an individual’s ability to drive that we are seeking to identify—there is a line that one might cross, and different individuals’ bodies will metabolise drugs, as they do food, in different ways. We have already accepted that with regard to alcohol, so let us make a bold leap. Why not introduce tests for the five main types of recreational drugs—those listed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North—that tend to be found in individuals who have caused an accident to which the police are called? This hinges on getting approval for a device, and that is the bureaucratic nonsense behind it all. Having accepted the principle of introducing a level—I would push for a zero level, as in Sweden, because that is much easier for everybody to come to terms with—why should we not bring forward such devices?

In his review, Sir Peter North said:

“The focus should be on public safety”.

The protection of our constituents from those who take drugs and then decide it is fine to jump in a car is one reason why we are all interested in this debate. Such drivers might not feel that their ability is impaired, and even if they do, they probably do not care too much for the other individuals concerned. Sir Peter continued:

“Any new offence should therefore focus on establishing levels of drugs in the blood at which significant impairment—and therefore, risk to public safety—can reasonably be assumed, as is the case now for drink-driving.”

That is a fairly simple statement. We have accepted levels for alcohol, so let us accept them for some of the more commonly used recreational drugs, and get the type review device approved by the Home Office and out on the streets, adding to the deterrents that we have.

Under schedule 7 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, the police have the power to conduct roadside drug tests, so there is no problem with that side of the argument. Guidance was issued back in December 2004 on the conduct of the preliminary impairment tests detailed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North. There is a host of reasons why we should put more pressure on the Government to get on with this job.

Having had private conversations with the Minister, I think he understands that there is a great deal of anxiety about how long the process has taken. The crime is relatively new, but it is also one of the crimes most on the increase. As my hon. Friends have detailed, the problem is the scientific ability of drug-screening devices to detect what we would like them to identify.

For about a decade, the Home Office has been developing a type approval specification for a “drugalyser” that would help police at the roadside to detect the presence of drugs. The Metropolitan police took part in a trial between January 2001 and January 2002 which, although reasonably successful, was—according to the official phraseology—“hampered” by the fact that testing had to be voluntary at that time.

In their February 2007 review of road safety, the Labour Government stated that the first devices developed to specification could be available at the end of that year, and that the Home Office was already developing a prototype device which could both screen and analyse samples and was likely to be ready in two to three years. In February 2008, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), then a Minister, told the House that the Home Office’s

“Scientific Development Branch… in consultation with the Department for Transport, continues to discuss possible improvements to the field impairment test currently used by the police… continues to investigate a possible impairment measuring device through established contacts working in this area. Opportunities for partnership with a suitable university or other outside agency continue to be sought.”—[Official Report, 19 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 582W.]

Clearly there has been no lack of work, and that work has been carried out for a host of years. However, someone sitting in the beautiful village of Flore in my constituency as traffic rattles along a road that desperately needs to be bypassed, and fearing that one night, on one of the bad bends, a person who has had far too much of a good time and used illegal drugs will pile into the side of their house, may feel that, given the length of time for which this deterrent had been talked about, a Government of any colour should have acted much earlier.

As we know, The Times reported in 2008 that the Home Office was “preparing to approve” hand-held drug-screening devices, and that

“Philips…announced yesterday that it will start deliveries to police”

early in 2009. I wonder where those deliveries have got to. There is a problem somewhere, and I hope that, in his considered reply, the Minister will tell us how he is trying to unblock the channels that seem to be blocked.

[Mr Nuttall]

Is my hon. Friend aware of a report that has appeared in the Daily Mail in the last few days? Apparently police in Australia are launching trials of a testing system this week, and similar equipment is already in use in Finland and is being tested in Italy.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I was aware of that. It was in one of the press releases that I chose not to read out earlier. It adds to the frustration that people feel, which I hope I have been able to convey to the Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), the road safety Minister. Not long ago, he said:

“Drink and drug driving are serious offences and drivers should be in no doubt that if they are caught behind the wheel under the influence this summer they risk losing their licence as well as facing a fine and even a prison sentence.

We are taking forward measures to make it easier for the police to tackle drink and drug driving and protect law abiding road users including plans for drug testing kits to help detect drug drivers and tightening the law on drink driving.”

We would all welcome that, but I have a sneaking suspicion, based on the press reports that I read out earlier, that Ministers have been heard to utter those exact words before. If there is a drug-testing kit that we are happy to put on the streets in the summer, let us arrange for it to be type-approved by the Home Office and supplied throughout the country.

Back in December, the Minister—this Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire)—said:

“Any equipment for use by the police in this country must be of a type approved by the Secretary of State. Type approval is granted on the basis of compliance with a specification which sets out the detailed requirements a device has to meet and the testing regime which it has to pass to be suitable for use in British operational conditions and within the British legal framework. We hope to issue very shortly the specification for a device for use in a police station and are continuing work towards the specification for a roadside device. It will be for manufacturers to submit for testing and approval any devices which they think meet the specification.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 1098W.]

Given that we have been waiting for specifications for so many years, can we please get them out quickly? The question of when the devices will be available is of concern to our constituents throughout the country.

I do not wish to condemn a certain section of society too much, but it is possible to see examples of it daily on the Jeremy Kyle show. There is a type of person who is much more at risk of taking drugs and getting into a car without realising what he or she has the potential to do as a result of lack of education, awareness or care. Such people tend to be young, and they tend to be uninsured and untaxed. They tend to be breaking the law simply by getting into their cars, let alone having taken drugs beforehand. They are probably either going to or coming from a location that is known to the police. Obviously such locations do not exist in North East Somerset, and I should of course be stunned and surprised were there any in Northamptonshire. Indeed, such people tend to be known to the police themselves. I am afraid that there are not too many surprises when the police stop them and subsequently find that they have been driving under the influence of drugs, and when their names flash up on the system in connection with an earlier drug-related offence.

I suggest to the Minister that there is a certain group of individuals out there who need to be targeted—not as in police targeting but for education purposes, so that they can come to terms with the fact that in taking an illegal drug and then getting into a car, they are not just already committing a crime but are about to drive a lethal weapon that could potentially kill someone’s child. Although this debate is about roadside testing, surely the whole point of it is the need to stop people even being tempted to take drugs before getting into a vehicle, so that none of us have to experience a tragedy in our constituencies or among our friends, as I have in the past and as so many other Members have.

Eurozone Financial Assistance

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Was not that line left in the motion because it is a fact—which there is no point in denying—that the European Scrutiny Committee stated that the European financial stability mechanism was legally unsound?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I shall come to that point directly.

Members on both sides of the House know that the Government would not have accepted the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), and that if we were to vote on the original text it would be probably be defeated, and the House would be left without a view on this matter. My amendment, which I should like to think has a good chance of being passed, would enable the House to adopt the words of the European Scrutiny Committee.

I believe that the legality of the EFSM, and indeed that of the European financial stability facility—the EFSF—has been questioned in relation to the EU treaty’s “no bail-out” clause, which states that the EU and member states

“shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of”

other member states.

European Union (UK Permanent Representative)

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

rose—

Draft EU Budget 2011

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and David Nuttall

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary for her comments. I shall raise a couple of issues because I should like a tiny bit of clarification on a couple of matters.

I welcome the shadow Minister to her role. Obviously, I am very new here, but what she probably does not know is that, alas, I have had to follow the European budget for 10 years as a Member of the European Parliament. In that time, I followed the abject failure of Labour Ministers who came to Brussels, gave away money and powers and did not care for this country. They did not bother to raise any questions when we were looking at the accounts and whether or not they were signed off. The hon. Lady might have forgotten the failure of a former Prime Minister who went and tried, when he was Chancellor, to get back money from structural funds but failed and then went quiet on the issue. I very much doubt that the hon. Lady has yet, in her new job, read the European budget line by line and page by page. Alas, I did that nine times out of 10: the 10th time, I found a fantastic new doorstop.

I am not going to talk about the budget in financial terms, as my hon. Friend for Harwich—[Hon. Members: “Clacton.”] I love these boundary reviews; they are so much fun. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) has outlined the costs. I want to press home the process behind all this. Having sat on the back benches of the European Parliament, watching all this go through, I have seen the process get to the stage that we are at now, when the European Parliament’s Budgets Committee adopted its wishlist for how much more money it could possibly spend, and I know what comes next. There will be a little knock-back from the Council at the meetings that the Economic Secretary is about to attend and then there will be the stage at which these matters will be decided by qualified majority voting, because that is how all this works.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Qualified majority voting is a term that might not be understood widely outside the House. Could we more simply describe it as other countries telling this country what to do?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I suppose so; I have heard it put in slightly more complicated terms. At the end of the qualified majority voting process, member states coalesce into different groups and it is quite remarkable that we have so many member states on our side at this time. That is something else that the Labour Government utterly failed to achieve on any occasion when it came to the budget. I think we are heading in the right direction.

I want the House to give our Economic Secretary the strong message that a number of us are simply reflecting the views of the people who elected us to this place. They see a lot of money being wasted and a lot of excess in the European Union and they know that we want to do something about it, but we need to negotiate from a very strong position. I know that the Economic Secretary is an unbelievably good negotiator. She speaks many languages when she goes abroad to talk to our European friends and those with whom we have to negotiate. I would like her to know that when she goes into those negotiations she can say, “This Government have taken a perfectly reasonable position. We are reasonable, but look at the Members of the House of Commons who are trying to represent their constituents—they are absolutely livid about the position the Government are taking just to get a half-decent cut, or maybe a standstill, in the European budget.” We are trying to give extra force to her argument—nothing more, nothing less.

I commend what we are doing in the European Parliament. My colleague James Elles, a Conservative Member of the European Parliament, has tabled many fantastic amendments, some of which might go through, because he is an able negotiator who knows the institutions very well, and some of which will not. However, we will still end up in the same position whereby, at the end of the process, the European Commission’s budget is bigger this year than it was last. That is unacceptable to the British public.

President Barroso recently gave a state of the Union address. I talk about that because I want to put into context where the argument sits now. We might be talking about the 2011 budget for the European Parliament, and I am trying to look forward to how we negotiate in the negotiations that are just opening up for the next financial framework. President Barroso put his cards on the table in his state of the Union address: not only does he want more money, but he wants to raise it in a completely different way. A former Minister for Europe talked about own resources; essentially, President Barroso would like to have a European tax. There is a debate for us to have on that.

Some people want a European tax because more member states are having debates such as the one in the Chamber today whereby their parliamentarians say, “You are spending a lot of money from direct taxation, not from the way you used to raise it.” My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) referred to that and it is unacceptable in the current economic climate.