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Mr. Martin Bell (Tatton): I wish to communicate to the Secretary of State an offer about which I have also written to him. It comes from my constituent, Mr. Shakib Basma of Wilmslow, who happens to be a prominent Freetown barrister and is the owner of a disused holiday village some 25 miles from Freetown that might make an ideal British base with the capacity to accommodate 500 men. So impressed is Mr. Basma with what the British have done that he wishes to offer the facility for no fee. I hope that his offer will be seriously considered and that he will be thanked for his patriotic offer.
Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that offer and I am sure that it will be considered with appropriate care.
Mr. David Chidgey (Eastleigh): Under what precise circumstances would the Government be prepared to provide combat troops to the UN force in Sierra Leone?
Mr. Hoon: I have made it clear throughout, as has my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, that British forces would not be deployed in a combat capacity on behalf of the UN in Sierra Leone.
Points of Order
4.13 pm
Mr. James Wray (Glasgow, Baillieston): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I refer to Home Office questions yesterday, during which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) asked the Home Secretary whether he was aware that one of the promoters of the Tyson fight was a man who
- has a violent criminal past and has connections with Glasgow's criminal underworld.--[Official Report, 22 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 656.]
To give the House an insight into the type of person the man is, I can list some of the donations that he has made to charities throughout Scotland. He gave £30,000 to Clippen school for the disabled, £9,000 to the Lockerbie disaster fund, £8,000 to a sick children's hospital, £7,000 to Father Bob Gardiner in Easterhouse, and £6,500 to Rev. Galbraith, for Kosovo. He has also paid for a drug addict's funeral and trucked four tonnes of food to Croatia.
That is the kind of man he is. He has connections not with the underworld, but with the underclass. There are many pages setting out the donations he has made and the assistance he has given, including helping the police to take food to Croatia. It is--
Madam Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. I am grateful to him. I have more than the gist of his point of order because he indicated earlier the nature of it. As he appreciates, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details of the issue that he raises. However, I know that he is concerned about the matter. In the light of that, I remind the House that we have a greatly valued privilege in terms of freedom of speech in this place. I have often reminded the House that with that privilege must go responsibility. It is incumbent on us all to use our privilege responsibly, especially when we refer to people outside the House who do not have a platform from which to respond. We must keep in mind the balance between our privilege and our responsibility when making comments.
Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: I can hardly allow a further point of order when I have already given guidance on our behaviour. However, I shall hear the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Fyfe: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Of course I take note of the guidance that you have given. I merely wish to say, in case anyone is unaware of the position, that when I spoke yesterday I did not name names. I have no intention of naming names.
Sir Peter Emery (East Devon): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Due to the entirely inadequate
response--it was a non-reply--to my question from the Secretary of State for Defence, I give notice that I will raise the specific matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek your advice. The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Russell) failed to be present for Question 26 to the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department. The question concerns the courthouse in Colchester, which is of great importance to people in mid and north Essex.
Do you, Madam Speaker, believe that when Members fail to turn up to pose a question they have won in a selection process that that is discourteous to you, to our constituents and to the House? Did the hon. Gentleman notify you in advance that he would not be present for his question? If not, do you think that you are owed an apology?
Madam Speaker: I am sure that all hon. Members are aware that from time to time Members are not in their places to put questions that have been tabled. That does not show very good manners to the Minister who has to answer the question, to the Chair or to the House itself. However, a Member is often unable to be present for outside reasons. Members normally come to the Chair when they arrive in the House to apologise when they are late, or I receive a note from them. A Member apologised to me today because his train was an hour late. These are not political point-scoring matters. I understand that for many reasons Members on both sides of the House often find it impossible to get here and impossible to withdraw their question in time.
Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you can help me and other Members, who I fear may be in exactly the same position, by giving some advice on how one can secure timely answers from Departments without every time asking you for an Adjournment debate.
I have a sad and urgent case involving two of my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Money of Corby Glen in Lincolnshire, and their son David, who has been seriously handicapped from the age of six months following inappropriate vaccination. The family have been waiting for compensation for a long time. I wrote to the Under- Secretary of State for Social Security on this matter on 22 February. There has still been no response despite many attempts to get one. The Halifax bank is about to dispossess the family from their house because they cannot pay the mortgage. They have been waiting to no avail for compensation, or even a response, for a long time.
Madam Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may be aware that some weeks ago I raised such issues with the Cabinet Secretary and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. I used my best endeavours with those two individuals. I know that they are taking all steps to try to improve the situation. The fact that the hon. Gentleman has raised his point of order may speed things up.
Genetic Testing (Consent and Confidentiality)
4.20 pm
Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require that genetic testing and genetic test results and other information derived from such tests may be used only for medical and clinical purposes, after informed consent of the patient has been given; to prohibit the giving of such information to other parties; and to prohibit insurance companies, banks, mortgage providers and employers from requiring genetic tests to be taken or insisting on disclosure of the results or of information derived from such tests.
It is generally agreed that medical records and medical examinations may appropriately be used by insurers in an assessment of risk. Such information is historical, recording previous illness, disease and disability which it seems proper to take into account in deciding insurance premiums. Conversely, genetic testing looks forward, trying to establish what will happen. Many genetic diseases are currently not treatable. Information derived from genetic testing is, therefore, a very powerful matter for the individual concerned. It could reasonably be argued that, in cases of disease with a very poor prognosis, individuals have a right not to know and not to submit themselves to testing.
The problematic consequences of making available the results of genetic tests to insurance companies seem to be threefold. First, there would be the spectre of the creation of a whole underclass of people unable to obtain health insurance, mortgages or loans, and thereby financially excluded from society as a whole. Secondly, compelling individuals to take genetic tests against their will--to discover information that they do not want to know, and that might offer them very little or no medical advantage--seems to undermine the principle of informed consent.
Thirdly, some people who might benefit from appropriate medical intervention might be dissuaded from taking genetic tests because the information from the tests might later be made available to insurers. That concern goes over much of the ground that has been covered in previous debates on human immune deficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
The Association of British Insurers has in place a moratorium on the use of genetic testing. Regrettably, however, not all insurers are observing the moratorium. There have been exchanges between some of the campaigning pressure groups and the ABI on the conduct of specific companies. It is also worth remembering that 5 per cent. of insurance companies do not even belong to
the ABI or recognise its code of conduct. It is also clear that many of the companies that do recognise the code are requesting the declaration of all medical tests that have been undertaken, rather than restricting themselves in the matter as they are supposed to do.The danger is that less scrupulous companies which ignore the voluntary code of practice will cherry-pick individuals who are low risk and offer them low-premium products. So far, only one company--Virgin--has pledged not to use genetic test information, for ethical reasons. As I said, however, the main argument is that although genetic tests may show a predisposition to a particular disease, they are absolutely uncertain in suggesting that an individual will necessarily get that disease.
Other countries have recognised the problem and are taking action to deal with it. In Australia, insurers are not allowed, for example, to ask for an applicant's age. In Sweden, there is an agreement between the Government and the National Federation of Swedish Insurers stipulating that insurance companies may not require either family medical history or genetic results to be disclosed by the applicant. There are legislative restrictions in a number of other countries, including Austria, Belgium and Norway, as well as in 18 US states, while Australia, France, New Zealand and the Netherlands have voluntary agreements.
The Government are putting too much faith in the ABI and its code of practice. The Government set up an earlier commission, which reported in November 1998 and recommended a ban. Unfortunately, the Government did not accept that recommendation entirely and set up two subsequent commissions, both of which I welcome, to look into the two aspects of the issue. One is considering the practical aspect of whether particular tests are accurate and satisfactory; the other is just beginning its work on ethical and social considerations. I regret that the Government have not introduced at least a temporary ban while the two commissions are doing their work. I also regret that the Government do not appear to have considered the public health aspect of the problem. They do not even seem to have put in place measures to monitor how many people will decline genetic tests because they are fearful of the insurance implications, thereby perhaps imperiling their health and not taking advantage of new procedures that would be available to them.
The ABI code of practice says that applicants will not be asked to undergo a genetic test, that insurers will take account of existing results only if their reliability and relevance have been established, and that they will not interfere with the premiums that they charge unless a genetic test clearly indicates an increased risk. That should apply only to a limited range of products, but it seems to apply more widely across the board. There are some notable exceptions and it is unfair that those insurers who behave in a controlled and ethical fashion should lose out to those who do not. That is a taste of what is to come if we do not put in place tight regulations that ensure a fair marketplace.
The Alzheimer's Disease Society has been vocal in its criticism of the ABI and the Government's position. Its main critique of the ABI is that it has failed to demonstrate that insurers need to collect information on pre-symptomatic genetic tests. That is an important point. If insurers are not able to get such information, they will be in the same position as they are today. They will not
be materially worse off for not having information in the future that they do not currently have. It is incumbent on them to show that the existing insurance markets will fail if the companies are denied such information.The Alzheimer's Disease Society also points out that insurance companies have yet to demonstrate their competence in dealing with such genetic information or their ability to self-regulate. The society is right to flag up those substantial fears and many people are justifiably concerned.
I am also particularly encouraged that President Clinton has signed an executive order forbidding the United States Federal Government from using genetic information in employment decisions. That will protect all 2.8 million federal employees. President Clinton said:
- We must not allow advances in genetics to become the basis for discrimination against any individual or any one group. By signing the executive order, my goal is to set an example and pose a challenge for every employer in America, because I believe no employer should review your genetic records along with your resume.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Nick Harvey, Dr. Peter Brand, Mr. John Grogan, Mr. Martin Bell, Mr. Simon Burns and Dr. Evan Harris.
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