Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

I hope my noble friend can acknowledge that we differ here on very few matters. We discussed this in Committee and had conversations after that. The Government’s position on this has not changed and our view will not change between now and Third Reading. I therefore hope that my noble friend will not feel that she has to push her amendment. If she wishes to test the opinion of the House, she should do so now.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received one request to ask a short question. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, to ask a short question for elucidation.

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to say one or two things very quickly. I thank those who have spoken; it has meant such a lot to me. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Hunt, have been there since the very beginning of this journey.

I say to the Minister, as I should have said at the very beginning, that I will withdraw my amendment. I have no wish to take it further. I do think that the Cabinet Office would have provided us with more independence, but my noble friend the Minister said at the very beginning that this was a red line and it was no good my pursuing it. I took that hint and I have not argued it anywhere. Hearing the Minister talk about independence today—getting it on the record—has been really important. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, of course influence matters as well, and I take that.

I will say a very quick word about the timetable, which is critical. In our recommendations we wanted to set up a task force to implement this under the aegis of the Department of Health and Social Care. That has been rejected by Ministers. That is a tremendous pity. Noble Peers are concerned about the timetable; so am I.

It has been said that this has been very quick. No, it has not. Those of us who have run companies know what “quick” means: if your company is to survive you have to act very quickly. This is not quick. I will put pressure on through other means, particularly the all-party group, to get this implemented as soon as possible, because people are suffering. People are in dire straits and we have to stop this awful damage that is being done to lives. The quicker we can do this, the better. I am sure my noble friend will agree with that.

I know when I am beaten, but I also know what needs to be done. I do not want to go through the point of view of the Cabinet Office, but it is absolutely critical that this appointment is made speedily, because people are suffering and we should avoid that if at all possible. I believe that the patient safety commissioner will grasp this issue and ensure safety, which, as my noble friend the Minister said, has run through the Bill. I thank him for that, but it will not happen until this appointment is made. I am afraid that I will press very strongly on that.

I thank all noble Lords for taking part. I wish I could go through this in detail, but it is not my remit to do so. I thank noble Lords so much for their support.

Amendment 1 agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 2. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in the group to a Division must make that clear in the debate.

Clause 1: Power to make regulations about human medicines

Amendment 2

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

The lack of detail in the Bill and the broad delegation of powers, with no indication of the substantial content of future regulations created by them, provide no clear or certain path ahead for regulations covering medicines and medical devices to be either scrutinised or relied on by stakeholders. For those reasons, these amendments and those linked to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will limit the extent of these broad delegated powers and require the Government to return with consolidated legislation in respect of human medicines.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

After the next speaker, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I will call the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments dealing with consolidation. I regard it as very important that the legislation that controls medicines, medical devices and veterinary medicines is consolidated in a way that makes it possible for an interested person easily to achieve knowledge of the regulations. After all, when you think of how important medicine is—we have just had a considerable debate about its safety—it is important to make sure that those who administer and operate the system know the rules. If you do not know what the rules are, the chances are that you will be misled into thinking that you know when you do not know at all. Therefore, it is important to make sure that we do everything we can to lay before those who practise these arts the true rule that has been set down, and it should be possible for them to reach it without too much research into a number of statutory instruments.

We just need to think for a moment about the current virus regulations. I have had occasion to look at them from time to time, and it is quite difficult to follow what is required at a particular moment in England, Scotland or other parts of the United Kingdom. If that is the position in relation to the virus, it is obvious that the general position in relation to these sciences as a whole will be even more difficult. Therefore, I regard it as vital—indeed, as a fundamental duty of government—to ensure that the regulations on these important matters are clear and the rules accessible.

I am not very keen on the sunset clause because, if it operated without consolidation, we would be in a pretty difficult position. Therefore, I regard it as vital to require consolidation.

I am aware of the difficulty of consolidation. For a short time, I was the chairman of the committee on consolidation and, when it sat, it was extremely difficult to get a quorum because people did not find the exercise interesting. But unfortunately, although it might not be very interesting or novel, in the sense that you are not doing anything very new, it is absolutely vital to allow the system to work properly. So I regard it as important that that is put into the statute as an obligation. If we are allowing the Government to legislate in these important areas by statutory instrument —the criticism has been levelled that they are doing so too much—that should be replaced in a reasonable time. Three years is probably quite reasonable, but I am very willing to hear whatever is said about that. I regard it as very important that this is an obligation on the Government as a condition of getting away with this method of legislating quickly in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 6 agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 7. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear during the debate.

Amendment 7

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this debate follows a very interesting one in Committee, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, posed some searching questions about the potential for designing new drugs that are less harmful for the environment, whether in their composition, their impact when they escape into the environment, or in their packaging. Today, she also argues that the expectation of this approach should be built into legislation.

In Committee, the noble Baroness gave some very interesting examples. I was particularly interested to hear that in Sweden—

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We appear to have lost connection with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We will give it a few seconds. We have now reconnected but we missed about 30 seconds of his speech; perhaps the noble Lord could take us back about 30 seconds.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord; that is a temptation to be eagerly accepted. I was referring back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said in Committee and the example in Sweden of Stockholm county council, which grades medicines on their environmental effects. Doctors can choose to prescribe a drug that is less harmful in relation to the environment where that option exists.

We have also had the 2014 report by UK Water Industry Research, which found that in most of the 160 sewage treatment works studied, several common drugs were present in the final effluent in concentrations high enough to potentially affect ecosystems. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, referred just now to the amount of pharmaceutical effluence entering waterways, and according to a 2018 study by the Delft Institute for Water Education, that could increase by two-thirds before mid-century.

In Committee, my noble friend Lady Wheeler referred to the Environment Agency also having found examples of contaminated hospital waste being illegally exported to developing countries such as Malaysia for disposal. What steps are we taking to prevent the illegal export of such waste and ensure that we dispose of our own waste in this country? There are also concerns about the use of incinerators for hospital waste and the health impacts on those living nearby. We must ask whether the Government are doing enough to ensure that chemists and GPs’ surgeries provide a secure depository for unused medicines, so that they do not contaminate the water supply by being washed down the sink or ending up in landfill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said today that the Government’s approach has been to say that legislation is already on the statute book regarding the impact on the environment more broadly, including legislation to address the impact of producing and disposing of manufactured goods such as medical devices. But there is a persuasive argument that we should go further and that it is appropriate that in this Bill on medicines and medical devices there should be a way of ensuring that the environmental impact is not a damaging one. I hope that the Minister can respond with a positive reflection that this is an area that needs further exploration.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 8 and 9 agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 10. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to push this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Amendment 10

Moved by