Medical Schools: Training Places

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for sharing the experience of Northern Ireland. It is really important that we ensure that we have more training places and that we address the types of training that we do. As the noble Baroness will be aware, it is no longer a simple question of nurses and doctors: we are training a number of physicians’ assistants and specialists, and we will continue to do so.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, this latest Covid omicron variant has made us realise that we are one human race, and we are now facing a scandal whereby we are relying on bringing in doctors from some of the poorest parts of the world to look after our needs. For centuries, this country was renowned for sending doctors and nurses abroad and founding hospitals in all parts of the world. What consideration have Her Majesty’s Government given to ensuring not only that we are producing enough of our own doctors but that we are expanding our tertiary education and bringing in more people to send them back to help some of these countries as part of our global Britain initiative?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

When training doctors from abroad, we follow international guidelines and World Health Organization ethical guidelines. For example, when I recently had a meeting with the Kenyan ministry to talk about the UK-Kenya health partnership, the point was made to me that they were training far more people than they had places for in their own country. They thought that their talent was a valuable export, while at the same time, remittances went back to their country.

Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too support this Bill and welcome the very excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and this important priority to equalise the law so that, whether a body or an organ comes from someone in this country or some other part of this world, they will be given the same protections and treated with the same dignity.

Noble Lords have already spelled out with great and horrifying clarity some of the allegations of organ harvesting by the Chinese authorities targeting minorities. I have risen to speak today because I have been raising again and again in this House the issue of the Uighurs, and this absolutely touches on what is happening to this incredibly persecuted group of people. It is terrifying to see what is unfolding before our very eyes. In June 2021, a group of independent UN experts said that they had received information that detainees from ethnic and religious groups such as the Uighurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong and Chinese Christians were being subjected to examination without their consent, with the express intention to facilitate organ allocation.

We know that, back in 1984, harvesting organs from political prisoners was permitted in Chinese law. We know that the subsequent crackdown against the Falun Gong in 1999 meant that many of its members are likely to have been subject to forced organ harvesting. It is rumoured that, in the 1990s, prisoners of conscience of Uighur origin were the largest source of organs, before being surpassed by Falun Gong. Now, however, the Uighurs are again in the sightlines of the Chinese Communist Party, and the accounts of harvesting organs are rising. Expert estimations of the number of Uighurs killed in Xinjiang for their organs range from 20,000 to 25,000 per year. There are also stories of vast lanes to streamline the distribution of these organs, and of crematoria to dispose of the victims’ bodies and to deny the deceased a proper Islamic burial.

I had previously refrained from using the term “genocide” to describe the awful repression of the Uighur minority, but, following the House of Commons debate in April and its Motion, when it was labelled as such, it seems to me that we now have to name it and not mess around any more. A genocide is being perpetrated against Uighur minorities. I am not blind to the difficulties that our own Government have in trying to save these lives, but we must become far more robust in terms of the representations and, if necessary, the actions that we are willing to take against China. I have found Her Majesty’s Government’s response to the situation in Xinjiang disappointing over recent months. The current law allows British citizens to receive organs from unknown and possibly non-consenting sources without consequences. If that happens, British citizens are acting as accessories to genocide.

I will make one final, brief point. I am glad that this Bill extends to the treatment of the bodies of those who have been executed, but it is also for those who have died peacefully. It remains unacceptable that they should be displayed without appropriate consent. Christianity has always held that our bodies have been created by God and are temples of the Holy Spirit, and as such that we must reverence them and treat them with dignity, both in life and in death. For centuries, the Christian tradition has taught that burying the dead is one of the seven acts of corporal mercy. It is rooted in the belief that the body is sacred. This is so fundamental to us as we look to the future. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will bring this Private Member’s Bill into law as soon as possible.

Covid-19 Vaccines Deployment

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Baroness that the interval protocols for the Pfizer vaccine have been completely endorsed by the JCVI, the CMO and the MHRA. They are extremely clearly endorsed by the British authorities, and she should feel enormous confidence in our approach to that.

However, the noble Baroness is right: I do not know, and cannot say for certain, what the long-term prognosis is. We do not know what the transmissibility of the disease will be with the current vaccine. We are working on new versions of it that should address the South African variant, but we do not know for sure whether that will prove dominant in the UK. It is the view of the CMO, Jon Van-Tam, that it will not beat either Covid classic or Covid Kent—but it is not certain whether that is the case right now.

We do not know whether there will be a rolling programme of mutations that roll on to the shore and require us to update the vaccine regularly—or whether we will have to hold our borders as they are now until we have the kind of vaccine development programme that can turn around refreshed vaccines within, say, 100 days. Those are all possibilities; we are putting in place the necessary plans in case that should be required, but it is my confident hope that the current vaccine will have a massive impact on Covid and that we can return to something that approaches normal in the very near future.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I too add my congratulations to Her Majesty’s Government on an extraordinarily rollout of the vaccines. I pay tribute to all those involved, not least one group not often mentioned —the practice managers, who often work through the night. Can the Minister comment on the community champions scheme? Faith leaders across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, where I live, have been waiting to use our huge, extensive network of people on the ground to communicate with hard-to-reach groups, such as ethnic minorities and so on. Only now are we being brought into that opportunity. Will the Government commit to working with us, since we are keen to use all our resources to help get those messages out to those hard-to-reach groups?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am enormously grateful to the right reverend Prelate for mentioning practice managers. Managers in the NHS are sometimes given a bit of a hard time and are too often overlooked. But, my goodness, if the vaccine deployment has been a success and been run smoothly—and if the constant reports I get of two-minute turnarounds, accurate invitations and appointments made briskly and accurately are correct—it is because of those managers. The NHS practice managers are running a tight ship and delivering huge value for the NHS. They are too often overlooked but, boy oh boy, have they delivered on this occasion.

The right reverend Prelate is entirely right to raise the issue of not only community champions but volunteering overall. It has been one of the toughest aspects of our response to Covid to make use of the hundreds of thousands of people who have stepped forward in various schemes to help with it. There are returning practitioners from healthcare; there are community champions, which he rightly described, along with the faith groups; there is also St John Ambulance and the vaccinating volunteers. Quite often, hygiene protocols and the necessity to put in place measures to avoid transmission of the disease have meant that it has been difficult to mobilise the army of volunteers. One thing that we should look back at, when we do our post-mortem, is how we as a country can deploy civic society more effectively.

Regarding the faith groups the right reverend Prelate specifically mentioned, I pay tribute to their role in the vaccine deployment. The sight of vaccines being given out in synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras and temples up and down the country surely has a huge part to play in their successful deployment among many difficult-to-reach groups.

Coronavirus

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I note my noble friend’s comments. However, I flatly deny that the social care system and social care homes have been in any way marooned. We have made a profound commitment, particularly in the testing environment, to supporting social care. One hundred thousand tests a day out of our capacity of between 200,000 and 250,000 are ring-fenced for social care and delivered to social care every day. Many of the challenges that we have for walk-in and drive-through testing centres are exactly because we are so committed to the ring-fenced testing for social care. That is a commitment that we are proud of and remain committed to.

I want to clarify with my noble friend that it is not an appropriate use of government test and trace capacity for relatives to use test and trace as a convenient method to find out whether they have the disease before they go to see relatives. That is not an appropriate use and not in the guidance.

As for UNISON, we are very much engaged with the union and are supporting staff in every way we can. However, I very much take on board my noble friend’s notes, and we will maintain that correspondence.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify one or two issues? Does the rule of six mean that it will no longer be possible to have any public marking of Remembrance Sunday outdoors this year? Will he also clarify whether this effectively means that all public protests and demonstrations are now illegal?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. I thank greatly those local authorities and charities that are putting in place Remembrance Day service arrangements that will abide by the new rule of six. Some of those guidelines are being written now, and I will be glad to share the guidelines with the right reverend Prelate when they are published. One thing I note is that virtual attendance at these services and the use of virtual remembrance books will be an aspect of Remembrance Day this year.

Covid-19: Government Response

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

“Track, test and isolate” does not necessarily depend on doing millions of tests. South Korea, which has an extremely effective regime, does only 20,000 tests a day. That is because its whole society has worked hard to get the prevalence of the infection as low as possible. I celebrate the fact that the British public have committed to the lockdown, but I cannot disguise from the House the fact that the lockdown needs to continue to get the prevalence rate lower.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, yesterday the deputy chief scientist said that we needed to “get to grips” with what is occurring in our care homes. As data shows that deaths in care homes are rising while hospital deaths are plateauing, what specific actions are Her Majesty’s Government taking to put a stop to this dreadful crisis, which is unfolding before our very eyes?

[Lord Bethell]

The right reverend Prelate is entirely right to focus on care homes. It is an awful aspect of this disease that it attacks the most vulnerable who live in enclosed environments such as care homes. They have been an absolute priority for the Government. One aspect of our response is to massively increase testing in care homes. The increased capacity that we announced last week has been shifted massively towards care home testing. We are using mobile units and satellite drop-offs to increase the screening of patients and care home workers.