Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Owen Smith and Paul Sweeney

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the design of the UK shared prosperity fund.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the design of the UK shared prosperity fund.

Licensing of Medical Devices

Debate between Owen Smith and Paul Sweeney

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Gentleman, who has also done excellent work on mesh as co-chair of the group, is completely right.

Our regulatory system for these devices, including mesh, is more akin to the system that applies to toasters or plugs, and the way in which they get kitemarks, than to the way in which medicines are approved. It is so problematic that, last year, the journalist I was talking about applied to get a kitemark—known as a CE mark—for surgical mesh. However, the item in question was a bag that had previously been used to keep oranges in, but they still succeeded in getting a CE mark for it. It obviously was not put into a woman, but real mesh has been and is being put into thousands of women all over the world, including those suffering from organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. The real impact of the mesh has been revealed in the chronic pain, disability and even death suffered by many women as a result of the mesh warping, breaking, morphing, changing its constitution and cutting into organs inside the body. This was revealed only after years of sales.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the devastating impact that mesh has had on women. I discovered the real impact of it when a constituent came to visit me on Friday. Wendy talked about the impact that it had had on her life. She said that she had been concerned about the mesh and had discussed it with her surgeon, who had insisted that it was not mesh but tape. She was therefore misled by a medical professional. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is another worrying aspect of how these medical devices are being marketed and communicated to patients?

[Owen Smith]

Yes, I absolutely agree. There are many instances of similar mis-selling of these products to women. We need to examine the relationship between the doctors who are selling or marketing these products to their patients and the companies that develop them. Some have an interest in those companies, and others are getting a money benefit through doing this in the private sector. All these things desperately need to be looked at.

The terrible truth is that the surgical mesh scandal that is unfolding is just one of the scandals relating to medical devices. We had the metal-on-metal hip joint scandal, with metallosis poisoning people’s bodies. We had the scandal of textured PIP breast implants poisoning women’s bodies. Those implants are now connected with increased incidences of cancer. We had spine-straightening devices for children that were only ever tested on corpses. We had pacemakers such as the Nanostim, which was designed to sit inside the heart and work for up to 19 years. It has now been removed from the market because the batteries started to break down and cease to work and, worse, it was giving people electric shocks. The devices are now being cut out of people. Between 2015 and 2018, UK regulators alone received reports of 64,000 adverse events involving medical devices. A third of those incidents resulted in serious medical repercussions for patients, and 1,004 resulted in death.

Fisheries Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Owen Smith and Paul Sweeney

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I rise to speak briefly in support of the amendment and new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. In doing so, I am also reflecting the views of the Welsh Government, who are very supportive of this idea. Complementing the remarks made by hon. Members from the Scottish National party, I think it could be reflected in the way in which subsequent legislation and regulations about both quotas and landing requirements might be applied in Wales and in Scotland.

Milford Haven, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is a classic example of an area of Britain where there was once a thriving fishing industry but there is now significant poverty and absolutely no fishing industry. I do not believe that any boats go out of Milford Haven now, and the only boats operating there with any significance are foreign-owned. There was once a processing industry in the area, not just in Milford Haven but in Pembroke Dock, Aberaeron, Aberporth and, indeed, lots of the villages along Cardigan bay—traditionally one of the richest fisheries off the UK. Small-scale and artisanal in many respects, it has completely disappeared.

If there is any opportunity to effect a renaissance of processing through the landing requirement, the changes to quota and that overall sense of an economic connection in the Bill and at the heart of future legislation, it would be remiss of us not to try to bring that about. I think that this is a very sensible suggestion from the Labour Front Bench and I hope that the Minister will reflect on how important it, or perhaps a similar measure, could be to bringing about a renaissance in the processing industry and in the towns that might thereby survive.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

Fisheries Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Owen Smith and Paul Sweeney

Thursday 13th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Sweeney]

Of course, these matters will be considered on a case-by-case basis, but let us paint a scenario where there is an impasse in the creation of a common fisheries policy. It would lead to huge economic difficulties as long as that situation�that impasse�persisted, and that is not manageable or sustainable from an economic point of view for Scottish fishermen, and it would not be acting in their interests.

That is why we will also not support amendment 3, which seeks to remove Scottish Ministers from clause 19 entirely. I fear it may have unintended consequences, and I ask the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute to clarify the consequences. If we are to remove Scottish Ministers from the equation and the clause, does he think that will mean that Scottish Ministers will have the power over this area, or simply that there would be no requirement to consult them at all? Both outcomes are incredibly undesirable and the Labour party is therefore unable to support that amendment.

[Owen Smith]

It is again a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I did not intend to speak to these amendments, but as a former shadow Secretary of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland I have a few things to say.

I heard with interest the contribution from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute�the beautiful Argyll and Bute. I would say straightforwardly that I think he is wrong to say that the clause is contrary to the devolution settlement�I think the reverse is true. The clause reflects the current devolution settlement. It is for the UK as the sovereign body to determine our engagement with and adherence to international treaties, and to therefore determine what the fishing opportunities for the whole of the UK would be, in accordance with the agreements that are reached internationally on fishing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East is completely right that the reality of the amendments is that they seek to change the devolution settlement by the back door. Given the long-standing and perfectly admirable�although, in my view, entirely wrong-headed�view of the SNP that it wishes to have an independent Scotland, it is entirely understandable that it should try to use this mechanism to get closer to that objective, but it is the wrong mechanism and the wrong Bill in which to seek to fundamentally change the nature of our devolution settlement, and my colleagues on the Front Bench are completely right to oppose it.

I would also add that I cannot understand the value of striking Scottish Ministers out of clause 19. That would be a retrograde step because it would mean no consultation with Scottish Ministers, which would be a fundamental mistake.

Fisheries Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Owen Smith and Paul Sweeney

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Owen Smith]

Q Perhaps you could tell us in a minute. Are you worried that several Cabinet members have warned that transition could go on for as long as four years?

Aaron Brown: Yes, absolutely. That makes it worse. It pours petrol on the bonfire that I have described to you. In the transition, the EU has every incentive to run a bulldozer over the top of us. They can abolish the 12-mile limit; they could fully enforce the discard ban in choke species and, obviously, we would not be able to implement policy to mitigate that, such as suggested in the Bill. They would be able to barter UK resources in international swaps, because we will not be party to international agreements but the EU will be making them on our behalf.

The other thing that is really devastating right round the country is that currently the UK relies on a lot of swaps in the EU, to get in fish that would otherwise probably be ours under a zonal attachment. We will not be able to do that because we will not actually be sitting at the table any more. So we will be trapped in this kind of halfway house, where the EU has every incentive to take a great big stick and beat us with it like a piñata. It is not a position that I think is equitable for the survival of the industry. To be brutally honest, by the time we get round to a new British policy, if we are not shovelled into the backstop, of which there is a high likelihood, there will not be a fleet left to take advantage of anyway.

[Mr Sweeney]

Q Whether it is the smaller under-10 shellfish boats working out of the west coast ports, such as Stornoway or Oban, or the pelagic and white fish fleets running out of the big commercial ports, such as Fraserburgh and Peterhead, what benefit to Scottish ports would there be of introducing an economic link of landing at least 50% of all fish in Scottish ports?

Aaron Brown: I am fully supportive of that. We have gone further and said 60%, and not just for landings. There is a huge benefit from that. Currently just now, the flagship problem that Britain has, after the Factortame case, is that under freedom of establishment and freedom of movement, any EU national could come in and buy up British entitlement. Obviously, with the British fleet struggling with so much loss of its own resources, and regulatory ineptitude, many family fishermen felt compelled to sell. That is huge problem just now as we see on the west coast, in Lochinver. I think it was £30 million of fish went through Lochinver and there was not a single indigenous fishing boat. That needs to be tightened up on. There is a huge benefit, not just to the fisherman and their communities, but also to processors and market share.

Norway’s crowning glory is not actually its fishing fleet. Norway’s crowning glory is its dominance in processing and marketing globally. That is something that Britain could equally compete in with the resource we have got. We would like to see 60% landings into the UK, sold and processed, because otherwise people will just put them on the back of a lorry and run them down the road. We want to see 60% beneficial ownership of any British vessel—that is no different from the other Nordic countries—to avoid foreign nationals or conglomerates buying out the UK fleet.

We would also like to see 60% British crew, but with a five-year or thereabouts dispensation for foreign crew, until we rebuild the future generation back into the industry to replace the one we have lost. The economic link absolutely needs to be there and we implore you to accept that that is an amendment that needs to go in. The Conservatives tried to do it in 1988 with the Merchant Shipping Act. I argue that if it is good enough for Mrs Thatcher, then it should be good enough for this Government as well.