Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Brine

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)]

Survival rates are high, but I am ambitious for more. That is why the Prime Minister recently announced £75 million to support new research into the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. We will recruit 40,000 patients into more than 60 studies over the next five years, and further to this even more exciting is the rapid pathway that I was discussing yesterday with Cally Palmer, our national cancer director, which we are trialling across three hospital sites in west London as part of its local cancer alliance.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

T2. Given the challenges the Secretary of State and his Government face in recruiting and retaining health and social care staff, will he follow the example of the Scottish Government, who pay their social care assistants and care assistants the real living wage, meaning they earn £1,100 a year more than their counterparts in England?

Energy Drink Sales to Children

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Brine

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

That is an emerging policy area that I am taking very close interest in, as the Public Health Minister and someone with an interest in the public health and child obesity agendas. In the same way that the major retailers that I put on the record have shown what I suggest is a great deal of corporate responsibility, I suggest that the producers of these drinks might also take a long, hard look and consider their social and moral responsibility, so that they can stay within the spirit of the guidelines.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

In the spirit of co-operation, because there was a mention of the Scottish Government’s study, what engagement has the Minister had with Public Health Ministers in the devolved nations? Does he agree that sharing ideas, approaches and policies across the UK and beyond will be the best way to tackle this issue?

[Steve Brine]

I completely agree. Personally, I have not had that engagement, but I will check with my officials and I will be surprised if they have not. If the hon. Lady wishes to facilitate that engagement, I would be very happy.

I want to touch briefly on sugar. Many energy drinks contain high levels of sugar. Studies conducted in children and adolescents indicate that higher consumption of sugars, including the sugar-sweetened drinks that we are talking about, is also associated with a greater risk of tooth decay, weight gain and all the other health impacts—look at the challenges that we have in the health service with type 2 diabetes. Latest figures continue to show that our childhood obesity rates remain far too high. Almost a quarter of children are overweight or obese when they start primary school in England, rising to around a third by the time they leave. That is not good enough and the Government and I are far from happy about it. Intakes of sugar are currently more than double the recommended amount across all age groups. Teenagers are consuming just over 14% of their energy from sugar, and over a fifth of this sugar intake comes from sugar-sweetened soft drinks.

Key measures in what I think was a well received, world-leading childhood obesity plan, launched in August 2016, include the soft drinks industry levy, which seems to have been around for ages but came into force less than two weeks ago, on 6 April. We are already seeing improvements—a number of soft drink manufacturers have announced that they have or they will reformulate their products to reduce sugar levels. I have mentioned many times in this House the manufacturers that I think deserve credit for doing that and I hope more will follow. More than half of all drinks that we estimate would otherwise have been in scope of the levy have reduced their sugar content to below the levy threshold, which was the intention of the policy.

The sugar reduction and wider reformulation programme is being led and run by Public Health England, for which I have responsibility, and applies to all sectors of industry: retailers, manufacturers and the out-of-home sector, which includes restaurants, takeaways and delivery companies, cafés and the good old-fashioned pub. Public Health England will shortly publish an assessment of progress on sugar reduction, which I eagerly await. We will use that to determine whether sufficient progress has been made in our view and whether alternative or additional levers need to be considered.

The hon. Member for Redcar mentioned the possibility of revision to the child obesity plan. We always said that the child obesity plan was the start of a conversation, not the end. She mentioned Jamie Oliver; I pay great tribute to his work and that of his team, who I met recently just before the Easter recess when we discussed this issue and many others. We have always said that if we need to go further we will, and that assessment that PHE is carrying out on the initial impact of the industry soft drinks levy will be part of the determination of whether we need to do that. I have said in the House before and I will say again that the hon. Lady should watch this space.

In conclusion, the actions that we have talked about and the stuff that we look to cannot entirely eliminate the sale of energy drinks to under-16s. However, I assure hon. Members and the public that this is a matter that the Government, the Secretary of State and I are looking at very carefully. We will monitor the situation extremely closely in the light of the emerging scientific evidence and public concern—I understand that we have to take both into consideration. If we conclude that further Government action is needed to restrict the sale of energy drinks to children, we will not hesitate to act. Our actions have shown in the past that we never hesitate to act when the evidence points us in that direction.

Question put and agreed to.

Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Brine

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

My right hon. Friend and I do know each other very well, but I am afraid we will have to agree to differ on this; I do not agree that this is a whitewash. At the request of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, an expert, Nick Dobrik, who the House and outside world will know well as a respected and well-known thalidomide campaigner, attended all meetings of the expert working group and was invited to give a statement to the Commission on Human Medicines. Mr Dobrik is many things, but the notion that he is some sort of Government yes-man who would have allowed a whitewash to go on does not stand up to much scrutiny, if any at all.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

A constituent of mine has had one of the most traumatic experiences over the past 24 hours. She was invited to come down and hear the results of that report, and she was not able to travel. Like many other such families, they have children who, they believe as a result of taking this drug, require them being at home to care for them. Does the Minister think 24 hours is a reasonable period of time in which to ask a family to travel to London, often from quite rural parts of the country? Does he also think it appropriate that the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and I were locked out of yesterday’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency press conference? That in itself smacks of a cover-up.

A number of relevant documents were not included in this inquiry, so it is not fair to say that it was comprehensive and independent. Will the Minister consider looking again at the process? A significant amount of public money has been used, and we must make sure, and have confidence that, it was used appropriately.

As we know, “causal link” and “possible link” are two very different terms. Does the Minister think it appropriate that an expert working group changes the goalposts halfway through a process, when it is looking at a matter that is, as he says, so serious?

[Steve Brine]

First, may I correct myself? I might have said that the expert working group met “companies”, not “families”. If I said “companies”, I wish to correct the record.

I agree with the hon. Lady that the notice the families were given was not good enough. I and my colleague in the other place have made that crystal clear. Some notice was given to Mrs Lyon on Friday last week that there was likely to be an event on Wednesday, but that was not confirmed until Monday, so that was the notice the family got, and I do not think that is good enough; I have made that very clear.

On the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who chairs the all-party group, being locked out of the press conference, I cannot imagine how that happened, and again I have sympathy on that. I expect the MHRA to look into that and explain that to me, because, while we may disagree, I can see how that merely feeds the conspiracy theory that some have around this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Steve Brine

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

12. What the timetable is for the publication of the report of the expert working group on Primodos.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)]

This is an incredibly sensitive subject. The report of the expert working group on hormone pregnancy tests will be published tomorrow. There will be a written ministerial statement with a copy of the report. This follows a rigorous review of all the available data on this subject by a panel with expertise in the relevant fields of science and healthcare.

[Hannah Bardell]

I welcome the Minister’s statement, although there are some questions about the opaqueness of the inquiry and many other concerns. The lives of my constituents Wilma and Kirsteen Ord and many others have been blighted by the hormone pregnancy drug Primodos. Will he appear in front of the Health Committee, look at the way in which that inquiry was conducted and consider a public inquiry into Primodos so that the families can get truth and justice about how they have been affected by this drug?

[Steve Brine]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I am open to offers from any Select Committee. It would be premature to consider issues of liability before considering the strength of the evidence and seeing the report, which we will study carefully. The report will conclude whether there is a causal association between the use of HPDs such as Primodos and adverse outcomes of pregnancy. We look forward to seeing its outcomes and its recommendations.