Oral Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to succeed the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). I think that the whole House would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this debate and to commend the work that she and the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) have done.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. It is a demonstration of the work of that Committee and of committed MPs at its very best. I had the opportunity to lead a debate early on in the activities of the Backbench Business Committee on contaminated blood, which is not a million miles from this issue, although it is bigger in many ways. More people were affected and a clear link has been established between the mistaken use of contaminated blood and the terrible suffering that it caused. It is still a running sore because people cannot get closure.

I will come in a moment to the limited and modest nature of the request in the motion. I think it is contained and measured appropriately because the Government are still denying any causal link between the drugs and congenital abnormalities. First, however, let me say why I am taking part in this debate—indeed, a similar individual case sparked my deep interest in the issue of contaminated blood.

I have a constituent who suffered from the problem under discussion, and with your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will read briefly from a letter she wrote to me. Her name is Mrs Christine Pettifer of Ladbrook road in Coventry North West, and she has given permission for me to mention her name and cite her case in this debate. She wrote:

“I went to my GP…and he gave me Primodos—”

the hormone pregnancy testing drug in question—

“to see if I was indeed pregnant. I was a bit worried about taking the tablets, but he assured me that if I was pregnant, nothing would happen. If on the other hand I was not pregnant, it would bring on a normal period.”

We can all guess the terrible consequences. In her case they were as follows:

“When my baby (Lynda) was born on 26 January 1969 the staff thought she looked a bit blue, and took her away to the nursery. I tried to breastfeed her, but she seemed sleepy all the time. At that time, all babies were put in a nursery for the night. In the early hours of the morning on 29 January, I was woken by a nurse to the terrible news that Lynda had died. I have the post mortem, which in layman’s terms stated that her heart was the wrong way round.”

I cannot claim that there is a direct cause between that and primodos, but we hope that the Minister will address the modest nature of the request we are making to the Government.

Let us be clear. As late as July this year, a Minister from the Department of Heath stated:

“The MHRA has considered the key evidence and concluded that the data are not sufficient to support a causal association between the use of hormonal pregnancy tests and congenital abnormalities.”—[Official Report, 15 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 668W.]

The MHRA assessment was published on its website in 2014, and that remains the Government’s position.

We have raised this issue because of the situation of my constituent and that of the hon. Member for Aberconwy, but why are we pushing for an inquiry? It is because people want closure on this issue—it is like relatives of those who have died in an air crash or at sea. People want closure; they want to find the evidence and a reason for what happened, just as with all issues that involve the public sector in one way or another, as clearly this one does. As far as I am aware—nothing has come to me—these people want no apology or financial compensation such as that appropriate in the case of contaminated blood, but they want closure in their own minds. They cannot get that until they have a statement from the Government, which must follow a proper inquiry, and that is what we are asking of the Government today.

Let us be precise about what is being asked of the Government. We are all aware of the great pressures on Government time, particularly specialist time. They may look back and say, “This affects a relatively few number of people.” Indeed, this is not the fullest debate we have had in this House, but for those affected it is of deep concern, and they cannot rest until they know what happened. That is why I am so pleased to support the motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East.

The motion is to the point. It simply

“calls on the Secretary of State for Health to fully disclose all documents relating to the use of Hormone Pregnancy Tests held by the Department from the period between 1953 and 1978”.

Members will remember that the case I cited came right in the middle of that period, when already some indications—no more than that—had been raised by Dr Gal. They had been dismissed and there was no clear, massive statistical correlation between what was happening in a certain number of cases and the use of the drug. Fair enough—but the issue was not being taken as seriously as we would have liked, and it went on far too long.

My hon. Friend indicated how lax and slow the predecessor agencies to the MHRA and the Government were in reacting to the situation. As late as July this year, the Secretary of State for Health said that there was no evidence for these claims. If so, let us have the documents. The motion also

“calls on the Secretary of State to set up an independent panel to examine these documents.”

Nothing more, nothing less. It is as simple as that—a limited request to the Minister on an important topic to bring closure to certain individuals. If the will is there, Ministers can find the resources. I urge the Minister, as do other hon. Members, to accede to our requests in the name of our constituents who cannot otherwise reach closure, and to announce that he will set up that panel as soon as possible.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson). He may be troubled—or pleased—to know that I have spoken after him on more occasions than I have any other Member, which means that I have probably listened to more of his speeches, and he has had to listen to more of mine, than absolutely necessary.

It is a pleasure to support this debate and the case made by the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). I know that she has made considerable efforts in this very distressing matter. With all the cynicism about politics today, if we ever need a reminder of how active constituency MPs can play a positive role for their constituents, the evidence of this debate makes the case better than anything else I could say.

A constituent of mine, Chris Gooch, approached me some time ago about this issue and her daughter, Emma-Victoria. I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) said—that the sense of responsibility that parents feel in such circumstances is magnified by the fact that they cannot as yet even be certain that the decision that they took in good faith, fully trusting the medical authorities and the drugs manufacturers and confident that regulation would protect them, has had such a dramatic effect on them and, more importantly, their offspring.

Chris Gooch made this point to me: “When I went to the GP, I did not ask for medication. I went to get confirmation of pregnancy. I knew nothing of what tests were available, but have since found out that a totally safe urine test was already available. So why was I given something that had been raising concern among professionals for many years and with no warnings given to GPs?” That sums it up. How is it possible that people can have gone with confidence to a GP they trusted, hoping for confirmation of a joyous event in their lives, and been handed two pills, without prescription, that had a legacy that will live for ever? I hope that the House will be able to make a contribution to lifting the veil of secrecy over this issue by persuading the Government to hold an inquiry.

Let us remind ourselves about that drug. One dose of primodos equates to 13 morning-after pills or 157 oral contraceptive pills. I am no medical expert, as many will testify, but it strikes me as somewhat perverse that a pill with such high levels of medication should be used as a pregnancy test. Surely that is a cause for concern.

Our motion is very simple and the hon. Member for Coventry North West has been kind enough to spell it out. We understand the constraints on government but we hope, particularly as this Government have been determined to shed transparency on so many issues that have been clouded for decades, that this relatively simple and reasonable request for an independent panel to look into the paperwork, history and documentation not in the public light will be accepted. Let me try to anticipate some of the points that might be raised in objection.

The question of causal link, which I am told scientifically may be the case, should not be a barrier to an independent panel. Many scientists and experts have raised the possibility of a large question of doubt. Let us face it: in this place we have made policy on the basis of less evidence than that which has been put forward by panels of experts who raised significant doubts about the treatment that was available and freely given to unknowing patients.

Without running through the whole list, two or three striking pieces of evidence have stuck with me. On 4 November 1966, a consultant pathologist from Sheffield said

“The test is unreliable. It may well have been dangerous”.

On 23 June 1967, the Medical Research Council said:

“It looks like it could be another thalidomide story.”

Schering’s own specialist advice in the UK raised doubts.

Our job in this House is to reflect the wishes, concerns and priorities of our constituents. I find myself at one in asking the Government’s help to navigate through these documents and this history. It becomes very complex for all but the most persistent. It is with that in mind that I pay tribute to the campaigners, because they have not been daunted by that task. They have not been daunted by the conflicting evidence. They have not been daunted by the lack of funding, or the availability and sudden loss of witnesses to legal cases in the past. They have persevered ruthlessly to try to obtain documentation, despite having the full weight of the establishment against them so frequently and so often, that I feel the time is right for us to champion transparency. Let transparency be championed across the House, albeit that we need the Executive branch of government to implement it.

[Mr Robinson]

I have been briefed fully by campaigners outside this House. Marie Lyon, whose daughter was born with a very foreshortened arm, came to see me with her husband yesterday. She has been indefatigable in her briefing of MPs and we should pay tribute to her for that.

[Nick de Bois]

Indeed we should. I echo and support those sentiments, as I am sure we all do across the Chamber. They reflect the courage and determination of every sufferer in every family. Their bravery in confronting this and in facing the future should be honoured by the setting up of the independent panel that they rightly seek.

I want briefly to press three issues: the conduct of the manufacturer; the conduct of previous Governments; and the conduct of the profession. I believe they build a compelling case for uniting behind the motion.

In 1978, when this issue was first raised, a former Labour Member, Jack Ashley, championed the cause in Parliament. It was reported in The Times that he pressed the then Health Minister to hold a public inquiry—this was after an intolerable eight-year gap between the first doubts being raised and a warning being issued by the Committee on Safety of Medicines—but unfortunately his response set the tone for the future. He said that nothing new would learned from holding an inquiry—as we now know, thanks to the diligent work of campaigners, there was lots more to be learned, and there probably still is—and that it was not worth following up because most cases would have been dealt with. I submit that this approach—expediency over justice for victims of primodos—was not necessarily the right one to take. His tone was reflected in later ministerial statements, but Jack Ashley pressed on, and I am sure he would have been proud of the hon. Member for Bolton South East for showing the same diligence.

We need to explore what the committee did between 1967 and 1975, and it is right that we now give members of the action group the opportunity to understand what happened. What government records are lurking about? It is right that we finally establish how many people were put at risk. Where was the duty of care in government, the profession and the regulatory body? In 2014, we can at least make a modest effort to make up for the then Government’s failure to consider those points.

What of the profession? In 1967, the Medical Research Council made it clear that primodos could have been another Thalidomide—so far, so good—and warnings were expressed about the high proportion of pregnancies in 1968 following use of the drug. This should have been sufficient for the profession to press for more to be done. We know that the committee was prepared to publish information letting the profession know of its concerns, and it even concluded in a letter in 1967 that if its concerns were made known, it could reduce its use by GPs, and that this would have been no bad thing. But nothing happened. In fact, the committee referred it to a GP survey for two years, until 1969, despite being fully aware of the warnings, and nothing happened until the matter was exposed by the media in 1975. This led to warnings, and subsequently the manufacturer put a warning on the box.

In 1975, the World Health Organisation asked why nothing had been done for so long. I cannot judge what was going on at the time, but I think we will be judged on how we deal with this issue in this present time, and I hope that will be sufficient to drive the Government towards the independent panel. The company was completely aware of warnings—not just from the profession and the regulatory body with which it was in communication, but from its own staff.

I freely refer Members to my declaration on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because I worked with medical companies before coming here. I am aware of much of the excellent research and development that has come from within this sector, but let that not cloud our judgment on this issue. We must hope that it is not just our Government and our NHS who buy into transparency; it must be the role and responsibility of our pharmaceutical companies to do so wherever they may be. We are not selling a consumer good here; we are selling a product that must secure the absolute trust and absolute faith of both the profession and the users. We should never be in the position of having to say that there has been the potential for deliberate mismanagement of information from, in my opinion, right across Government, manufacturers and regulatory bodies, leading to this most distressful and distasteful situation for people who are suffering now as a result of some of that conduct.

I hope that Schering, now Bayer, will embrace the mood of this House and voluntarily come forward with as much information as possible. In this age, that would bring more benefit than harm to corporations that are understandably concerned with their image; above all else, however, such action would enable them to fulfil a moral responsibility that has clearly been lacking in this case.

I would be grateful to know that today, notwithstanding all the other issues we can argue about and the things we could do, we can take a moral and justifiable stance to help secure justice for campaigners who have been worried, troubled and wronged for far too long. I hope that the Minister will listen favourably to that request.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

Unfortunately, as I have been trying to explain, in our system the sovereignty for prescribing lies with clinicians. Guidance can be issued and we would expect GPs to comply with it. Today that is more often the case, but we are dealing with a period when things were different. I cannot at this point tell the hon. Lady why a number of GPs did not comply with the guidance provided, but it was given very clearly.

Hon. Members have asked that the Department fully disclose all documents on hormone pregnancy tests held between 1953 and 1978. While I support that request, I remind the House that we are talking about an era that mostly predated medicines legislation and companies were not required even to submit evidence to support the efficacy, quality and safety of their products—extraordinary though that may seem to us today. As a result of that, and the fact that the pregnancy tests were withdrawn from use more than 35 years ago, the Department holds very limited information and what it does hold is already in the public domain. That said, I am happy to confirm to the House this afternoon that I will instruct that all relevant documents held by the Department be released.

The MHRA will of course review any new data that emerge as a matter of priority and seek independent expert advice as needed. I am happy to go further and confirm to the House that I will instruct an independent review of the papers and all the evidence. I suggest that that be carried out by the Medicines for Women’s Health Expert Advisory Group, which exists to advise the Department on such matters. It comprises independent members who are experts in their field, and I am happy to take submissions from colleagues to ensure that the association is properly represented and has a chance to give evidence.

[Mr Robinson]

I apologise for not being in my place for the Minister’s opening remarks. The news that the Minister has just announced is very encouraging and will help to bring closure and reassurance. I am sure that no Member, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), will want to press the motion to a Division now. I thank the Minister for his reply and the positive note that he has struck.

[George Freeman]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments and I hope that the House has taken what I have said this afternoon in the spirit in which it is intended. I am open to representations from the victims’ association and to ensure that the inquiry panel addresses all its concerns.

I assure hon. Members that Ministers in the Department will continue to monitor the evidence closely and to work with hon. Members and the victims’ association, so that if there is any reason to believe in a causal link, appropriate steps can be taken quickly. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East for initiating this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for providing the time. I am grateful for the tenacious advocacy of Members and many people outside, including many who cannot be with us today. We stand on the shoulders of others. Whatever the cause of the appalling disabilities that some people have suffered, their suffering still exists, and I look forward to co-operating in any way I can to try to shed light on the issue and bring the all-important closure in an era of transparency, so that lessons can be learned and this never happens again.

Hospital Car Parking Charges

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend is quite right. He has done much to highlight some of the PFI contracts, the long-term consequences of which we are now having to deal with, where the contractors may have been rather more savvy in negotiating a deal that suits them rather than the patients. We must remember that the NHS should serve the interests of patients, not the providers of any contracts or services within it. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend and I hope that the Minister will consider what more can be done to challenge some of the contracts.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing the debate. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) was also involved in that.

The hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) touched on the heart of the problem. I was an ex-Paymaster General when the Coventry bid was pushed through as a PFI project. We have a magnificent new hospital, but people’s impression of it is not how good the facility is, but how high the car parking charges are, necessitated, unfortunately, by the PFI contract. Does the hon. Lady agree that the key point to put to the Treasury is that these PFI contracts are often too onerous to be sustained by the normal income that the NHS can expect a hospital to generate, and, in particular, the car parking fees built into that are too high?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind Members that about 37 Back Benchers want to speak in three debates that must finish at 10 o’clock, and we must also take the Front-Bench speakers and the proposers. We need interventions to be short, pithy and to the point, and Members must be disciplined if everybody who wishes to speak is to be able to do so. Time is of the essence.

Patient Safety

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As ever, my hon. Friend speaks wisely. The first step is to be open and transparent about where the problems are, and I hope today will be a step in that direction. In the end, however, if we are to change things we must create a learning culture in all our hospitals so that the word goes out from the top down that the management is interested in hearing from staff if they have concerns about safety, because it wants to learn from those concerns and put them right. One of the messages I have been trying to get across is that that does not cost money; it saves money. We spend £1.3 billion a year on litigation and £800 million on adverse events. If we are feeling, as everyone is, a tough climate financially, this is a positive thing to do for that reason as well.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The House will be aware that the Health Secretary has refused to comply with the Information Commissioner’s ruling to publish the risk register for NHS reorganisation. Will he at least say whether that risk register warned the Government specifically that such reorganisation would hit A and E services?

[Mr Hunt]

That risk register is in the public domain, but I defend the right of my officials to give confidential advice to Ministers as that is an important part of government. I want my officials to be open and transparent with me if they think I am about to do the wrong thing, and all Ministers need a protected area where they can get frank advice. The hon. Gentleman is one of my constituents, so he will be pleased to know that the Royal Surrey county hospital in Guilford is embracing the safety campaign with vigour and completely renewing the way its wards are organised to improve patient care and safety.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I am always happy to meet colleagues. I think that Earl Howe leads on the matter in the Department, and I shall draw the hon. Gentleman’s concerns to his attention. It is for NHS England to ensure that everyone has a pharmacy available to them, and I am aware that the CCG allocation formula includes allowances for rurality, but we know that this is a particular challenge.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

5. Whether patients are able to opt out of the general practice extraction service by telephone or online.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

People can opt out of the care.data programme through their GP surgery. Depending on the surgery, that may well be done online or by telephone.

[Mr Robinson]

Is the Secretary of State aware that the Government’s handling of the scheme has been shambolic from the very start and that their failure to communicate is nowhere better illustrated than in Pulse, the GP’s magazine, in which an article states that only 15% of members of the public surveyed knew that they had the right to opt out? What will he do to restore public confidence in a scheme that could be very beneficial?

[Mr Hunt]

It is a pleasure—I think for the first time—to take a question from someone who might be one of my constituents in Godalming. However, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that the process has been shambolic. The programme has been in place for 25 years, so it is important to understand that this big public debate is happening because this Government did something that the previous Government did not do: we said that if we are going to use anonymised data for the benefit of scientific discovery in the NHS, people should have the right to opt out. We introduced that right and sent a leaflet to every house in the country, and it is important that we have the debate—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) complains, but he did not want to give people the right to opt out when he was Health Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am absolutely aware that there a lack of clinical leadership, and when we go on to the statement later today, I am sure that we will be discussing what needs to be done to improve the quality of leadership, particularly clinical leadership. Very often the best leadership in any hospital or any commissioning group comes from clinicians, and we have much work to do to make that happen. But I do not think that that means that we should duck the challenge; we just have to get on and make sure that people have the right training and can be supported to do the job we need them to do.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State seems to be answering a different question. The question was about management training for doctors who are being put in the position, without any training and with no consultation—many are doing this against their wishes—of having to manage in a way that they have never been trained to do and are not inclined to do. Would it not be better to put in place the assurance and the training he talks about before rushing into this madcap reorganisation, which the Government did?

[Mr Hunt]

May I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, first, these people are not doing these jobs against their will, as they volunteered to do them? Secondly, the quality of CCGs is being assured very closely, and they are receiving a lot of support. But it is a big job because, generally speaking, we want more clinical leaders. They need support in learning management skills in order to do that job well, and across the whole NHS we need to be doing that better.

Cigarette Packaging

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

May I first thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting us this debate this evening? Despite the lateness of the hour, I am pleased to see you honouring our debate with your presence and lending it the importance that we attach to it.

I want to emphasise at the beginning that the anti-smoking campaign and public health campaigns have always been and will remain all-party issues. There are no party politics as far as I am concerned. It is good to see the Minister with responsibility for public health in the Chamber, preparing to reply to the debate. Like all those who have been involved in such campaigns over the years, I am pleased that the Government have renewed the importance that the previous Government, individuals and parties have attached to reducing smoking through public health campaigns.

We should recognise at the outset how effective public health campaigns can be. They have been effective in respect, for example, of seat belts as well as in reducing the prevalence of smoking. It is fair to say that the previous “Smoking Kills” campaign was extremely successful—smoking fell by half among children and by a quarter among adults. However, smoking remains the major cause of premature death and disease, killing more than 100,000 people in the UK each year, more than the next six causes of preventable death put together. However, the rate of decline has slowed in recent years, as the Government pointed out in their paper on the consultation, in which they say that since 2007 the figures for the prevalence of smoking have hardly moved. That stubborn resistance to getting the figure below 21% means that the issue is not going to go away. We have to confront it. As the Government’s paper rightly says, we have to see what further measures can be taken that are effective and acceptable to the country as a whole.

The other important point about the smoking campaign that we have to bear in mind is that although public awareness is vital to its success, the problem starts with children, usually before they are 18. Indeed, two thirds of smokers first pick up the habit when they are under 18. Every year, 340,000 children in the UK are tempted to try smoking. Although these facts are well known, they bear repeating. They provide the background to our debate, compelling our attention and bringing us to the consideration of plain packaging. However, “plain packaging” can be a misleading term, as some right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out. It is anything but plain in Australia, for example, which is ahead of us in pursuing a plain packaging strategy. Indeed, it can lend itself to the sorts of graphic images on the covers of cigarette packages that have proved so successful and that were at the centre of the effective “Smoking Kills” campaign. Those of us who back that approach—I shall call it “plain packaging” for the sake of simplicity—believe that it is the next effective step that could be taken, following the ad ban, putting tobacco out of sight in shops, increasing the age of sale from 16 to 18, and increasing the size and impact of the warnings on packs.

It is remarkable that the figure still stands at 21%, despite all that we have done and despite the great public support that the campaigns against smoking have successfully awakened. We realise that getting rid of the glitzy packaging in itself is unlikely to have much impact on addicted smokers. However, the systematic review of the evidence that the Government published yesterday, when they launched this welcome consultation period, suggests that there is at least some evidence that plain packs are less attractive and appealing, particularly to young people.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

Most sensible people would welcome the Government’s consultation on this serious issue. However, one consequence of plain packaging is that thousands of people could lose their jobs printing cigarette packets. May I therefore ask the Government, through my hon. Friend, to explore all options to safeguard the jobs of those who print the cigarette packets?

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention. The concern about jobs in the printing and packaging industry will be shared by many, particularly Members from Northern Ireland, who still have a fairly large tobacco-related industry in their constituencies. We can come to that in due course, but the fact is that none of us wants to stop the progressive reduction in smoking, and if it seems a reasonable presumption that reducing the attractiveness of the packaging will help, we must face up to the jobs implications. However, I hasten to add that, having considered the issue in the round, I do not think that the implications will be so severe, because after all, as I have pointed out already, we are not talking about “plain” packaging. The same inventiveness and printing of graphic images that have already been brought to bear will continue; indeed, they will be put to much better use than trying to encourage youngsters to try smoking because it seems attractive or because cigarettes are packaged as lipstick, or any of the other advertising gimmicks that have been used.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the Floor of the House this evening, as many people are concerned about it. Cancer Research UK has been working with its campaigning partners to explain why plain packs are needed and to rebut the myths circulated by the industry. Does he feel that plain packaging will reduce the number of deaths resulting from smoking? If it saves lives, the Government need to introduce plain packaging legislation as soon as possible.

[Mr Robinson]

The cancer campaign’s research to which the hon. Gentleman refers has come out strongly in favour of the proposal, as have Action on Smoking and Health and most other related parts of the health industry, in the public sector and the NHS in particular. They have all made the case that the proposal is plausible and that it should represent the next push in a campaign that has been effective but has now faltered. Since 2007, the figures have levelled out; there has been no further reduction in smoking. I think that that will come as a surprise to many people, and it makes the next step an important one. In my view, the next useful step would be plain packaging.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I understand the argument that my hon. Friend is putting forward, and we all understand the horrors of tobacco. He is talking about the hard core of 21% who continue to smoke. Is the problem not going to be that, given the levels of duty and taxation, as well as plain packaging, people are going to be forced into the black market? A number of people in my constituency deal in illicit tobacco and in buying cigarettes at a very low price. How can we get this right?

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing up that point. It was the staggering figures about the illicit tobacco trade in Coventry that first prompted me to consider that there could be adverse, unintended consequences to the measure that I am proposing with the good intention of reducing smoking.

Let me give the House the figures for the illicit trade in Coventry. My constituency is one of the three that make up the city of Coventry. In 2011, an Empty Pack survey was carried out. Its evidence was pretty reliable; I do not think that it has been seriously disputed. I am pleased to see the Minister nodding in agreement. It found that the illicit trade had increased from 14.5% of total sales to 30.3%, meaning that one in three cigarettes were being sold on the illicit market. That is well above the national average. The figure for the west midlands was only 17.2%, and the national average was 15%. Those are both high figures, but the problem is clearly approaching epidemic proportions in Coventry. I therefore remain concerned that we should do everything we can to prevent the problem from spreading further and that we should do so through the introduction of plain packaging.

When we consider all the covert measures that have been tried out by the Government, with the industry reluctantly co-operating, we realise that the present system cannot be very effective if the figures are as high as they are. If the figure is already 30%, it is hard to see how our countermeasures are being effective against the illicit trade in tobacco. We therefore have to take another approach.

That idea led me to read about what is happening in the north of England. There is a strong argument by the industry that the problems that have been mentioned could indeed happen. There is a plausible presumption that they might. In the north, people have realised that the present measures are ineffective, and they have set up the north of England tackling illicit tobacco for better health programme. It has brought together key agencies such as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the UK Border Agency, the police, local authority trading standards departments and the NHS to take part in a comprehensive action plan covering all those areas of government. It illustrates linked-up government working together at local and regional level. At the conclusion of this debate, I shall be writing to Coventry city council to recommend that it initiates and co-ordinates such an attack on what is clearly a big problem in Coventry and the west midlands.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

It concerns me greatly that the hon. Gentleman appears to be advancing an argument that is based on a wing and a prayer, and a proposition that he hopes will get rid of counterfeiting. Is he not concerned that the counterfeiting of cigarettes across the United Kingdom amounts to a multi-billion trade—worth £3 billion at the last count—by criminals? They are not just any criminals; they are among the nastiest, most contemptible criminals in the world. The proposal that the hon. Gentleman is advancing is not going to stop them, and the idea that plain packaging will do away with the problem is not being advanced here tonight.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention. I do not think by any measure that I could be thought to be suggesting that plain packaging is going to be a magic wand to deal with counterfeiting in itself. It is not, so I agree that it will not be enough in itself. The point I am making—it seems obvious to me—is that the extent to which measures are failing at the moment clearly shows that prevalence is increasing and will increase further unless we get effective action by Government agencies. This is where the Minister has a key role to play in the Department. I shall try to prompt local government in Coventry and the west midlands to get active in this respect, but the Minister has an overriding responsibility to deal with the problem for the whole country, as it is indeed a major problem.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is making a powerful case, with which I completely agree. Does he agree that one problem is that the industry has gone about deliberately marketing its products to young people in the form of lipsticks, CD covers, thins and other ways that attract young people to take up smoking, which they can then never cure?

[Mr Robinson]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I am very pleased to say so. He mentions some of the advertising gimmicks and marketing subterfuges to which the industry has stooped. The evidence that this is achieving success lies in the fact that two thirds of those currently smoking started when they were younger than 18. That is why we have to deal with this matter and take measures to deal more effectively with the counterfeiting problem.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Mr Robinson]

For the very last time.

[Mr Barron]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Some countries have managed to deal with counterfeiting quite well. There are barcodes on all cigarette packages; the problem is the policing of them. Counterfeit cigarettes are not all sold out of car boots, as they are sold in some retail outlets, too. We need enforcement in those areas and to confiscate any smuggled cigarettes.

[Mr Robinson]

I agree entirely that the barcoding and other anti-illicit sales measures are not being policed readily enough, which brings me back to the need for Government action at the local level in enforcing the required measures. That can be done only when the group of agencies that I mentioned work together with that sole purpose in a truly linked-up manner. It will not work on any other basis.

I have given way many times, but I know that our debate is restricted to half an hour. I am sure that we will have occasion in future to debate the issue more fully on the Floor of the House almost certainly at the end of the consultation period. I look forward to those debates and to my participation in them. Let me make my own position clear, as all right hon. and hon. Members, the Government, the Opposition and other parties will have to do the same. On balance, I believe that plain packaging would help to reduce smoking, which we desperately need to do. Indeed, I would go further and say that plain packaging could be an important milestone in making cigarettes and their brands pariah products—a status that is richly deserved.

084 Telephone Numbers (NHS)

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Streeter, for presiding over my debate.

In 2008, in response to a consultation, the Department of Health concluded that for some individuals on low incomes and unable to access a fixed line, the use of NHS 084 telephone numbers constituted a significant proportion of their weekly income. In April 2010, as a result of that conclusion, the Department amended the general medical service contract and the personal medical service agreements for GP practices to ensure that

“persons will not pay more to make relevant calls to the practice than they would to make equivalent calls to a geographical number.”

GP practices were given until April 2011 to comply with the amended terms, but unfortunately, now, nine months after the deadline, Which? and other organisations estimate that 13% of surgeries in England continue to use 084 or 085 numbers that cost more than the equivalent geographical call.

One might think that as the amendment was made at the end of the previous Labour Government and we now have a new Conservative-led coalition, there would have been a change of policy, but that is denied. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) said, on 12 July:

“It is absolutely clear that there is no distinction between landlines, mobiles or payphones. The directions are very clear that patients should not expect to be charged any more.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 150.]

So we can only conclude that 13% or thereabouts of GPs, including at the Crossley practice, which serves a deprived part of my constituency, and at least one other service in Coventry, are in breach of their own contracts, which were agreed by the previous Government and are supported by the current one. We have to ask why they are being allowed to continue to do that.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ainsworth]

If my hon. Friend can wait, I will try to give way later. A number of Members want to intervene.

The GPs argue that they have entered into contracts that give them enhanced telephony solutions, and that they cannot get out of them. That is the kind of thing that they say to justify their non-compliance, but none of it is true. All the arguments are flawed, and there is the simple solution of migrating to an 034 number, which provides the same supposedly enhanced telephony services. As an aside, I will say that what we mean by such services is call queuing and call diversion options. When in the middle ages people fell foul of the inquisition, they were shown the instruments of torture but not made to pay for them, but people are now being made to pay for these supposedly enhanced telephony solutions.

Health and Social Care Bill

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who speaks with a great deal of experience in such matters. The House will share her aspirations for the positive involvement of GPs in commissioning, for the improvement in the provision of secondary care by involving primary care, and for the organisation of primary care. Those aspirations may be shared, but the Government’s hopes, and the evidence on which they are based, of carrying out this huge reorganisation and achieving its alleged aims are flimsy indeed.

In the history of Government-led reorganisations—it little matters whether they are bottom-up or top-down—this reorganisation is massive. The former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), referred to the view of the NHS chief executive. He said that the Nicholson challenge is to carry out successfully such a huge, large-scale reorganisation in the time proposed—the two challenges that need to be pulled off. I think I quote Nicholson accurately when I say that the first challenge is to do in four years something so massive that it can be seen from the moon—together with the great wall of China—and that that would be unbelievable. The second challenge—the other inherent part of the two-part challenge—is that that has to be done while achieving a 4% reduction in costs over four successive years; and

“To pull off either of these challenges would therefore be breathtaking; to believe that you could manage both of them at once is deluded.”

I do not know why David Nicholson is still in his position. I do not know how the chief executive of the national health service can think that the Government must be deluded to put forward a proposal such as the one that the Secretary of State has proposed and remain in his place, but he clearly does not believe it. I do not want to cast any aspersions on the Secretary of State’s mental health, although I note that the editorial of the last edition of the British Medical Journal read:

“What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad.”

Government collective responsibility obviously applies.

It is difficult to understand why the Secretary of State is going down this route, because there is no evidence that these sorts of reorganisations—top-down, bottom-up—in the health service or anywhere else bring the benefits, cost reductions and performance improvements expected of them. If any Government Members want to correct that, I will willingly give way, even in the limited time available. However, there simply is no evidence for it. Indeed, the National Audit Office, in looking at nine reorganisations carried out in the last five years of the Labour Government, found no evidence at all. They all cost far more, and the benefits, so far as they could be identified, were much less.

Similarly, it is pretty obvious that the something like 15 structural reorganisations, particularly in primary and secondary care in the health service, were not successful either. We only have to read through them. Kieran Walshe has described the bewildering array of forms and structures put in place to run primary care and commission secondary care—[Interruption.] I see that anybody who does not agree with the Secretary of State is dismissed automatically—that is a sign of hubris and is not a good approach. A similar approach was taken towards Professor Appleby, who was dismissed as someone of no importance. Yet these are people who are looking at the facts—Appleby looked at improvements in the health service. The conclusion is that

“there have been family practitioner committees, health authorities, GP fundholders, total purchasing consortiums, GP multifunds, primary care groups, primary care trusts, and external commissioning support agencies.”

I freely admit that a lot of those came from the Labour Government. However, I cannot imagine why the Government refuse to learn from our mistakes. That applies also to one of the most serious developments in this whole proposed reorganisation relating to the introduction of price competition. It is feeble of the Government Front-Bench team to say, “Well, your Government intended to do it, so we are going to do it.” They spend hours every day criticising everything the Labour Government did. This is one thing they did not do—apparently they intended to do it—but suddenly it is so welcome that the Government insist on doing it. The fact is, however, that it will happen.

We have a huge change but with no evidence that it will bring any good; we have the fact that the NHS has to make savings that nobody believes will be achieved; and we have the fact that we are opening it up to competition. The position of the consortia becomes very questionable, as does the position of the NHS commissioning board itself. Other Members have raised these points. What sanctions have been provided for? To whom will the consortia report? Is the Secretary of State abdicating any responsibility for their performance? It is not clear from the legislation, as far as I can see—there are 61,000 words of it—what the Government’s role will be in the control, functioning and performance of these new boards.

Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recalls that the catastrophic problems of infected blood supplied by the NHS date back to the 1970s and 1980s, infecting 4,670 patients and causing what Lord Winston described as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS; notes that successive administrations only very partially responded to this catastrophe by setting up and funding the MacFarlane Trust, the Skipton Fund and the Eileen Trust; regrets the past refusal to accept the principal recommendation of the Independent Public Inquiry into the supply of contaminated NHS blood to haemophilia patients, chaired by Lord Archer and established and financed by private initiative and funds, relating to compensation for the victims and set out in paragraph 6(h) of chapter 12 of the Archer Report; further notes that earlier this year the reasons for rejecting this recommendation were challenged successfully in the High Court, which quashed the decision; believes that this ruling constitutes an appropriate moment for the present Government, which bears no responsibility for the inadequate and misjudged policies of successive previous administrations, to extend an apology to the surviving 2,700 sufferers, their families and the bereaved; and calls on the Government to alleviate their intense hardship and suffering by accepting and implementing the recommendations of the Archer Report despite the intense financial pressure on the public purse at this time.

I would like to say a few things by way of preliminary background to this debate, some of which may reflect on the interchanges we have just had on the amendment. Opposition Back-Bench Members, and many Government Members, are pleased that the whole idea behind the initiative on Back-Bench business and the excellent Committee established to promote it is that Back-Bench Members should have the ability to move substantive motions on the Floor of the House on which they can vote. That is what, in effect, we have secured today. Not only would the amendment, had it been chosen, have wrecked the whole substance and heart of the motion, but it would have wrecked the intention behind the Backbench Business Committee.

I thank the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), both of whom were good enough, in their wisdom, to select the bid made initially by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), who, of course, is now a member of the shadow Government, and is therefore unable to move the motion today. He has kindly asked me to pick up the baton, which I am honoured to do, and we therefore have the opportunity today to debate a substantive motion on the Floor of the House.

The Government have missed a huge opportunity. In drafting the motion, I placed great emphasis on making it an all-party motion reflecting the views of every Member of the House in a balanced way, and it has commanded the support of the victims of what was the “worst treatment disaster”—as it was described by Lord Winston, whose mother was, I think, terribly hurt in this way—in the history of the NHS. As the motion makes clear, the coalition Government bear no responsibility for the maladministration, the misjudgment and the inadequate judgments of previous Administrations.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does that not make it more significant that the Government, who had no responsibility for this situation, tried to move a wrecking amendment that would have totally sabotaged what my hon. Friend is trying to achieve on behalf of the people concerned?

[Mr Robinson]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. I am very pleased to welcome the Secretary of State to the debate, because it gives it prominence and substance. The Backbench Business Committee has a real role to play—we have had a good debate on Afghanistan too. However, I saw the Secretary of State shake his head to say that the amendment is not a wrecking amendment. None the less, those of us who attended a meeting yesterday with the victims of blood contamination were hoping for an amendment that we could support, and he could have done something about that.

The Secretary of State bears no responsibility for what has happened. The NHS supplied contaminated blood. I will not go into individual cases, except for one in my own constituency, which I have been following ever since the victim first approached me many years ago. This goes back to the mid-1970s, to the Callaghan and Wilson Labour Governments and to the Thatcher Government, and, of course, to the subsequent response to those ill-advised, inadequate judgments, made mostly by officials or under their strong advice—clearly that is the case in these cases—from the last Government principally, although it even pre-dates them to some extent. We are not trying to blame the present coalition Government, but there are things that they could have done, the cost of which would have fallen well short of the £3 billion that will allegedly be the cost of implementing the Archer report.

As hon. Members will recall, the Archer report was set up under the Blair Government—in 1997-98, I think—at which time I was at the Treasury. People put it to me, “You were at the Treasury at the time. Why didn’t you do something?” We did not have the report then. We had made papers available. It was a privately funded and excellent report, which I commend to all Members, but we did not know what it was going to recommend. Unfortunately, I left the Treasury before I was confronted with the implications of the report. However, under the last two Labour Administrations, there were ample opportunities for us to respond more fully, generously and comprehensively, in human terms, to the suffering of the victims.

This was an unparalleled disaster in NHS treatment history involving thoroughly blameless individuals. I met one yesterday—a gentleman from Doncaster—who had been knifed, rushed to the accident and emergency department at Rotherham and given two pints of blood, from which he subsequently contracted HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. He is now totally incapacitated, and has been asked to live, after capital payments of £25,000—of great value, of course, but not enormous—on £107 a week.

The Government could have said, “Well, we know there is a problem with, for example, the Skipton Fund, so we will take some steps to move that up towards the level of what the previous Administration made available—inadequate though it was—in respect of HIV/AIDS.”

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

In a moment, yes.

The Government could have done that, but they did not. All we now have is their sad, tragic adoption of what previous Government’s did. That is a great pity, a great sadness, and does not reflect well on them. When they reflect on the matter, they will come to think that they should have handled the matter very differently.

Had the Government proposed what I have suggested, which would have cost a minimum amount—nothing like the sums talked about now—we could have voted for it and then, at 4.30 pm, when this debate ends, gone back to meet the victims in Committee Room 14 and told them that this Government have finally broken with the previous, inadequate and ill-judged consensus and reaction. We have never asked them to take responsibility. However, they could also have extended a gesture of an apology, which the victims are also looking for. Sadly, however, the Government have, in effect, done nothing but take on the same old weary mantle that we have seen for the last 20 years. They are already getting tired: they have lost their verve and the ability to respond energetically and imaginatively to situations. It is very sad.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

I promised to give way first to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie).

[Charlotte Leslie]

I appreciate the tone, spirit and intended outcome of what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do. As a newcomer to the House, however, may I ask what, over the past 13 years, he did to encourage the previous Government to deliver payments I believe should have been made? At that time, the public finances were not in such a diabolical state and compensation would have been much easier to give.

[Mr Robinson]

Unfortunately, the hon. Lady is trying to inject a party position into this debate, which those of us who have been involved in it have tried to exclude from it. We have said that past responses were inadequate and ill-judged—it says that in the motion. I regret that we did not deal with the matter, and I like to think that had I remained at the Treasury, I could have done something. I am open about that too; we all ought to be open here. However, those who say that I, as a former Treasury Minister, should appreciate our legacy are missing the central point: there will never be a good time to do something like this. There will always be bureaucratic arguments, and precedent arguments, and arguments we cannot foresee now but which will one day be made, for why we should do nothing, and the Government have caved into them. That is the reality.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that this is a horrendously tragic occurrence. Many haemophiliacs have been affected by this as well, both mentally and physically, and we need to work together and all recognise the dreadful situation that these people find themselves in.

[Mr Robinson]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has joined the debate and agrees with us. Of course, haemophiliacs have also been affected. The ironic tragedy there is that the treatments given were meant to deal with the basic underlying condition of the haemophilia. I will mention the name of one victim, given that he is a constituent of mine—I am sure that many other Members will mention constituents of theirs too. Given that 4,670 initial cases were affected, and given that there are 650 constituencies, nearly every constituency must have had at least one tragic occurrence. I will therefore mention Joseph Peaty. He is a haemophiliac who went for treatment to correct his underlying condition, but because of the contaminated blood products, he acquired both HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. He is watching this debate and looking for us to offer victims something more. There is no way we could accept the amendment.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the real tragedy, especially for haemophiliacs, is that it is not just individuals who are affected, but whole families? The condition runs in the family, so two or three family members could be affected. The fact that people are living with such stress as a result of failure of successive Governments to tackle the issue is something that this House should totally condemn. We must take a decision today, and not allow the issue to slip further down the agenda.

[Mr Robinson]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who makes a most poignant and correct intervention, if I may say so. We had a unique opportunity. The issue had moved right up in the public’s awareness. The sort of thing that we get in these debates is everybody saying how terrible it is, but then heaving a sigh of relief that they have not been affected, and on we go. The months and years drag by, and so the number comes down, from 4,600 to 2,700. Perhaps not many will be affected, but as my hon. Friend said, the nature of the diseases is that they spread, and the suffering will continue long after most of us have left this House.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. At the end of the 1980s, I worked with someone called Colin, who had been injured abroad, had a blood transfusion and got haemophilia. He then returned to the UK for ongoing treatment, but ended up getting contaminated blood and dying from HIV at the beginning of the 1990s. It is for people such as Colin that we are here today. This is not a partisan issue; it is an issue that we should have dealt with in the past 13 years—it should have been dealt with before that—but let us deal with it now.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, which I wholly accept and entirely agree with.

[Mr Syms]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

The hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) has been very persistent, so I will give way to him and then to my right hon. Friend, but if the House will forgive me, thereafter I want to get on, because we have limited time and I have agreed to keep my opening remarks to the minimum

[Mr Syms]

This is an important issue for so many families and people affected. I am not sure whether the motion will be agreed to today—that depends on the vote a little later—but the important thing is to make progress. The Government have said in their statement that they will undertake a review of the Archer report, which is good. However, we ought to be pressing them a little further, so that hon. Members such as the hon. Gentleman and I can be part of that review, lobbying Ministers and having meetings with them. Should he not be suggesting to those on the Treasury Bench that some of us ought to be in the Department of Health discussing the matter further?

[Mr Robinson]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) and respond to both questions immediately afterwards.

[Mr George Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and congratulate him on the measured way in which he is conducting this debate. Does he agree that in every generation there are two or three major injustices that have to be addressed? They cannot always be pinned on to a given Government, but this issue is one of those injustices, and we have to put it right now.

[Mr Robinson]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend—this is indeed a good moment to do that—but sadly I disagree with the hon. Member for Poole, because we have had reviews.

In passing, let me make a positive reference to a former colleague in the Government at the time. As I understand it, the previous Secretary of State for Health—my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham)—opened up one aspect of the issue, through the Skipton Fund in particular, although if I am wrong and the Minister wants to correct me, I should be only too happy to take an interjection from her. He did that last year to see whether there was any way of increasing Skipton to the levels of HIV/AIDS compensation—that proposal was put to me forcefully at meetings with the victims yesterday, and I am sure. that it will be again when we meet them at 4.30 pm If we could do that, it would be a step forward and we would feel that we were going in the right direction. If the Minister wants to tell me that that is the case, I would be very pleased to hear that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anne Milton)]

I have to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has read the written ministerial statement, because at the end it points out that we will be reviewing certain aspects.

[Mr Robinson]

That is my whole point: “We will be reviewing.” This has been going on for a year already. Who can put his hand on his heart and honestly say that anything more will come out of the review than we have already had? Nobody with any experience of this House or how Government works can say that. Today is the moment.

[Anne Milton]

I have to ask again whether the hon. Gentleman has read the written ministerial statement. I have said that I will look at certain aspects and I will report by Christmas, because I am acutely aware that campaigners on the issue have been left hanging for far too long.

[Mr Robinson]

Very good, but let me say this to the Minister, who is obviously genuinely concerned about the issue, as all Ministers have been. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley said, there are always two or three big issues, and this is certainly one of them, so we wait to hear. [Interruption.] The Minister should not tell us that we have not read the statement; we spent all yesterday trying to get a copy of the amendment, which seemed to be in the ether somewhere. Indeed, I asked her to e-mail me a copy yesterday at about 6 pm, but we could not see it even then. I have referred to the statement, which I think is useless, but why is it not referred to in the wording that is before the House? She did not want it there because it would carry more weight.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman has read the ministerial statement, before coming here and pouring scorn on the Front Bench, can he say which of the recommendations in the statement he agrees with?

[Mr Robinson]

I am not terribly interested in a statement in the Commons Library; I am interested in what is said—[Interruption.] I will tell hon. Members why: we have been through that already. It was clear what was said at questions—[Interruption.] I am amazed that hon. Members can behave like that. Do they not realise that it is what is said at the Dispatch Box that counts, and that what counts is what the Government are prepared to do? We have had umpteen statements about reviews, and so have the victims. I invite the hon. Gentleman and the Minister to join me immediately after this debate, at 4.30 pm, in Committee Room 14 to meet the victims and see what reaction they get. Let us just see. Let him wave his hands at them and say, “We’re going to review this.” The victims want closure. They are fed up: they have been sentenced to long, lingering and wretched death sentences by successive Administrations.

This Government had an opportunity to make a new start and bring closure to this great human tragedy, but they have refused to do so. For that reason, we are very pleased indeed—I am particularly pleased, as the mover of the motion—that Mr Speaker has called the motion and that we can vote on it. I urge Government Members to vote with us, in an attempt to shame all those, in all parts of the House, who have had sufferers in their constituencies, yet will not stand with us in this important Division. We will therefore press the motion to a vote in due course, and I hope that all Members present will vote for it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) on bringing this important, sensitive and emotive issue before the House. I congratulate him also on the tone—until perhaps the last couple of minutes of his speech—in which he moved the motion. He was absolutely right that this is not a question of the coalition defending its record; it is a question of the hon. Gentleman bringing a substantive proposition before the House for it to decide on.

In those circumstances,I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman and the House that it is more than usually important that Members who vote on the motion understand precisely what its implications are. He had a lot to say—all of which I agree with—about the human tragedy, the system failure and the slow response of successive Governments over 25 years. That is not in dispute. Sadly, however, I shall not be supporting the hon. Gentleman in the Lobby, because of the part of the motion that says that this House

“regrets the past refusal to accept the principal recommendation of the Independent Public Inquiry…relating to compensation for the victims and set out in paragraph 6(h)…of the”

inquiry report.

What the hon. Gentleman describes as the “principal recommendation” of the report is at the heart of the motion. The House must therefore understand precisely what that recommendation says, which is:

“We suggest that payments should be at least the equivalent of those payable under the Scheme which applies at any time in Ireland.”

Let us be clear what has actually happened in the evolution of policy on this subject. The previous Government accepted many of the other recommendations in the Archer report, but they explicitly refused to accept the recommendation that the compensation payments should be aligned with at least the level payable in Ireland. We are advised by the Government that payments at such a level would cost the Treasury about £3 billion. There is no controversy around the history of these matters or the emotion involved, or about how we got to where we are, but the House is being asked to accept that we should commit the Government to spending £3 billion on aligning our compensation payments with those currently payable in Ireland.

[Mr Robinson]

We set out the motion in those terms because that was very much what the victims wanted. However, the Government had the opportunity to respond with a constructive amendment, rather than a wrecking amendment that has no substance and takes not a single step towards our aims, even in relation to the Skipton Fund. We cannot accept that. We wanted a good amendment that we could vote for and unite around, so that the motion could have stood, as amended, in a progressive way that would have allowed us to step forward. Because the Government did not give us such an amendment, however, we are back where we were. We could not, in all honesty, let the victims down, which is why I was forced to move the motion as it stands.

[Mr Dorrell]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is not for me to comment on the way in which the negotiations between him and the Government proceeded, but unfortunately, that is not the question on which the House is being asked to decide. I return to the proposition that today is different from normal political days in the House, because the House is being asked to make a decision. It is being asked to decide whether the Government should be committed to align compensation payments with those currently payable in Ireland, and I do not agree with that proposition. I shall vote against it—albeit with a heavy heart, because I accept much of what the hon. Gentleman has said about the context and the history of these matters. The motion is not about the context and the history, however; it is about what happens next. In the week before the comprehensive spending review, it would not be sensible to agree to the commitment of £3 billion to align our arrangements with those in Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I have a great regard for the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell), but if there had been an alternative to the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), that would have been helpful to us in the debate.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson]

On that point, if the Government intend to do what they have outlined in their written statement, why did they not table an amendment to that effect? Why did they squirrel the information away in a statement in the Library? The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) is long enough in the tooth to know that they have not deliberately done it like this, but had they tabled such an amendment, incorporating their statement, we would have been very inclined to vote for it—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Interventions must be interventions; the hon. Gentleman must not make another speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am the only regular practising medical doctor in this House and it is somewhat surprising that no one contacted me to lobby on behalf of any of the issues to do with this debate. I stand here as someone who has no idea whether I have any constituents affected by this dreadful scandal, but I do understand what it is like to have hepatitis C and to have HIV. On a personal level, I was once married to somebody who carried the gene for haemophilia, so I have considered the idea of bringing a haemophiliac into this world and the implications thereof. More importantly, I have spent weekends away with the Haemophilia Society in the past. I have been privy to the annoyance, upset, anger and frustration with this whole affair since it started to rear its ugly head in the late ’70s.

It is important when we are discussing this issue to try to separate emotion from fact. The fact of the matter is that before we could administer cryoprecipitate factor VIII, the life expectancy of haemophiliacs in this country was in the 20s. When we discuss compensation—perhaps this is a way of decoupling us from the compensation scheme in the Republic of Ireland—we need to discuss compensating people for loss of earnings and widows’ pensions, instead of compensating people for loss of life. It is important that we distinguish between the two issues, instead of getting emotional. It is easy to stand up and discuss distressing cases, which is an approach that can be applied to an array of conditions. Let us concentrate on fact, because there may be an appropriate solution.

I could speak all day on this issue, but I am conscious of time. Questions of morality and of cost arise in deciding appropriate compensation. To my mind, the present economic difficulties that our Government are dealing with are not a consideration. A big wrong occurred, and we need to deal with it irrespective of the timing. The former Member for Plymouth, Devonport, David Owen, who was a medically qualified person, was involved at the outset under a Labour Government. The subsequent Conservative Government continued to miss the signs and failed to implement necessary procedures to make sure that the blood was not contaminated.

I want to draw attention to the figures. I have read only the first four chapters of the Archer report, because I realised only at 12.30 pm that the matter was going to be debated. I have noticed mistakes in the first four chapters, so I am not encouraged by the report in general. The report cites a figure of £3 billion, which I think the Department of Health provided to Ministers, but the figure is actually £1 billion. There is a typo—if one divides the two figures, one does not get £850,000; one gets £350,000. Let us talk about facts first, because we may be discussing £1 billion, not £3 billion. If one relates those calculations to the price of life, we can arrive at a compensation scheme that I can support.

[Mr Robinson]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying—I heard about this matter briefly before I came into the House—that the £3 billion figure relates to a typo and that the figure should be £300 million, because that needs to be clarified?

[Dr Lee]

Yes. If one does the division, one realises that one figure must be wrong—off the top of my head, the figure is 853 as opposed to 353. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at that point.

If the figure is £1 billion, we spend £1 billion on the NHS every three and a half days. We can find that money. I do not know how one prices a liver, and I do not know how one prices a liver transplant that does not happen. I cannot put a price on that, and I challenge anyone else to do so. We are talking about 4,670 people, so we can behave appropriately at last and provide the appropriate compensation.

On the financial implications, HIV widows are forced through the Benefits Agency to seek work within weeks of their partner’s death, and hepatitis C widows whose partners died before 2004 receive no financial help at all. The implications for the haemophilia community are stark. I cannot say that we should trim this and that because of the comprehensive spending review; I would rather we borrowed the £500 million and did the right thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

First, I join other right hon. and hon. Members in thanking the Backbench Business Committee for recognising the importance of the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and I put to it. The volume and the quality of the contributions we have heard today bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the Business Committee was absolutely right to note that this is a critical issue—one that many hon. Members on both sides of the House feel has received too little attention in recent years from successive Governments. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West for picking up the baton and moving the motion, which he did with great aplomb and verve, as ever.

Most of all, I should like to thank the victims and their families who have been in contact with me since we first learned that we had succeeded in securing this debate. Their kind words and support have been hugely welcome. I am delighted that so many of them managed to come here today—and, indeed, yesterday—to witness the debate. That bears extraordinarily powerful testament to the wrong that has been done to them and their families. I hope that we are doing some justice to their cases today by debating this issue so fully.

I am extremely pleased that the debate has prompted the Government to put before the House today’s statement, which is somewhat misaligned with the wrecking amendment, as my hon. Friend described it.

[Mr Robinson]

I wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether you could put the point to the Minister that we are conducting the debate on the basis of the ministerial statement that has been placed in the Library rather than one made to the House. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the basis of compensation would be if we were to implement the Archer recommendations. Is the figure £3 billion, £300 million or £1.2 billion? I have heard different figures. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot continue the debate without more clarity about what we are considering? The Government have stated that we are inviting them to spend £3 billion, but the figure might in fact be far less.

[Owen Smith]

I, too, would very much like that point to be addressed. I was going to ask the Minister how the £3 billion figure was calculated. The Haemophilia Society has today suggested that the figure has been calculated erroneously on the basis of a typographical error in the Archer report and that the number has been extrapolated from a false figure that Archer published regarding the volumes that were given in Ireland. So, I, too, would welcome the Minister’s clarification on that hugely important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s intention to review the Archer report, for this simple reason: its last recommendation, which to many sufferers was the most important, was to review the nursing, caring and other services that are available. This debate has been very much focused on money, but regardless of whether the figures are correct, the problems that many sufferers have had to experience throughout their lives, from the moment of infection, have been compounded by the years in which they have had to deal with these problems alone.

I would like to give the House a couple of examples, because I do not think that any of us, although we speak here on behalf of our constituents, can fully understand some of the problems that these people have had to deal with. I would like to speak on behalf of a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and a constituent of my own, and cite some of the things that they have told us. What they said to us is powerful, and we must recognise the bravery that it takes for people to go and sit in front of their MP and talk about the problems that they experience, which is not an easy thing to do. Some of those constituents are here today.

My constituent was infected with HIV from contaminated blood at the age of 12, when he was told: “This is what you now have. You must never tell anybody at all, ever. You must never tell friends in school, because if you do you will be bullied and hounded out of your school, and we will be hounded out of our home and have to move away.” It is enough to have suffered with haemophilia, but then, at the age of 12, they are told not only that they have a socially unacceptable disease, as it was at that time, but, at an age when they fully understand, that they are soon going to die from it.

He got that message more powerfully than by words alone. As a haemophiliac before his diagnosis of HIV, he was never allowed to have a bike of his own, so he was always asking to hitch a ride on somebody else’s. The Christmas after his diagnosis, his Christmas present was a bike of his own. He knew, from the statements by his parents and the look in his father’s eyes, that it did not matter any more—that he may as well have his own bike, because at that point in the ’80s nobody knew whether he had a month, a year or years to live. For a child to have had to live with being a social pariah, and to have had to keep a secret that they know they will die from, brings with it psychological problems that we cannot even begin to imagine. Their childhood is taken away and they have to live with that secret all their life.

I welcome the report, because these people need counselling. They need to be able to know that they can speak about the vitally important conditions that they suffer from, and how to deal with them. To use the words of one of our constituents, he felt that he had been born to bleed but did not realise he would have to pay the death penalty for it, and every day he feels ungrateful to be alive. The figures may be wrong or right, but other issues are just as important as the financial compensation that some of the people who have been infected are looking for.

There was a huge stigma surrounding HIV in the ’80s. We know in this place, and many other people know now, that there are only two ways to catch HIV—via sexual intercourse or contaminated blood. Perhaps it is time for us to start doing our bit to let people know that that stigma should not be there any more and that these people should not be afraid to talk about what they have suffered.

[Mr Robinson]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are conducting a Back-Bench debate that is being coloured by a figure in an amendment that the Government have tabled, which has not been selected. It suggests that £3 billion would be the cost of what my motion proposes. If the exact figure is in the order of 1% of that, or £300 million, as I think the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), a medical doctor, suggested—[Hon. Members: “No, £1 billion.”] Does it come to £1 billion? I think that ought to be clarified before we go further in the debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In fairness, the Minister is going to speak and there will be an opportunity to intervene on her. I am sure she will want to point out the figure at that stage. What I want to do is get on with the debate until she comes to speak, and then I am sure Members in all parts of the House will be able to intervene.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

I think the whole House would agree that this has been an outstanding debate and has very much justified the new process for nominating Back-Bench business. I hope that in future we will have many such debates on important issues, debated in the same spirit as Members in all parts of the House have shown today in discussing a non-party political issue.

In essence, the heart of the motion, which I will press, is that an apology is due to the victims. I know that it is very difficult for Governments to give apologies, and the Minister came very close to giving one in saying that she much regretted what had happened. If it had been given in the same spirit as the Prime Minister’s statement on the Saville report on Bloody Sunday, it would have been different, but it needed something a little more.

The second important element at the heart of the motion is the question of compensation. Some Members have said that they cannot vote for the motion because of the reference to Ireland, which is a foreign jurisdiction, and concerns about where we might go from there. However, whatever we had put in the motion, we would have had the same approach from the Government. Members can try to salve their consciences in that way if they want, but the stark fact remains that the victims feel that they need an appropriate minimum level of compensation. They have asked us strongly to stick with the motion and put it to Members. We are going to put a marker down on how we think the Minister’s review should come out.

I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity, and she has a long and distinguished history in the medical profession, but it is hardly an auspicious beginning for the Government to table an amendment intended to void the Back-Bench motion of its substance, then get their Whips up complaining to Mr Speaker about it, especially when it contains a figure that is out by a factor of three. The costs involved would not be more than £3 billion, as we learned from the distinguished hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is a medical practitioner. He said that they would be more like £1 billion. I cannot imagine how the Government have allowed that figure, which is not just salient but material to the debate, to continue to be discussed without correction.

[Anne Milton]

rose—

[Mr Robinson]

I give way to the Minister so that she can explain that to us.

[Anne Milton]

I have said that I will place in the Library details of how those figures were arrived at. They came about not through a typo in Lord Archer’s report but through careful consideration. The comparison with Ireland is difficult to make because the circumstances of those receiving compensation there are different, but that is not the salient point of the motion—it is whether we should align ourselves with a scheme set up by Ireland.

[Mr Robinson]

That is not the central point of the motion at all; it is utterly irrelevant to the debate. The debate is about justice for the victims of a terrible disaster, and whatever we had put in the motion we would have had the same attitude from the Government, which after all is the one that we have had from all previous Administrations. When I opened the debate I said that that we now had a golden opportunity for the Secretary of State to break with the past. He bears no responsibility for what went on, unlike some of us, including me when I was at the Treasury and the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) when he was at the Department of Health. The Secretary of State had a golden opportunity to put the past behind us and say, “A great injustice was done and a terrible misjudgment was made.” Several Members have made it clear that the suffering of the victims and their families goes on, and he should have said that the Government would now take steps to correct it. To say that it would cost £3 billion when it would actually be less than £1 billion is, as I said, hardly an auspicious start.

[Anne Milton]

May I reiterate that recommendation 6(h) of the Archer report states that

“payments should be at least the equivalent of those payable under the Scheme which applies at any time in Ireland”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

I can assure the Minister that we will not withdraw the motion. It is not encouraging for us to put our faith in her when all she does is hide behind a technicality.

[Dr Phillip Lee]

I want to be clear about the point I made earlier. I await some clarification on the figures, but I will not support the hon. Gentleman’s motion because it states that “a principal recommendation of the…Inquiry” is that compensation is based on the Irish compensation scheme. Am I right?

[Mr Robinson]

indicated assent.

[Dr Lee]

I made it clear that I think we can decouple from that and that we should not pay out on the basis of a life expectancy that was in the 20s before a product came on the market. That is why I will not support him in the Lobby.

[Mr Robinson]

No motion of the House is ever wholly correct. I have never voted for a motion with which I totally agree—[Interruption.] I hate to say it, but we are reverting to party politics on an issue that has nothing to do with it. No motion is ever perfect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are debating a principle. We should recognise that there should be much more compensation—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members think that this is a laughing matter, I will leave it to them and their consciences.

[Mark Durkan]

Did my hon. Friend note that the Minister said that as well as placing in the Library an explanation of how the figures were arrived at, she would place a copy of an article from The Irish Times, quoting Brian Cowen, who was then Minister of Health in the Republic? Brian Cowen became Minister of Health in 1997, but the compensation scheme in the south began in 1996 and issued significant payments then. There are misleading versions of what subsequent tribunals said and what was admitted by the Irish Government, but the Irish compensation scheme was not based on that admission of liability or that knowledge.

[Mr Robinson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps the Minister would like to say whether that is correct. Perhaps she does not know. The debate is degenerating into the to and fro of Opposition against Government interchanges. Let me assure the Health Secretary and the Minister that no one who has taken part in the debate really wants that.

The simple fact of why we are proposing this motion and resisting the Government amendment is that we are pressing for a recognition that a gross injustice has taken place and that it must be put right. That will involve high levels of compensation. We beg the Government not to believe the figures that are automatically produced to exaggerate the situation.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

Does my hon. Friend recall that when many of us were fighting for compensation for retired miners, we were given exactly the same arguments against—for 18 years? The question today is whether we are prepared to wait that long for a solution to this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robinson]

Again, my right hon. Friend makes the telling point that we have waited too long, but the problem will go on for longer. Why is the Minister defending further delay? Why is she defending £3 billion, and why is she giving out incorrect information? Let us not have a debate on that basis. We want Back Benchers in this Back-Bench debate to vote for the motion in my name because it does some justice to those who, for many years, have been condemned to a slow, lingering and very unpleasant death.

Question put.

NHS White Paper

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful for that question, because what is important is that we have coherent reform in relation to both commissioners and providers. That means that by 2013-14, we should not only have energised the commissioning process and patient choice but set free the hospital providers. My objective, set out in the White Paper, is that by that time all NHS trusts should become foundation trusts. We will need to put in place measures to support them to do that.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that those of us who listened to his speeches in opposition were much encouraged, but that with this first statement he has totally disillusioned everybody who believed that he was going to avoid the faults of the past? He has now introduced the biggest top-down, ill thought-through reorganisation that there has ever been in the NHS, and it has about as much chance of success as any previously introduced.

[Mr Lansley]

I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to go and talk to GPs in Warwickshire whom I have talked to, and to talk to those at Walsgrave about the freedoms that they want to enjoy.

I wish to make it absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman that there is great consistency between what we said in opposition and what I am announcing today, but that there are some major improvements. Frankly, they have come about because of the conversations that I have had with my colleagues from the Liberal Democrat party. Not least, those conversations have enabled us to focus on the fact that instead of leaving what was a diminishing, residual role for primary care trusts, which withered on the vine, it is better and stronger for us to create a strategic responsibility for local authorities on public health and on joining up health and social care. That will allow us to remove the bureaucracy associated with PCTs, and it is more coherent and stronger than the proposals that we had in opposition.