Medicines and Medical Devices Bill (First sitting)

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 8th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

Not only for hon. Members who were here in the previous Parliament, but for those here to this day, Primodos, sodium valproate and surgical mesh spring to mind. It is important at this point to pay tribute to campaigners such as Impact and the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, and I am grateful for their support in developing my remarks. We have the potential for a really big moment on patient safety, certainly on those issues.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is absolutely right that there should be some way of setting out a hierarchy, with public safety at the top. Like my hon. Friend, I have a major project in my constituency to promote the life sciences, through The Royal London Hospital, Queen Mary University of London and others. It would be great for investment and we want to see that happen. However, in the light of what has recently happened and the public loss of confidence in the focus on public safety, particularly with reference to chlorinated chicken and the rest of it, the public feel great concern about safety. It is important that the Minister is able at least to provide the reassurance that public safety would be at the top of the agenda, with some sort of hierarchy.

[Alex Norris]

I completely agree. I think that if we stood in the street for a bit and just straw-polled people, everybody would say that safety is uppermost and they would see the value in its being set on a higher tier, which is what I am suggesting. We are at this possibly significant moment—I believe it is 8 July—when the noble Baroness Cumberlege will come back with her review into what has happened. Obviously, it is a sign of the times and where we are, but at Second Reading people talked about it coming out in March. The world has passed us by, but I understand that publication of the review is imminent and I am keen for that date of 8 July to be confirmed.

If the review says that there are issues around patient safety, we would expect there to be recommendations and changes, which I think is reasonable. I will return to this theme later in the day. What might this say about the MHRA? Is it possible that the regime that we seek to put in place through the Bill might be overrun by events? If recommendations come out of that, is there a possibility of revisiting that in future stages to be clear about it? That is an argument against the sort of piecemeal regime that the Bill proposes, instead of coming back in, if not two years, then three or four, to set a full codified bringing together of the different Acts into one Bill.

I will finish on amendment 23 by referring to one of my favourite contributions from Second Reading:

“Patient safety is not a partisan issue; it is paramount.”—[Official Report, 2 March 2020; Vol. 672, c.689.]

The Minister may recognise her words. I completely agree with her.

Amendments 24 to 27 essentially make the same provisions across veterinary medicines and medical devices, and I do not intend to rehearse the arguments. On medical devices, surgical matters was a good example. There is the potential for life-changing and wonderful things, but also the real potential to do harm. We want to know that with every hip, breast, knee—whatever it is that is done—safety is paramount. Amendments 22 and 23 seek to create a special place for patient safety. I hope that the Minister will accept them.

[Jo Churchill]

First, patient safety is paramount. That is where I began my journey into Parliament. In my case, it was access to cancer drugs—something close to my heart. With regard to Orkambi, I understand and share the frustration felt by everyone. My heart goes out to those affected, who are very often parents. The cystic fibrosis campaign has, I think, a 98% sign up of all parents who have had children with cystic fibrosis. On their fight for Orkambi, I am sure everybody feels sympathy for them, because it took so long to provide access.

Drug companies have a responsibility here. This refers slightly to the comments the hon. Member for Nottingham North made about life science sectors or pharmaceutical companies all being large. The drug companies have a responsibility to price their drugs responsibly in a way that reflects the benefits that they bring to patients. I feel that the arrangements that we have in place in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the cancer drugs fund have helped people to get access to medicines rapidly. There is still work to do, but they need to be marketised at a fair price. We made a commitment in our manifesto to establish an innovative medicines fund to address slightly some of the points that he made.

Amendments 22 to 27 relate to the three considerations the appropriate authority must have regard to when making regulations in relation to medicines for human and veterinary use and medical devices. The effect of the amendment would be to remove the requirement to have due regard to the attractiveness of the UK as a place to market and develop these products, and to assert the primacy of patient safety above all other considerations.

The safety of patients and the environment, people and animals—when moving into the area of veterinary medicine—absolutely underpins the regulatory decisions that are made. It is absolutely the case that we would never seek to make a regulatory change that puts somebody’s health at risk; that would be counter-intuitive. However, I do not think that patient safety or safety in general is in conflict with the other considerations that these amendments are intended to affect.

The purpose of the regulation is to ensure that we do what is in the best interests of UK patients, or the veterinary sector when it comes to animals, so that they receive the best possible treatment without undue impact on the environment. It is likely that having a dynamic and innovative market, where treatments or technologies are developed in the UK, contributes to the overall benefit of the patient, as those treatments will become available to them. These are not binary principles where regulation works only in the interests of one or the other.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North mentioned Nottingham—I also shout out to Cambridge, which is just down the road, and London, which the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow mentioned. This country’s life sciences sector is envied. The Government have committed to supporting it through the life science industrial strategy, in which we have sought to address the challenges faced by the industry and provide an environment that encourages companies to start and grow. All large companies start somewhere, and the hon. Member for Nottingham North knows that in the incubators around Nottingham, Cambridge and even my constituency of Bury St Edmunds, lots of small firms are working on the most incredible things to help patients.

[Rushanara Ali]

Nobody doubts that innovation will thrive if there are proper frameworks and safeguards in place, but it is clear that, in a post-Brexit world, our Government will want to see more innovation in research and development and investment, and sometimes the choices will come into conflict. There will be a trade-off, and we must ask what is a greater priority. Frankly, in recent years, some of the narrative that we have heard from the Government has not inspired confidence. I am looking for a very clear message that public safety will be set in stone. It is not good enough for Ministers to give reassurance; it has to be set in stone. We have to have confidence that public safety will not be compromised in the interest of getting investment. That is necessary, but it should not come at the cost of public safety.

[Jo Churchill]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. The reason why the safety of human medicines is listed first is because safety is the paramount objective in everything.

In the life sciences industrial strategy, we have sought to address the challenges faced by the industry, provide an environment that helps companies to grow, and support collaboration between the NHS and industry better to adopt innovative treatments and technologies. Life science is one of the most productive and strategically important parts of the UK economy—it is worth more than £74 billion per annum—and we wish to cement our position as a world leader in that field to allow patients to benefit from cutting-edge treatments as soon as possible. The Bill is a key part of that, and it also keeps safety right at the top of the agenda. It is therefore right that, when we make regulations, the appropriate authority considers their impact and looks at whether they would constrain companies from seeking to bring new and innovative medicines or medical devices to market.

The concern of the hon. Member for Nottingham North is that the consideration of the UK’s attractiveness, if applied, would mean a reduction in regulation on the sector, such that safety concerns would arise. That is simply not the case. I appreciate that he would like clarity on how the attractiveness consideration would work in practice, and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire quizzed me about that too. The consideration would not mean reduced regulatory barriers to manufacturing, for example, as that would be to the detriment of patient safety. No! We have not sought to define attractiveness in the Bill, because the definition is as it is in ordinary language. There is no hidden or nefarious intent here. We want the UK to remain at the cutting edge of medical advancement, and that is done by recognising that the pharmaceutical industry benefits patients by making innovative therapies available through clinical trials and bringing them to market, or, indeed, collaborating in the event that expedited access to treatments is necessary.

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[Jo Churchill]

I understand the hon. Member’s passion for this area. As she said, she has tried to find every nook and cranny. I gently repeat that the Bill is not the right place for amendment 1, but I commit to writing to my Foreign and Commonwealth Office counterpart on this point and to exploring it further, if that would be of assistance to her. However, I say again that the Bill is not the vehicle for the amendment and I ask her to withdraw it.

[Rushanara Ali]

I welcome the Minister’s offer to write to the Foreign Office, and I commend in particular my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston for what she said. I have worked on human rights issues for other at-risk groups and there is a sense of concern about the position we may inadvertently find ourselves in. Will the Minister, in addition to writing to the Foreign Office, commit to ensuring that there is a review within Government to ensure that our safeguards are up to date? While I accept that the legislation is there, some gaps may need to be addressed and, if they cannot be addressed by the Bill, we need to find a way to assure ourselves that we have all the right safeguards in place. That will require a Health Department lead working with the Foreign Office and others.

[Jo Churchill]

As I said, I am willing to write to the Minister for Asia and the Pacific to explore this matter further, but I am afraid at this point that is all I can commit to.

Covid-19 Response

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, it is very important that the scheduled vaccination programme continues wherever possible, and we have protected it as much as possible. We must remember that, with the hope of a vaccine for coronavirus, so, too, will we have to redouble efforts to vaccinate children for MMR and for flu this autumn. Everybody will need to get a flu jab if they possibly can, and we will have more to say on that soon. It is really important that people vaccinate and that anybody who hears messages from anti-vaxxers stands up to them and says that what they say is wrong and harmful.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

There are reports that covid-19 test results are coming in some 96 hours after testing. In that time, health workers and their families are at risk of catching the virus. Will the Health Secretary confirm whether there are enough reagents, specifically in acute settings, to perform all covid-19 tests within 24 hours?

[Matt Hancock]

Obviously, being able to perform all tests within 24 hours would be a great success. We are trying, as much as possible, to shorten the amount of time it takes. The average time is much, much shorter than 96 hours, and I will write to the hon. Lady with an exact figure of the time that it takes in acute settings. It is much shorter than the time that she mentions. All test results under 24 hours would be great. Sometimes it is just a matter of minutes or hours depending on how busy the test centre is.

A& E Departments: Staffing

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My heart wants to sink every time I hear of any assaults on emergency workers. That is why I brought forward a private Member’s Bill a few years ago, which I know the hon. Member supported, and I wish the prosecuting authorities used it more frequently. Any attack on our emergency workers is an attack on all of us, because they are there to save our lives and protect us in our most difficult moments.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as our emergency service workers, NHS staff urgently need guaranteed accommodation near their workplace and food supplies, and that the Government need to make those practical things available to them immediately, along with PPE?

[Chris Bryant]

One of the things I have been so angry about over the past few days is the panic buying going on, with people virtually elbowing one another out of the way to get the last remaining courgette or tin of tomatoes. When I see that, I think to myself, what will happen when the poor person coming off their long shift at A&E at 8 or 10 o’clock at night finds that there is literally nothing left in the shop to buy? The person who was so greedy, hoarding and selfish will then turn up at A&E in two weeks’ time and be treated by somebody who was unable to get enough food. My fundamental premise is that we can only get through all this together, because in the end we achieve far more by our common endeavour than we do by going it alone.

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[Rushanara Ali]

Will the Minister give way?

[Helen Whately]

If the hon. Lady will let me, I will make a little progress, as I believe I have less than five minutes left.

We know that we must keep NHS staff safe, but we must also support them and their work. The Government are working with the NHS on a package of support for NHS staff to help them through the coming weeks and months, which includes guidance to their line managers; support for occupational health; and psychological and emotional support, because, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, they are facing extremely challenging times, and we are very aware of the emotional demands that will place on our frontline staff. I urge every NHS employer to be making sure that staff are getting food supplies—hot meals and hot drinks. Whatever NHS staff need to help them get through each day, they should be getting. The Government have committed to funding for health and social care to support us through the coronavirus. That funding should be being used and we should make sure that staff are being helped in every way that they can be.

[Rushanara Ali]

I just have a suggestion relating to NHS workers and overcrowded places. London has a lot of underused properties—empty properties owned by foreign investors. Will the Minister consider making sure that local authorities have powers to use those temporarily to house NHS workers who need to be able to be close to work? Will she make sure that there is a sense of urgency, because she is talking about weeks and months, but NHS workers in my constituency need the protective equipment now and many of them do not have it.

[Helen Whately]

The protective equipment is being distributed at pace and urgently. I talk of weeks and months because we should not think this situation we are coping with will last just a few days. We will need to support our NHS through these weeks and months. I know that NHS trusts are looking at the accommodation that their workforce will need. I wish to make the important point about the measures that the Government have been taking to make sure that the children of key workers, NHS staff and social care staff are included and are cared for at school, so that these staff do not have to worry about their children’s education. I also wish to thank each and every teacher and support worker who was at school today looking after children so that our NHS and social care staff can look after us.

Before coronavirus hit us, we had already committed to increasing the NHS workforce, particularly boosting the staff it needs in pressure points such as emergency departments. For instance, we have committed to funding an extra 1,500 undergraduate medical school places per year, which is a 25% increase. We are opening five new medical schools across England, often in areas that currently do not have medical training facilities, so we are going to be able to get doctors to the places that most need them. We have also committed to 50,000 more nurses in the NHS, and we are increasing the funding for nursing, midwifery and some allied health professional students studying at English universities to at least £5,000 per academic year, and up to £8,000 a year.

I would like to thank all Members for their contributions to this debate. The coronavirus outbreak is the biggest public health emergency in a generation. It calls for decisive action, at home and abroad, of the kind not normally seen in peacetime. I wish to end my remarks by again sending our country’s thanks and unending support to all our colleagues on the NHS and social care frontline tonight. It is they who will fight back this virus. It is they who are putting themselves in harm’s way to help our families. I know each and every Member of this House, and everyone across the country, will be eternally grateful to them for that. I make this commitment: we are there for you, the NHS staff, and we will do all that we can to support you at this most difficult time in our history.

Question put and agreed to.

Covid-19

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are making it constantly.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Coronavirus has already claimed the life of one of my constituents, and my thoughts are with his family. What action will the Secretary of State take to prevent the closure of the Mildmay Hospital in my constituency, which is much needed to relieve some of the pressure on the Royal London Hospital? Will the Secretary of State explain what action the Government will take to put restrictions on the increasing price hikes on the supply side of goods and on panic buying? Panic buying is understandable, given that the guidance is changing, but we need to get a grip on it to protect vulnerable and poor people in our constituencies.

[Matt Hancock]

We are looking at all those points. With respect to the last one, that is a matter that the Environment Secretary, who is responsible for the food supply, is looking at very closely. We are confident in the food supply of this country, even in the grip of this crisis, but we have to make sure that people behave responsibly in buying only what they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

There has been much discussion today of international recruitment, but alongside that we are committed to boosting our home-grown workforce, particularly to achieve our ambition of an extra 50,000 nurses in the NHS and 6,000 more GPs.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

At a time when the NHS is under pressure as never before because of coronavirus, does the Secretary of State agree that to close Mildmay Mission Hospital in my constituency would be an act of unbelievable folly? It is a specialist unit for people with HIV/AIDS, and to force those patients into the mainstream would endanger lives. Can he commit today to providing the much needed additional funding of £5 million a year to save this very important hospital, which is doing very important work?

[Edward Argar]

I welcome, as I am sure we all do, the huge advances in HIV/AIDS care and treatment in recent years. The hon. Member and her trust came to see me recently to discuss this case. Following that meeting, I understand that NHS England, the clinical commissioning group and others met the trust to discuss the issue and the way forward. That is the right forum in which to find the right way forward—a way forward driven by the clinical evidence of the right approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Just over 40% of all booked appointments take place on the same day with GPs. However, it is important to recognise that many patients will be appropriately booking ahead as part of the ongoing plan for long-term conditions. The new GP contract will see billions of pounds in extra investment for improved access to GPs, expanded services at local practices and longer appointments for patients who need them. NHS England is working with stakeholders and is undertaking a national review of access to general practice services.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

With more than 5 million people across England unable to book an appointment with a GP outside working hours, many of our constituents have had to wait two or three weeks to get an appointment. With the loss of 1,600 full-time GPs since 2015 and billions of pounds in cuts since 2010, does the Minister realise that the NHS is certainly not safe with the Conservative party, and that is what the British people think?

[Ms Dorries]

I simply do not recognise the scenario that the hon. Lady has just articulated. There is access to GP practices throughout England outside of working hours.

Health

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have made those resources available. The resources from the NHS to make PrEP available have been put forward. I find it deeply frustrating that in many areas that has not yet been delivered by local councils. We are working with local councils and urging them to take up the offer that is already available from the NHS. I totally understand and share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration. We are working to push local authorities to do this, but responsibility for public and sexual health services was transferred to local councils, as a result of a decision taken by this House. I am doing my part. I would love to work with him to ensure that it can actually be delivered on the ground because he is absolutely right that it is the right thing to do and the right direction to go in.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The objective fact is that the public health grant has gone down by £700 million between 2014-15 and 2019-20. If a person gets on the tube at Westminster station and travels to Whitechapel station in my constituency, average life expectancy drops by six months at every stop. That is the reality in constituencies such as mine. My appeal to the Secretary of State, if he is serious about tackling health inequalities, is to back local authorities with the resources they need.

[Matt Hancock]

The public health grant is of course an important part of this, but it is only one part. The overall funding of the NHS is rising by £33.9 billion, the first £6.2 billion of which came on stream last month. I understand the hon. Lady’s point. That is on the money. On the health inequalities, I entirely agree with her that they should be tackled. Doing so is at the heart of the NHS long-term plan. It is a vital task that we do not shirk. Indeed, we embrace it and are addressing it.

Let me turn to the details of the motion. While I care deeply about making sure that we have the best possible health in this nation and the strongest possible NHS—and we are prepared to put the resources in to see that happen—I also care about good governance of the nation. The way that we are run is one of the reasons this country has been strong over generations, and I believe that using the Humble Address to undermine the ability of experts, clinicians, and civil servants to give me the benefit of their frank and wise advice not only undermines me as Secretary of State, but makes it harder to make good decisions. I know the shadow Secretary of State sits on the Front Bench with revolutionaries, but I thought he was a grown-up. I do not know what his mentor, Lord Mandelson, would make of his posturing today. Of course, we will object to the motion and, if he searched the depths of his heart, he would too.

The hon. Gentleman has obviously had a missive from the Leader of the Opposition’s office—LOTO, as it is called—telling him to present the Humble Address, but it is not his style. I hope that we can get back to debating these issues on a proper motion in the future. I respect and like the hon. Gentleman: he is a really nice guy. If he had asked for the information directly—perhaps he could have sent me a message on the app—

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[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The health of the population should be the Government’s and Parliament’s highest priority. From the times of the ancient civilisations, enlightened authorities have sought to prevent disease, provide clean water and sanitation, and enable citizens to live long, healthy lives. In the UK, we have a long history of interventions to improve the health of the nation, from the great sanitation projects in the Victorian era, to the Clean Air Acts, slum clearances and inoculation programmes in the 20th century, and the public smoking ban in the 21st century. Of course, all of that was accelerated with the establishment of the national health service, yet in these first decades of our new century it is clear that something is going seriously wrong.

With all our medical and scientific advances, surely we should have ended preventable disease, enabled many more years of healthy life, and witnessed ever-lengthening life expectancies. But we know that the opposite is true, as many right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out. We face an explosion of obesity and obesity-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. We are in the depths of a mental health crisis, with ever-growing demand for ever-diminishing mental health services. Society faces the health risks from smoking, alcohol and drug misuse, and sexually transmitted diseases.

The thing that should make us really angry is the stark difference in health and life expectancy between rich and poor. These inequalities in health are a terrible scar on our society, no matter which side of the House we are on. How can we fail to be ashamed when a person’s life expectancy depends largely on their postcode and income, and what their parents did for a living? There are many incredibly positive things in my constituency, including some of the most improved schools, which have not only improved opportunity and life chances but played a role in tackling health inequality and improving wellbeing. I pay tribute to all the health professionals and community workers in the clinical commissioning group, including its chair Sam Everington and others, who have led the way on tackling the public health challenge, but the reality is that despite all their work my constituents face massive health inequalities.

With every tube stop between Westminster station and Whitechapel station, people’s life expectancy goes down by six months. That is a scandal. Tower Hamlets has the shortest life expectancy of all London boroughs, with men living on average five years less than men in Kensington and Chelsea. We have the 12th highest prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, major challenges with obesity among children, and high levels of smoking, HIV, sexually transmitted infections and drug addiction. Even though many of my constituents abstain from alcohol, Tower Hamlets unfortunately has the seventh highest number of people with alcohol dependency.

In 2017, Sir Michael Marmot warned that the historic rises in life expectancy—the result of centuries of improvements—had ground to a halt. It is almost beyond belief that centuries of progress should end on our watch. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned of some of the challenges, including around suicide, drug overdose and alcohol-related liver diseases, which are affecting middle-aged men throughout England. Given the scale of the challenge and the dangers of going backwards, what are Ministers doing about this? We would think they would be investing in the kinds of programmes that help to tackle the public health emergency, but instead we see significant funding cuts, as many Members have said. In my borough, we have lost £3 million since 2015-16—in one of the areas with the highest levels of deprivation and child poverty in the country.

We need Government investment to tackle the public health challenge. Otherwise, all the Government’s investment in the national health service will be undermined, as many have pointed out, and the Government will be missing a trick. We should in this debate be unified on the need to tackle the public health challenge in all our constituencies. Ministers talk about cross-party working, so my appeal to them is that they put that to the test and put in the investment to support local agencies, local authorities and health professionals. Let us deal with this appalling challenge by working together, because it is desperately needed.

Acquired Brain Injury

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

A great friend of mine suffered a brain aneurysm, and she may not have survived were it not for the Royal London Hospital and its support. My hon. Friend makes a good point about the need for that wider specialism in other hospitals and for transition support to provide much-needed rehabilitation.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If there is one thing that I have learnt from my experience of melanoma this year—incidentally, the thing on the back of my head is not a brain injury; I am still getting over the melanoma being cut out—it is that I, as the patient, wanted to go to the real expert, and I would travel as far as I needed to do that. Sometimes in politics it is easy to join the bandwagon when people say, “No, everything’s got to be intensely local,” but the decision on major trauma centres was a brave one taken by this Government. The Conservatives are not a party that I support, but it was the right decision for saving people’s lives. We can now save people’s quality of life as well.

The APPG also called for proper return-to-school plans for every child with acquired brain injury, training for teachers, prison officers and benefits assessors, and proper protocols shared across all sports for concussion in sport.

The effects of a brain injury can be profound. Some sufferers have severely impaired physical mobility, and there can be major behavioural challenges. I have heard of patients losing all sense of inhibition, suddenly becoming tactless, using crude and abusive language, divulging private information and becoming impulsive, irritable and aggressive; or, on the opposite side, completely passive, unresponsive and lacking initiative. Others become obsessive, repeatedly checking their possessions or becoming profoundly self-centred.

Social Media and Health

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the work that the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has done in this area, both when I was Culture Secretary and since. Its work and the approach it has taken are groundbreaking, and that has played a part in the change in attitudes that we have seen from the social companies, which at least now accept that it is their responsibility, as well as the principle that they have a duty of care to people on their sites.

As my hon. Friend says, there is clearly an awful lot to do to get to where we need to be. If we step back from this whole question, the technology that has brought about social media companies is still relatively new; it is only 15 or 20 years old. Around the world, the way in which society has responded to it has not yet matured. The good social media companies now get the fact that they have such an impact on society that a regulatory framework is necessary, and in fact have welcomed the White Paper that we introduced as an approach that could be replicated around the world. My hon. Friend is quite right that, once one country or jurisdiction gets this right, it will be taken as a model elsewhere, so that, ultimately, the power of this amazing new way in which we communicate—by God, Mr Speaker, in this House we all use it—can be for the good, and we can mitigate all the downsides that come with it.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, but for too long internet companies have been too slow to protect children from the risks of suicide and other harms such as online hate and the threat of far-right and religious extremists and terrorists. He will be aware that, internationally, companies such as Facebook have fallen very short and were accused by the United Nations of playing a “determining role” in the genocide in Burma. This is a massive problem, and it is right that Britain should lead the way. Is he speaking to his counterparts in other Departments? Will he make sure that the legislation actually ensures that companies are responsible for content, as well as ensuring that there are strong, large fines if they continue to fail?

[Matt Hancock]

We have proposed fines as called for by the hon. Lady, and of course this is a cross-Government effort. My responsibilities are the health impacts, but technology has an impact right across the board, including on the quality of debate in our democracy, which is a Cabinet Office issue, and with regard to terrorism content, which is a Home Office issue. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport leads across the board and the Prime Minister herself has led global debates on this. The hon. Lady is quite right to point out that there is a broad range of impacts, and we work together to tackle them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

The figure on unmet care needs comes from an Age UK analysis. I am meeting Age UK to go through its recent report, but we do not accept that analysis because the Care Act 2014, which had cross-party support, set statutory consistent definitions for what care councils have to provide. It is illegal for that not to be met, and our follow-up work with the Local Government Association has indicated that it is being met. Furthermore, we have put in a 17% increase over the next three years.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the Government’s effectiveness in tackling childhood obesity in the inner cities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)]

Our childhood obesity plan includes a number of measures, such as the soft drinks industry levy, reformulation and school-based interventions, that will help all children, including those in inner-city communities. We will monitor progress carefully, including through the national child measurement programme. We will routinely publish developments on all key measurements for the programme, but it stands to reason that those who are most in need will benefit most from these interventions.

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but it remains the case that childhood obesity is twice as high in deprived areas as it is in more affluent areas. In Tower Hamlets, 20% of children are obese and a third are overweight. What will the Government do to reduce childhood obesity and when will the plan be published?