Health and Care Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for bringing forward Amendment 163, and thank other noble Lords for outlining their support for or concerns about it. The amendment refers to publishing a report on alcohol labelling to improve consumer knowledge.

Government data comparing pre-pandemic and post-pandemic figures has shown that sales of alcohol increased by some 25%. This is, as we know, a booming market and consumers need to be equipped with the right information to make informed choices. They have a right to know what is in their drinks and decide what and how much to drink. The consultation promised by the Government, with this in mind, remains something of a consultation in long-overdue waiting.

Currently there is no requirement for alcoholic drinks to include health warnings, drinking guidelines, calorie information or even ingredients. As my noble friend Lord Brooke said, this is very much out of step with any other information on what we consume. There is, as always, a balance to be struck between health improvement measures, consumer information and industry regulation, but this amendment supports a necessary move in the right direction and I hope the Minister will agree to it.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, as a doctor and a wine drinker, I have serious concerns about this amendment, particularly, for example, when it comes to the use of fine wine—I think there is broad understanding in the House of what that is—where, in every case, those bottles are labelled with the amount of alcohol. One has to accept that labelling bottles in this way does not change behaviour. We have had committees looking at behaviour change, and the only time we managed to induce behaviour change was with smoking—certainly never with labelling. That is the only time it happened and there were all sorts of reasons for that.

Much of the evidence for alcohol being harmful in minor doses is still dubious and, more importantly, there is real concern that a lot of the so-called evidence is not being put to the real test of whether it makes a difference to behaviour. I must say to the House that I think the noble Lord—I am afraid I do not know his name; my eyes are bad enough not to have been able to see his name on the screen—is right that this is unworkable. It would probably do all sorts of untold damage to what is, for me and no doubt many others, a very fine drink. We need to look seriously at whether we can simply label all bottles.

I just remind the House that there is one amendment that I could have put down. In in vitro fertilisation, embryos are cultured in culture media, which are in fact commercially made and a commercial secret—nobody knows exactly what the composition of those media is. My laboratory is looking at this at the moment. It is really interesting, because some of the products in those culture media may indeed be quite dangerous in terms of epigenetic effects. To me, that seems far more important to regulate than what we are trying to do here with bottles of wine, which is probably not really workable.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this is an important topic, so let me start with an immediate reassurance to the House, which I hope will enable to the noble Baroness to consider withdrawing the amendment. The amendment calls on the Government to publish a report on alcohol labelling. The Government already plan to report on alcohol labelling, as it is a key part of our overall work on reducing alcohol harm. In no sense do we propose to ignore it and I undertake today that we will report on it. Part of what is taking the time is formulating what the proposals should look like, but I will come on to that.

As part of the Government’s tackling obesity strategy, published in July 2020, we are committed to consulting on whether mandatory calorie labelling should be introduced on all pre-packed alcohol as well as alcoholic drinks sold in the out-of-home sector. In addition, as part of our public consultation, respondents to the consultation will be able to provide suggestions and evidence for additional labelling requirements that they would like the Government to consider, including warning labels and nutritional information. In that sense, the consultation will be even more of a two-way process than perhaps noble Lords might have been expecting. Naturally enough, we make no assumptions in advance about any such proposals; they will have to be looked at on their merits. The consultation will be launched in due course and I can assure noble Lords that the Government will feed back the results to this House. Although, for reasons beyond my control, I have not been able to provide definitive news on the timing of the consultation—much as I would like to—I hope nevertheless that the firm commitment that I have given on the Government’s intention to carry out the consultation and on its scope will have provided the noble Baroness with sufficient reassurance to enable her to question whether she wishes to press her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, it would be perfectly possible for someone in the House of Commons to raise this issue and deal with it there. What concerns me—I pick up what the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Howarth, said—is that this seems to be a constitutional issue. I am not going to say a word about the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide or assisted dying. However, I shall just read a few words of the amendment. It asks us to agree that the

“Secretary of State must, within the period of 12 months … lay before Parliament”


not just the possibility of a Private Member’s Bill being given time, which was what was suggested earlier, but a draft Bill. That is telling the Government what legislation they have to pass. This is a matter that transcends issues of compassion or whether one is on one side of the argument or the other, because what we in the Lords are telling the Commons is that they have to support us telling the Government to put forward a Bill with which they may not agree. But they do not have any choice if this amendment is passed. That Bill has to,

“permit terminally ill, mentally competent adults legally to end their own lives”.

The amendment is not asking the Government to please give time—I could understand that. It is telling, not asking, the Government to put forward a draft Bill in support of one side of the argument. Whichever side I was on, I would feel absolutely impelled to resist this amendment.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I have repeatedly opposed assisted dying and it is well known that I feel, and have felt, strongly about it. I also feel that this is quite a different situation. I do not want to argue my case here, but serious issues are raised by the amendment. I am not persuaded that voting for it would make a difference, because the Commons can still consider what we have said this evening. However, it is clear—I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—that we as a Parliament have to discuss this issue.

I remember, when I first came into this House 27 years ago, in the Prince’s Chamber there was a notice recording an Act of 1620, I think—under Charles I—that argued that we should not use intemperate language in the Chamber. In this situation, I believe this is inevitably important. I regret very much that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke in the terms he did. I do not think it is helpful to the argument. I think it probably destroys his argument to some extent. What the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, says is a very different matter—and I regard the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, as a friend. Above all, it seems that as a Parliament we have to discuss this, and this is something burgeoning in the public. Therefore, it is a duty to discuss this in Parliament. If we happen to introduce this Bill, which the Commons can then consider, whether it is passed at this stage or not, that would be utterly justifiable, and I support this amendment.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment surely goes to something of importance to all of us in this House, whether we support assisted dying or not, because it is about the role of Parliament and the proper exercise of the duties of an elected Government. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that Parliament, and not the courts, should consider whether in some circumstances assisted dying should be legal. But so far, this Government have fought shy of doing so either of their own volition or by giving Private Members’ Bills time. There is now clear evidence that the public opinion has changed and wants Parliament to face up to this question and express its will. Yet the door is effectively being shut in the face of that opinion.

Dying is surely an issue of general public importance as it concerns every single one of us. Yet this subject is consistently and currently being starved of the oxygen of time in Parliament in order for the Government to avoid a controversial topic. This amendment does not require the Government to take sides or promote a Bill themselves; it merely requires them to prepare and lay a draft to enable Parliament to consider any possible change properly. I shall support this amendment, and I would hope that noble Lords, whatever their views on assisted dying, do the same, because this amendment is essentially about democracy.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel very humble speaking in this debate, and it is a privilege to do so. Of course, His Royal Highness was completely at home in the Garrick. He had this wonderful sense of fun.

One of the institutions where he was immensely influential was the Royal Academy of Engineering, which he helped to get established. As the president recently said in his tribute, Prince Philip was responsible really for getting the fellowship established. Certainly, he used to come to the fellows’ meetings very regularly and always took such interest in the young people, often quizzing them about very difficult projects that they were doing and often knowing a great deal more than they did, even when they were the PhD student doing the work. That was quite extraordinary to see. At the same time, as so many people have said, there was this great feeling of kindness about him and a genuine humility about what he was trying to say.

I recall one dinner at Windsor. At the end of quite a long evening, he suddenly said to me, “You know, I’ve got something I want to show you in the library”. I wandered down with him to the library, really quite puzzled, and there he had set out a whole series of documents which started with Prince Albert, who of course had been president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as indeed His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh had been in 1950, and as I had been some years later. In fact, I think that at least five Members of your Lordships’ House have been presidents of that organisation. What was delightful about that evening was that, even though it was very late, he took pleasure in showing the little bits that Prince Albert had done, with his sense of history and, above all, his sense of engineering.

Finally, we came to the discussion at the British association between Wilberforce and Huxley, where of course they were arguing about evolution. His Royal Highness chuckled as he recalled that of course Wilberforce asked Huxley, “Tell me, was it your father or your grandfather who was a monkey?” That would have stunned almost anybody except Huxley, who said that he would have been very proud to have a father as a monkey—or something like that. That answer may be apocryphal; I am not sure. Maybe the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, could correct me on that, because he probably knows that story as well.

One particular delight was being asked to give his annual lecture at Windsor on another occasion, which of course he hosted. I gave it on the perils of technology, which was probably a bit cheeky. The walk from Windsor to get to the podium in the chapel to give that lecture was pretty long and daunting, but His Royal Highness broke the ice on the way down and made sure that I felt sufficiently comfortable on the way. Just as the podium came into sight he said, “You know, I don’t know why we invited you to give this lecture. There are too many children in the world already and you are contributing to overpopulation.” I was about to argue the mathematics of that and point out that there had only been 5 million children but suddenly thought, “I’ve got to bite my tongue, of course he knows that perfectly well”—and I got up and gave the lecture.

Finally, on one other occasion I drove up to Windsor with my wife for some do. I decided to chance my arm and drove my very old 1935 car, which is somewhat unreliable, all the way down the M4 to get to Windsor. We finally got into the castle and there was one of the staff ready to park the cars and there was His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. As I was handing the keys to a member of staff to drive my car away, thinking that he might not be able to drive it because it was really quite difficult if you were not used to it—I was a bit worried—I saw the Duke of Edinburgh and thought that it would have been far better to ask him to do it, but there really was no time. The Duke showed huge interest in the right-sided gearstick and brake, as well as the curious knobs on the steering wheel, and then suddenly said, “Your car hasn’t got a tax disc.” I said, “Well, I know, Your Royal Highness, but the truth is, Sir, that it is a car of historical interest and is exempt from tax.” “My God,” he said, “we’ve got six of those—why didn’t I know that beforehand?”

That sense of fun put us at ease; he was the most remarkable person. He was a great human being and we can only think how hard the gap that he leaves for Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family must be. It is wonderful to hear these tributes to him and we wish them all consolation in their extraordinary loss. Even though he was as old as he was, it was an amazing shock to hear of his death last week.

House of Lords: Future Location

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I felt sure that all sorts of useful ideas would emerge from this debate. Getting back to my noble friend’s first point, we all know the people of York to be most hospitable, as I am sure they would be with 794 of our number arriving on their doorstep.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, with deference to the right reverend Prelate, am I right in remembering that the centre of the great city of York was the Shambles slaughterhouse? Is this not really an attempt by the Prime Minister to cull the House of Lords, and might that not end up being another shambles?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as I said earlier, I am sure that all logistical aspects of the idea will be examined. However, I take the noble Lord’s point.