Medical Cannabis: Alleviation of Health Conditions

Debate between Christine Jardine and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I thank the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) for securing this debate on medicinal cannabis.

I am sure I am not alone in this place in often being asked by people, “What is it that makes you want to be an MP?, “What is it about being an MP that is rewarding?”, or, particularly after days like yesterday, “Is it not frustrating?” When I am asked that, I point them to what happened a couple of years ago, when my constituent Karen Gray came to my office with her wee boy Murray, who, up until that point, had been the subject of lots of conversation and lots of letters back and forward to the Scottish Health Minister and to the then Health Secretary about the availability of cannabis oil. She brought him into the office and he sat and explained to me all about why he liked dinosaurs. That might seem unremarkable. But before then—before he had cannabis oil—Murray was likely to have up to 100 seizures in a day. He had spent much of his life in hospital and missed much of his education, and his parents were worried for his future.

Three years ago, when the then Home Secretary, now Health Secretary, made cannabis oil legal, it gave Murray’s family hope that their lives would change, and their lives have changed, Murray’s life most significantly. But it still is not fixed, because now the specialist who was prescribing cannabis oil for Murray has retired. When they did, earlier this year, they wrote to the Secretary of State asking what was to happen, because there would now be only one clinician in the country prescribing cannabis oil for hundreds of children for whom Epidiolex is not appropriate but for whom cannabis oil does change their lives and keep them safe. I have spoken to Murray’s mum about this. She is of the opinion—and says that the specialist was as well—that many GPs and doctors in this country want to be able to help their patients with cannabis oil, and that will be possible only if the Department of Health changes its policy and encourages the profession to do so.

This is the third debate on this subject that I have taken part in in the past couple of months. Each of them was secured by an MP from a different party. Today’s debate was secured by the hon. Member for Inverclyde, who is a Scottish National party Member. Yesterday’s debate in Westminster Hall was secured by a Conservative Member. I secured the other debate, as a Liberal Democrat Member, and we had support from Labour Members. I am at a loss as to how an issue that is so emotive, and has so much support across this House and across this country, has to keep coming back. We have to keep asking the same questions. We have to keep saying that clinical trials will not work because cannabis oil is not suitable for clinical trials. Even the NHS has said so. In its report of 8 August 2019, it recommended that there should be alternative trials. By that I assume it means observational trials.

I wonder what motivated the Government and the then Home Secretary to change the law: I suspect that he wanted to do it in the best interests of a child, and children, who were suffering and could be helped by that change in the law. I also wonder how frustrated he, and other politicians who took part in that decision, including all of us who worked hard and campaigned for it, must now be that despite that significant—in some terms, massive—change by this Government, we have not made the intended progress. People are still in pain in this country. Families are spending, as we have heard, upwards of £1,000, sometimes £3,000, a month to secure legal medication for their children that they cannot get on the national health service—the national health service of which we are so proud and that is supposed to deliver free-at-point-of-delivery care from cradle to grave.

[Crispin Blunt]

A few of us have constituents with a child with epilepsy and have invested the time to get a detailed understanding of many of the issues. The problem, as alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), is that most of our colleagues think we have done it. After the decision was taken in November 2018—or when the licence was given for Billy Caldwell to get his medicine—the conclusion was that one would not be able to find anyone who was objecting, because if one can have medicine from the Asian poppy, why on earth can one not have medicine from cannabis? There was probably no opposition in this place at all. But the tragedy is that the evidence is that we have not done it. We must get back into the complexity. We will support the new Minister in fighting her corner to ensure that people can get these medicines, along with all the other interests that are engaged here too.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He is absolutely right; I could not agree more. We all thought it was done, but more importantly, and more upsettingly, so did the families of the hundreds of children, and adults, who would benefit—adults with conditions such as multiple sclerosis for whom it would be life-changing. They all thought it had been done and cannot understand why it is not. I have to be honest: I cannot understand why it is not either, and why it simply cannot be done. Will the Government please consider using observational trials instead of insisting on clinical trials, which are not appropriate?

Yemen

Debate between Christine Jardine and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on gaining this important debate. There can be little of the horror left to express that we all feel about the situation in Yemen, which is, without doubt, the worst humanitarian crisis facing the world at the moment. As we have heard, 22 million Yemenis are in need of some form of humanitarian aid or protection. As the hon. Gentleman laid out clearly, the horror and heartbreak of the situation cannot be over-emphasised.

Yet this is a crisis in which we potentially already have the means at our disposal to intervene to protect the civilian population. The international community is crying out for action.

As we have heard, recent weeks have seen an increase in attacks on civilians. In August, 450 civilians died, and among the worst incidents was the airstrike on the school bus. Seven NGOs, including Save the Children, Oxfam GB and the International Rescue Committee, have written to the Foreign Secretary calling for support for the UN Secretary-General’s call for an immediate investigation. We all know that there have been atrocities by all groups involved, and neither side in this is blameless.

[Crispin Blunt]

On that important point, is the hon. Lady aware that the attack on the bus has been investigated by the coalition, and the Saudi coalition has accepted responsibility and undertaken to try to find the families of those who were lost in that incident, in order to pay them compensation? It has taken responsibility for that action.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I appreciate that the Saudis have taken responsibility, but that does not help us to resolve the situation or find a way of preventing that from happening again. As I said, no side is blameless, and it is important that we recognise that and take a balanced approach.

NGOs concerned at the growth in attacks on civilians want an immediate suspension of the transfer of all arms that could potentially be used in Yemen, and this is where we could act. What compounds my frustration is that we potentially have the means at hand. We have heard that we hold the pen on this in the United Nations. We should take note of the fact that in the final days of the coalition, it was agreed, after some argument and debate, that weapons and bombs could be licensed and sold to Saudi Arabia on the condition that British personnel were there to oversee any potential use. In the current situation, the question arises: is that oversight taking place? If not, why not? If it is, what are those personnel doing to intervene and protect civilians?

We heard about the need to defeat al-Qaeda and the complications of the alliances and interwoven factions in the eloquent speech by the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), who laid it out clearly, but is that an excuse for not using whatever means we can to take the opportunity we have to oversee and protect the population wherever and whenever we can? As the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) so eloquently and movingly said, this is a population who have already been through so much.

There are other issues. On human rights, 55 NGOs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have urged support for the UN group of eminent experts. On the peace process, the UK must continue to do what it can for an immediate ceasefire. In the short term, 22 million Yemenis are in need of aid and protection, 8 million of them are at risk of imminent famine and nearly half of all children aged between six months and five years old are chronically malnourished. The World Health Organisation has warned of the danger of cholera. It is almost unthinkable that we are somehow allowing this to continue.

In the midst of all this, the main parties in the conflict continue to make humanitarian access difficult. We cannot and must not allow that to continue. It is vital that our Government press for an end to that obstruction and for immediate access for commercial goods—the basic goods that we all need: food, fuel and medical supplies. It is not good enough simply for us to say here that we do not approve and that it has to end. The time has come when we have to act, and I believe that the British people expect no less from their Government.