Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-04
Topic: Mixed Topics
Bernard Francisco Ribeiro (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I apologise for not speaking in the Second Reading debate, for reasons of ill health It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has set out the case against genocide most convincingly. As he said, there is a risk of repetition, as we covered so many of these issues in the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill in 2020 and in the noble Lord’s Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill only last year. I said then that the Human Tissue Act 2004 made it clear that written consent was required while the person was alive before donated bodies or body parts could be displayed The Government were supportive of our amendment in the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, who I am pleased to see in her place, said the Government would undertake "to strengthen the Human Tissue Authority’s code of practice".—[Official Report, 12/1/21; col. 705.] The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, who was here earlier, stated in summing up that the new code laid before Parliament in June 2021 was clear that "the same consent expectations should apply for imported bodies and body parts as apply for such material sourced domestically." In relation to exhibitions such as "Real Bodies", which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned and to which our Amendment 265 applies, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said "it would need proof of the donor’s specific consent to be displayed publicly after death. If it failed to provide such proof",—[Official Report, 16/7/21; cols. 2123-24.] that would prevent a licence being issued. In relation to organs for transplantation, our Amendment 282 makes it clear that consent must be given and that there must be no evidence of genocide in the country from which the organs are sourced. As a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons, I associate myself with the statement of December 2021 on the abuse of Uighurs in China made by the British Medical Association and the presidents of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges—of which the Royal College of Surgeons is a member—the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of Pathologists. It said: "We … and the organisations we represent, in advance of the report of the Uyghur Tribunal, express our grave concern regarding the situation in China and the continuing abuse of the Uyghur population … as well as other minorities." The UN special rapporteurs have continued to raise concerns surrounding organ harvesting from Uighurs in China, which the evidence overwhelmingly suggests continues to this day, with hearts, livers, kidneys and corneas being the most commonly taken In January this year, the BMA condemned the appalling involvement of doctors in China in what was a fundamental abuse of human rights and genocide against the Uighurs. It urged Her Majesty’s Government to exert pressure on the Chinese Government to stop these inhumane practices and to allow the UN investigators into Xinjiang region. The Minister may wish to comment on the Government’s response I will leave your Lordships with a quote from Dr Zoe Greaves, chairman of the BMA ethics committee. She said: "It is a doctor’s duty to help improve health and ease suffering, not to inflict it on others. The use of medical science and expertise to commit atrocities is abominable and represents an appalling antithesis to every doctor’s pledge to ‘first, do no harm’".