Community Hospitals

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing it, and I entirely concur with the major premise of his speech, as well as that of many of my colleagues’ speeches, that community hospitals should be further developed to promote additional services.
One such excellent community hospital is the Congleton War Memorial hospital in my constituency. Given the high standards it has provided for its local patients, it is well placed to extend its services. The recent patient-led assessment of the care environment rated Congleton War Memorial highly, with no less than 93%. Founded in 1924 by public subscription, it was a memorial to all those who had given their lives in the first world war. The hospital has served the community of Congleton ever since, and it is fitting that I should be able to stand up and praise that excellent local hospital in the centenary year of the start of that war.
I will give a little background. Built in 1924, the hospital was paid for by local people and opened by the King as a memorial to those 243 men from the town who gave their lives in the first world war. When the King opened the hospital, he said:

“The hospital will always be a reminder to generations to come of the prudent and generous instincts of the townspeople of Congleton”.

Indeed, it has been, and still is.
Until the inauguration of the health service in 1948, the hospital was maintained locally, first by an industrial hospital fund, to which every worker in the borough contributed one penny a week, deducted from their pay packets. That is why the hospital remains so close to many people’s hearts, in particular the many elderly people in my constituency. Additionally, it was supported by the proceeds of an annual hospital carnival, private subscriptions and bequests, the proceeds of special efforts, and donations from local fundraising, which continues today.
Its current services range from a minor injuries unit to physiotherapy and phlebotomy. It offers a personal and local service that a larger city or general hospital simply cannot match. It is a high-class facility on the doorstep of the people of Congleton, meaning that those who are less mobile due to age, infirmity or lack of transport can easily access health care facilities without needing to ride in a bus or taxi to the nearest larger hospital, which is in neighbouring Macclesfield.
Although a community hospital, it has a host of facilities and services for out-patients and in-patients. It provides a wide range of local health care for residents and has a specialist intermediate care unit. It gives respite care for people who no longer need the facilities
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of the larger hospitals in the region, such as Macclesfield district general hospital, so people can recover in a more homely and relaxed environment that is closer to home. That is very much appreciated, particularly by those who have more acute and severe needs. Such a facility is also a boon for visiting families and provides a halfway step between hospital and home. As I have said, the hospital is particularly valued by older constituents.
I want to reassure my constituents that I know of no current plans to reduce or close the services at Congleton War Memorial hospital. Indeed, my purpose in speaking today is to request that consideration be given to extending them. I assure hon. Members that my constituents would rise up in revolt should there ever be a hint of closure or reduction in services at the hospital—and it would not be the first time. In 1962, after a suggestion that the hospital be closed, there was a mass meeting at the town hall, with an overflow of some 2,000 residents. The meeting was presided over by the mayor and it was unanimously resolved to oppose every means by which closure could be attained. A petition was organised and got 24,000 signatures. The plans were well and truly dropped and the hospital has flourished ever since.
Members of my staff extol the importance of the hospital for the people of Congleton and call it an “invaluable asset”. They say that waiting times are short, even for minor injuries—half an hour, if someone is unlucky, which is far better than at an A and E at many larger hospitals. The service is treasured by the people of Congleton, who use it frequently and see its special services as something that should be available as a matter of course. Congleton residents rely on it for its family-friendly outlook. As I have said, its minor injuries unit helps to avoid long waits at A and E and serves the local community; it also potentially reduces waiting times at larger hospitals and takes a load off them by treating less acute injuries.
The value of Congleton War Memorial hospital cannot be overstated. It is beloved by local people and provides a level of personal service that I myself have witnessed when I have had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with the staff there, in fresh and attractive facilities that are maintained to a very high standard.
I hope the Minister will join me in extolling the virtues of important facilities such as those at Congleton War Memorial hospital, and perhaps even visit for himself one day to see, in Congleton, what a model community hospital looks like. It is ideally placed for the extension of the excellent facilities that it provides.

Mitochondrial Replacement (Public Safety)

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): I beg to move,

That this House takes note of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s most recent scientific review into the safety and efficacy of mitochondrial replacement techniques which highlights concerns for subsequent generations of children born through maternal spindle transfer and pronuclear transfer; welcomes the recent comments of scientists including Professor Lord Winston that, prior to the introduction of such techniques, more research ought to be undertaken and a full assessment conducted of the potential risk to children born as a result; and calls upon the Government, in light of these public safety concerns, to delay bringing forward regulations on mitochondrial replacement.

I am pleased to move this motion and to have gained support from so many Members from across the House, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the time to debate it.
It is in our interest as a nation to be at the cutting edge of technological progress. However, in striving for such progress, we cannot afford to cut corners when it comes to public safety. Surely this can nowhere be more true than in relation to the proposal that pronuclear transfer or PNT and maternal spindle transfer or MST be permitted in an attempt to create children who do not inherit mitochondrial disease. In 2011, 2013 and 2014, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority or HFEA assessed the safety of the procedures, and on every occasion it reported that further research was required before the public could be satisfactorily reassured regarding them. It described experiments as “critical”, with some not even having started in June 2014. It stated that

“there are still experiments that need to be completed before clinical treatment should be offered. The panel considers that some of these experiments are critical and others desirable.”

Even more concerning, it stated, was that

“the process cannot be expected to guarantee safety or efficacy when applied for the first time in a clinic.”

In other words, to allow these procedures at present would be tantamount to experimentation.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD): Does the hon. Lady accept that when anything is tried on a human for the first time, we cannot be absolutely certain what will happen? Is she really saying that we should not do anything—no cancer treatment, nothing—until we are absolutely 100% certain that there are no side effects? Does she not accept that we are trying to treat hideous diseases?
Fiona Bruce: I accept that in no case can one be 100% sure that a technique will be safe. However, we are very far from that in this case. This is a case of genetic engineering; it is the alteration of a potential human being—the removal of certain genes and their replacement with others, to create children. Surely, in such cases, we should be very careful over safety before we proceed.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. It is not just her who has concerns about safety. When legislation was scrutinised in 2008, the right hon. Member for Bristol South (Dame Dawn Primarolo), now Madam
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Deputy Speaker, said as the responsible Minister that the safety of such techniques needed to be established before we could proceed.
Fiona Bruce: Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
The HFEA has repeatedly told the Government that further research is required before we can proceed.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): Order. Nineteen Members wish to speak and other Members are trying to catch my eye to intervene. It is an important debate and we need to allow the allotted speakers in, so Members should think very hard before trying to intervene.
Fiona Bruce: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Parliament should be allowed to deliberate on and debate this issue at length, but that might not happen. I understand that the Government propose to lay regulations permitting PNT and MST before the end of this year. Sir John Tooke, president of the Academy of Medical Sciences has said:

“Introducing regulations now will ensure that there is no avoidable delay in these treatments reaching affected families once there is sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy.”

In other words, Parliament should vote blind and sign off legislation permitting these procedures before the recommended experiments—some of them critical, regarding safety—have been completed.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con): As a veteran of these debates, going right back to 1985, I wish to commend my hon. Friend enormously for what she is saying and doing. There has been a history of manipulation, involving packing of committees, for example, over an extremely long period. My hon. Friend is right to take the line she is taking: it is not just about health and safety, but about the whole question of the ethical and moral values that lie behind attempts to manipulate genes. We all want to help people; the question is whether this is the right way to do it. I emphatically believe that it is not.
Fiona Bruce: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
Even more worrying than the quotes I have cited from the HFEA is the fact that many scientists, national and international, have gone further in publicly stating that these procedures should not be authorised at all—and not necessarily because they are against them in principle, as some are not against them. Stuart A. Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York medical college has described these proposals as “inherently unsafe”. Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor in the department of cell biology at the UC Davis school of medicine recently wrote that a process of this kind

“could trigger all kinds of devastating problems that…might not manifest until you try to make a human being out of it. Then it’s too late.”

Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): I am grateful to my hon. Friend and respect what she is saying. Safety is paramount, but for every year we delay bringing this science and technology forward, 6,500 children will pick up these horrible inherited diseases, and many
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of them will die. At what stage would my hon. Friend say that the risks of mitochondrial donation become proportionate to the severity of mitochondrial disease to which many of our constituents are subjected?
Fiona Bruce: I can respond in this way. In the general science, concerns have been referred to. A mismatch between nuclear and the mitochondrial DNA could cause severe health problems in children conceived with this technique: problems such as infertility, reduced growth, impaired learning, faster ageing and early death. Are those not sufficiently serious for us to be extremely concerned?
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con): I support the work to combat this terrible disease, some of which is being pioneered by my local university, Newcastle, and I will be urging the Government to proceed with the trials, but the question is this. The new IVF technique that has been pioneered at Newcastle has proved to be successful in the laboratory, but the current law prevents it from being tested in a clinical trial or used in clinical practice. That is what we need to change. Without those clinical trials, we cannot progress and deal with this terrible disease.
Fiona Bruce: That is very interesting but the point I am making is that at the moment such clinical trials would involve children. Two peer-reviewed articles in Nature have suggested that mitochondrial transfer is inherently risky, one of them citing a figure of 52% of embryos created through MST having chromosomal abnormalities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con): There has been reference to the curing of disease but is that not a misleading way of putting it? What is happening is the creation of different people from those who would have been born suffering from the disease. Therefore, this is not curing an existing condition. It is stopping someone being born who would otherwise have been born.
Fiona Bruce: That is absolutely right. This technique will not provide a cure of mitochondrial disorders at all. Indeed, concern has been expressed that even where a female child born through the process appears not to suffer from the disease she could still be a carrier.
Several hon. Members rose—
Fiona Bruce: I am beginning to think there may be a point at which I must not take any more interventions, simply because I know how many other Members wish to speak. I will not give way from now on. I would be delighted to, but I am aware that almost 20 Members have asked to speak in the debate.
Professor Lord Winston, who supports the regulations in principle, has recently expressed concerns over public safety:

“I don’t believe there has been enough work done to make sure mitochondrial replacement is truly safe. There probably needs to be a great deal more research in as many animal models as possible before it’s done.”

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Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Fiona Bruce: I will not give way again, as I said. Mr Deputy Speaker has asked me to limit my time quite severely in order that many other Members may contribute to this important debate.
It is vital that, taking advice from scientists, the decision about whether to proceed down this road is made by this House and is seen to be made by the public. It would be wrong for Parliament to pre-emptively sign off the legislation even if there were a provision in the regulations saying that the Government would not move to implementation until such time as the HFEA said it was content with the outcome of the pre-clinical report. That would be to outsource the final decision to technocrats, possibly behind closed doors, rather than in the transparent environment of this Chamber, in full public view. Parliament cannot be seen to provide pre-emptive mandates in relation to a subject on which there are such significant public safety concerns. We need scientists and experts to conduct the research but we must make the final decision.
I realise that you would like me to conclude, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will now do so with regret, because I would have liked to say a great deal more, particularly regarding the public concerns relating to the proposals. According to a ComRes poll, a limited number—only 18%—of the public are in favour of the proposals.