Lords
Proceedings
6 July 2026
Fracture Liaison Services
My Lords, the noble Lord asks a very important Question. Can the National Health Service make sure that there is a checklist for all fractures, just as an aircraft pilot does when he is taking off? There are numerous examples in the NHS—I speak from personal experience—of patients not being screened…
Lords
Proceedings
6 July 2026
National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation
My Lords, I listened to this short debate with a bit of amazement. We are looking at the end results, but we need to look a little further up the channel. My noble friend Lady Blackstone touched on a very important point, as indeed did the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, which is much more crucial tha…
Lords
Proceedings
29 June 2026
Food Security
My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister knows, there were some concerns from many scientists about the precision breeding Bill. I wonder whether he might be able to give us an update on what is currently happening with regard to the modification of crops and animals in our food security.
Lords
Proceedings
22 June 2026
NHS: Dementia Treatment Trials
My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that, while the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is quite keen on screening tests, we can both agree that screening tests have all sorts of major disadvantages, such as false diagnosis or unclear diagnosis? If we are not careful and do not have a test that is really …
Lords
Proceedings
17 June 2026
Social Media: Substances Unfit for Human Consumption
My Lords, I wish to raise a personal issue. For about three months now, I have been plagued by complaints from members of the public who have seen videos and digital images apparently of me promoting certain medicines on Instagram and Facebook. These medicines generally refer to erectile dysfunction…
Lords
Proceedings
15 June 2026
Rare Cancers: Diagnosis and Treatment
My Lords, the noble Baroness’s attempt to get early treatment is commendable, and we are glad to hear what the Government are saying, but does she agree that one problem is that cancer is really a multimorbidity, so that often a number of different organs will be affected by it? Does she further agr…
Lords
Proceedings
4 June 2026
Fertility Treatment Regulation
My Lords, I would like to come down to earth a little bit. First of all, I suggest that infertility is not a disease; it is actually a symptom of something wrong, and that is the basic problem here. What we are doing here with in vitro fertilisation is using a medical treatment for a symptom without…
Lords
Proceedings
20 May 2026
King’s Speech
It is with great pleasure that I follow the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I want to offer something of importance to all women. A newborn girl has around 1 million eggs at birth in her ovaries. By puberty, most of those microscopic eggs have already disappeared, often leaving some 300,000, accordin…
Lords
Debate
24 April 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Forgive me, but I have seen that letter about amendments that would be forthcoming and looked at it very closely. There was a letter that said, for example, that my noble and learned friend would bring forward alternatives on the issue of 18 to 25 year-olds. We are still waiting for those alternativ…
Lords
Debate
27 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Is the noble Lord aware that virtually no specialism has 100% of those posts filled? In fact, in most cases in the UK, as can be checked using the recent figures from the Department of Health, many specialisms are down to about 30%, and many specialist areas in medicine are not covered by specialist…
Lords
Debate
20 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I will just ask this question. I am genuinely a very simple doctor, and I do not really understand this problem. It is clearly a problem in ways that I think are humanitarian. At the moment in the House of Lords, we are discussing complex issues regarding precision medicine, which involves the use a…
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords—
My Lords—
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
13 March 2026
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister might be able to help me. I presume that the Government would look at the extensive literature that is available in medical and scientific journals on the action, tests and usage of these drugs in a number of sovereignties where they have been used succe…
Lords
Debate
12 February 2026
3 contributions
Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill
My Lords, I too am a little bit concerned about unintended consequences. It is a real pleasure to see my noble friend Lord Darzi in his place, because I hope he will have comments on this issue.
I trained as a clinical academic. Indeed, we know that clinical academics have had a unique value to the…
My Lords, it is an honour to support the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada. The best surgical training I had was with a Maltese surgeon, who was absolutely fantastic and taught me lessons I have never forgotten. One has to see that that cross-fertilisation happens across the NHS very often.
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Statutory Instrument
4 February 2026
2 contributions
Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025
My Lords, I declare an interest as having been in this House a little longer than the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I have great respect for many of the things that she has said, and we have worked together on other Bills. Over 50 years, I have continued to do animal research and held a licence unde…
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred in her powerful speech to what she called the “revulsion” against the use of animals in medical experiments. That is why there has been a long-term strategy, reinforced by this Government but also pursued by previous Governments, of the so-called “three Rs”…
Lords
Oral Questions
4 February 2026
Baby Milk Powder: Cereulide
Safety is paramount, whether we are talking about embryos, adults or children. I would be pleased to hear from my noble friend if there are particular areas on which he would like to be reassured, or at least responded to. But I hope that, in respect of food safety, in this situation, your Lordships…
Lords
Debate
2 February 2026
4 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I have the greatest respect for the noble Viscount, but I fear there is a difference between speaking in theory and practical reality. I want to point out that I have certainly killed at least one baby at term myself; possibly two.
There is a condition called ectopic pregnancy. Very occas…
I thank the noble Baroness very much for her point, because I appreciate that she is giving me a brief rest during a very emotional speech in my case. I apologise for it being an emotional speech, but when you have dealt with such patients frequently for many years, you forget exactly how serious th…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
23 January 2026
5 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Does the noble Lord agree that removing life support is not part of the health service?
I feel tempted to try to answer that very quickly. I too will be leaving the Committee before we get to a vote on this or at least some decision from the Minister about what the Minister is going to say. I have to say that this discussion about the cost of treatment is not a reasonable one. The nobl…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
4 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, I wonder whether I could briefly come back to something that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said. I have a great deal of respect for him, and I agree with a great deal of what he said in his speech just now, but I suggest that, when it comes to medical practitioners and the medical and caring…
I thank the noble Lord for this conversation. I am glad to hear him say that but, unfortunately, the word “concerns” is often bandied about by people who just say, “Well, of course, the doctors are against this Bill”. That is not a fair assumption; it is certainly clear from the Select Committee evi…
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
16 January 2026
Rare Cancers Bill
As my noble friend said, this has been an extremely valuable, well-informed and moving debate. At present, we are focusing on rare cancers because of the nature of the Bill, but I absolutely take his point about the importance of work outside rare cancers and the overlap with that. I thank him for i…
Lords
Oral Questions
5 January 2026
Sudden Cardiac Death: Screening for Young People
My noble friend raises the crucial point about the NSC. I emphasise again that it has a well-earned international reputation for rigour and for making robust, evidence-based recommendations that stand up to scrutiny. My noble friend is right that we have to understand that introducing population-lev…
Lords
Oral Questions
15 December 2025
Emergency Adrenaline
I am sure that is fair and I certainly bow to my noble friend’s expertise in this regard. I thank him for that, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his question. However, I feel a little inadequate on the medical front here.
Lords
Debate
12 December 2025
6 contributions
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I just wonder what he feels a GP should do in the circumstance in which he does not approve of assisted dying? Does the noble Lord feel that that is a problem?
My Lords—
+4 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
10 December 2025
Universal Credit: Two-child Limit
I am grateful to my noble friend for calling me back to order. The availability of contraception has been transformative for women, and we should all recognise that. Being able to have control over their fertility makes an enormous difference to the choices that women make. For many of them, it mean…