Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 3rd November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 141 and 143, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

This Bill is a world-leading piece of public health legislation. It is comprehensive in the powers it takes to regulate tobacco products; flexible; and, we hope, future-proof. This subject is dear to my heart because my father died of lung cancer, having been a lifelong smoker since he started at the age of 12; my older sister died at 67, also of lung cancer. So smoking has had a profound effect on my family, as it has for so many across the Committee.

The flagship policy of raising the age of sale every year is, as we know, projected to reduce smoking rates among 14 to 30 year-olds to zero by 2050. That is an extraordinary achievement in our sights. However, there is a real risk that the Bill’s very success may lead to the perception that the job is done. We must not be complacent. Instead, we should ensure that we use the powers in this Bill to continue pressing every lever available in the fight against tobacco. I just mention that my father told me that, when he was 12, he was not looking at packets of cigarettes but was being offered single cigarettes.

One such opportunity for us lies in the introduction of health warnings on individual cigarettes, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others have recommended in these amendments. As the noble Lord outlined, this measure has already been implemented in Canada; it represents a practical and, potentially, powerful next step. As the noble Lord said, we know that the design of cigarettes affects how they are perceived; and that this can act as a form of marketing. Research shows that slim or thin cigarettes tend to be more appealing to women, while using white paper for cigarettes implies cleanliness and purity. Studies have also shown that the little golden ribbon that marks the start of the filter means that a cigarette is perceived as being more attractive, of a higher quality and better tasting than those without.

Evidence from Canada, which the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned, has shown that cigarettes without health warnings are perceived as less harmful than those carrying them. Dissuasive—a word I have only recently learned—cigarettes help, therefore, to align consumer perception more closely with the reality of the serious harms caused by smoking. Alongside printed warnings, it may also be worth exploring whether changes in cigarette colour and removing that little gold band could enhance this further.

I anticipate that my noble friend the Minister may say that the powers to introduce dissuasive cigarettes already exist in the Bill; and that a specific amendment is therefore unnecessary. I accept that point. However, I know that noble Lords are keen to hear more from the Government about how the range of powers in this Bill may be used in future; this feels like a fruitful area. A mechanism for outlining this could be publishing a five-year tobacco strategy, setting out how and when the Government intend to use the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and what targets are being set for future smoking prevalence. This will provide welcome clarity and vision, although I understand that my noble friend the Minister has already ruled out publicly publishing a strategy.

New data on smoking prevalence are due to be published tomorrow. I hope that they bring the good news that smoking rates continue to fall. Let us be clear, however, that this does not happen by chance: continued progress requires vigilance, ambition and creativity.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have never smoked. Having said that, I was for some 15 years in marketing and advertising. I do not think that the proposal here is at all practical. Cigarettes are very narrow so to read something in six-point type—which is what we are talking about—will be difficult and will have next to no effect at all. We have proper health warnings on the pack itself. We should concentrate on those and do more work on how well they are being communicated; that may take us further forward. Amendments 141 and 143 are, frankly, for the birds.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I worry that this group of amendments indicates that, in the name of public health, state overreach can get completely carried away with itself. I ask that we take a step back and consider the state’s ability to interfere in the manufacture and R&D of legal products, which is completely disruptive to those products’ manufacture and design; if the state is going to do that, there needs to be a very good reason.

I want to look at some of the reasons that we have heard in relation to either a ban on or alteration of the use of filters. There seems to be some confusion as to whether this is an environmentalist issue or a public health issue. Is it litter, or is it plastic? What is it? This is a debate about tobacco and vaping, so let me concentrate on that. There is an idea that one in four adults does not know that filters are not healthy. As a long-standing smoker, I have to say that, while there are arguments about filters, I have never heard a smoker say, “I use a filter because they’re healthy”. There are a whole range of discussions about the use of filters—

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly. I had the privilege, before being an MP, of working as a director of one of the major advertising agencies. We had, as clients, one of the tobacco companies. I have seen the tobacco industry for 50 years and have watched what has been happening where it has been responsible and where it has not. On the whole, the industry has been responsible. I look at the NHS and the work that was done jointly with the industry on education, particularly with general practitioners, which has worked. We all know it has worked. That is why there has been a steady decline thanks to our GPs being the voice, helped by the industry itself.

On statistics, I have an upper second in economics from the University of Cambridge, but HMRC does not have a track record—whether it is a Conservative or Labour Government—of being terribly good at its forecasting. I read that, according to the brief, HMRC says that the loss from illegal importation et cetera is £2.2 billion. We have the figures from at least as good an organisation, if not better: the ONS. Its consumer spending data suggests that the figure is over £6 billion. Either way, it is a huge figure for the current Chancellor to look at very seriously. In my judgment, it is clearly nearer the £6 billion figure than the £2.2 billion.

Lastly—nobody has raised this—have His Majesty’s Government looked at what Sweden did in terms of educating young people? The success of the Government in Sweden on their particular challenges has been the in-depth education of young people in that country about the evils of smoking. If His Majesty’s Government have not done that yet, might I suggest that it is high time they did. I believe the amendments before us are worth supporting. They may not be perfect, but they are certainly a lot better than the case history we have from Australia, which is really worrying.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I want to add a brief footnote to the excellent speeches from my noble friends Lord Bourne and Lord Bethell. This group of amendments is probably the most important one that confronts this Committee because it challenges a major plank underpinning the Government’s approach to this by challenging the generational ban. It is appropriate that this group contains not just the first of the marshalled amendments but the last.

A long time ago, I held the position of the Minister as a Health Minister. From 1979 to 1981, I was in charge of the negotiations with the tobacco industry—the Tobacco Advisory Council as it then was—and I adopted a fairly aggressive negotiation tactic. When I suggested that the health warnings should not be just on the packets but the cigarettes, they told me I could not do this as the ink was carcinogenic. In 1981, my tactics proved a little too much for the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who moved me to a less confrontational position on that issue.

I have listened with respect to the arguments made by my noble friends in favour of Amendment 1, which would basically substitute the generational ban with a ban for anyone under 21. As my noble friend Lord Howe said on Second Reading, these issues involve a balance between personal freedoms on one hand and health gain on the other, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Noble Lords may come down on different sides of the argument in free vote territory, but it seems to me the weakness of the amendment is simply its lack of ambition. It does not appear to bring to an end the harm done by the tobacco industry which is the whole point of the generational ban. As the former Prime Minister said last week, it was one of his proudest initiatives of those he introduced when he was Prime Minister.

It is worth just reminding your Lordships that the Bill passed the other place twice, once with a majority of 415 to 47. Last year, when my party was in government and had a free vote, I noted that the vast majority of Conservative MPs voted for the Bill, with just 67 voting against, and only two members of the Cabinet of about 30 voted against. So I hope that the broad policy introduced by the previous Government will continue to be carried through by this one and that a free vote will be allowed on my side for those who take a different view. I also recognise that the Bill is actually a little different from the one that was introduced last year.

This amendment would indeed reduce the harm done by smoking, but the Government’s own assessment concludes that a generational ban promises a far greater effect on smoking prevalence and broader support among young people. We should not want a smaller scale of ambition for a product that has killed a million people in this country over the last 50 years. The increase in the age of sale was a bit of policy conceived on evidence and based on long-term public health reform. It has strong public support, and it is backed by experts.

As the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said, this does not impact current smokers. The impact on personal freedom is less under the Government’s proposal than under the amendment. The rewards from this are substantial: fewer young people taking up smoking, fewer families suffering avoidable disease and loss, and a future in which our economy and NHS are no longer burdened by the toll from tobacco.

I will say a quick word about the black market. I can do no better than to quote what Victoria Atkins said when this point was raised when she introduced nearly the same Bill last year. On the point about

“the age of sale and the black market, tobacco industry representatives claim that there will be unintended consequences from raising the age of sale. They assert that the black market will boom. Before the smoking age was increased from 16 to 18, they sang from the same hymn sheet, but the facts showed otherwise. The number of illicit cigarettes consumed fell by 25%, and smoking rates for 16 and 17-year-olds dropped by almost a third”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/4/24; col. 188.]

So I recognise the concerns of some of my noble friends on the libertarian wing of my party, but I remind them that crash helmets were made compulsory under the Heath Government in 1973; seatbelts became compulsory for drivers under the Thatcher Government in 1983 and for all passengers in 1981 under John Major. The previous Conservative Government introduced the Health and Care Act, which unblocked progress in adding fluoride to the water supply to promote dental health. So the generational ban is consistent with my party’s approach to public health over the last 50 years and I hope it will be sustained in this Parliament.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have been involved with the tobacco industry since 1963, when I joined a major advertising agency. I was responsible for the marketing of all Gallaher’s products. I have taken part, I think, in every debate since then on the subject, both in the other place and here.

This is an important Bill. One of the biggest problems today is the differential between the price of a packet of cigarettes for the ordinary consumer and the price on the black market: it is roughly £17 at the tobacconist or wherever but £3.50 illegally. That amounts to a market of £6 billion—a frightening figure. I accept that His Majesty’s Government have said that they will provide an extra £10 million to try to add some control, but that is very small beer against the rampant use of illegal tobacco and cigarettes. The Government have the report from the Home Office that the National Business Crime Centre commissioned. It clearly says:

“The UK has one of the highest tobacco taxation regimes in the world. As the retail price of tobacco products increases, and legislative changes are introduced to restrict their availability … the demand for illegal tobacco products is set to grow dramatically”.


I am also an economist, and that is absolutely right—that is what will happen.

Secondly, I guess that all of us who buy our newspapers still use CTNs or other tobacconists. Those people are suffering. We have to recognise that crime against them—the way they are being beaten up or forced to make payments—is growing exponentially, which is really worrying.

Then there is the case history of Australia. As politicians, we know that we should look at case histories. I am sure that the Minister knows about the written evidence given by the Australians to the other place. They make it quite clear that the way that the legislation, which is not far different from what we are proposing here, was implemented in Australia was a disaster. We should at least look at that and weigh it up; it is a very strong case history.

The noble Lord, Lord Dodds, is not in his place, but he raised Northern Ireland. Having been a PPS on Northern Ireland a while ago, I believe that the Bill as it is now is totally incompatible with the Windsor Framework rules and TPD2. I do not see how His Majesty’s Government will get around that, because Northern Ireland will have to follow exactly what southern Ireland does, which is setting its controls at the age of 21.

Someone mentioned Sweden. That is a nice case history of the education of young people. Again, we could look at that and learn something. The whole success of Sweden as far as I can see—I have looked at it fairly carefully—rested on how it made young people understand the risks they were running. As has been said, that is now the biggest success in Europe.

I do not think that a generational Bill is necessary. I am sure that there has to be control but, frankly, the generational dimension makes it needlessly complicated. We should look at the experience of other people and take the decision that 21 should be the age for alcohol as well as for cigarettes and all other tobacco products. We will know where we are, and then we can really enforce it and make sure that our young people do not take up tobacco, et cetera.

NHS: Electronic Patient Record Systems

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Research and data are absolutely key to the 10-year plan and the shifts that I referred to earlier. I also draw the noble Lord’s attention to the data security and protection toolkit. It is an online assessment tool that allows organisations to measure their performance against the National Data Guardian’s 10 data security standards. I know there is a question among some members of the public about this, but perhaps I could, overall, reassure the noble Lord that we see data as key to research. I certainly agree with his comments about outcomes for patients being better.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, if the Minister is looking for a current successful case history, I recommend Bedford Hospital. I was referred to the external clinic on the 20th and tested for X, Y and Z. A bed was found for me at 2 am. I had four nights in Bedford Hospital, since when I have had three different departments, all of which had full details from my GP and the other departments involved. Not only that but I happened to go to the Moorfields clinic which is attached to it—it is external—which had them as well. So, there is a good case history.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord is an exemplar when he describes the quality of care and the joined-up approach of the data and information relating to him. I am delighted to hear that Bedford Hospital was so good to him. I am sure it will appreciate him sharing that with your Lordships’ House, and I add my thanks too.

Vaping Products: Usage by Children

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I have no direct involvement in this industry but it is fair to say that, back in the early 1960s, I was a director of an advertising agency responsible for Gallaher products. In my 50 years of work, both here and in the other place, I have taken a continual interest in the industry and the challenges it has faced. At this time, those challenges are quite clear. Sadly, the situation in that industry is one of good, responsible manufacturers and illicit marketing by others—mainly from abroad, but not entirely.

The industrialists who are marketing here responsibly have recently called for more regulation—not less—to tackle the worrying rise in youth vaping. As I understand it, they have called for a ban on packaging with youth appeal, reform of the flavour names to get products such as “gummy bear” and “unicorn” off the shelves, and the creation of a retailer licensing scheme. The latter would not only prevent irresponsible retailers selling to underage customers but help to stop the sale of illicit vapes by shopkeepers.

That is on the one hand. On the other, we have to recognise that vaping has helped reduce consumption of cigarettes. That is a tribute to our Governments over the years and the work between, usually, the Department of Health and the relevant manufacturers. It is a success. We are now down to 12.9% of the nation smoking. Not so long ago, 50% of the nation smoked. That advance is a tribute to our Governments; indeed, my noble friend Lord Bethell was one of the Ministers who helped to achieve that. We are getting between 50,000 and 70,000 people to quit thanks to the availability of vaping, because those smokers try vaping, the majority of them find it helps and they stop smoking. A very significant sum of money is saved, certainly in terms of the cost to the National Health Service.

Yes, the statistics among the young are going up—or they have been, to be more accurate; it appears from the latest ASH report that they have stabilised. Yes, nearly 20% of 11 to 17 year-olds have tried vaping, but that leaves 80% who have not. Of those who have tried, a third are now vaping, but that means two-thirds have rejected it. It should not be terribly difficult to get a handle on that. That is the challenge that we face.

For me, this is the key point as far as the smoking side is concerned: whoever is involved must remember very carefully that if anybody was to ban single-use vapes, alongside other restrictions such as on flavours, display and packaging, 58% of current smokers who vape said they would either continue to purchase single-use vapes from illegal sources or switch back to tobacco. We do not want that to happen. That seems fundamental to the way forward.

The last Government had the Swap to Stop scheme, which had some success. It delivered many tens of thousands of refillable vapes to adult smokers, as evidenced by a recent survey by the IBVTA, where more than 57% of e-liquid supplies were fruit flavoured. That is good news. Also, a code of conduct is now in place with the leading manufacturers, which was not there until relatively recently. They have embraced ensuring that product flavours are responsibly marketed and state that the use of emotional flavour names has no place in a legitimate market. The regulation of flavours must be carefully considered, given their clear importance to adults quitting smoking and preventing adult vapers switching back.

For me, the key to all this is that, as a nation, we have a compliant sector that—as far as I can see, as someone who tracks it a bit—has invested significant resources to meet environmental compliance targets through producer compliance schemes and retail take-back. If we were tempted to go down the route of prohibiting a whole class of products, we would undermine the points I made about the effect on existing people who want to quit.

I hope that before His Majesty’s Government take any further action they look at what has happened in Australia and the US recently. There are some reports out from both those countries, where there were unintended consequences. Those are well worth looking at.

At the end of the day, a third of the market comprises illicit vapes. That is a huge percentage, and those illicit vapes are unregulated, untested and a material threat to consumer safety. We have to deal with that situation. We need a comprehensive and collaborative enforcement strategy, with resources for trading standards and related enforcement. It may well be that we need a retail licensing scheme on top of that as a key to that policy. If we went down that route we would, in my judgment, make good continuing progress on helping smokers to get off smoking and put a cap on what has been happening among an element of our young people.

Smoking

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Young!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The honest answer is that we do not know yet, and that is a problem. As we know, a number of these things take time to play through. That is why we want to make sure we take a precautionary approach. In this legislation, we aim to really stop anything that is targeted at young people in terms of vaping. We see vaping as an important tool to help people quit smoking, but we are equally sure that we never want anyone to start vaping. That is why we will also look at banning anything that targets young people, such as flavouring and packaging. We want to stop anything targeted at youth vaping.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, why are His Majesty’s Government ignoring the experience of New Zealand? That country has found the idea behind this Bill—it had a similar one—to be totally unworkable. Secondly, why are we undermining the existing scheme that has done so well, with under 2% of young people even bothering to take a taste of smoking? Does my noble friend not recognise that there are other, far more important health dimensions that need the resources that are to be wasted on this useless Bill?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

First, my understanding about New Zealand is that one of the biggest bones of contention was that it was looking to reduce the number of smoking retailers from 6,000 to 600; that is where their Bill came into difficulty. I am afraid I must disagree with my noble friend on the importance of this. It costs the economy about £17 billion a year and causes about 80,000 deaths, and 80% of people who have taken up smoking wish that they had never started. I think those are very strong reasons which I know the majority of this House is behind, and that is why I am delighted to be introducing that legislation shortly.

NHS: Drug Shortages

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that a specific team, the medical supply team, works to manages this across the piece. It is a complex area, as we have said. There are 1,000 notifications a year about supply shortages—that has been consistent over the last so many years—that the team works to resolve. I am sure that, as this debate progresses, we will talk about some of the issues, including getting the MHRA to expedite regulatory approval, working with alternative suppliers, buying internationally where needed—we did that very well last year on strep A—and, where really necessary, introducing serious shortage protocols. It is an issue that we take very seriously, and we are managing it.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, “may” is the wrong word; there is a shortage at this point in time, certainly from the inquiries I have made. Is it not time that we had another look at the existing procedures on recompensing drug manufacturing and maybe producing a new version of the PPRS, which worked extremely well in its time?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Actually, we recently reached a new agreement with the drug suppliers on this. I think we were all pleased to do that, and it will ensure we continue to get continuity of supply. I have quizzed the team at length on this and asked it to sit down with the British Generic Manufacturers Association, which produced these figures, specifically to understand where there are differences, because I must be honest: the team does not recognise those numbers. We did not see an increase over the last few years. Where there are specific instances, such as ADHD, which I worked with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, on recently, remedial actions are in place to ensure we can manage through the supply issues.

King’s Speech

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, not least in his highlighting of the huge potential difficulties with the two new Bills in the housing area of freehold and rent.

The gracious Speech, in my judgment, reflects that at least now we have a Prime Minister who understands economics, who is determined to listen to what the general public, and indeed obviously our own party, wants to happen, and to give leadership. There is no better demonstration—and I admit to being one of those who campaigned hard to keep the ticket offices open, alongside the best part of a million others—than him being brave enough to say, and thank goodness, “Right, they are staying open”. For me, that is the sort of action I expect to see from a Prime Minister. I have had the privilege of serving in the other House for 23 years and in your Lordships’ House for a good few years since, and quite frankly this is the first time, since that fateful date of 31 January 2020, following the vote that was taken on Brexit—I understand why it went the way it did but the construction of the vote was wrong; there should at least have been a safeguard if we wanted to change—that I am getting it, and I am thrilled. We had lost leadership from the subsequent Prime Ministers.

I shall speak mainly on housing, but there are three issues on energy that I would like to raise. First, I welcome the fact that we are going to drill in the North Sea, for the future. It is a crucial decision to safeguard our supplies. Secondly, I am following Rolls-Royce’s efforts on mini nuclear reactors. We could have signed a document and had those mini reactors being built now—nobody suggested that it should have an exclusive right to the mini reactor market, but at least we could have got going. But we have not. Will my noble friend on the Front Bench at least try to move this forward, so that we get some decision on mini reactors? They are important. Thirdly, on hydrogen, we all know that Infrastructure UK appeared to be totally anti-hydrogen. We have only to look at our German colleagues. Germany has now got to a state where it believes it can do tests, and that there is a market for a combination of gas and hydrogen for domestic premises. If we think back to the period when we went from coal to LPG for our heating, we see that no wonder it is a big project—it affects the vast majority of homes in the United Kingdom. We know that Germany is doing the work. Imperial College has come out with a report saying that it is going to move things forward, and there are a host of others doing work in that area. I would like to see some support from His Majesty’s Government in that area.

That brings me to housing. It is my privilege to have been in public service for 50 years. I was the first leader of the London Borough of Islington and chairman of its housing committee. I have saved squares in Islington, along with my colleagues. We got rid of the Crumbles, which was a terrible old Victorian tenement block, with not even bathrooms or toilets on the floors—people had to go down to the ground floor. Thanks to the architect in Islington, we built low-level, high-density council housing and encouraged young people to get grants to renovate the infrastructure that they bought. In 1974, I was elected in Northampton, a new town, which I support totally, and I once wrote a pamphlet called The Disaster of Direct Labour. The challenge that every family faces is housing. So many of my colleagues here today have raised the issue, and I certainly believe that it is key to the future.

The Secretary of State produced his vision in his speech of 24 July 2023. He talked about:

“The regeneration and renaissance of the hearts of 20 of our most important towns and cities … Building beautiful … Greener homes … A new deal for tenants”—


he has this Bill coming forward—

“And extending ownership to a new generation”.

Unfortunately, we have lost the right to buy, so I am not quite sure how we will encourage new generations. It sounds wonderful, but in reality we find the Grenfell problem. Only 9% of those affected have been restored. That is not good progress. It is not helping tenants. Many must be in dire worry about where they are living.

What about tenanted properties? In Bedford and half a dozen other places, there are empty properties all the way down the high street, yet we charge 20% VAT on anybody who wants to renovate them. If we want to renovate those properties, for heaven’s sake let us offer local authorities the option not to have to pay that 20%. I notice that the Secretary of State does not think that Marks & Spencer, as a key retailer in Oxford Street, should be allowed to alter its building, although everybody else accepts that it is a good idea.

The time taken on planning has trebled since 1990, which is not that long ago. No wonder it is taking time to get moving on anything. The Home Builders Federation points out that some of the hardest hit are our smaller builders, who have to grapple with this time dimension. The number of new homes forecast for 2024 is just 120,000—a record low—compared with 204,530 in 2022. With a demand of 340,000—not 300,000—and people wanting their own home, lifetime ISAs needing modifying because they are out of date and the whole population having gone up by 600,000, we now have a real need for 380,000. We have to take action. I hope my noble friends on the Front Bench and those who can make a difference will do so. Two of us in this room know about new towns in particular. Why not have perhaps 50 new garden towns around the United Kingdom, with the benefit of single-family homes at low density, alongside a successful town? That would produce really good homes for the future.

Food: Two-For-One Offers

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, if a product is marketed legally in the United Kingdom, why should His Majesty’s Government feel they have to interfere at all with the marketing of that product? I understand the point about education and totally accept it, but is it not wrong for His Majesty’s Government to restrict what is a legally marketed product?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We are trying to educate, inform and nudge. The best example of all is encouraging the industry to reformulate its foods to be healthier. At this point, I am glad to say that, since we introduced these restrictions, Mars, Galaxy, Bounty and Snickers have reformulated, and even Mr Kipling’s Deliciously Good cakes are compliant.

NHS: Doctors’ Strikes

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

As we have seen, it is having an impact, regrettably. We saw that from 14 to 17 June: almost 100,000 appointments were lost during that strike. We are now looking to cover that up. That is why we are firm in our conviction that we want to resolve this situation. These sorts of things are not good for anyone. We have a formula that worked; we have managed to do this with nurses and the Agenda for Change unions, which make up the vast majority of the health service. Our hope is that we can sit down and have sensible conversations and do the same with doctors and consultants.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his ingenuity and the work he has put in since taking over this role. All we hear of pay rises is that they should be 12%, 19%, 39% or whatever. Has the time not come for a slightly different approach? We should calculate the capital cost of whatever sections of the health service claim they have lost, pay them that cost and then revert to the normal process of review bodies.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his kind words. We are willing to look at all solutions. We have to balance the salary wishes of doctors with making sure that we keep the money in front-line services. Everyone is aware that pay rises of 35% would eat heavily into what we can do and afford on the front line. We need to get that balance right.