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Organophosphates

My Lords, I support the noble Countess. Basically, the simple answer to her question should be yes. I am not going to go into all the background details because I am not as up-to-date as I was when I was one of the Ministers responsible in 1997-99 and then again from 2006-08 in one department, but the fact that this issue goes across departments is the central point that I wish to make. As the noble Countess has said, there has been progress. The lack of exposure today is a result of the work that has been done by the industry, pushed by our officials in the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, in producing better containers from which people could not by accident, irrespective of negligence, be contaminated. There is no question that this was a serious issue in the past. However, this means that no new people from farming are coming into the system for the doctors and the scientists to look at. As I say, the problem transcends that, but there has been stagnation. When we considered this problem in MAFF from very early on in 1997 and 1998, I had discussions with the then Minister, Jack Cunningham, who, with his background as a chemist, took it very seriously. We picked up from other departments that there were issues across government in regard to chemicals. Richard Carden—who, as the noble Countess said, has retired—would take some pleasure in seeing the Carden Committee reconvened. He was a first-class civil servant, in my experience, at MAFF and he chaired a large Whitehall committee which covered many more departments than one would imagine. Obviously, as I moved around Whitehall I did not keep up to date over the years. I regret that the committee’s deliberations have not been made public and I can see no good reason for that. In that period of time, we had probably three scientific advisers, and now we have a new Government Chief Scientific Adviser. This problem should be the first thing on Professor Bennington’s desk and he should look at it to see what the current situation is. There are grounds for considering it. I have never seen a satisfactory answer to the issue of the airline pilots and the doubts that have been raised about it. I do not want to be controversial but, if one looks at the big picture from the outside—at the nature of the doubts about organophosphates, at the issue of Factor VIII, dirty blood and blood products, and at the issue of Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War—one gets the impression of a natural reluctance of the centre to investigate when these issues arise and a pattern starts to be formed. That is the point that I want to make. In a way, the Carden Committee and what was put together could overcome and answer some of these issues. They go across Whitehall departments. I do not want the Government to be in the dock over them but a pattern has emerged over a period—there may be others of which I am unaware—that there is a reluctance to investigate. Why? "Oh, because there are no new cases; because of the issue of compensation; because the science is not quite clear". Given what has happened in the United States in the first 100 days, if these matters were put to President Obama I can envisage some executive action coming forth. Not by overdoing the science or taking the scientists’ view, but by giving the issue a push, a spurt, to ensure that we can put it to bed. There is plenty of evidence—I do not think complete solutions will ever be found—from those who have been injured, if I can put it that way, in the farming industry, from those with Gulf War syndrome and from the issue of the fuel used in aircraft to ensure that the doubts about the use of organophosphates remain. These are matters worthy of investigation. In the way that it does, Whitehall did some joined-up thinking on this. There was genuine joined-up working in the way in which the Carden Committee was put together and worked. I pay tribute to that and I have no problem with it. I was on the receiving end over a 10-year period of delegations which included the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and the noble Countess, Lady Mar. I said to officials on one occasion—I think it was in 2006 or early 2007—after the noble colleagues had left, "One day I will be a Back-Bencher and she is my model". That is true. The noble Countess has shown great tenaciousness in pushing this issue—it is not a vested interest, although she has been affected in many ways—getting to grips with it and not accepting no for an answer. In this case, Whitehall and the Government reached out. I do not know whether it is time to call for Carden, who is well away into retirement—I shall not mention what part of the country he is in but I had a nice letter from him when I left government, so I know he keeps a watch on what is going on—but I hope the lawyers will not make the final decision; it is important that it is made on the grounds of science and health. The Government have a public responsibility and a duty of care in all these issues. In allowing products onto the market, however they are used, the Government have a duty of care. It may be that people will say, "We have solved all the problems" but, nevertheless, there are too many unanswered questions. It is probably time, given the Whitehall committee structure, genuinely to say to the noble Countess tonight that the answer to her question should be yes.