Cass Review

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, my gratitude to Dr Cass is that the report has given the rest of us the strength to challenge something that we knew was irredeemably harmful. I have two questions for the Government. First, will they remind the NHS of the law? Gillick competence—I am abbreviating it—states that:

“Children under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they’re believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what’s involved in their treatment”.


It is simply impossible for any child under the age of 16 to understand what is meant by sex change or puberty delay. They cannot get their heads around it or possibly comprehend what it will mean for them in future, so Gillick competence has to be remembered.

Secondly, will the Government also remind the NHS that young people and others are confused and possibly endangered by the ridiculous use of phrases saying that “people who have ovaries” or “people who have cervixes” should come forward for treatment and so on? Can we please restore the word woman, or indeed girl, when it comes to medical treatment?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

To take the second point first—it was also made by the noble Baroness opposite—that is absolutely right; it can be a real danger. People with English as a second language might not understand that a “person with ovaries” refers to them. It needs to be very clear. It is fundamental that the first description has to be “male” or “female”; you can then put additional parentheses after that.

The noble Baroness’s first point is exactly right. Until young people are through the age of puberty and its effects, they are not in a real position to make up their own minds. That does not mean that they should not be supported during that process, but it does mean that we should not be doing anything irreversible.

Pandemic Preparedness

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their state of preparedness for the next pandemic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Markham) (Con)]

The Government continue to plan and prepare for a range of pandemic and emerging infectious disease scenarios. These include respiratory diseases such as flu and diseases spread by contact, vector-borne or through oral transmission. This built on lessons learned through Covid-19. We are working with partners to strengthen our pandemic preparedness and to build a flexible and scalable response that can be adapted to any threat that the health and social care system faces.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, that is not very reassuring. With all due respect to my noble and learned friend Lady Hallett, the remit that she has been handed is too wide, too deep, too long and too expensive, not least due to the lawyers. It seems to be looking backwards rather than forwards. We do not need to know who said what to whom in the middle of the night a few years ago; we need to know whether we have innovative vaccine labs, ventilators, the right medical staff, preparedness with PPE, supply lines and so on. I suggest to the Minister that either my noble and learned friend’s remit be cut down or he set up a quick and short inquiry, looking forward to the next pandemic, which could be with us within months. Sweden managed its inquiry in two years. This one will take too long.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I totally agree with the noble Baroness. What I am interested in as a Health Minister is what lessons we can learn so that we are better prepared next time round. My understanding is that stage 1 is going to be reported in early summer, and that should give us some of those findings. I completely agree that that is what really matters.

King’s Speech

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the Holocaust Memorial Bill has been carried over from the previous Session. I speak with a heavy heart. Since the brutal mass slaughter undertaken by Hamas against innocent communities in Israel, there has been a worldwide outbreak of anti-Semitism, not least in this country. On our streets, people fear for their safety as bloodcurdling mobs call for jihad and the elimination of 7 million Jews in Israel and others around the world. We know that “from the river to the sea” means the complete elimination of Israel, because the presence of Jews in the Middle East has never been accepted by their neighbours, who killed, dispossessed and expelled Jews from nearly all Middle Eastern countries in the 1940s.

Among the worst offenders have been in our universities. At Nottingham Trent, Jewish freshers were attacked; at Bristol, the slogan is “Death to Zionists”; at Edinburgh people say “Heil Hitler” and at UCL “Intifada until victory”. I remind the House that last year the president of the National Union of Students was sacked for anti-Semitism. The same is true of some of our schools. These young people have had compulsory Holocaust education, but the only result seems to be that if they want to upset Jews then they resort to swastikas and references to gas and crematoria. They know nothing of modern Jews or Israel because they have been taught only that Jews are victims and that it was all the fault of the Nazis.

The late and much missed Lord Jonathan Sacks said of anti-Semitism: “In the past they hated us for our religion; then they hated us for our race; and now they hate our one and only state, our safe haven, Israel”. The old anti-Semitic slurs of the past have transferred themselves seamlessly to attacks on Israel, anti-Semitism dressed up as anti-Zionism.

In this country we have the National Holocaust Centre in Newark, the Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield, the Holocaust Galleries at the Imperial War Museum, the Kindertransport Memorial at Liverpool Street and others in Hyde Park, Harwich and Swanage. We have Holocaust Memorial Day, Kristallnacht commemoration and outstanding Holocaust education centres at the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre, the British Library’s “Voices of the Holocaust”, the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Hull History Centre. Depending on how you count, there could be as many as 80 museums and collections.

What have they achieved? The history of the Holocaust is well documented and ongoing, for example in the Channel Islands, and the memories of the survivors are recorded. What is missing is the link to Jews today and their homeland and safe haven of Israel. Holocaust memorialisation tends to package up that genocide and consign Jew hatred to the past—nothing to do with us today and no mention of how the survivors went on to establish the state of Israel. In Britain, those memorials are designed to project Britain as a liberal democracy where nothing like that can happen and where all genocides are equally awful and in the past—Kosovo, Darfur, Rwanda and so on.

The proposed memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens will continue this, despite what we see in the streets right now. Its location is built on a false premise. It will fail to educate people about Israel and anti-Semitism today. I have watched politicians who are arch-enemies of Israel’s existence queuing up to sign the remembrance day book here in Parliament. Hypocrisy is too mild a word. As the American Dara Horn said, everyone loves dead Jews—the living, not so much.

Not only that, but to spend £138 million on a memorial to the dead of various genocides when the one and only Jewish museum in London has closed for lack of funds is a disgrace. We could and should have a splendid Jewish museum in central London dealing with the entire history of Jews in this country over a thousand years, triumph and tragedy, and with the Holocaust in context, as Lord Sacks wanted. The learning centre planned for here is a shallow specimen, ironically to be created by digging down two storeys at huge cost in funds and to the environment.

Given the protests in London recently, it will be a focus for graffiti and worse in no time. That is not a reason not to build it, but, if it is built, parliamentarians must prepare themselves for barriers and armed guards there, as well as disturbances and defacement. The children in the playground there will bear the brunt of it. How tin-eared is it to place a playground and café on top of a memorial to children who had no childhood and who starved to death? Would it be appropriate to have a café and playground right by the Cenotaph?

It is well meaning, but naive and misguided to go ahead with this. It will not improve the situation for the persecuted Jews of today. It will enable the sponsors to say, “Look what we have done for you. No more complaints please; it is all sorted”. It will provide a photo backdrop for politicians who like to say that they do not have a racist bone in their bodies—and give them carte blanche to join the Israel-haters.

I plead with those behind the Bill to educate themselves before pretending to educate others. Abandon the design for the current memorial, which is meaningless; it has been called a giant toast rack. It was designed by an architect who is now in disgrace for his sexual assaults and has been dropped by his clients. How could one stand in reverence before such a monument? Instead, we could have a figurative memorial that means something, like the one at Liverpool Station, or the Warsaw ghetto. We could have a new Jewish museum that includes the Holocaust and its impact on Britain. We could have all that without the expense and legislation before us, which will result in the spoiling of the only decent green space near us without any compensating features. I urge noble Lords as strongly as I can to change course on this.

Gametes and Embryos: Storage Limit

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the rapid implementation of their decision to extend the storage limit for gametes and embryos.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

The department has been working with the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, to ensure that it gets a chance to input into how the new scheme is implemented and that the fertility sector is properly prepared for any future legislative changes. The department has just completed a focused technical consultation that informs the final policy detail for certain categories of storage. We will bring forward legislation to enact the new policy when parliamentary time allows.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of the HFEA. For years, there has been disquiet over the arbitrary 10-year storage period for frozen eggs, which has forced women to make less than optimal decisions about their careers and fertility. My Bill to extend the period was in 2019 and the Government’s consultation closed in May 2020. In September 2021, the Government rightly responded that the period should be extended to 55 years, but that has not happened yet. Thousands of women know that the period will be extended but face the misery of seeing their eggs destroyed because it has not yet happened. The two-year pandemic extension will soon expire. Will the Government commit to making that change now by an amendment to the Health and Care Bill or by regulation? Will they put a moratorium on the destruction of any frozen eggs right away?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government are still considering the responses from the technical consultation in terms of extension of storage, but as I said previously, and I hope the noble Baroness will be assured by this, we hope to bring forward legislation to enact a new policy when parliamentary time allows. If an amendment is laid, we will give it due consideration.

Covid-19: Vaccines

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, how can the Minister overcome the reported suspicion of the Covid vaccines among ethnic minorities and, of course, the anti-vaxxers, no doubt fuelled by President Macron’s unfounded attack on the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right to be concerned, but I can report from the front line that concerns about the impact of anti-vaxxers have not materialised in a huge impact on confidence. I pay enormous tribute to all those in civic society and religious groups in all parts of Britain who have done a tremendous job of ensuring that groups and communities who might once have been suspicious of a vaccine supplied by the British Government have instead turned up in droves. I am extremely confident that the message has got across: this is a safe vaccine, everyone who qualifies should take it, and you should trust the Government and the NHS to supply it.

Covid-19: Vaccine

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evidence they have that delaying a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will not (1) diminish its effectiveness, or (2) cause further mutations in the virus.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, the views of the MHRA and the JCVI, based on the data submitted from extensive clinical trials, is very clear: a single dose gives very high protection from the virus 10 days after the first dose. A second vaccine dose is important to sustain that protection and extend its duration. Of course, it makes sense to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible to protect their lives and safeguard the NHS, which is why we take the approach that we have.

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, today we are discussing the safety of medicines. Only moments ago, the Minister was emphasising just how important that is. Yet in delaying a second dose, the whole country is being treated as an experiment. Pfizer has said that the trial of the vaccine was on participants who received a second dose within three to four weeks. There is no data, it said, to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days. The WHO also says that there is no scientific evidence supporting the delay beyond six weeks. No other country is doing it. The UK is taking a gamble that risks fostering vaccine-resistant forms of the virus. Will the Minister mitigate the risks and ensure that a second dose is given at 21 days, until there is independent scientific advice and evidence for the delay?

Covid-19: NHS Application

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Protect Scotland app has delivered huge value for the Scottish people. It has guided many to isolate and it has been downloaded a very large number of times. We seek to get the UK app and the Scottish app working together in the second version. We have learned an enormous amount by collaborating with Scottish colleagues and have gained enormous value from their learnings.

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

Does the Minister agree that the purpose of tracing is defeated if millions of people cannot download the app because their phones are a few years old, even models as recent as those from 2018? I discovered this and felt obliged to spend a great deal of money upgrading and took the risk of travelling to a phone shop and spending an hour there doing this. However, millions will not, especially elderly people and those who live in poorer, crowded areas. What can be done for the people who cannot download the app?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I greatly regret that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, had to make that journey. That is a troubling thing for her to have had to do. I reassure her that 89% of the population have phones whose hardware and software is compatible. Even on today’s numbers, one-third of the 16-plus population of Britain has the app on their phone. This number is high enough to make the app extremely effective; it is an enormous penetration. While this does not account for absolutely everyone, it is terrific progress and we will build on that success.

Draft Human Tissue (Permitted Material: Exceptions) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I have another question about the section raised a moment ago by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. The Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019 inserts the following into the Human Tissue Act:

“The person concerned is to be deemed”—


for the purposes of another subsection—

“to have consented to the activity unless a person who stood in a qualifying relationship to the person concerned immediately before death provides information that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the person concerned would not have consented,”

“reasonable” being a word much loved by lawyers. I spoke about this at Second Reading of the organ donation Bill in 2018. I raised then the issue of donation by members of faiths that are, in general, opposed to organ donation. There has been much discussion of this issue. The codes of practice emphasise the sensitivity surrounding this and encourage discussion with the family. There remains an ambiguity, in relation to which I would like the Minister’s clarification. The then Minister in 2018, the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, said at the conclusion of Second Reading that

“no family will be forced to agree with the donation if they are strongly opposed to it,”—[Official Report, 23/11/18; col. 426.]

even when the deceased had expressly wished to be a donor. Yet the code of practice says that where the family disagrees with the deceased’s wish to donate, the specialist nurse should explore any issues raised by the family and support them to address their concerns.

Where indicated, the nurse can facilitate consultation with religious and non-religious leaders to provide counsel or clarification on donation. This is in paragraph 37 of revised Code of Practice A. I am not sure what this means or how the nurse can come to an acceptable conclusion in what must inevitably be a distressing and hurried period.

Judaism puts the saving of life as a priority, but significant elements within it believe that the body should not be interfered with. Is it to be the case that, where the family disagrees with the deceased’s wish to donate, or where he or she has made no declaration and is deemed to consent, the family will have to show that the deceased was expressly against donation, even though he or she had made no declaration to that effect? In other words, will the onus be on the family to prove that the deceased would definitely not have wanted to donate, or is it the other way around—that the presumption is in favour of donation and the nurse is to help the family come to terms with it? Need the family only object, full stop, to prevent donation? The code refers to reasonable information that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the deceased would not have wanted to donate, but this does not answer the question. There seems to be a different level of proof of objection, depending on whether the deceased made no declaration or wanted to donate.

I add, on accepted materials and from my experience as chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, that few actions can be more unethical than the removal without express consent of a person’s reproductive tissues—eggs, sperm and embryos. For that to be contemplated is not, like the rest of this law, a life saver or for medical purposes, but to satisfy the wish for a child by another party. It is illegal and it is quite right that this is spelled out, and that the distinct provisions on donation of gametes are in separate legislation. I hope this is the culmination of a long process directed towards increasing the availability of organs for transplantation. It is very welcome.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the guiding principles of our health service are compassion, healing, prevention and equality. Every patient has their own concerns; all are to be treated as valuable individuals and not as units of whom we disapprove or with whom we have no empathy. Therefore, I again urge the Minister to find a way to show compassion and equality to a small but growing group of women who have frozen their eggs—a lifeline for women whose natural fertility is beginning to fade but who have failed to find a partner.

Typically, such women freeze their eggs in their early 30s, and the law is that they can be kept for only 10 years. Therefore, in their early 40s, when they might well think that the last possible chances of natural conception are ending, they will have to destroy those perfectly viable eggs. There was no logical reason for setting the 10-year limit. More than 1,000 women do this every year now, and the freezing technique has improved. The cost of egg removal starts at about £4,000, and then the woman has to pay whatever the clinic asks annually for storage—and of course she cannot refuse. At the end of this expensive journey, costing £7,000 to £8,000, there may be nothing except, to her, a mini death.

We should not condemn women who freeze their eggs because they cannot find a father for their longed-for baby. We should be sympathetic. The pressures on women when the biological clock is ticking are such that their psychological health is affected, and that is likely to make the forming of a permanent relationship even more difficult. No woman should be forced into the mindset of putting instant pressure on a new manfriend to procreate; or to settle for Mr Average or Mr He-Will-Do, rather than Mr Right, not least because such a man might not be the one to stick around and be a good father. Extending the time limit would actually lead to healthier practices, for a woman might then freeze her eggs in her 20s, when they are even more viable, rather than waiting until her 30s. Moreover, if her eggs have to be destroyed after 10 years, she may well resort to a donated egg, with the extra complications in that.

It has been argued that older motherhood is not a good idea and that a short storage period forces women to make up their minds. The law, however, lays down no upper age limit for the treatment of women. The law says that the clinician considering treating her should take into account the welfare of the potential baby and whether it will receive supportive parenting, thus each patient would be considered on the basis of her age, and there are plenty of births to over-40s these days. That is not to mention the lack of public disapproval of old men, such as the wrinkly old popstars on their fifth wife, whose new fatherhood is regularly celebrated in the media. It is not, therefore, for us or anyone involved to try to impose an artificial upper age limit on female procreation.

Another argument is that storage of eggs will increase to unmanageable proportions, but in the 40 years since IVF started, the number of embryos stored has increased by a huge amount without any trouble. Rules for storage for people who are, or are likely to become, prematurely infertile should be amended very slightly in order to accommodate the needs of women who have frozen their eggs. My Private Member’s Bill, about to be introduced, asks simply for consultation and suggests that where a woman has not yet completed her family—in her view, confirmed by a medical practitioner—the eggs should be stored for longer; that period could be confirmed by consultation, or could be 20 years, which really would be reasonable.

Women need the same ability as men to balance career aspirations and family- building. Extended storage gives them just this. They need a law that respects their human rights to a private life and to found a family. They need to be free of discrimination, for men can usually store their sperm for 55 years. Litigation about the human rights elements may take place, but how much more generous it would be for the department to consult and be kind.

A change would mean a great deal to many women and would have a profound and beneficial psychological effect on the way they lead their lives. Surely the Minister cannot deny the strength of this appeal to her better nature and that of her department. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Progress Educational Trust and the British Fertility Society—in fact, the entire profession—have all written to her to urge consultation. The profession and the patients are united in calling for this. In these troubled times, a gesture of kindness would be profoundly welcome.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology: Frozen Eggs Storage

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to review the compliance with human rights law of the 10-year limit for storing frozen eggs in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as former chair of the HFEA.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government reviewed all the provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 in 2006-07, which led to the 2008 Act and associated regulations, including the 2009 storage regulations. I have been informed that the Government have no plans to formally review the relevant provisions in the Act on gamete storage at this stage. The department’s legal advice is that the current law appears to be compatible with the relevant human rights law.

[Baroness Deech]

Does the Minister appreciate that this lack of compassion and misunderstanding of the law is going to bring defeat in the courts soon? The storage period of 10 years for frozen eggs was set when little was known about the science, so women either exercise that option when they are at the best age—say, 25—and have to have them destroyed at 35, when really needed; or wait until a less optimal age and still have to have them destroyed when most needed, the entire exercise having cost thousands of pounds. Will the Government not enact a simple regulatory change, costing nothing, which will end this interference with private and family life under human rights law—and the indirect discrimination—and give hope to thousands of women?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I acknowledge that there have been societal changes which have led to women having children later, and technological advances in fertility treatments and freezing. However, I do not agree that the regulatory route that the noble Baroness proposes would be appropriate, as it was not envisaged at the time of the legislation. The strength of this regulation is that it had clinical, parliamentary and public support; given that this is such sensitive legislation, I hope we can continue that going forward. That is why the Government and I believe that continuing with primary legislation is appropriate.