Badger Cull

Debate between Mary Creagh and Mark Tami

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

We now have the DIVA test, which enables us to differentiate vaccinated and infected cattle, and we know from the Select Committee’s report that its efficacy rate is 65%. Our priority must be to stop the spread of infected cattle into low-risk areas, and the spreading of the disease. The Government are about to embark on a risky and untested cull which, as I have said, will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made the important point that even in infected areas there are farms that manage to remain disease-free. We need to learn lessons from that, but some Government Members have clearly made up their minds already. They are not interested in the facts; they just want a cull.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is nothing more dangerous than an idea if it is the only idea you have.

This so-called science-led cull has been disowned by the scientists who faced down animal rights protesters to bring us the randomised badger culling trial and a world-class scientific result. The cull will cost more than doing nothing. If it works at all, its effect will be marginal. It carries a real risk of making TB worse in both cattle and badgers. The original Independent Scientific Group said:

“Concentrating solely on the badger dimension in what is clearly a multidimensional and dynamic system of disease spread would be to fail to learn the lessons of previous experience .”

Food Prices and Food Poverty

Debate between Mary Creagh and Mark Tami

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

That is true, and I am glad that there are so many passionate teachers—and passionate friends and neighbours, who may suspect that all is not well. I remember people telling me, when I brought forward my Children’s Food Bill, that they would invite their neighbours and friends in for tea on a Saturday and make sure that the children had as much meat and fruit juice as they could get into them, because it became apparent from the way that they were eating that they had not been fed since Friday lunchtime. That point, from my constituency of Wakefield, has certainly stayed with me.

In addition, the Agricultural Wages Board is to be abolished. That is a particularly nasty Government decision that has nothing to do with the deficit, but will take £93 million from the sick pay and holiday pay of low-paid agricultural, horticultural and food processing workers over the next 10 years. That money will leach out of the rural economy, where those workers live—out of local pubs, post offices and shops—depressing the rural economy when spending is already squeezed. It costs more to live in the countryside, and the abolition of the AWB could mean that we have in this country food workers who are unable to buy the food that they produce. We know that those agricultural workers are the most socially excluded people in our country. They are often migrants who speak limited English. Their work is seasonal, short-term and low-skilled. They are not in a trade union, and they move from county to county, picking daffodils in Cornwall in February, and following the crop and fruit cycle across the country.

After the Morecambe bay tragedy in 2004, Labour created the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to regulate labour providers in the food processing and packing, and agricultural, horticultural, forestry and shellfish-gathering sectors. Our aim was to ensure that workers received a minimum wage, decent accommodation, safe transport, contracts and decent working conditions, yet the GLA’s latest annual report reveals that, in the year to March 2011, it uncovered more than 800 workers being exploited in the UK. It prosecuted 12 companies and revoked the licences of 33 gangmasters. In 2010, there were horrific reports of children as young as nine picking onions in a field near Worcester. While the Government, continuing with their red tape challenge, are deciding on the future powers of the GLA, we say: “We will work with you to stamp out modern-day slavery, people trafficking, and serious organised crime, wherever they occur in these sectors.”

In government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) brought stakeholders together to look at the risks to our food security, and the challenges of feeding a growing global population sustainably. The result was Food 2030, the first Government food strategy since world war two. Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers Union, has described how that strategy has been left on the shelf, and has been relegated to

“a one-line objective in the business plan”

by the current Government. Labour gathered stakeholders together in September last year to look at that food strategy. We believe that we must not lose sight of the direction that it sets out, and we are pleased that the Government have set up their green food project, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. We look forward to it reporting this summer.

In government, along with many hon. Friends who are seated behind me today, I campaigned for improvements to children’s diets through the Children’s Food Bill. That led to nutritionally balanced school dinners, an end to junk-food vending machines in schools, and lessons on cooking and growing food as part of key stage 3.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the Government’s cuts to Sure Start have made that problem worse, because much of that educational knowledge about what is good food to give to children has been lost?

[Mary Creagh]

I agree. Sure Start has been an amazing tool in the fight for good food in families, and for cooking lessons. The 20% cut imposed by the Government centrally can only make that more challenging for those dedicated workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

I quote back to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George):

“Every week the government fails to act, farmers are finding themselves in more difficulty.”

That is what he said. The supermarkets were insistent. We wanted an ombudsman. The supermarkets asked for a voluntary approach. It is right to try a voluntary approach first, which we did, but it did not work. This is the anti-regulation Government, but that approach failed. What we need now is action from his Government.

The commission recommended the powers to levy significant financial penalties, but the Government are recommending that only in reserve powers in the Bill, not on the face of the Bill, meaning that fines for anti-competitive practices are even further away than 2015. The Financial Times quoted an executive of a large supermarket chain saying that

“it is an adjudicator rather than an ombudsman, which suggests that it is a watered-down role.”

Suppliers can complain anonymously, but they are liable for full cost recovery if the adjudicator finds that the complaint was vexatious or wholly without merit. The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee recommended that whistleblowing from within retailers should also be grounds for launching an investigation, which BIS Ministers are currently considering.

Consider this anonymous salad grower who works with the Food and Drink Federation:

“X”—

the name of a supermarket—

“have expected us to support their current pricing campaign in store by contributing with reduced price returns, to maintain their margin demands. It has been made very clear that lack of support could be seen as showing no commitment to”—

the supermarket—

“and the potential loss of business, forcing us to drop our prices and support the activity. Interestingly none of this has been put in writing.”

This suggests anti-competitive practices across the sector. If there is bad treatment at the top of the pyramid, that sets the tone for treatment all the way down the food chain, right down to the workers in the field. What we want is culture change across the food industry.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In the case of many buy one, get one free offers, the cost is not borne by the supermarket. It puts pressure on the supplier, because the supermarket is saying, in effect, “Unless you fund this, we will move the contract somewhere else.” In the end, it is often the workers in that company who suffer.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Such offers increase the volume of sales, but often reduce the margin. That places enormous capital and liquidity costs on small companies in order to fund that as they wait for the money to come in from the supermarket.

Human Tissue (Availability)

Debate between Mary Creagh and Mark Tami

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to make my first outing as the shadow spokesman for public health under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) on securing such an important debate. Having listened to her this morning, I feel that I know a lot more about the subject. She is well known in the House for her campaigning work on this issue. Her early-day motion 212, which she tabled in the previous Parliament, attracted the support of 64 hon. Members, and I am sure that a version of the same early-day motion will make its appearance through the course of this Parliament.

It was interesting to hear about the hon. Lady’s strong constituency link with the subject. I was certainly unaware that her constituency was a hub for research into life sciences. I also want to congratulate her on her tenacity. Using the Freedom of Information Act to get the data on the hospitals is the work of someone who pays great attention to detail. In fact, she found that there are huge differences between hospitals. It might be interesting to drill down into the information that she has to see whether there are geographical differences, or differences between foundation trusts, in respect of how samples are collected. The challenge for Ministers is to try to get everybody up to the level of the best, and it is clear that there is a very long way to go to achieve that.

I congratulate the Minister, who has responsibility for public health, on her appointment. She has been in a shadow public health role since July 2007. She had a distinguished career in the NHS for 25 years, including working as a district nurse. She also worked in hospitals, in research and, of course, in palliative care, so I am very interested to hear her comments in this debate. Furthermore, she is possibly one of the very few Conservative MPs who has served as a trade union steward, for the Royal College of Nursing, so I will also be interested to hear whether she has any response to yesterday’s Budget. We welcome her, and her experience, to her new post. Her direct experience of front-line working in the public sector will no doubt stand her in very good stead.

I also want to congratulate the hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) has a very strong interest in the subjects of cord blood and stem cell research; we have debated those issues together on many occasions. He raised a very important point about the general altruism that the public feel.

Most people want to make their own contribution and help to contribute to medical science. Unfortunately, however, the level of knowledge and debate on these types of issues is very low. Part of that is due to the “ick” factor—none of us likes to think of our precious bodies as, first, dying; secondly, being cut in any way, even after death; and, thirdly, being kept in a large fridge with medical scientists examining them. But in fact the reality is that that is how human progress, particularly progress in science, has been made for generations, even centuries.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) on his contribution to the debate. I send my condolences to the family of his friend who suffered such a terrible tragedy while on holiday and I wish them courage as they fly out to Malta.

My hon. Friend raised the very important issue of the practical barriers that exist in this area, even when hospitals systematically want to collect people’s brains after death. There are also the issues of the death certificate and the conflict that exists between the medical side and the research side. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire has really hit on an important issue here, which requires some constructive and creative thought.

[Mark Tami]

I thank my hon. Friend for her very kind comments. There is just one point that I want her to address; I am perhaps returning to the point that I made earlier about how we and the media view this issue. She knows that my particular interest in this area is with the Alder Hey hospital and with children—unfortunately, that interest derives from a personal experience. But the fact is that a lot of medical conditions, such as sarcomas, particularly affect children; indeed, in some cases, medical conditions only affect children.

Given that children are particularly affected by some conditions, it follows that the research into those conditions must focus on children, but we find such research difficult to accept. It is very difficult to accept research on adults, but research on children, which sometimes very unfortunately happens as a result of a child’s death, is even more difficult to accept. However, it is something that we really need to address. As I said, some medical conditions only affect children.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Actually, this is one of those issues where the answer of the child involved might be very different from that of a parent. I think that children can be incredibly wise.

Speaking as a mother, the thought of one of my children dying is beyond comprehension, or beyond the limits of my imagination. It would be wrong for someone to ask for a donation from a bereaved parent who was dealing with that level of stress and grief. The time for asking for donation is not at the point of surgery or of death; it is when people are feeling generous and altruistic, when they feel that donation is something that can help other people.

Actually, children themselves are incredibly generous and incredibly thoughtful. Obviously, it is different for babies and toddlers, but children from about the age of six or seven can start to work these things out for themselves. Perhaps there is a role for education in the classroom to get children to talk more seriously about these issues.

I know that the work that the Anthony Nolan Trust has done in increasing the number of people on the bone marrow register is incredible. In Huddersfield and Wakefield—my constituency covered part of Huddersfield until the last boundary change—we had a very brave campaigning journalist at the Huddersfield Examiner who, when he was dying in his mid-20s, launched a huge campaign, including writing a blog about his experience. Through that campaign, he engaged with a lot of young people to get them on to the bone marrow register.

The issue of donating tissue, or blood marrow, is a bit like that of blood donation. I have spoken to my staff about it and said, “The blood lorry is outside, off you go”. There are responses such as, “Well, I don’t fancy rolling up my sleeve and having someone stick a needle in me”. However, if I ask, “If you have an accident on your way home, or your child is ill, would you want blood for your child or yourself?”, the answer of course is, “Yes”. The time to do it is during a tea break or a lunch break from work and not when people are under stress and dealing with a huge range of emotions.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on his contribution to the debate. It is clear that science has lost a great researcher, but science’s loss is certainly the House’s gain. While he was speaking, I had a quick look on my BlackBerry and perhaps after the debate he can explain to me what “nucleic proteins” are, or whatever it was that he was researching—I am not even sure that I have used the right word there—because I got lost after about the first sentence of his contribution.

Computational biology is clearly an emerging area of work in this field and the hon. Gentleman spoke very eloquently about its potential to reduce the need for experiments on animals and, in some cases, to replace high-risk human trials, which would be welcomed by all parts of the House. He also leaves us with the interesting image of a “human on a chip”, which is something that I will go away and reflect upon.

Using his own experience as a researcher, the hon. Gentleman raised the important ethical issue of the anonymisation of samples, and he is absolutely right to do so. Certainly, in any research that I have ever participated in, I have always been told that the donated material will be held completely anonymously and untraceably. Now, however, we are moving forward with this biobank. I was invited to take part in that project. I went along because I was interested and I asked, “Are more women than men coming along?” I was told that, yes, there were, so there were all the usual biases that exist. We come back to the altruism factor and it seems that women tend to be more altruistic than men. I will leave that point hanging; if anyone wants to intervene on me, I am happy to argue the point. [Laughter.]

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Men are certainly less willing to become stem cell donors and bone marrow donors, because we are cowardly and do not like needles. That is a particular problem.

What we must do with bone marrow and stem cell research, as the work of the Anthony Nolan Trust shows, is to put fewer obstacles in the way of donors. When it comes to giving blood, I know from my own point of view that my reaction is really, “Argh”—giving blood really terrifies people. However, mouth swabs can be used to donate other material. If we can get people past that first stage and if they are then approached because they are a potential match, I think that people will say, “I am a potential match and therefore I will go to that next stage and give blood”. If we somehow phase people by saying, “You’ve got to give blood and you must have various tests for things”, then people are less likely to come forward.

Obviously, with bone marrow and stem cell donation, we are not talking about people who have died. It is one of the few areas where someone can save a life by giving something. It is not painful, it does not take that long and someone can actually save somebody else’s life. There are tens of thousands of people out there who do not even know that they are potential life-savers. This issue is not only about how we raise awareness, but how we—

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. The intervention is too lengthy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Creagh]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady makes a valid point, and systems, policies and processes are the only way. It is not laws or our passing Acts in Parliament that will make it happen. This is about the 60% of trusts that do not collect any form of tissue, but get rid of everything. It is about people being made aware—there is an educational side to this—and it is about having a system in place. If we want people to donate their organs, we have to make it as easy as possible, so that they can do it when they open a bank account or go to Boots pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Whatever it is, it has to be made easy.

Most people hope throughout their lives that they will not need a huge amount of surgical intervention. That is what we all hope for, is it not? I believe that the hon. Lady is right that most of those who are unfortunate enough to have repeated operations would like to help other people through medical research.

It is important to say that lifetime consent for a tissue sample is already possible under current legislation, and people may give “generic and enduring” consent for their own sample, but the hon. Lady may be trying to bring to the foreground lifetime consent for any medical research purposes. However, the law in such areas cannot and should not stand still, and we must renew the working of the existing law.

I was interested to hear the hon. Lady’s reference to the Human Tissue Authority’s evaluation of perceptions of how the legislation and regulations that flow from it have affected researchers. The Human Tissue Authority has said that it wants to ensure that researchers have access to high-quality samples by consolidating stocks throughout the sector; that brings us back to the idea of banks. It also wants to reduce the regulatory burden on the research sector by using open-ended rather than fixed-term licences, and moving to a risk-based approach to regulation rather than regulating everyone.

The hon. Lady will be interested to hear that the Nuffield Council on Bioethics is consulting on options for boosting the supply of organs and human tissue. It is clear that a problem is emerging as fertility sciences improve. There is a shortage of organs for transplant, as many hon. Members have said, and of sperm and eggs for donation. I prefer to refer to “sperm” rather than “gametes”, not least because I do not know how to pronounce that latter word. Let us call a sperm a sperm.

Transplant patients and women seeking fertility treatment may travel abroad, often to places where different rules apply or, in the case of organ donation, where there may be an illegal market. We must watch that carefully because moral and ethical considerations may be involved if inducements are offered, whether cash or paying funeral expenses for people who give their organs. Those are some of the issues being debated, and the consultation closes on 13 July. I put that on the record so that any hon. Members who want to participate in the consultation may do so.

New stem cells made by reprogramming adult tissue into induced pluripotent stem cells—iPS cells—which come not from human embryos but from adult skin cells, have been possible only since 2007, so science is already well ahead of legislation in this area. The iPS technique could lead to new breakthroughs for Parkinson’s disease, motor neurone disease, diabetes and paralysis, and that would obviously be very welcome.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend referred to breakthroughs, and stem cells are one of the major areas where breakthroughs are happening. However, we must remember that much research comes to a dead end. Sometimes when we believe that it is going a long way, it does not. The Daily Mail and the Daily Express may say that drinking coffee prevents cancer, and also that it causes cancer. There is no “one size fits all” or one magical cure, so we must go down many routes, knowing that some will be a dead end.

[Mary Creagh]

I agree that there is no silver bullet, much as we would like one, and my hon. Friend is right about the red tops’ approach to eating—or not eating—yoghurt, strawberries, blackcurrants or whatever fruit or drink is fashionable. It would be impossible to live our lives by their diet rules, certainly in the House of Commons Tea Room. We need to understand better, and the hon. Member for Cambridge has a responsibility to his former colleagues in Cambridge to be a champion and an advocate in this place—he has already proved in this debate that he will be—in respect of the benefits involved and the management of people’s expectations.

I understand where the research is coming from. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said that researchers are a bit cagey about sharing with other researchers where tissue is held. Someone doing a PhD who has put three or five years of their life into it does not want someone else from a different country or different research institution publishing six months before them; let’s face it, academics are as competitive as the rest of us. I know from my experience at Cranfield School of Management that we loved sharing our research at conferences, but we lived in dread of someone coming up with the same idea and publishing it a bit sooner. It is incumbent on researchers to work out ways and methods of sharing their research in this area.