Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Norris

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I strongly believe in the maxim that how you do one thing is how you do everything, and I believe that the same cast of characters will broadly act in the same way at every opportunity. That tends to be, as with all the pieces of legislation that I listed, that the Government see things through a very narrow political prism, and that is what we are seeing today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

How is it an abuse of power and a strengthening of the Executive for the Executive to say, “We want to go to the people and let the people decide whether we should be allowed to continue in government or be chucked out”?

[Alex Norris]

The Lords amendment is a very modest safeguard to that in saying, “At least demonstrate that a majority of the legislature agrees with you.” It is not unreasonable to say that Parliament could be involved in the Dissolution process in the way that noble Lords have said. It is a modest hurdle. All it asks is that the Prime Minister of the day be able to command a majority, and in different scenarios.

I know that the Minister is keen to avoid hypotheticals, but we do have to think about how these powers may apply in future. In a balanced Parliament like the previous one, the amendment might mean that the Government work a little bit more broadly to secure the election. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) referred to the dreadful election of 2019. I would argue that it was the Government between 2017 and 2019 who were dreadful rather than the election itself, being a passive process. Indeed, the Minister characterised it as a zombie Government. Given that he served in that Government, I think he does himself a disservice in characterising himself in that way.

[Dr Lewis]

I do not think it was a dreadful election—it was a brilliant election. What was dreadful was the fact that it was in the power of the Opposition to stop that election happening and to not allow the people to have their say.

[Alex Norris]

I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The idea that it was dreadful that a Government who did not command a majority of this House could not just always get their way—that is how the system is supposed to work, I gently suggest.

Where a Government have a clear working majority, as we have today, the amendment would insure against a capricious Prime Minister—perhaps one losing the confidence of their own Benches in the light of, in a hypothetical, significant issues of judgment or personal character—just going and throwing everything up in the air in their own interest. Indeed, there is the scenario, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, where someone else might be able to form a Government, but the individual who would be most harmed could just call an election without that being explored.

Medical Cannabis: Alleviation of Health Conditions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Alex Norris

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I have seen the fundraisers online, as other hon. Members will have. When people have to raise that amount of money each month, they must not be able to do anything else and they must live with that anxiety constantly. We want to relieve people of that as far as we can.

We know that the number getting through has been dreadfully low. The previous Minister said in February that 413 unique eligible patients had been identified, but no estimate had been made of the number who had received prescriptions. End Our Pain believes that only three prescriptions have been issued on the NHS—goodness me, that is not what we thought it would be three years ago. If the Minister has more up-to-date information, we would be keen to hear it, but there is definitely a sense that it is not going anywhere near far enough.

Last year, a Care Quality Commission report found that a meagre 6.5% of cannabis-based items were prescribed on the NHS. Again, that is a paradox because we are told that there is real anxiety about prescribing it, but if people pop it into a search engine, they can find an awful lot of private treatments that do not seem anxious at all—there seem to be fewer shy bairns there. I am not sure that that is quite the defence that those who use it think it is.

It is a matter of justice if people are missing out or are left with the horrendous choice between paying over the odds for medication and suffering. The founding principle—the settled political point—of the national health service is that we do not tolerate that or think that people’s access should be based on their ability to pay, but we are tolerating that here, so I hope we can do better.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I have been looking at the Hansard of yesterday’s debate—there is an opportunity for the Minister to refer to it when she makes her remarks—and I see that one of the main points she made yesterday was the fact that there is insufficient evidence on the safety aspects and the possible harm effects. Given that families are paying all this money and finding other ways of getting the cannabis-based products, would it be a way forward if families were asked to sign a waiver if it were prescribed, so that the people doing the prescribing would be protected against any subsequent action if in fact something went wrong? It might be for the family to take that decision on the balance of benefit and harm.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am slightly torn in the sense that I have absolutely no doubt that families would take it on that basis, but as a former trade union official, I would never have advised a member to sign away their rights. I think that is what we are getting at when the hon. Member for Reigate says that we have to come up with something creative that means we can clear this hurdle, and that is one such option.

Let me link that back to a previous intervention by the right hon. Member for New Forest East on opiates—if you will briefly indulge a thought experiment, Mr Deputy Speaker. If the reverse were true and we routinely prescribed cannabis-based products to deal with pain issues, would anybody really be advocating at the Dispatch Box that we should instead swap them for opiates and that they would be a better alternative? I think the answer to that is an obvious one, and that should be guiding our thinking.