Preventable Sight Loss

Debate between John McDonnell and Mark Hendrick

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing this debate. That was a comprehensive and detailed, but succinct, assessment of where we are at. Sometimes, the role of Members of Parliament is to identify an issue before it comes into crisis so that we can advise Government on the action that is needed, and that is exactly what my hon. Friend has done.

When some of my constituents identified this topic as the subject of an Adjournment debate, they approached me to raise an issue I have been dealing with for the last 20 years: people whose eyesight has been damaged as a result of refractive eye surgery, or laser treatment, as some know it. The refractive eye surgery sector is now a huge profit-making industry. Many gain through the use of refractive eye surgery, and their eyesight is benefited, but there are many others—in fact, thousands every year now—whose vision is damaged as a result of the surgery.

Many years ago, a campaign called My Beautiful Eyes was launched by a woman called Sasha Rodoy. Some people will know of her if they have dealt with these laser treatment issues in any way. She is a heroine. Each year, we organise a lobby of Parliament called Bad Eye Day. We bring together individuals whose eyesight has been damaged by refractive eye surgery and their families. When I say “damaged”, for many of them, it is to the point where their eyesight is nearly lost. Many others have heartbreaking stories of losing their employment or being severely disabled.

In 2004, Frank Cook, who was then a Labour MP, introduced a private Member’s Bill to address the issues confronting people whose eyesight had been damaged by refractive eye surgery. I co-sponsored the Bill, which basically called for regulation of the sector. In 2013, I produced a ten-minute rule Bill that reflected many of the proposals that Frank had put forward. We have had debates, meetings with the royal colleges and ministerial meetings. All we have been asking for over the past 20 years is greater regulation—effective regulation—but progress has been limited. Even in the Government’s own inquiry into cosmetic surgery, Sir Bruce Keogh identified laser surgery as something that should be subject to further regulation. To be frank, nothing has followed from all those ministerial meetings and debates, from all the legislation we put forward or from the Government’s own inquiry.

We need effective regulation that runs through every aspect of the process. The first aspect is the marketing and advertising of these treatments. As Sasha Rodoy says, the industry is notorious for making outlandish claims about the effectiveness of surgery. On a few occasions, we have taken companies to the Advertising Standards Authority and they have been found guilty of exaggerating their claims about the treatment.

Secondly, we want regulation of the advice provided to people who commission the surgery. It is about getting appropriate advice, and about whether the individual’s eye is appropriate for the type of surgery. At one stage, we found that advice was being provided by members of staff who were not qualified and were simply selling the product. We want the provision of advice to be regulated, supervised and monitored.

We also want surgical practices and professional standards to be supervised and monitored. I have dealt with several cases in which professional standards have fallen below what we would expect and people have been harmed as a result. When things go wrong, the company will often fail to put things right adequately. It will delay its response and will often try to get beyond the limit when legal action can be taken. Those individuals then have to fall back on the NHS.

Time and again, the NHS has to address complex injuries as a result of laser treatment, yet the financial burden falls not on the companies but on the NHS itself. We have argued that the performance records of those private companies and, if necessary, of the surgeons involved should be published to identify where harm has been caused as a result of action taken. Where NHS involvement is needed to correct or address the concerns that people have been left with, maybe there should be a levy on those private companies so that the cost burden does not fall on the NHS.

We are now 20 years on from that first piece of legislation, which Frank Cook brought forward because—if I recall rightly—he had gone through that experience and was interviewed by the media about it. All of a sudden, he received a flood of correspondence from people saying, “The same thing’s happened to me: I’ve had the same sort of injuries.” When I raised the issue in 2013, I had literally hundreds of emails coming in. We have a national lobby each time, and some of the stories are absolutely heartbreaking.

I know that there are demands on the Minister’s time, but it would be really useful if, like some of his predecessors, he met victims of refractive eye surgery who have become campaigners and the professionals they work with, so that we can address the current situation, get an objective overview of where we are and then agree a programme for reform. All that people are asking for is adequate regulation based on monitoring of professional practices, so that they feel protected. At the moment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West said, there is a real risk of eyesight loss. It is one of the worst things that can happen to people, because they become completely isolated from the world. It is incredibly distressing.

That request fits with the demand for a national eyesight strategy, which is desperately needed. What my hon. Friend described is happening across the country. There is a fear that if we do not address it now, we could quickly get into a crisis as a result of the loss of professional staff to the NHS in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) also mentioned the postcode lottery of access to those services. I hope that the Minister will agree to meet campaigners on this issue, which is worth addressing, so that at least they can have their say and he can take advice on the programme of reform that we need.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

We now move to the Front-Bench contributions.

Corporate Profit and Inflation

Debate between John McDonnell and Mark Hendrick

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to try to take the argument on from the discussions that have taken place so far. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) spoke about food, which is such a basic need. If we cannot control the supply and price of food, to be frank, we lose control of our overall economy and our society itself. The food increases that my hon. Friends have spoken about relate partly to short-term issues such as the breakdown of the supply chain post covid and the Ukraine war, and partly to two seemingly more permanent issues. The first is the impact of climate change, which is undoubtedly impacting the supply of food, and the second is the almost permanent installation into our economy of profiteering. That is why the Unite report, which introduced the concept of greedflation, is so important.

My hon. Friend cited several instances of greedflation, but food is a good example. There has been a 97% increase in supermarket profits, and a 255% increase in the profits of agribusinesses themselves. Unless we can develop policies to tackle climate change, including by accommodating to it in some areas, and get greedflation under control, these rises will be a permanent factor that will undermine the quality of life of all our constituents in the long term.

This debate is not just an exposition of the problems; it has to be a way for the Government and Opposition parties to talk about solutions to address the immediate problems and look at the long term. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon)—I congratulate him on securing this debate—mentioned some. The first is the need for immediate action, which must mean price controls. Price controls on basic foodstuffs have been introduced in this country in the past, particularly to deal with short-term problems. I do not think that permanent price controls are effective, but on a temporary basis—12 months, for example—they can be. Other countries, including Switzerland and Hungary, are already developing price controls, and France has introduced its own mechanisms for negotiating prices down on the basis of the expectation of price levels.

My view is that price controls are needed because of the urgent situation our constituents are facing. I think the Unite report said that there has been a 57% increase in the number of households that are restricting their food intake, and in which parents are choosing not to eat so their children can. Unless we can do something urgently to assist them, we will be inflicting human suffering on our society. To be frank, my generation has not seen that before; it is almost reminiscent of the ’30s.

Secondly, let us just talk about excess profits. I want to quote a senior Conservative Minister, who introduced excessive profit taxes across the whole of the economy. He said:

“At a time like this sacrifices should be equally borne. We are not prepared to see excessive profits”.—[Official Report, 11 March 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1289.]

He introduced a new levy, which was charged on the amount by which current profits exceed standard profits. That was Rab Butler in the 1950s, who introduced a model that we could draw upon now. It would extend across the whole economy and would expose and properly tax those who are exploiting the current economic situation.

The other issue is something I have raised in previous debates. During the banking crash—some of us were here at the time—we witnessed a shift in investment from the crashing mortgage economy. The crash at one point brought our banking system to a halt, and almost did something more fundamental, in terms of destroying confidence in the financial system. Money moved out of property, where prices were crashing, and into food speculation, and we saw rapid increases in food prices. In fact, in some areas of the globe, we even saw famine as a result.

Then, on a global basis, an agreement was reached and we inserted into the regulatory regime after the banking crash certain controls on food speculation—for example, how much food wealth could be owned by a particular speculator. The Government at the moment, in their Financial Services and Markets Bill, are removing those protections. Already food speculation is taking place and causing some of the profiteering that is happening, but we are inviting even further speculation, which I think in the short and medium term will result, in the same way it did after the banking crash of 2007-08, in people going hungry and famines occurring in parts of the world.

My final point is that if the Government are not willing to act so decisively with price controls, regulation of speculation or an excess profits tax, the minimum that we should ask for is an inquiry into the anti-competitive market practices taking place in certain sectors. I would like to start with the food sector. We are seeing this demand being met in the US now; an investigation is taking place into the anti-competitive market practices that are happening. The US is at the moment looking at the fertiliser and agricultural business sector. In this country, we need an investigation into the profiteering and greedflation in particular—that is the No. 1 issue—that is taking place in the food and agricultural sector.

We cannot stand by and watch people line their pockets and corporations make excessive profits while our people, in some of our constituencies, are actually starving—they are actually going hungry. That is why, in this period, special measures are needed. They are measures that we have used in the past, that people are using in other countries and that have proved to be effective. If nothing else, if they were even temporary measures, they would alleviate the situation that our constituents face. This is a matter of urgency. That is why I keep repeating time and again, in as many debates as I possibly can, the need for action.

I will just say this to my own party: this crisis of greed inflation, combined with the climate crisis, means that when we take over and go into government next year—as soon as possible, I hope—we will have to address this issue. We will have to have the radical solutions that need to be put forward; otherwise, we will not be fulfilling our historic mission of looking after working-class people in this country.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Now we move to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the spokesperson for the SNP.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

Let me explain this to the Minister. There is such a thing as the Co-op party, of which some people on this side of the House will be members, and there is such a thing as the Co-op store. The Co-op store is not related to the Labour party; it is a completely separate commercial entity. The Co-op party is separate completely, so there is no relationship between the Members here and the Co-op store, although some of them might shop at it.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. John McDonnell has made a good point, but for clarification, as a Labour/Co-op MP—