| Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
|
|
The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now embarking on a more general analysis of the health service. I remind him that we are discussing a group of amendments to the Bill, and I would be grateful if he concentrated on that. Dr. Murrison: I am grateful, Mr. Forth. I was trying to describe the functions of the HPA as they stand, and how they might be developed. That is fundamental to the Bill; it is the engine room of the Bill, because the agency is nothing if it is not what it does. We are not interested in the structure of the agency or, necessarily, in how it is financed, although we have gone through that in enough depth. Miss Johnson: I do not believe what I hear. The hon. Gentleman is not interested in the clauses that we are debating. The Chairman: Order. I am grateful to the Minister for her advice and support, but there is only one Chairman in this Committee and, for the time being, that is me. I shall allow the hon. Gentleman to continue, but I shall be listening rather carefully for repetition, deviation or, indeed, any other sin. Dr. Murrison: I agree absolutely, and I am very glad that there is only one Chairman in this Committee. May I say what an admirable Chairman he is? I am sorry that the Minister butted in prematurely, as I was going to say that we are not particularly interested in the number of executive and non-executive members of the board of this body; we are interested in how it does its job, as that is what matters to our constituents, but it is encapsulated in a very few column inches in the Bill. That is what we are discussing now. I make no apologies for going on about this, because it is crucial to our deliberations. Frankly, if we do not get it right, we might as well pack up and go home and let the existing structures continue. Our constituents need to know that this body, which they are financing, will make a difference to their health. They also need to know what it will do. The Minister clarified some of that, and I am grateful to her for that, but I want to know how the agency will improve people's health in several specific areas. We have teased out many of those, and my purpose in pursuing this matter is to obtain a few more nuggets from the Minister, and perhaps to change her thinking slightly in several ways, as her colleagues were moved to Column Number: 059 change their mind on the last measure that we debated in the House yesterday. There were 99 amendments tabled to the Human Tissue Bill on Report, and we do not want that. It would be much nicer to make changes at an earlier stage.I am just trying to be helpful in focusing particularly on clause 2, on health functions, which is the most important clause. I hope that the Minister has taken to heart some of what I have said; I mean it in good faith. The Bill is not particularly controversial, but we want to get it right. The Chairman: It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman would say whether he wants to press his amendment to a vote or seeks leave to withdraw it. Dr. Murrison: I am grateful, Mr. Forth. I think that I have made my point. I may return to one or two matters on Report, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Miss Johnson: We have already had a wide-ranging debate—so wide-ranging that from time to time you have felt the need to restrict some of us in our contributions, Mr. Forth. I shall not test your patience by repeating what we have said already, or by straying too widely. The clause is important because it identifies the health protection functions of the agency and the ways in which it may be directed to exercise other health functions. We have had an extensive discussion of those functions in debating the amendments, and I do not intend to explore them further. I shall respond briefly to one or two of the points that have been raised, particularly the question of zoonotic infection in humans, which was not raised earlier on. Were an outbreak to occur in the animal population where there is a clear and perceived risk of transfer of disease to humans, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in close liaison with the agency and the Department of Health, would take the lead on animal health issues; the agency, in close liaison with the Department of Health and DEFRA, would take the lead on human health issues. Members will appreciate that things work in both directions: for example, when a few months ago an urgent question was tabled on avian flu, both I and a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were present on the Front Bench for the debate. There is liaison between organisations dealing with human and animal health at central, regional and local level. Mr. Burstow: One of the issues that I raised on Second Reading in relation to zoonotic conditions was the question of who would be pre-eminent when there was an outbreak in the animal population and concern about a potential spread to the human population. The Minister has said that DEFRA would deal with the animal population and the Department and the agency would deal with the human population, but who is pre-eminent in making decisions about, for Column Number: 060 example, how one might deal with the animal population to contain a spread to the human population? Where do those decisions rest?Miss Johnson: They rest in joint working and co-operation. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to think that it is possible simply to allocate the lead in those matters. In the event that we are considering, both sides are important in containing the outbreak and dealing with the human health issues that may arise. Therefore it is important for both bodies to work together. As I said, in the event of a clear and perceived risk of transfer of disease to humans, DEFRA would be in liaison on animal health issues and the agency would be in close liaison with the Department of Health and DEFRA on human health issues. It is not possible to say that one body will have the final say, because co-operation has already been established, and needs to continue in such an event. Liaison occurs at all possible levels, as I was saying when the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam intervened. That continues. For example, there is collaboration between the national public health service for Wales, which provides the zoonosis surveillance reference unit for England and Wales, and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, which links human and animal surveillance. A pilot scheme is being developed in Wales to link human and animal data, and it is hoped that a similar scheme will be rolled out in the rest of the UK. That rests on mutual co-operation, which is embodied in clause 5.
3.45 pmDr. Murrison: Would the Minister accept that we are talking about emergencies? In such situations, somebody has to have primacy; otherwise one ends up with a dog's breakfast, arguably of the sort that occurred in relation to the BSE crisis. Although we accept that organisations should co-operate, it will not do not to have somebody who is obviously in charge. I hope that the Minister agrees, and will give further thought to which of the agencies would have primacy in the circumstances that have been described. Miss Johnson: DEFRA would have primacy in cases of animal health, and the HPA would have primacy on human health issues. It would not be sensible to say that the HPA should do a lot of detailed animal health work, because DEFRA and other organisations have prime responsibility for animal welfare and need to get the ''animal'' side of things right if there is any danger of the spread of a disease that might impact on both animals and humans. I disagree with hon. Members' analysis of what makes sense in this context. We have worked through such situations and are looking further at the results of recent work on the outbreak of foot and mouth. Those issues have been well dealt with and we have learned many lessons from what happened. However, that is not likely to affect human beings; it is confined to one area. Dr. Murrison: DEFRA is a Ministry headed by a Secretary of State. The agency is an agency headed by a chairman and chief executive. Can we assume that, if difficult decisions had to be made about, for example, Column Number: 061 BSE—which interrelates with human health—those difficult decisions would end up, by default, being made by DEFRA because its top man is a Secretary of State, rather than the chief executive or chairman of an agency?Miss Johnson: That is quite a wrong assumption. The HPA works closely with the chief medical officer and with Ministers in the Department of Health. It is impossible to believe that, in the event of any emergency posing the kind of threat to human well-being that the hon. Gentleman envisages, Ministers would not be involved in some way—through the emergency planning arrangements, Cobra and so forth. There are Committees that deal with such matters at ministerial level, as he is aware. I have dealt with most of the issues that have been raised, and have tried to pick up matters that have been mentioned in debate, either by responding on intervention or just now. The clause sets out the appropriate powers for the agency, and I trust that the Committee will give it its full support. Mr. Francois: I should like to highlight just a few points, partly in response to some of the things that the Minister said when she addressed the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury and by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam. As we have heard, the measure is, overall, non-contentious. It is a matter of record that Her Majesty's Opposition did not vote against the Bill on Second Reading, so we begin with a degree of consensus. However, if the role of the Committee, when considering legislation of this type, is to scrutinise the detail and to try to identify any area of weakness or area in which, within an agreed framework, more work needs to be done, the Committee has been earning its corn today. We appear to have found at least one area of weakness that required further scrutiny. A parallel has been drawn with the Human Tissue Bill of which, by coincidence, the remaining stages were debated on the Floor of the House yesterday. That, too, was relatively non-contentious in party political terms, although it covered issues that are extremely important to medical specialists and to others. In that case, too, it was stressed that it was non-partisan. The Opposition tabled a range of amendments, which the Government were reluctant to accept. Yet by the time we discussed it on the Floor of the House yesterday, the Government had produced 99 amendments, a large number of which were suggested by the Opposition in the Bill's Committee stage. If we take a parallel with that, we are not discouraged. On a similar piece of legislation in many ways, the Government were reluctant to accept the Opposition's points, yet on Report they tabled a raft of amendments showing that the Opposition had been right all along. On that Bill's Third Reading, the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), complimented the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) for performing a complete volte face on a range of issues Column Number: 062
We hope that her colleague might follow her down a similar path. The Opposition believe that there are some weaknesses in the Bill with regard to the relationship between the proposed Health Protection Agency and its interaction with agencies that are concerned with what one might term ''homeland security''. For that reason, we specifically nominated my hon. Friend the Member for Newark to be part of our Front-Bench team. Experience shows that we were right. He, along with some modest contributions from the rest of us, has been able to press the Government on some of these issues. In fairness to the Minister, she has now begun to provide some of the detail that the Government could not provide on Second Reading. She has begun to answer some of the questions that the Opposition wanted to put to her on issues where we felt that the Government had not been sufficiently thorough. Equally, there is yet more work for the Government to do. At least, by pressing them on these matters today, we have begun to get some answers. The Minister disagreed with us about the content of ''Protect and Survive''. I was slightly concerned when she said that it was all history. I humbly remind her that it was only in 1989 that the Berlin wall came down. It is not that long ago. A number of countries around the world are still in possession of nuclear weapons. We are not talking about an examination of the ancient Greeks.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2004 | Prepared 29 June 2004 |
