Mike Penning
Main Page: Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead)Department Debates - View all Mike Penning's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mr Hurd
The advisory council’s advice on the lack of evidence around the medicinal benefits of cannabis and cannabis-based medicines has not changed, but the process needs to be reviewed constantly in the light of the evidence, and that is what we do. I should clarify that the clinical panel that I have announced today will advise Ministers on specific claims and applications that come to us.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
The Minister knows that I was at No. 10 with him and the Prime Minister, Alfie and his family. I cannot see why there should be a difference between the wonderful news that Billy has been given his drugs on clinical advice, and the advice in the cases of Alfie and others. The reason for the difference is that these medications come under schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. That is why the issue is being dealt with by the Home Office, but it should not be in the Home Office; it should be in the Department of Health and Social Care. I am sure that Alfie will get his drugs very soon, but it is not soon enough for many others.
Mr Hurd
I understand my right hon. Friend’s point. He has been a tireless and persistent campaigner for Alfie and others in this situation. I share his hope that we can process Alfie’s application as quickly as possible; it is now on a much better track. This is complicated and it is new ground for everyone, not least the clinical and medical community, but we are finding our way towards a legal, sustainable, long-term solution, as well as reviewing our processes in the handling of such cases, as I have outlined today.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman can try and—I will even be helpful to him, because my generous spirit is getting the better of me—if his point of order relates to the matter with which we have just been dealing, I feel that we can on this occasion indulge him.
Sir Mike Penning
If you do not try, you never know, do you?
During the urgent question, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) asked whether it would be okay if Members went abroad and brought back such a prescribed product, and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service quite rightly said that we are lawmakers not lawbreakers. However, we are also here to protect our population and our constituents. I say this with an open heart and a genuine understanding of what the Minister is going through, because I tried to deal with this when I was in his position, but if Alfie Dingley does not get his drugs by Wednesday, a delegation from this House will go abroad to get them for him.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful—or at least I think I am very grateful—to the right hon. Gentleman. Manifestly, that was not even an imitation of or an approximation to a point of order. Nevertheless, I am sure it was extremely important. He has unburdened himself of his opinions, and they are on the record for the people of Hemel Hempstead, the nation and possibly even the world to study.
Before we proceed to the second urgent question, I will take this opportunity to inform the House that Gina Martin, who was herself a victim of the loathsome practice of upskirting and has subsequently led the campaign to outlaw the practice, has joined us in the Gallery today. Gina, we welcome you here and we thank you for coming.