Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend rightly raises this issue, and I say to her that these are incredibly difficult decisions and we know how hard they are for patients and their families. I think it is right that it is expert clinicians at NHS England and not politicians who make these funding decisions, based on the available evidence. As she knows, NICE has not yet made a final decision on these drugs, so patients and their families, and other experts, can feed into its evidence-gathering and consultation process. She asks what we can do, and I think there are two things. First, when we have these drugs that cost over £400,000 per patient per year, it is right to ask some pretty challenging questions of the companies concerned and we should do so. Secondly, we must keep investing in our rare disease research and in genomics, and making sure that the NHS takes up these treatments rapidly. That is the sort of health service we want to build.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Q3. I put it to the Prime Minister again that in his manifesto for England, which was the only part of the UK where he won the election, he promised on English votes for English laws to:“Consult the House of Commons Procedure Committee prior to seeking approval from the whole House to the proposed Standing Order changes.”We all know that the Committee’s membership has not been agreed by the House and it will not meet until next week, and the EVEL vote will take place next Wednesday. Will the Prime Minister please tell us why he is breaking his manifesto promise?

[The Prime Minister]

We are consulting the whole of the House of Commons, and the whole of the House of Commons will have a vote. When it comes to have its vote, it might want to consider what the leader of the Scottish National party here said in 2007—you might find this interesting. He asked the then Prime Minister whether it is not

“completely iniquitous that although English MPs are not able to decide on matters in Scotland, Scottish MPs from the UK parties vote on matters that affect only England?” —[Official Report, 6 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 25.]

That was the view. Given that our modest proposal would actually restrict the SNP from far fewer votes than its own self-denying ordinance does, I would think it should vote wholeheartedly with the Government on this modest proposal.