Recall of MPs Bill

Debate between John Howell and Lord Lansley

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

This is very difficult, because we are necessarily debating what the circumstances would be, but I have been struck by speeches arguing for amending the Bill on the basis that it will all be all right on the night. Well, legislation is not like that. Legislation is like writing a contract; if we write a contract with somebody—in this case with the electorate—we have to know how it will be used and what will happen when it starts to go wrong. It seems to me that at the moment the defences against those potential problems are not there in the alternative Bill proposed.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Surely the evidence my right hon. Friend is looking for is in the bit of the Bill that is covered by the amendments. I have not been e-mailed by a single member of the public who is not also a member of 38 Degrees.

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will recall that I am not enamoured of 38 Degrees, but it is interesting to make that distinction.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and his colleagues have constructed the proposition that one must physically go to one of four places in a constituency in order to disempower 38 Degrees and those who would try to create petitions on an online basis. If we start down this path, that is where the pressure will come. People will say, “In this modern age we should not be dependent on physically having to go somewhere”, in the same way that they blithely talk about electronic voting and so on. It will rapidly get to the point where it is not about visiting particular physical locations but about generating large numbers of electronic signatures on online petitions. Then we will see a substantial change in the relationship between Members of this House and their constituents.

I have no problem with the idea that I should engage fully with my constituents and listen to them. In practice, we have moved subtly in that direction. Anybody who cares to remember, as I can, the debate in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq and the debate that took place last year on the intervention in Syria will recognise that last year more Members were responding in short order to substantial online representations, in larger numbers, from their constituents. In 2003, I got a very large number of letters, but they were actual letters, and overwhelmingly individual, not template, letters. A lot of Members felt burdened by the weight of opinion that was coming to them on the Syria vote.

Life Sciences

Debate between John Howell and Lord Lansley

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will gladly do so. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the designation of an academic health science centre in Manchester has supported many developments. We want to go further. In today’s life sciences strategy, we are making it clear that not only do we want to maintain the academic health science centre designation as a world-class designation for comprehensive research centres, but we want to go further and ensure that such centres are used to diffuse and spread innovation across the NHS more effectively. Next spring, we will set out how we will enable academic health science networks to be designated. That will happen during 2012-13. I will happily look at the circumstances in south Manchester and at how this matter will apply there. I hope that partnerships will be forged between the NHS, universities and the private sector of the kind that he and I know will be successful.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a world of difference between streamlining regulation, to use his phrase, and the picture of the indiscriminate abolishment of regulation that the Opposition tried to create? Such streamlining is essential to cut the time from invention to adoption.

[Mr Lansley]

I am clear, and I know that my hon. Friend agrees, that we must ensure that the regulatory processes are effective and that the medicines that are available in this country are of the necessary quality, safe and effective. However, we must not allow the delays that are inherent in some of these processes to prevent information from being provided on the basis of which clinicians, with the active, informed consent of patients, can access what they regard as potentially effective medicines. In the overall context of patient safety, we do patients a serious disservice if we know that there is a potentially effective medicine available and do not give them the first possible opportunity to access it.