Debates between Marion Fellows and Jonathan Ashworth during the 2017-2019 Parliament

Clinical Trials and Clinical Research Capability

Debate between Marion Fellows and Jonathan Ashworth
Thursday 23rd May 2019

(4 years, 11 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Jonathan Ashworth Portrait Jonathan Ashworth
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I have not yet decided whether to run next year’s marathon, but should we decide to run, it would be great to have you running with us, Mr Hanson—or indeed the Minister.

Marion Fellows Portrait Marion Fellows
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As a fellow Front-Bench spokesperson, may I withdraw from any suggestion that I might run the marathon next year?

Jonathan Ashworth Portrait Jonathan Ashworth
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That is disappointing, but several SNP colleagues ran it this year. Anyway, today’s debate is not about the London marathon—important though it is.

The hon. Member for Bolton West made an excellent speech. I understand that a reshuffle of junior Ministers is going on; based on the quality of his speech, he is very deserving of elevation to the Government Front Bench. He might not want to join it at the moment, but that is a different issue. He well deserves a call from Downing Street.

The hon. Gentleman made some points that muster consensus across the House, as we heard from the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). We agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about R&D investment and the implications for medical research and trials post Brexit. If I may gently tease him, I think that he and I were on different sides of the debate in the Brexit referendum. I believe that some of the issues that he raised today were not given the prominence that they deserved in the referendum campaign the first time round. He may disagree, but I think that many of the concerns that he rightly raised will come to the fore and prove particularly damaging for our clinical research if we leave the European Union on World Trade Organisation terms. If that is the prospect that the country faces, I believe that we should have another opportunity to ask the British people whether that is what they want—but, again, I digress.

The hon. Gentleman made an interesting observation about the history of clinical trials. I did not know where the term “limey” came from, so I am pleased that he has educated me on that front. He could also have mentioned Edward Jenner, who was born 270 years ago and who discovered a vaccine for smallpox through a clinical trial. Because of Edward Jenner’s work, the world was rid of smallpox; the World Health Organisation declared the world free of smallpox in 1980, its first and only such declaration about any human disease.

That example brings home the importance not only of clinical trials, but of understanding and being guided by the science, especially in an age when more and more anti-vaccination propaganda and disinformation is spreading far too rapidly on social media—typing in “anti-vax” on Facebook or Instagram brings up all kinds of disturbing, poisonous nonsense. Sadly, while more and more measles outbreaks are happening throughout Europe and in parts of the United Kingdom, our measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates are falling. I put on record the importance of being guided by science and understanding the impact and outcomes of clinical trials, which can make a huge difference to saving lives and improving health.

I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s well-made point about the £30,000 visa cap. It is not just that the cap will affect the country’s science base and our ability to attract the best scientists, research technicians and so on to our shores; at a time when we have 100,000 vacancies across the national health service, including 40,000 for nurses and thousands for midwives and paramedics, and when hospital trusts are struggling to recruit, it is completely counterproductive for the Government to propose a £30,000 visa cap.

This country has a proud history of the national health service attracting people from across the world, including clinicians, nurses and technicians. Of course our international recruitment should always be ethical, but to hinder the NHS in this way will do huge damage to our ability to attract the staff we need in the future. We are told that the Dido Harding review of the workforce will propose that the NHS should recruit 5,000 international nurses a year. I presume that the Government would endorse that, but it suggests that one hand of Government does not know what the other is doing. I appreciate that this is a Home Office matter and not necessarily within the Minister’s remit, but I urge Health Ministers to pressure the Home Office on it, because it is not remotely in the interests of our science community or of our NHS generally.

Throughout the 70-year history of the national health service, scientific research and innovation, of which clinical trials have been a part, has made great advances. Sixty years ago, the first mass immunisation programmes offered polio and diphtheria vaccines to under-15s. I think back to the hospital wards full of iron lungs for people suffering from polio; I was not born then, of course, but we have all seen them in grainy black and white photos. What was once an everyday occurrence for too many children in this country is no longer a feature of our national health service—a striking example of the importance of vaccines, research and clinical trials. An everyday aspect of doctors’ and nurses’ care—tending to people in iron lungs in hospital wards—has been completely transformed because of our research and clinical trials.

There have been all kinds of remarkable innovations in the NHS over the past 70 years. We pioneered the first heart transplants here. Forty years ago, we pioneered in vitro fertilisation. We developed CT scanners, MRI scanners and clinical thermometers. We made great advances with DNA. Seminal trials funded by the British Heart Foundation found that aspirin and clot-busting drugs can save lives after a heart attack. Extraordinary, amazing innovations have taken place in the United Kingdom because of the strength of our science base. We must celebrate that, build on it and give it all the support we can.

As the hon. Member for Bolton West rightly said, the issue has become ever more important in the context of an ageing population. In 1948, at the birth of the NHS, 11% of the UK population were 65 or over. Life expectancy was 71 for women and 66 for men. Today, those figures stand at 82 and 79 respectively, and the so-called “oldest old”—those with a substantial risk of requiring long-term care—are now the fastest-growing age group in the UK. It is projected that by 2040 nearly one person in seven will be over 75; the number of over-85s is set to double over the next 20 years. The changing demographic profile of our society will demand greater investment in science to deliver medical advances.