Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of the importance of all the companies that supplied equipment or scaled up at pace or were able to meet the initial requirements. It was a time of panic; thousands were dying, and we did not have equipment. This was a time before the vaccine. The department and its officials tried to speak to as many people as possible around the world to find out what was available, what could be done and what the timescales were. Clearly, as the noble Lord said, Randox played an important role in meeting the testing requirements initially.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister suggests that the Government were panicking. Does he agree that panic in a laboratory or when one is dealing with tests of this kind is not satisfactory? Is not one of the problems that it is clear that Randox’s methods were not satisfactory and would not stand up to absolutely accurate testing? Is it not the case that the Government still cannot tell us what percentage of its PCR tests were inaccurate or in some ways contaminated?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I used the word panic because I think everyone was panicking. People just did not understand what was going on. They did not understand the pace of coronavirus; they did not even understand the disease itself and the transmission of it. I was reading over the weekend a couple of books on the history of the virus so far, where it broke out and what people thought it was originally, and some of the reassessments of historical epidemiology. Clearly, we needed testing performance. Randox was the only company at that time, in March 2020, that was able to provide that capacity at the scale needed. As I said earlier, where we identified problems, we made Randox aware of them and it supplied new kit.

Medical Abortion Pills

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I do not think that is in question. There is no doubt that women should have access to abortion services and to the right advice, but as the noble Baroness who spoke earlier indicated, there are some concerns and risks. We have to consider all the factors. Of course, it would be wonderful for some people if it was made easier and was available online; others say you must be prepared for the risks. Whatever happens, if something goes wrong, I am sure that the noble Baroness and others would be back here questioning why we did what we did.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Have the Government considered the evidence from Imperial College London—indeed, from my own laboratory—showing that most human embryos are born with abnormalities which are potentially lethal, and they usually die? They are then aborted by the same process which this Bill causes, only at a later stage of pregnancy. This method of natural abortion, which occurs all the time, is mostly without symptoms to the woman: they do not even know that they have lost an embryo. It is safe and does not cause the medical complications which invariably happen with a late abortion, which a woman is then committed to. What are the Government going to do about this, firmly, to make it avoidable in future?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for informing me about that—it is something I have learned today. I will take it back and consider what he has said. To return to the Question, when we made this measure it was clear that it was supposed to be temporary. Will have consulted and will look at the consultation and decide what we will do. If we do go back to what it was like before, we will make sure there is a sufficient period to ensure there is no cliff edge.

Health and Care Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very reluctant to intervene in this long debate, but I have travelled down from Manchester specifically for this group of amendments. I have not been involved with this Bill previously, partly because of my own ill health, and also because of my teaching outside London, but I will make a short intervention here.

My noble friend Lord Hunt has raised the very important issue of the nature of interaction between human beings, which is absolutely essential in considering some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and others. I am not going to advocate music therapy, dance therapy, exercise therapy or art therapy here, because, speaking as an academic, one of the problems here is that we simply do not understand the truth of the interaction that makes these things work. One of the big problems is that really good randomised controlled trials are still very much lacking.

I am reminded, for example, of a very good randomised controlled trial, by Dr Nair in Australia, of quite a large number of demented people in a care home to whom he played music. From his results, there was no question but that the music, which was extremely tranquil baroque music from sixteen different composers, actually made them more disturbed, more sleepless, more angry, less able to eat their food and more likely to come into conflict with the nursing staff.

So it is very unclear what is actually happening in the brain. During the debate today we have heard claims made about changes in brain structure, but the truth is that we have not done sufficient research to really be clear about this. The research is very expensive, and one of the problems is that it involves very complex things such as time on scanning machines, for example—functional MRI. There is simply not enough research going on into the dementias—whatever they are—to fully understand the nature of what we are talking about.

I am not suggesting that we do not do music therapy but, speaking with my interest as an ex-chairman of the Royal College of Music, I say that we have seen that some of the things we do simply do not work or, if they do, it is not understood how. One of the things with music therapy, for example, is that you see individual patients interacting with somebody else, and it may be that the interaction is more important than the actual music. For example, watching musicians play in person may be better than watching them on a screen or just listening to music. There is a lot of work that needs to be done here before we can make big claims.

These are important amendments that are well made and well put, but we need to be really clear in debating this legislation that, until we understand the mechanisms—the phenotype—of what we are discussing, we have to recognise also that much more money is required for research into the dementias. That is really critical and there is a risk here of making legislation that will not fundamentally change the real problem that we are facing.

[Lord Desai (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to say that Amendment 297A is obviously very desirable. But, as an economist, I have to say: if we implement this, who will be deprived? GPs’ time is limited and GPs’ numbers are limited, as we all know. Through much of my life in the NHS, all that the GP did for me was prescribe what I needed. It took about five minutes, and the GP did not even have to talk to me; they could look at the computer to find out who I was and what I was doing. It is, quite rightly, only people over 65 who need a caring GP, so we have to devise a system for those who do not need extensive consultation and familiarity with the GP but can be dealt with in a summary fashion. Perhaps we could have junior and senior GPs, so that we could release the senior GPs for this sort of work and have other people for prescriptions and simple tasks.

Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Winston Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, it was a huge pleasure to have the noble Lord, Lord Patel, as our chairman yet again for this inquiry, which was conducted with some challenging difficulties that were faced. He was, as usual, remarkable in his leadership and what we did. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and others have just emphasised, the findings show very clearly that the biggest single problem with ageing in the UK is widespread deprivation, which means that the Government are failing to reach their targets of trying to extend longevity.

There are many processes that we looked at which are associated with ageing. Multimorbidity, of course, is one of the key issues, where these processes between organs have a connection and are often responsible for what is happening. Unfortunately, there are not enough specialists doing regular connected medicine. This is one of the things that needs to be looked at in the health service. How many geriatricians who are specialised are available for this service in the United Kingdom at present? Do the Government feel that, given the manifestations of ill health, which are so interconnected, there should be more people of this kind? Perhaps that could be confirmed at the end of this debate.

An important aspect of this report was the science behind ageing. It is complex and surprising. I remember 35 years ago in my own lab we found that a human embryo, just three days after fertilisation, showed processes of ageing and that cells were changing and being destroyed. As we age, that process is not so efficient, so abnormal cells often appear in the adult human.

The committee identified a wide range of other mechanisms, including mutations in mitochondria—the battery packs of nearly every individual cell—which are an important aspect of ageing, the shortening of chromosomes, changes in DNA and in its repair, the loss of stem cells and, importantly for many of us in this Room, the process of inflammation, to which older people are much more susceptible. These and other issues are reported in the excellent chapter 3 of the report. I recommend that people read it because one of the most important aspects is changes in the immune system; of course, this aspect has been absolutely relevant during the Covid pandemic. We learned a great deal more about ageing, rather supporting some of the things we have been looking at. It turns out that these things are critical in all aspects of ageing in nearly all tissues and most organs, but they are not understood.

I should declare an interest that I have not declared before and which is not listed in the committee’s report: that of my own recent experience. Before the pandemic, I knew that I had cataracts in both eyes. An optician did not see anything else wrong with my eyes. I was therefore happy to continue reading on my computer without thinking about it, and I felt that my general processes were not impaired when I was doing stuff in Parliament; of course, your Lordships may have other views of my efficiency in that respect. I found that, while reading continuously on my computer, I was able to see films and re-read Dickens, Hazlitt, Hardy and many other authors. I did not really read newspapers.

In the past few weeks, however, I have suddenly found that I cannot read newsprint and am increasingly unable to read a printed book. In fact, I cannot read a printed book. I also cannot see road signs—I do not drive, obviously—and I do not recognise people. At the recall of Parliament, the only way I could identify noble Lords—even those on the same side of the division between the two major Benches as me—was by the sound of their voices. I realised that something was seriously wrong, particularly when I looked at my computer and saw that horizontal straight lines were no longer straight but wavy and often changed; I also saw black spots, of course, and colours such as green and red were all rather entrancing but very different. It seemed that something rather serious might be going on.

Of course, not being able to recognise your Lordships by sight and not being able to read a speech is really a blessed relief. I must say, if a few more noble Lords were in the same position, it might be quite good for the Chamber, but there we are. Unreadable speeches are not a great thing. At least when the noble Lord the Whip comes to say that I have been conducting myself too long, I will not recognise what is happening and so can go on wittering in this way.

I rapidly turned to Moorfields hospital and was very fortunate to meet Professor Adnan Tufail. He happens to be a notable international expert in retinal disease—oddly enough, particularly in my rare manifestation of age-related macular degeneration, which is quite common. My condition—seeing as I have not written a speech, I say this for the purposes of Hansard, because I like to tease them—is called reticular pseudodrusen age-related macular degeneration. Unfortunately, it seems to be a rare genetic kind of this disease and is particularly aggressive. Anyway, I was immediately sent for treatment by Professor Tufail, who was amazing. I had a treatment that noble Lords may have seen in “Un Chien Andalou”, a surreal 1929 film by Buñuel, where things are injected directly into the eye—although in my case, it was a monoclonal antibody, not a knife. It was done efficiently and without pain, but that treatment will have to be continued for some time.

To cut a long story short, I went to the lab and was able to see exactly the problems that they face. They are doing a huge amount of research at Moorfields—it is internationally recognised—and so many of the chemical processes that they are looking at, which are extremely complex in the eye, particularly in the retina, are exactly the same processes in the rest of ageing.

Multimorbidity with eye disease is one of the problems because people who are really short-sighted tend to fall down and break limbs, and are much more likely therefore to have other health problems as a result. Some become isolated, of course, and may not be able to get their brain in motion; dementia is therefore much more likely.

This is a massive problem because age-related macular degeneration, which may in different circumstances be very different, is still the commonest cause of blindness in the United Kingdom. We are not doing a great job, particularly among deprived people who, unlike me, do not have access to medical care in the same way because they are not medically qualified. What number of age-related macular degenerations are seen in the United Kingdom? What is the possible cost of this, both with and without treatment? How might we do something about this?

There is a real need to do more research. I must say, I found that there was very little public research at Moorfields. It was mostly from venture capital and other commercially derived areas. This is not good for widespread research, which can be immediately available to medicine. I commend Tufail’s team for carrying on. Finally, how much money is available from the Medical Research Council for retinal disease and cell therapies to treat those diseases?

Covid-19 Update

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right to make the connection between Covid and flu. We regard the winter as presenting two pandemics, and we will treat them with equal energy. Flu and Covid have the same net effect on the healthcare system, which is to be a huge drain on resources. So we are putting a huge amount of effort into the vaccine and boosters for Covid and the vaccination against flu. They can be taken together, and the advertising and promotion distribution to identify priority groups will be extremely energetic. That is the most important thing we can do to protect the NHS. Our second priority, though, is getting the beds to which the noble Baroness referred used for elective surgery. We do not want to see the NHS heaving under the pressure of Covid and flu. We want to see it addressing the backlog.

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, to return to my noble friend Lady Thornton’s first question, given the continued rise of the variant mutations and increasing infections, can the Minister report on a simple biological issue? What rapid mathematical calculations are in the Government’s possession to assess and predict the increasing risk of further new variants evolving that may escape the current vaccines or are more virulent? If he is unable to answer this question now, perhaps he will be kind enough to write to me.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot promise to have a simple algorithm to make the calculation that the noble Lord refers to. I will ask the system if such a thing exists, but I have never come across such a thing. The challenge he alludes to is entirely right: the vaccine pressure on the virus will create the circumstances in which variants are possible. That is why we are investing heavily in sequencing, not only here in the UK where everyone positive is now sequenced thoroughly and studied, but also offering that around the world through NVAP—the new variant assessment platform—to try to understand what is going on in markets around the world. To date, we think that we have tracked down all the current routes that the virus is taking, and we are satisfied that they are met by the vaccine, but we keep our eyes peeled.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Other Provisions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Lord Winston Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, many of you will remember going past Westminster station last week to see a crowd of people shouting about freedom—young, intelligent people, many of them properly educated, not wearing masks, crowded together in a mass. Indeed, those of your Lordships who travel on the Northern line, as I have done today and all this last week, will have seen numerous young people not wearing masks, as there is no enforcement of that. They are a risk to other people, young and old. Nothing is being done about it because it is not being enforced. There is nobody on the Tube to enforce it.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, with great interest, as I always do. His wide and extensive knowledge of medicine and science does not need to be explained to the House, nor indeed his undoubted expertise in statistics. That is admirable. Indeed, I have listened to him with great interest in this Chamber and on the Long Table from time to time. I also recognise that he will very much understand the issue of human ethics. As a distinguished soldier, he will remember the paramount issue for all people, including soldiers: we try at all times, above all, to protect human life.

Therefore, it is important for us to consider that this is a very difficult situation. As a practising soldier, the noble Lord will know the difficult choices that are made in order to protect life. I suggest to him that, although extensive, his knowledge is not likely to be as extensive as that of those expert advisers giving advice to the Prime Minister. I have no doubt at all that the Government have made very many mistakes, but we are not here to discuss those mistakes. They are undoubtedly riding high on the output of vaccines. They have been very lucky, and we are glad that they have been lucky because we could been very unlucky, whichever Government had been in power.

The fact is that the Government have succeeded, and it is really important, at this moment of national tension, when people are still not fully prepared to accept what is necessary to regulate us, that people respect what the Government are doing. To challenge the Government at this moment is a shocking risk. It is an ethical risk to do that because these people will be damaging lives. We see those people in the streets and I will see them on the Tube when I go home tonight. Even if I told them to wear a mask, they would be abusive at the very least and I would possibly do it at my own risk.

We have to recognise that there is a need for us to be supportive, not to undermine Parliament and this instrument. To do so would bring this measure into disrepute and bring more distrust and concern. What the Government need to do is to communicate better. I do not say to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, that that is easy, as he knows that very well, but the communication we have all done has not been good enough. We need to find a way somehow to encourage those young people to think about their responsibilities to their parents, grandparents and other people in our community.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I have nothing but good news on both those important issues. The number of people who have mild or profound sickness, need hospitalisation or die after having the vaccine is extremely small indeed. There is some differential when we come to the variants of concern. Certainly, mild disease has been observed with the South African variant by sources in South Africa and we are working to understand that. However, severe hospitalisation and death are massively reduced by all the vaccines. The side-effects from all the vaccines on all age groups and on people with almost all comorbidities are extremely small. The yellow list information published by the MHRA is extremely reassuring and so far it has been nothing but good news about the vaccines.

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the House should be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, who is constantly being bombarded with our questions. However, I point out that within six hours of entering a cell this virus will have replicated, leading to millions of copies. Some copies will be imperfect, the so-called variants. Time is of the essence. The risk of dangerous new variants to which we have no defence is eventually likely to be inevitable. Will the Government now answer the question that has been repeatedly asked both in this House and in the other place since Christmas: as the red list of presumed points of embarkation is ludicrous and ineffectual, why do the Government not ensure that all those tens of thousands we have heard about entering the UK daily are effectively separated, screened, tracked, traced and isolated where necessary before they are lost within minutes somewhere in a British city?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his grim prognosis and I agree with his analysis. If there is one place in the world where a mutant variation is likely to happen, it will be in an area where you have high infection rates and a large amount of suppression of the virus by either a lockdown or a vaccine programme. If you look around the world, that country is most likely to be Britain. We must be on the balls of our feet to be prepared for unhelpful news on that front.

Can I reassure the noble Lord on the borders? The number of people travelling in and out of the UK has reduced dramatically and the traffic through our airports and seaports is down tremendously. The application of the red list programme is extremely effective and the use of quarantine hotels has been extremely rigorously enforced. The isolation, along with amber routes, has also had enormous resources and is much more effective than it once was. We are prepared to go further. We review the red list constantly and, should the threats mount up to being serious enough, we will extend the red list as far as necessary.

Covid-19: Brazilian Variant

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right. Our commitment to genomic sequencing, which has lasted for years, has put Britain in great shape to be able to do the sequencing necessary to track these variants. We are doing more sequencing than any other country. But as the noble Lord knows, this is detective work, and it is extremely complex. While the 484K mutation might be the significant change in both the Brazil and South African variants, it might be one of a great many other mutations in its genomic characteristics. This is the detective work we are doing. I am afraid that it will take some time to get to the bottom of it, and it needs to be complemented by field studies into how the mutation reacts in real life, as well as with antibodies. The combination of immunology, virology, biology and real-world clinical study will give us the insight that we need.

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, with due respect to the Minister, I wonder if a pinch of salt is quite the right treatment for some of these variants of the Covid virus. It is not just the Brazilian and other different variants. For example, in addition to Siqueira’s paper, which has just been published from Brazil in the last couple of weeks, the paper from Bogota shows numerous variants which are not quite the same. Some of these may be rather more virulent, and it is possible that they may even cause reinfection—it is certainly not very clear. The point is this: surely we need to be very cautious indeed about our airports and whether the list we have is sufficient. At what stage do we decide that we need to take much firmer action with all incoming passengers to the United Kingdom, making certain that they are properly tracked and traced?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is entirely right. Things are happening around the world which are causing a great deal of anxiety. Stories of possible reinfection in South Africa are extremely concerning and the huge spike in infections in South America has not been properly explained. It is possible that there are a number of mutations, and mutations of mutations, there. The truth is that we do not have the genomic or immunological data that we need to fully understand what is going on. That is why we have taken a precautionary approach, as the noble Lord recommends. We have instituted both managed quarantine and a red list which we keep under review. If we feel it necessary to extend that list, we will do so.

Covid-19

Lord Winston Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the question but my information is slightly different from that articulated by my noble friend. Passengers overseas have heard the message loud and clear, and there has not been, as far as I understand, the kind of rush that he describes. In fact, there has been a lot of sensible behaviour by passengers. We are grateful to London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London City, Birmingham and Farnborough, which to date are the authorised red list airports and have put in place exactly the kind of social distancing measures around transit from the aircraft to the PCP, from the PCP to the baggage hall, and from the baggage hall to the transport to the hotel. A huge amount of thought has been put into the personnel, signage and arrangements to ensure that that is done in a way that applies the best possible hygiene measures.

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister knows that I have great respect for him, but I want to put a slightly colder note into this debate, which also reflects on the debate about the previous Statement. We have heard a lot of hugely optimistic and very confident statements from Members of the House and the Secretary of State. It strikes me that we must be a bit more cautious. As the Minister knows, the one country that has conducted more vaccinations than us, proportionate to the population, is Israel. It has also had a complete lockdown of airports, so that there is no ingress at all into the country. Yet puzzlingly, and not even the Israelis can explain this, the infection rate has not gone nearly as well as predicted or expected. Can he comment on that?

Furthermore, what does the Minister intend that the Government should do with regard to poor students returning, as they need to, for their exams? These students are deeply needed by the country and, if they have a good experience here, they were support us in the future when they are adults and working. I would be very grateful for his answer.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to cite the example of Israel. It is indeed extremely worrying. I touched upon this point when replying to my noble friend Lord Hamilton on the previous Statement. Undoubtedly the fear is that you vaccinate a large proportion of your most vulnerable population but those who have not been vaccinated—mainly the young—feel a licence to go out and socialise and create an enormous problem by spreading the disease on a large scale among the wider population. As I alluded to in my earlier answer, we currently have an infection rate of between 1% and 2%, It is not impossible that it could rise to 10% or 20%. Should that happen with the kind of proportions of people who then end up being hospitalised whatever their age, or suffering from long-term impacts of the disease, we would have a very big problem on our hands. That is why the Government are moving cautiously. I strike an optimistic tone in my answers, but I am extremely cautious and considered in my approach to policy, as are the Government.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Winston (Lab) [V]]

First, perhaps I may apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. On Thursday 4 February, I asked about antiviral drugs: Synairgen’s compound SNG001, an inhaled interferon beta drug, and the controlled trial which had been published in the Lancet and which showed considerable success. I also mentioned ACTIV-2, research established by the National Institutes of Health in the US. With the limits on time to reply to the Statement, I muddled Synairgen’s seemingly effective trial with ACTIV-2, giving the impression that it was a different drug. This made it impossible for the noble Lord to answer my question effectively and I apologise for that.

As many noble Lords have repeatedly affirmed from across the House, we must work together, particularly at times of national emergency. While I speak from these Benches, it is good to celebrate the spirit of proper collaboration of which your Lordships’ House is proud. This is a time of global emergency. Of course, we want to be vaccinated as soon as possible. With vaccines still not plentiful, it is natural to be anxious about ourselves and our families, but we must recognise those elsewhere globally, and particularly in poor nations. It makes economic sense, just as it does with climate change. It may be costly, but it is morally right, and the global fight is essential, not least because of our self-interest.

We should learn from history. Yersinia pestis, the Black Death, caused at least three major pandemics: the plague of Justinian in 1541, the Black Death in 1347 and the Black Death in China in the 1850s. There were repeated, devastating waves in between for many decades. These were spread mostly by travel, by mixing of populations and by people in poverty with poor hygiene and inadequate public health. In 1665, when over 100,000 people in London—probably one-third or more of the population—died in the Great Plague, the greatest proportion were poor and disadvantaged. Lockdown then was rigidly imposed. People were even bolted in their houses, which were painted with a red cross.

The science community has repeatedly warned that we shall almost certainly need to live with Covid for a long time to come. This is likely for Covid-19 but is equally likely to be true of other deadly viruses in due course. So, in addition to global issues, we need everything we can muster: vaccines, better diagnostics, culture facilities, better public health—especially globally—and drugs which kill the virus. We also clearly need isolation, and that will reoccur from time to time. It is important that we do not breathe a huge sigh of collective relief at the blessing of new and better vaccines. There are still many important questions that we will need to consider. Randomised controlled trials must continue. One NIH trial, for example, done in the rhesus monkey, showed that they got protection with different vaccines, but these did not necessarily reduce the replication of the virus in nasal tissues, while some others did. Those are the sorts of reasons why we still do not know how problematic contact between people will be.

Whatever the effectiveness of different vaccines, apart from new mutations, there will be pockets of this virus in the population. If we are to reduce the presence of the virus in our communities, at what stage do we consider vaccinating children? If we eventually do, shall we ignore the serious anti-vaccination protests associated with measles, a far less clinically risky virus? We are relatively safe now from yersinia pestis, not because of vaccines but because of antibiotics. For example, a portable, easily distributed antiviral would be a real asset. Unfortunately, monoclonal antibodies, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Walney, in last Thursday’s debate, may not be quite as useful as a portable, easily distributed and administered antiviral, which could give safety, with fewer side-effects, at the early stages of infection. This might kill the virus before it starts to replicate rapidly. That would be useful during lockdown. An antiviral which gets access to the mucus membranes of the throat, pharynx, larynx and respiratory system, taken by mouth or as an aerosol, could be particularly beneficial because that is the route that the Covid virus generally takes. That would be another strategy to avoid the risk of mutations. This may be important, because we must remember how coronavirus is likely to have infected several animal species before moving into man. It is consequently more dangerous. In many parts of this crowded world, humans now perhaps live more closely to animals than at any time in our history.

Of course, we shall continue to jog the Government, but let us do so in the spirit of constructive collaboration that is important at this time of national emergency.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that the time limit for Back-Bench contributions is four minutes.