Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests. I want to raise two issues: Primodos, which is part of the investigation conducted by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege; and the violation of human rights in the trading and misuse of organs and human tissue, referred to earlier by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover.

The Minister knows how much I admire the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, but I reiterate my whole hearted support for her report and recommendations, and I place again on record my admiration for the sensitive way in which she collected evidence, dealt with the many people who were affected by these scandals and brought forward these admirable recommendations. Parliament must now ensure that the report does not gather dust. The Royal College of Surgeons rightly draws attention to the review’s recommendation of a patient safety commissioner, as referred to earlier, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what we are going to do about that.

It is over 10 years since I first questioned Ministers about Primodos after a man called Karl Murphy came to my university office and showed me the disabilities with which he has had to live all his life. Following the recent Sky TV documentary, he emailed me last week saying:

“the lies and deceit I have seen regarding this drug is an utter disgrace … I really do hope that the Government and Bayer have some respect and understanding of what these families are going through.”

The redoubtable Marie Lyon has refused over all these years to let this scandal be swept under the carpet, and I am glad that the Minister heard from her first-hand only yesterday. She made a telling point to me that in appointing Stephen Lightfoot, an ex-director of Bayer, as the new chair of the MHRA, they have clearly learned absolutely nothing about conflicts of interest and public perception and confidence. In the light of such appointments and reports of five scientists walking out of a task force for back pain after finding out that a briefing paper was funded by the drug company Grünenthal, perhaps the Minister will say what the Government will be doing to police conflicts of interest and the suppression or manipulation of data.

If Primodos teaches us anything, it is the importance of the independent assessment and scrutiny of all clinical trials. But, like others, I would like to see the Bill tackle the misuse of human tissue and organs. In the letter sent yesterday by the Minister, he says the

“government takes these allegations seriously and we continue to monitor all available evidence”,

but monitoring is simply not enough.

Two years ago, in August 2018, along with Professor Jo Martin, the president of the Royal College of Pathologists, I wrote to the Times after the NEC in Birmingham hosted the exhibition referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. It was called “Real Bodies” and from the company Imagine Exhibitions. The exhibition consisted of human corpses and body parts. It advertised those exhibits as

“real human specimens that have been respectfully preserved”.

They were categorised as “unclaimed bodies”, with no relatives to identify them. As we heard, in advance of the American equivalent of that exhibition it was stated in a disclaimer —after a settlement with the New York State Attorney-General—that these human remains could be those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons. Imagine Exhibitions admitted that there was no documentation to prove the identities of the cadavers, yet they were permitted to enter the UK to be put on public display for commercial gain. Human tissue from abroad has no consent or traceability requirements to enter the UK, nor do we prohibit commercial gain. However, we should do and this Bill gives us the opportunity to do it.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the situation in Leicester. There is concern here in the north-west about the situation in Blackburn. I hope he will refer in his reply to local restrictions.

I want to underline the concerns raised about scrutiny. Under the cover of Covid, we are in increasingly grave danger of legitimising these kinds of proceedings and putting a thin veneer of respectability on the actions of the Government. The Minister’s department should carefully study this week’s critical report by the Delegated Powers Committee on its approach to the new Medicines and Medical Devices Bill. By now he must surely be aware that parliamentarians are outraged by the failure to answer Parliamentary Questions, sometimes for months on end, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Harris.

These regulations, which significantly eased the lockdown from 4 July, have already been in effect for three weeks prior to this debate, so this is retrospective, simply going through the motions, with one-minute speeches that are inadequate to explore the implications for dissent and protest. The Commons has not even had that opportunity and has now risen for the Recess. This simply will not do.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I completely endorse the comments of my noble friend. To embellish his point, it has been very interesting to see through Covid how patients have had to track their own symptoms, take advice on 111 for themselves and, in millions of cases, look after themselves at home, possibly with telemedicine to support them. This may an inflection point in the attitude of many people to their health. I certainly welcome a revolution of patient power and putting patients first in our healthcare system.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, families and dedicated campaigners such as Marie Lyon have told the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests, of which I am vice-chairman, that they have unequivocal admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for compassionately understanding their pain and suffering and allowing them, for the first time in more than 50 years, to have hope. Does the Minister agree with the report’s conclusion that, when the first comprehensive study, in 1967, identified a link between congenital abnormalities and HPTs, Primodos should have been removed from the market and that this regulatory failure has seen justice delayed and denied? Will there now be an independent re-examination of the contested conclusions of the report of the expert working group? In implementing the Cumberlege recommendations without delay, what practical help and redress will be provided for families whose lives were irreparably blighted by Primodos?

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I completely share the view of the noble Lord and of the patient groups who have unequivocal admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, who has done the nation a great service with this report. As he knows, the Primodos case is subject to legal dispute, so I cannot comment on it from the Dispatch Box, but no one can read the report without feeling great disappointment that those hardships were suffered by those women. It is of enormous regret to us all.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the justification for not providing Parliament with a draft of these regulations, as is usual, has been

“the serious and imminent threat to public health”.

Notwithstanding that, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is right to say that our duty is to ask awkward questions and to scrutinise. I will use my three short minutes to do that.

Confusingly, while these regulations impose restrictions and fines for members of the public breaking the lockdown, a Cabinet Minister has said of Covid-19, “let it run hot”. Our Minister, who replies for the whole Government, says that it was not his department that said this, but which of these strategies—carefully cautious or “let it rip”—is the Government’s position? When will he publish the scientific evidence behind the use of that phrase?

The Care Quality Commission is to investigate whether hospitals, some here in the north of England, might have broken the law by sending patients with Covid-19 back to care homes, where more than a quarter of Covid deaths have occurred. Managers and staff were not told that the patients being discharged were infected, triggering new fatal outbreaks among other residents. Will the Minister confirm that, in doing this, the law was indeed broken? When do the Government anticipate that the CQC will publish its report? Will the findings be presented to Parliament?

Will the Minister confirm that levels of coronavirus infection are probably at least five times higher among hospital and care home staff than in the wider population —I declare an interest in that one of my sons is an A&E doctor working in a hospital with Covid patients—and that coronavirus outbreaks in care homes are now leaking back into the community and driving the epidemic? Sir Ian Diamond, the head of the Office for National Statistics, says that the R number, referred to earlier by the noble Lord,

“is driven by the epidemic in care homes”.

Will these regulations be used to stop carers visiting multiple care facilities? If so, what thought is being given to the care needs of residents and ensuring that staff who are infected are properly isolated?

I have written to the Minister about the importance of giving public health officers and local councils greater control over tackling the outbreak in their communities. Sir David King, the former Chief Scientific Adviser, says this will be the only way to contain new peaks. Does the Minister agree? I also hope that the Minister agrees that the need for a national care service, locally administered but with central oversight, on a par with the National Health Service and with more than Cinderella status, is now self-evident and long overdue.

Covid-19: Social Care Services

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for initiating today’s important debate.

Earlier this month I drew the Minister’s attention to the appalling death toll at Wavertree’s Oak Springs Care Home in Liverpool, where 16 people have died. For grieving loved ones and for the people who care for them, deaths in care homes are diminished when out of sight means out of mind. Even with a carer at your deathbed, it is a devastating and harrowing way to end your life in isolation. Surely more can be done to enable loved ones to visit and, where requested, to provide spiritual accompaniment, the sacraments and ministry, and for the skills of hospices and palliative care to be urgently made more widely available.

Carers have expressed concern to me—which I share—that the Government have said, in relation to the virus, “Let it run hot.” Is that still being said? Who authorised letters sent by GPs to care homes stating that their residents, including adults with learning disabilities, would be unlikely to be offered ventilation? It is impossible to say in advance that such treatment would not be appropriate or beneficial.

As we heard last week from the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, deaths in care homes have quadrupled. The Financial Times yesterday estimated that some 10,000 have died of coronavirus in our care homes, while this morning the Daily Telegraph said it believed that the rate of attrition is about 400 every day. We have also learned that in Europe, half of all deaths have occurred in care homes. Meanwhile, only 25% of care workers have been able to access tests. Taking up a point made just a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, when will care homes be provided with adequate supplies of PPE and their staff routinely and regularly tested for the coronavirus? Without such tests, carers are having to self-isolate because they develop symptoms and do not want to risk killing the people they care for. No one can say that we did not know what we were facing.

Weeks ago, in Italy, it was said that the elderly in care were facing a massacre while from Spain there came deeply shocking reports of the corpses of elderly people being found in all but abandoned care homes. Given what we knew about this terrible unfolding tragedy, why were our care homes not locked down sooner, PPE not sent in immediately and tests not provided for all? Andrea Lyon, the manager of the Oak Springs Care Home, has said that the Government’s plans

“should have been ready to be actioned immediately, not three weeks down the line. I had to take care of my residents with less than 50% of my staff because the government didn’t have their action plan ready. It makes me very angry.”

That anger will have its day during an inevitable public inquiry, but if any good is to come out of this rupture in our equilibrium, there will need to be radical and fundamental change in everything from our supply chain resilience to national self-sufficiency, inequality and social solidarity. What the deaths in our care homes have made abundantly clear is that, alongside our National Health Service, we need a national care service. If a national care service emerged from the wreckage of Covid-19, it would represent a gain among so much loss comparable to the gain of the National Health Service in 1945.

Wuhan Novel Coronavirus: UK Citizens

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

My noble friend has raised an important point. While the UK is one of the first countries outside China to have developed a prototype laboratory test for this novel disease, there is as yet no vaccine. The WHO is co-ordinating the research effort in this area and is producing an R&D road map. As a nation we are actively involved in this because we have particular capabilities here. We will be contributing to a co-ordinated global effort not only to improve the diagnostics but to develop vaccine capabilities.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the Minister seen the report this morning from the AFP saying that Russia has closed its borders with China? Does that not add to the need for the World Health Organization to declare this a world health emergency? Are we in discussions with it about that?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I think I have already made the point that we are in constant dialogue with the World Health Organization regarding all aspects of the response to this outbreak. That dialogue includes the declaration of a PHEIC, which would include a number of different elements, and the organisation is meeting on that today.