Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. When entering the Chamber, hon. Members must be aware that there is a debate taking place.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Does the hon. Lady accept that there are practical consequences flowing from the intolerable delay in the Government making an announcement about the scheme? For example, repairs are under way at All Saints church in Mudeford and at Christchurch priory, and the consequence of the Government not doing anything about this scheme will be hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra costs for those churches.

Rare Cancers Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 5, leave out “and”.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 2, page 1, line 6, at end insert

“and

(c) set out a timetable for implementing any changes in the law recommended by the review.”

Amendment 3, page 1, line 7, leave out “in particular”.

Amendment 4, page 1, line 9, leave out “three” and insert “two”.

Amendment 5, page 2, line 3, leave out “in the opinion of the Secretary of State”.

Amendment 6, in clause 2, page 2, line 7, leave out from “are” to end of line 8 and insert “arrangements in place to”.

Amendment 7, page 2, line 12, after “appointed” insert

“within the period of 6 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed”.

Amendment 8, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, leave out

“in the opinion of NHS England”.

Amendment 9, page 2, line 40, leave out subsection (4).

[Sir Christopher Chope]

This is certainly not a trivial Bill; it is a really important piece of legislation, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) on introducing and pioneering. It was not a Government handout; it was an idea that he thought needed to be the subject of legislation and he has pursued it. We had a fantastic Second Reading debate. There is tremendous interest in the Bill. May I therefore make it clear at the outset that my amendments are designed to try to strengthen the Bill rather than anything else?

I explained my position to the hon. Gentleman yesterday. He said, understandably, that to a large extent he was constrained, because he was trying to negotiate with the Government and with the Department of Health and Social Care, and unless he showed himself to be reasonably compliant, he would not have got the Bill to a state where it could be accepted by the Government.

I note the different positions on this, and I fully understand and respect the hon. Gentleman’s position. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) basically said that if she had introduced such a Bill, she would have got so steamed up about it that she would have included a lot more strength and safeguards, and as a consequence it probably would not have got anywhere near being considered on Report. Those are two different approaches. I am, relatively speaking, neutral on the matter—I am a sympathetic supporter of the Bill—but I have a lot of background experience of how Governments always try to give themselves wriggle room, in effect to maintain control over everything, and in my view the Bill could be improved by being amended, with the will of the House, on Report.

We could talk about taking some of my amendments to the other place, but the trouble is that the Government machine may say that there will not be any more sitting Fridays in this House, so if the Bill were to be amended in the other place it might fall completely, because it would need to be brought back here. That is why it is important that the House should consider these amendments now rather than leave them to the other place.

Amendment 1, which is to be read with amendment 2, is a prime example of the point I made earlier. We have a commitment from the Government that:

“The Secretary of State must…carry out a review of the law relating to marketing authorisations for orphan medicinal products that are for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of cancer”—

great—

“and…prepare and publish a report setting out the conclusions of the review.”

But what is the timescale for that, and what will happen after those conclusions are produced? There is no obligation on the Government to do anything else. The review and its conclusions could be just left on one side. We in the House are in a position to tighten those provisions up and say, “This is not good enough. There should be a timetable for implementing the changes in the law recommended by the review.” That is the essence of the two amendments.

To look at another gap that could be exploited by the Government, the Bill says that the report must be

“published before the end of the period of three years beginning with the day on which the Act is passed”.

I have tabled amendment 4 to say that the period should be two years.

In respect of both those points, I have had a helpful email from Diana Jupp from Pancreatic Cancer UK, who writes on behalf of more than 30 charities representing patients affected by rare and less common cancers. She comments on my amendments. On amendment 2, she says,

“We are keen to push for this change with the Department once we reach implementation stage of the Bill.”

With the greatest of respect to Diana Jupp, we can do this now. Instead of leaving it to her and her colleagues to try to pressurise the Department later, we in this House have the power to change the legislation in the way that I have suggested, so that there would be a timetable set out for implementing the changes in the law recommended by the review.

In response to amendment 4, Diana Jupp says that

“this timeline has been agreed with the Department and in our opinion would tie into the timelines of other developing cancer policy implementation, including the cancer plan.”

Obviously, the most important part of her comment is that the timeline has been agreed with the Department, because if it had not been, the Department and the Minister would not have taken the Bill forward in this way and agreed to it.

On the timeline, I draw the House’s attention to the evidence base set out in the impact assessment. It says that the whole process will take one year. The Department reckons that it will cost £130,000 and sets out how many full-time equivalent civil servants will be involved in it. If it will only take one year, why are we saying that it needs to have three years? That is an example of why we need to tighten up the Bill, because if this is a review that needs to and will be carried out, why do we not get on with it? To suggest that it will take longer than a year is to go against the Department’s own evidence set out in the impact assessment.

The impact assessment says on page 6, under the heading “Mandating a Government review of the orphan drug regulations”:

“This will place a duty on the Government to publish a review which will be a comparison of orphan drug Regulations (specifically Part 5 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012) and international regulatory approaches to supporting the research and development of orphan medicinal products that are for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of cancers. Since the review is concerned with orphan drug regulations it is by default covering rare cancers. The findings should be published within 3 years.” On page 7, paragraph 19 on financial costs says,

“It is difficult to estimate the resourcing costs required for the orphan drug review, since the exact scope remains to be agreed. However, we estimate the cost to the Department of Health and Social Care to produce and publish a report on orphan drug Regulations to incur costs of approximately £0.14m in relation to staff resource. This reflects the cost of 0.3 x SCS staff, 1 x FTE Grade 6 or Grade 7 staff, 0.3 x Grade 7 staff and 0.5 x SEO staff for one year.”

That is what the Government say: only one year will be necessary.

In that case, why is my generous amendment, which would restrict the period from three years to two years, unacceptable to the Government? There is a history of dragging of feet at the Department of Health and Social Care, I am afraid; we certainly heard about that on Second Reading. I give the House that specific example of why, on the Government’s own evidence, they should accept the change from three years to two.

Amendment 3 would leave out “in particular” from line 7, which reads:

“In carrying out the review the Secretary of State must, in particular, consider regulatory approaches in other countries.”

The amendment is intended to probe rather than anything else. Why do the words “in particular” need to be incorporated? Surely it would be simpler to say that the Secretary of State “must consider regulatory approaches in other countries”—full stop, period. But that is not how it is at the moment.

Amendment 5 would leave out the reference to the Secretary of State. This is to do with the definition of a rare cancer. Currently, clause 2 would add this wording to the National Health Service Act 2006:

“The research that the Secretary must facilitate or otherwise promote under subsection (1)(a) includes research into cancers that in the opinion of the Secretary of State are rare cancers.”

Why cannot it not just say “that are rare cancers”? Indeed, clause 2 would also add this wording to the 2006 Act:

“In this section ‘rare cancer’ means a cancer that affects not more than 1 in 2000 people in the United Kingdom.”

That is an issue of fact. The Secretary of State should not be able to basically have a veto over the interpretation of what is or is not a rare cancer.

This is just another example of the control freakery within the Department. I am sorry that so far the Minister does not seem to have stood up to officials who have persuaded him, no doubt, that we need the expression

“in the opinion of the Secretary of State”.

Again, the argument is quite straightforward and the people from Pancreatic Cancer UK are on my side, but they are obviously very keen for the Bill to get on to the statute book. We all have to recognise that it is within the Government’s power to prevent it from making any further progress. That is why it will be quite difficult, I suppose, to persuade the Minister to accept amendment 5.

Amendment 6 would leave out from “are” to the end of the line and insert “arrangements in place to” in this statement in clause 2:

“In discharging the duty under subsection (1)(a) in relation to those cancers, the Secretary of State must, in particular, ensure that there are such arrangements in place as the Secretary of State considers appropriate to”.

Why can we not just say “arrangements in place to enable potential participants in clinical trials”, and so on? Why do we need to give the Secretary of State discretion —a veto, essentially—over whether he considers those arrangements to be appropriate? It seems to me completely redundant, unnecessary and, indeed, oppressive. It is counter to the expressed wishes of this House on Second Reading, when there was impatience over the delay, because of the need to get on with this, and suspicion over the failure of the Department of Health and Social Care—under not just this Government but previous Governments, which I would be the first to accept—to actually deal with the crisis involving people who are subject to rare cancers. That is amendment 6. I am trying to beetle through these amendments quite quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker, so that other people can participate in this important debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Sir Christopher, is it your pleasure that amendment 1 be withdrawn?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Is it possible to respond, Madam Deputy Speaker?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Very briefly. I was asking whether amendment 1 would be pushed to a vote or withdrawn, so if you could alert me to that it would be very useful.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I will respond briefly to the debate. In so doing, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) and for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for their contributions.

I listened for what the Minister would say in response to my point about NHS England, but I did not hear the expression “NHS England” come from between his lips, and I wonder whether that was an oversight or whether it was left out of his brief deliberately by officials from NHS England. Amendment 8 specifically deals with NHS England, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth referred to it. Does the Minister’s reluctance to intervene at this stage show that he is in denial about the policy in relation to NHS England? I presume that he is in such denial.

We have had a classic example from the Minister of why the civil service is ruling okay, because it can come forward with a valid objection to every possible suggested alternative and amendment. I do not think that this attitude will be very helpful to the people we are trying to help through the Bill—namely, those who are suffering from rare cancers and who want us to make progress in this area. I will not press any of these amendments to a vote, but I hope that when the Bill gets to the other place there will be more persistent probing, particularly on the issues around NHS England and the definitions.

To give credit where it is due, I was pleased with what the Minister said about the specialty lead. As discussed, we do not need legislation for this anyway. He said he wants to have that dealt with promptly but is fearful of accepting an amendment that requires it to be done within six months because of the possibility of unforeseen delays. I take it from that that he is going to get on with that aspect, and let us hope that that goes faster rather than slower. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Third Reading

Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. If Members hope to contribute, they need to bob throughout. I cannot read their minds, if they only bob towards the end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. A discussion should not be taking place while colleagues are seated.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

If the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) says he has no interest in this Bill, then he does not have to attend. I thought he was seeking to intervene, but he was not; he was wanting to make some sedentary remark.

I have put on the record my opposition to and scepticism about the contents of this Bill, and I will leave it at that.

Arm’s-Length Bodies (Accountability to Parliament) Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

That intervention was slightly broad in scope, but it returned at the end.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The Environment Agency as an arm’s length body is found wanting in many respects, not least that it argues that it has a lack of resource to introduce the necessary prosecutions and enforcement of the regulations that it is meant to be in charge of. Just to illustrate that point—this also relates to Natural England, actually—towards the end of the last Parliament, I arranged with the then Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to have a meeting in his office with officials from Natural England and the Environment Agency to discuss the state of the Avon valley: the river, the nitrates and phosphates problems, and the break in the Avon valley footpath, which crosses the River Avon in my constituency but, as a result of neglect, is no longer viable.

The Minister set up the meeting in his Department. The first time I went along to the Department with him, he was sitting there with his private secretary and we were meant to have officials from Natural England and the Environment Agency with us online on Zoom—I do not know whether they were working from home—but nothing happened. At the last minute, there was a message saying that they could not attend. I said to the Minister that he should get heavy with them, because this was intolerable. It was another month or six weeks before we had an in-person meeting with them. I wish that I could say to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) that, as a result of all that, the issues have been resolved, but they have not. I have got a meeting with Natural England on site on 1 April in the Avon valley in my constituency.

All is not well with these arm’s length bodies. There are probably different solutions for resolving that, depending on their specific nature.

Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I shall try to be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I follow the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) by referring to a quote from Hayek’s book, “The Road to Serfdom”. I do not claim credit for identifying it myself; it was quoted in the other place by Lord Hannan of Kingsclere on 15 January in the context of the Football Governance Bill. He was talking about the growth of the administrative state, about which the hon. Gentleman was speaking at the beginning of his speech. Hayek said:

“The delegation of particular tasks to separate bodies, while a regular feature, is yet only the first step in the process by which a democracy…relinquishes its powers”.

That is in chapter 5 of “The Road to Serfdom” from 1944, so not much has changed. The MHRA is an example of what happens if we in this House transfer responsibility to unelected and unaccountable organisations.

It so happens that on the Order Paper for tomorrow is my Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Bill, which is sponsored by a former Attorney General. That Bill calls for an independent review of covid-19 vaccine damage. It calls on the Secretary of State to

“appoint a current or former High Court judge to lead an independent review of disablement caused by Covid-19 vaccinations administered in the United Kingdom and the adequacy of the compensation offered to persons so disabled.”

We know that more than 600 people have already been told by the agency responsible at the Department of Health and Social Care that they have suffered disabilities as a result of covid-19 vaccines. A large number of them, where the disability is in excess of 60%, have been awarded wholly derisory payments of £120,000 each.

My Bill goes on:

“The review must consider…the rates and extent of disablement caused by each type of Covid-19 vaccination offered in the United Kingdom”.

Relevant to this debate, the review must also consider

“the effectiveness of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency monitoring of such side effects, and National Health Service and Government responses to such monitoring”,

as well as

“the adequacy of compensation offered to persons so disabled”.

There has always been an agreement, basically, that if something goes wrong for people who undertake vaccination voluntarily or are in receipt of other medical products—if they are doing the right thing by the country at large—and they have an adverse reaction, they will be able to look to the Government or the taxpayer to pay them some recompense under the scheme to which I have referred, if causation is established. The trust built by that scheme has been undermined by the long denial of the previous Government—and, to an extent, the current one—that any adverse reactions had been caused by the covid-19 vaccines, other than the most minor disablement. It has also been undermined by the fact that so many people have applied for a review of their cases. Some people—I think more than a thousand—have been waiting more than 18 months for a decision. That shows that this is a low priority for the Government.

I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate, she will be able to explain why the Government will block my Bill again tomorrow. If they were taking this issue seriously, as they should be, they would be open to and supportive of the establishment of an independent review of disablement.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I am setting a five-minute time limit.

COP27

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Christopher Chope

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I do not keep a tab on what papers or books the hon. Gentleman reads. I am sorry that he is disappointed that there is not a Cabinet Minister in the Chamber, but, as I have said, they were involved in negotiations at COP and they are now on their way back. The urgent question was granted and here I am. No one is denying the importance of what is happening at COP. We must make sure that we reach net zero. That applies not only to this country, but to countries around the world with which we have to negotiate.

I am anxious that we do not leave this Chamber with a picture of doom and gloom. Negotiations have taken place and there has been some progress, but sometimes we overlook that progress. I know that what matters to my constituents will no doubt matter to the hon. Member’s constituents as well. On the forests and climate leaders’ partnership, for example, 23 countries and the EU are accelerating momentum to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. The UK has also confirmed £150 million to protect rainforests and natural habitats. That is as a result of our leadership. It is not perfect, but we should be so proud of how far we have gone.

The accelerating to zero coalition has also been launched, and it has been announced that the zero emissions vehicle declaration has 210 signatories. Furthermore, the breakthrough agenda will result in tangible actions being taken by countries that account for more than 50% of global GDP. There is much more to do, but there is a lot to be proud of. We should continue moving forward.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend explain exactly what discussions took place in Egypt between our Government and Germany on the issue of Germany’s intent to open up lignite mining and use lignite to generate electricity—lignite being the dirtiest form of electricity generation? Is there not something of an issue for us as a country in competing with Germany if it is quite prepared to ignore all the norms and use lignite to generate electricity, while we are reluctant to even open another coalmine?

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We often focus on what we are delivering in the UK, and that is important, but we make an argument that other European countries are somehow constantly cleaner and greener. His point is a valid one. That is why global negotiations and global collaborations matter. We must shine a light not only on countries far from home, but on countries closer to home, such as those in Europe, which unfortunately are not leading the way as much as we are.