Medicinal Cannabis — House of Commons, 2021-09-06
Topic: Health
Ronald Jack Cowan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Thank you very much for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just jumped up quickly before you changed your mind! [Laughter.] I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for securing this debate, which has been great; we were looking forward to a 30-minute Adjournment debate, a battle through and a quick exchange of views, but because nobody cares that much about national insurance contributions amendments, we have been given this extra time. I will not take too much more, because a lot has been covered by the previous speaker and there is no point going over old ground. I would genuinely like to say that at 9.10 on a Monday evening there is nothing I would rather be doing on my birthday than fighting the cause of something I truly believe in On 19 March 2019, the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that medical cannabis "would be made available". If I had heard those words as the parent of a child who would have benefited, I would have been thinking that it was going to be made available. I would not be expecting to jump through hoops or to have to raise thousands of pounds to pay for it. My hopes would have been raised. A child with such a condition would, typically, have 30 seizures a day and so over 900 days we are talking about 27,000 seizures. If they had had medical cannabis, we could be talking about zero seizures. However, it will be made available some day. After this time, the general frustration in this Chamber is, "Why are we still talking about it?" We have said this a number of times in Westminster Hall, and here and there, and we know everything that has been said today I am genuinely glad that the Minister has informed us that we are now manufacturing some of these medicines here in the UK, as that is a big step forward. However, we are still reliant on private prescriptions and, as was pointed out earlier, the main provider of those is about to retire. Yet again, if I was a parent in that situation, would the sword of Damocles not be hanging over me? This is the same idea as what happened when we left the EU—we could not get the medicines in and we had to have an extension to January, to July and now to next year. That is a ticking timebomb hanging over those young lives that we just do not need to have there. The long and short of it is that people who cannot afford it or cannot raise the funds for it—during covid, raising funds for many a charitable cause has been incredibly difficult—simply go without. They go without and so there are 27,000 seizures because they have to go without a medicine that they know is available and know would do the job for their child. It should not be this way. In less time, we have developed, tested and rolled out a covid vaccine throughout the United Kingdom. The vaccine did not exist, it had to be tested, and we have done it. It concerns me that these kids are less of a priority What are the UK Government going to do? How will they finally going create a legal framework in which GPs are comfortable writing prescriptions for cannabis-based medical products? If we could do that, it would be a game-changer. I am not playing politics with this issue, but I have contacted the Scottish Government, and in Scotland if people get an NHS prescription, the Government will pay for it. The same thing has to apply down here, so let us facilitate that. Let us go to doctors, explain what it is we are asking them to do and give them the confidence to stand up and do it. If a senior clinician can do it, a GP can do it.