Covid-19: Vaccination Programme

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I do not have the precise figure to hand. Those in group 4 will include those with Down’s syndrome and other CEVs; those with severe or profound learning disabilities will be in group 6. As we know, group 4 has had an extremely high conversion rate and, although I do not think it is exactly 100%, it will be an astonishingly high amount and, if those figures are available, I should be glad to write to the noble Baroness with them.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, sadly, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.

Food-related Crime

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord undoubtedly knows that, since January 2021, the FSA has been running a 12-month pilot of the new model of working with local authorities on trading standards in order to improve the work between the FSA and trading standards to address any gaps there may be in that collaboration. On the noble Lord’s question about honey fraud, I completely endorse his shock and outrage that the honey that we buy in the supermarket may be adulterated. It is sometimes said that there is 10 times the amount of manuka honey on sale than could ever be possibly made by the bees of New Zealand. There are challenges on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy allocations, as the noble Lord undoubtedly knows. We are working extremely hard with both Defra and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist to put pressure on international authorities to align the data needed in order to investigate honey more closely.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. That brings Question Time to an end.

Dentists: Covid-19

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that account of the Northern Ireland statistics, which tell a very similar story to those in other parts of the United Kingdom. The noble Lord is entirely right that those statistics tell a story of the massive challenge dentists face in order to increase the number of appointments per day. We are looking at a number of measures to try to improve that, including ventilation, which was referred to earlier by the noble Baroness. Testing is another option we are looking at. We are trying to put in place the kind of pre-appointment and point-of-care testing that can protect both the employees of dental practices and their patients. I hope that will help accelerate improvement in this area.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I regret that the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Osteoporosis: Treatment

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend is prescient to raise this issue on a day like today, which is slippy and dangerous for those who may take a fall. He is entirely right that the early diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis are critical for those suffering bone fractures as well as for the system as a whole. The fracture liaison service can play a key role in reducing the risk of fractures in patients and to this end it has been promoted and recognised as best practice by NHS England. As part of the falls and fragility fracture audit programme the fracture liaison service database measures participation and standards in fracture liaison services.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bull.

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[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, last year we launched a massive campaign, the Better Health campaign, to encourage healthier living with respect to both eating habits and fitness—I can report to the House that I have committed myself to that campaign and it is bearing some good fruit. We are spending hundreds of millions on marketing, we have engaged dieting services for those who wish to be involved in them, and we have mobilised a huge number of exercise regimes, including the park runs. These are bearing up well, but I encourage all those who wish to have a healthier life to do more.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Covid-19: Over-75s

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, that is slightly beyond the reach of the Department of Health and Social Care, but I appreciate the noble Lord’s point.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed and we now come to the second Oral Question.

Covid-19: Vaccination

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the testimony of the noble Lord, but I would probably put it slightly differently. Listen, we are in Act I, and I do not think it is quite the right moment to take curtain calls and bows just yet. The NHS has stepped up to this challenge absolutely magnificently, but there is still a huge amount to do and to get through. In addition to the praise that the noble Lord rightly gave the NHS, I also pay tribute to other parts of government, and particularly to the Army, local authorities and the private sector, which contributed the vaccine in the first place, all of which have worked together in a great spirit of collaboration. It is only through that spirit of collaboration that we have been able to deliver what we have.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed, and we now go back to the third Oral Question.

Covid-19: Variant

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The exchange of information between the scientific community has worked extremely well during this pandemic and epidemic, and I pay tribute to it for the open-hearted and transparent way in which it has exchanged data across political, cultural and national boundaries. In terms of transmission, the noble Viscount alludes to something that is very difficult to pin down. It is not clear what proportion of the disease is transmitted through the air and what proportion by touch and manual transmissibility. That is a very frustrating conundrum. The CMO guides us to believe that there is more transmissibility through the air than by touch, but it is absolutely essential that people keep their distance and wash their hands.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Obesity

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes her point very fulsomely. We are doing a huge amount on advertising, promotions, front-of-pack nutritional labelling, out-of-home calorie labelling, alcohol calorie labelling and a whole range of stuff. The noble Baroness may well shake her head, but the truth is that this Government are doing more than any previous Government in this matter.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Could we have short supplementaries, please? I call the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group involved with the report. We recommended that the Government should build on their Better Health campaign with a public information campaign. Picking up on the last point of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and on the Minister’s remark that he had tweeted about the 13 streams, is not the basic problem that the public are not aware that we are trying to run a campaign and that we need a clear relaunch? This is the opportune moment to do it, when we have such problems with Covid.

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[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an incredibly important point, and he makes it very delicately. I am extremely grateful to him for bringing this to the Chamber. It is true that many people from rural communities in the subcontinent bring with them eating habits that are simply not appropriate for modern life. We have seen that in Covid, where some of the most challenging incidences of Covid ITU have been in communities with a high level of people from the subcontinent, whose eating habits have, frankly, left them in no good state to fight this horrible disease. Tackling that issue is extremely complex, and I am extremely grateful to the Sikh community for setting this good example.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the third Oral Question.

Care Quality Commission Report

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

I am very grateful for the reminder from the noble Baroness, and I would be glad to take her recommendation back to the department and write to her on whether there are any measures that we need to put in place to ensure that we are fulfilling our commitments under the Autism Act. It was an important Act, and I suspect that we are well within the measures that it has enacted.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Can we speed up a little, please? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly.

[Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, is right to flag that this is not the first time that we have heard this catalogue of appalling treatment. The shame is that in some places local authorities and the NHS use a one-size-fits-all approach to commissioning services. We have to put the individual in care at the centre and treat them and their needs. When did a Minister last issue commissioning guidance to local authorities and the NHS in this matter, as the partners that have to commission the process? What family involvement is recommended in those conversations?

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[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, one thing that comes clearly through the report is the vast amount of different government departments and agencies involved in providing this care. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is proper co-ordination between the various different bodies so that the patient, the person who has to get the care, is assured of getting it —for both them and their families?

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Did the Minister hear that in his babysitting duties?

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an extremely important point. The role of families and communities in the social care provided to those with autism and learning difficulties is extremely important and will be at the centre of every recommendation that we make in response to this report.

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[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. We now come to the fourth Oral Question.

HIV: Pre-exposure Prophylaxis

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am afraid that I was not a Minister in the period that the noble Lord is talking about, so I cannot account for that. However, I agree with him that, on the point he raised about access to PrEP among women and the black community, we have a case to answer. I completely acknowledge that, particularly among the black community, this is one of the most difficult areas that we have to tackle in order to hit our objective of zero transmissions by 2030. We are working extremely hard to try to reassure those who are hesitant about taking on such therapies that they are safe, accessible, private and relevant. We need to win that battle in order to hit our target.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

All supplementary questions have now been asked and we will therefore move on to the next Question.