Parliament
As well as some further questions about vaping and tobacco harm reduction, Parliament saw a couple of eventful days that resulted in a ministerial switcheroo
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by Dave Cross
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Over the course of last week’s mad period of resignation letters, many people responsible for the regulation and promotion of vaping left their offices.
We said goodbye to the Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who now holds lofty ambitions to do Boris Johnson’s job. Also, resignations were handed in by Edward Argar (health minister), Saqib Bhatti (Parliamentary private secretary, Department of Health and Social Care), Dr James Davies (Parliamentary private secretary, Department of Health and Social Care), and Gareth Davies (Parliamentary private secretary, Department of Health and Social Care).
Maggie Throup confirmed that she would be continuing as public health minister in a written statement shared on Twitter. She said: "It remains an immense privilege to lead our COVID vaccination programme and to serve as the Vaccines and Public Health Minister."
Coming in through the revolving door, although nobody knows for how long, were:
- Steve Barclay, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom
- Maria Caulfield MP as a Minister of State at the Department for Health and Social Care
- James Morris MP to be a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Health and Social Care
It is highly possible that Steve Barclay’s stay in office will be confined to a matter of weeks. This will come as good news to some.
Alastair McLellan, Editor of the Health Service Journal, was swift to highlight the concerns felt by NHS leaders. They are reported to think Barclay is, “A real nightmare, vindictive, arrogant, a bully, hostile to the NHS and all its works, a micro-manager of the wrong things, views NHS management as bloated and profligate.”
Steve Barclay tried his hardest to delay the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
British Medical Journal editor Adele Waters is of a similar mind, stating that if he remains in post “the outlook isn’t promising”.
“He has voted in support of government reforms to the NHS and against restricting the amount of income that trusts can earn from private patient care. On a crucial vote to improve workforce planning in the NHS (amendment 29 to the Health and Social Care Bill) he did not vote.”
Looking at the actual business of the house, Labour’s Sir George Howarth was asking the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about health disparities, white paper policy proposals to help tackle regional disparities in smoking in particular.
Maggie “I’m not leaving this office unless you force me” Throup responded: “The health disparities white paper will review the factors which influence people’s health, including preventable risks and among population groups and localities which experience poorer health outcomes. The specific policy content of the white paper will be available in due course.”
Mansfield’s Conservative Ben Bradley asked the old Secretary of State if he would make it a policy to commission independent research into heated tobacco products as recommended in the Khan review and introduce a new regulatory framework for those products.
Maggie Throup MP replied: “The next Vaping in England report, commissioned by the former Public Health England and produced by Kings College London, includes a chapter on heated tobacco products.
“Plans for future research will be set out in the forthcoming white paper on health disparities and the Tobacco Control Plan, which will be published later this year. There are no current plans to introduce new regulatory framework for these products.”
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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