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Baroness Sharples: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one of his honourable friends in another place stated quite clearly that the document for discussion would be out in the spring or in early summer?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I think that the House is clear that it has been an appalling spring and a rather late summer.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, will my noble friend give more information on one of his three options for photo-identity cards—those for asylum seekers? Do they get the cards when they arrive in Calais or when they land in this country? When are they convertible into an asylum entitlement card?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the cards are currently issued to people who are registering a claim for asylum in this country at Croydon. That started in January. They will be progressively rolled out across the rest of the asylum management process during the course of this year. As the noble Lord implied, the aim is to reduce fraud or any multiple applications that have been known to be made by some asylum claimants.
Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel
3 p.m.
Baroness Wilcox asked Her Majesty's Government:
- In view of the priority they give to drawing up authoritative advice on measures to minimise airline passengers' risk of deep vein thrombosis, whether they give similar priority to ensuring that this important advice is understood by those passengers.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government's first priority, as recommended by the noble Baroness's committee, is for research to investigate possible links between air travel and deep vein thrombosis. We have made £1.2 million available to ensure that the World Health Organisation's project goes ahead. We are the only country to have provided funding.
The noble Baroness has raised a legitimate point about passengers' understanding of advice. The Department of Transport will discuss the matter with the airlines and the travel industry.
Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Will he confirm that that welcome change of heart will also cover the extent to which intending passengers, particularly those in vulnerable groups, get clear information in time to seek
potentially life-saving advice before they travel? Does he agree that in-flight advice is too late for that unfortunate few?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the existing advice, which was started in November 2001, is available via airlines, and presumably from the travel industry. It is also available from health practitioners and from NHS Direct, as well as through the Internet. It can reach intending passengers as well as actual passengers. The Department of Health produces health advice for travellers, which is available to anybody. The noble Baroness's point is well taken, but it is being addressed.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the NHS does not, as a matter of routine, collect information regarding the travel patterns of people with thromboembolic disease? Does he agree that if we are to understand the potential links between DVT and air travel, this information should be collected?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I agree entirely. That is exactly why we are putting all that money into the World Health Organisation project. Some £1.8 million is being put in, most of it from this country and the rest from the European Commission. In the first instance, it will provide large-scale epidemiological research into the relationship between DVT and long-haul air travel—exactly the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I declare an interest, having suffered from DVT some years ago. I felt a real clot at the time! The committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, did a seminal job in drawing the attention of the public to this danger. To what extent do GPs and others in the medical profession make information for travellers available in their surgeries? Has the Minister found any resistance among the airlines to drawing the issue to the attention of passengers, not when they get on the plane, but when they buy their tickets? In my experience, preparation for the journey will do the trick.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, addressed that important issue very well in her supplementary question. The airlines make such advice available. My understanding is that they are all co-operating in making it available as they sell tickets or prepare to sell tickets, not just when people board planes. I confirm that health practitioners have information to give to their patients. The information is also available from NHS Direct.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the minimum distance between seats on aeroplanes is set by the CAA, based on safety recommendations for evacuation of aeroplanes? Has the CAA looked into those minimum distances in the
light of the medical evidence now available and in view of the report produced by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and her committee?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the issue of seat pitch has been a matter of great controversy recently, as the noble Viscount knows. The issue of whether seat pitch—in other words, being confined and unnecessarily immobilised—is the principal or only link with deep vein thrombosis has still to be proved. That is why the World Health Organisation research is so important.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, does the Minister agree that while the research is being undertaken, one possible means of reducing the potential risk of DVT would be for airlines to be required to reduce the number of rows of seats on flights lasting four hours or more, thus increasing the seat pitch?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, there are serious issues there as well. There are other possible causes of deep vein thrombosis. It could be caused not just by seat pitch, but also by the nature of the atmosphere, what passengers eat or drink—particularly whether they drink water—or whether they take advice about moving around the cabin or what exercises to take. All those issues are important. Seat pitch is clearly one that the airlines will have to take seriously as part of that range of issues.
Business
3.7 p.m.
Lord Grocott: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble and learned friend Lord Williams of Mostyn will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on the European Council, Seville.
Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Employee Share Schemes Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
Procedure of the House: Select Committee Second Report
3.8 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Perhaps I may give some background. Your Lordships will remember that the issue relates to the Convention on the Future of Europe, which was established to prepare
the way for the next intergovernmental conference. It contains representatives from all the national parliaments of Europe. We have two alternates from this House—the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Maclennan of Rogart—in addition to the two representatives appointed by the Commons.Thought has been given to how the four Members of the two Houses can best report back to Parliament. A message was received from the Commons on 13th June. The House of Commons has ordered the establishment of a Standing Committee on the convention. Its object is the consideration of reports from the United Kingdom parliamentary representatives to the convention. It has no other function and it has no decision-making powers. This is a Commons committee and it was the decision of the Commons, on their own initiative, to set it up. I know that many of your Lordships may regret that it is not a Joint Committee, but that is what the Commons decided and we were only told about it once they had decided.
However, the report of the Procedure Committee sets out a new procedure whereby Members of this House will be able to contribute fully to the work of the committee. Any noble Lord who wishes to attend will be able to take part in all the debates in the committee with the limited provisos that they may not move Motions, that they may not vote and that they will not count towards a quorum. They will be able to question the Commons representatives, which they would not necessarily be able to do were they also to set up their own committee. In addition, the Lords alternate representatives will be permitted to appear before the Standing Committee, make statements and answer questions in the same way as the Commons representatives.
Noble Lords will also be aware that the European Union Committee of this House is already keeping the work of the convention under review. It has already taken evidence from the four representatives and the Minister for Europe, Mr Peter Hain. That work will continue in parallel with the formal process of reporting back, which is described in the Procedure Committee report.
Starting with a blank sheet, we might well have preferred a Joint Committee but we are where we are and it is important that we should make the best of it. I emphasise that this approach in no way precludes noble Lords from debating issues that arise from the convention as it develops or from tabling Motions on that subject from time to time. The only procedural limitations on Members of this House, as I said, will be that they will not be entitled to vote, move any Motion or count towards a quorum. I can think of very few occasions on which votes will be called for in that Standing Committee.
A number of questions were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, in a Written Question, and were answered last week by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. If anyone has not yet read them, I commend them because they answer a number of outstanding questions.
Moved, That the 2nd Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 130) be agreed to.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
- Convention on the future of Europe
- On 28 January 2002 the House appointed two Alternate Representatives to the Convention on the future of Europe. At the same time the House of Commons appointed two Representatives. Consideration has been given as to how these four members of the two Houses can report back to their colleagues at Westminster on their work in the Convention and respond to questions.
- The House of Commons has now appointed a Standing Committee on the Convention on the future of Europe but in which the Lords Alternate Representatives and any other member of this House may participate. Procedurally, this is a new departure. The Standing Committee is not a conventional joint committee of the two Houses, and members of this House would not appearing before it as witnesses before a Commons committee, which is a procedure provided for in Standing Order 24 (Lords' attendance at Commons select committees). What is proposed in the new Commons Standing Committee is an entirely new procedure, whereby members of the House of Lords can participate in a Commons-appointed committee. There will be some procedural limitations on members of this House (they will not be entitled to vote, move and motion or count towards the quorum), but these limitations would not prevent either the Alternates from reporting on, or other Members of this House from debating, the issues considered at the Convention.
- Details as to when and where the new Standing Committee will meet are not yet settled. But members of this House will be kept informed about meetings in the same way as for Lords Committees, by means of the Committee sheet appended to the Minutes of Proceedings, by the Committee Office's Weekly Agenda (available from the PPO) and by other means such as the parliamentary website.
- The Procedure Committee recommends that members of the House of Lords should be able to participate in the work of the Commons Standing Committee, as provided for in the Commons Message received on Thursday 13 June. If this recommendation is agreed to, the Leader of the House will move a resolution giving leave to members of the House of Lords to do so.
- The Procedure Committee recognises that the European Union Committee will itself wish to ensure that the work of the Convention is fully and properly monitored, but welcomes the creation of an additional forum in which the Parliamentary Representatives and Alternates can report back to members of both Houses on the work of the convention.
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