Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I have rarely experienced the House in a more sombre mood. The reason for that was briefly illustrated by the short intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, from whom we will hear later. My noble friend Lord Saatchi spoke with a quiet, controlled passion. I admire his persistence and understand his concerns. It was also good that the debate became a debate with the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, because she put questions that not only deserve to be answered but must be answered.

I have to say that when my noble friend Lord Saatchi first introduced the Bill, I had certain strong misgivings. If those misgivings are to be encapsulated in a single word, it is the word to which he referred: quackery. We all know that there are those who, through the centuries, have peddled remedies that could benefit only themselves and not the people they sought to benefit. Even to this day, if there is any Member of your Lordships’ House who is not in receipt at least two or three times a week of some coloured leaflet promising the cure to all known and some unknown ills, I congratulate them. My wastepaper basket frequently overflows with such things.

My initial misgivings have to a large degree been answered by the knowledge that so eminent a legal luminary as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern feels that the Bill is both desirable and necessary, and by the fact that noble Lords eminent in the medical profession have given it their support. My noble friend Lord Ribeiro will speak later in the debate, but I had the benefit of a conversation a week or so ago with the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, for both of whom I have a profound regard and respect, who told me that they felt the Bill was a small but good advance.

Of course, we must not fall into the danger of suggesting that we have not had tremendous innovation in medicine over the past few decades. It is exactly 44 years since I took my seat in another place. When I did so, not a single one of my constituents had an artificial knee or an artificial hip. My agent in the early 1980s, a young man in apparently vigorous health, collapsed and was one of the first recipients of a heart transplant. Medicine has advanced in a truly remarkable way. By the time I stepped down as the Member of Parliament for South Staffordshire, it was impossible to attend a gathering of those over 60 that was not also a “bionic” gathering: knees and hips all seemed to be artificial. I am glad to say that mine are not yet.

We have to look at it against that background but we also have to accept that there have been considerable advances in the treatment of cancers. There cannot be anyone in this House who has not been closely associated with that dread disease in one or other of its forms. I remember an aunt of mine in the late 1960s dying in considerable agony from cancer at a very young age. More recently, my wife’s father died of cancer, although, by then, the treatments were such that the pain was relieved. My noble friend Lord Saatchi—I do not wish to personalise this—has had a graphic and tragic personal experience which has motivated him in a way that we can all only admire. It is right that there should be no deterrent to proper innovation. The only question is: will this Bill create some of the problems which were forecast by the noble Baroness, or will it contain the safeguards that will prevent them?

I come down on the latter side, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. What we are being offered today is a way forward that can do no harm to anyone and could conceivably be of real benefit to a number of people. If this Bill was to benefit only a handful of people, it would be worth while and it would be right to support it.

If ever a Bill cried out for pre-legislative scrutiny, it is this one. It is clearly not happening with the Bill at the moment. If the Bill goes on to the statute book along the lines advocated by my noble friend Lord Saatchi, that is well and good, but if he has to bring it back in a new Parliament, it would be right for the Government to take it over and for there to be pre-legislative scrutiny. I do not say that to deflate the ambitions of my noble friend, but I say to him that many parliamentary campaigns have lasted more than the three years that he has been involved with this one. He is a man who has the tenacity, the commitment and the determination to see this Bill through, and I truly hope that he will do so.