---

Organophosphates

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Countess and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We have over many years worked together on this issue and I congratulate the noble Countess, in particular, on her extraordinary mastery of the facts. My only concern about her case is that she sometimes thinks OP has affected her brain power. However, there is no evidence of that in the way in which she contributes to the debates of your Lordships’ House. I should put on record that the right honourable Michael Meacher, who has also been a Minister in the department principally responsible for this issue, has been a doughty campaigner, as has the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in seeking justice for those who suffer from OP poisoning. As has already been mentioned, since 1992 and through to 2005 I convened an all-party parliamentary group containing Members of your Lordships’ House and Members of the other place, from all parties and from all parts of the country, to deal with this issue. The problem originally arose with sheep farmers—in my case sheep farmers in the south-west, who I represented—and every improvement in the controls placed on the use of OPs and every time more protective measures were placed on their use and on the people who were going to use them was, effectively, an admission that the previous arrangements were inadequate. Of course, the previous arrangements were forced upon sheep farmers by government decree. It was not like thalidomide, where people voluntarily took on a particular form of treatment and then there were difficulties. Sheep farmers had to use OPs—twice a year, under the original arrangements. The Government, as well as those responsible for manufacture, had not just a moral but a legal responsibility for the use of organophosphates. As has been said, and this is a good moment to make this point again, there is a responsibility for joined-up government. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker—at the instigation, I would like to think, of others outside—took up that challenge and made sure that it happened, and the Carden Committee was the effective vehicle for that purpose. It was not down to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or, as it became, Defra. It was not down to the Ministry of Defence, in the case of the 1991-92 Gulf War—I should perhaps declare a non-pecuniary interest as a member of the Royal British Legion Gulf War Group. It was not down to the Department for Transport, in the case of the BAe146 aircraft that has proved to be most controversial in this case, where the bleeding into the cabin of some of the OP lubricants in the engine seems to have caused huge problems and considerable risk. Not a single one of those departments can carry the can for the difficulties that have occurred, because every one of them had some responsibility. Hence the significance of the interdepartmental committee to which the noble Countess’s Question refers—that was our hope for joined-up government. Now it has not sat for some 24 months, so what is going on? Is there any joined-up government at all now? The Carden Committee should be reconstituted because there are urgent questions now across government. In the case of the Ministry of Defence, there has been, as the noble Countess said, an inaccurate response to the research that has been undertaken in the United States, a point that I shall come back to. It is urgent to look at the implications for the British troops who were there serving on our behalf, and who suffered as a result of their service in the Gulf. In the case of Defra there is an urgent responsibility to ensure that proper funding is put into the remaining research proposals, particularly those that are under the auspices of Dr Sarah Mackenzie Ross, who is the principal researcher in this field. As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, implies, every day there are people who should be analysed for this purpose but who may no longer be with us. Then there is the issue of transport. It was not just the BAe146, although the problem seemed to occur particularly on that aircraft; there are wider issues there. As yet, thank goodness, there has not been a disaster, but there could easily have been one if the impact of these chemicals—which, after all, started their life as part of the Nazis’ war effort—had continued to be sprayed around aircraft cabins and cockpits in aerosol form. The potential for disaster is considerable. My bitter and, I fear, rather cynical experience, after 17 or 18 years of campaigning on this issue, is that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, seems to be right: there is a built-in systemic lethargy that means that eventually, if you string out the research programme long enough, which is what the manufacturers of these products want to do, either the OP products can be replaced by something else so that there is no longer a commercial problem for the manufacturers; compensation can be avoided because you continually block liability claims; or, frankly, the victims die. Understandably, it is that lethargy, stringing out the process, that the victims feel is going on in Whitehall. It would be a tragedy if the considerable efforts made by the noble Lord and others in Whitehall—Michael Meacher being another—to try to create a genuine link-up and real joined-up government came to a full stop, simply because Mr Richard Carden had retired. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a cast-iron assurance that the committee will be reconstituted and will give practical expression to the determination of the Government to get to the bottom of this problem. Again, I underline the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker: imagine if this were in the United States under the present President. In fact, we do not have to imagine; a new imperative has been put behind the research programme into OPs by President Obama. Let us therefore take something from across the Atlantic that we can put to good use in this country. Let us have some joined-up government here. I warmly support the noble Countess. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has rejoined the human race by coming off the government Front Bench and is now able to use his persuasive powers on his colleagues. I hope that we will have evidence in a minute that he is as persuasive as he ever was in the Government.