My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, succinctly set out what we all know: post Brexit, the UK as a market will be significantly less attractive than it was as part of a single regulatory system for the development of medicines and clinical trials. The economics of that are inescapable. However, it is also true, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, that however much some of us may wish that we continued to be aligned with what will inevitably be a developing clinical trials basis in Europe, it may not be within our gift to do so. However, what we can do, and what all the amendments in this group attempt to do, is encourage the Government to come clean about the extent to which they will seek in future to maintain an ongoing alignment with those clinical trials regulations in Europe.
The noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned—as I intend to—the announcement last week of the UK participation in the Orbis trials, which are the new mechanism for
fast-tracking cancer treatments, with players from the US, Canada and Australia. I still think that, given the history of this country as a leading player in the life sciences and biosciences fields, and given the amount of investment in research that we have traditionally had and which we must seek to maintain in the NHS and within our universities, if we do not signal at this stage a willingness to keep the regulations in place and ensure that we remain aligned with the European system, we stand to lose a great deal—not least involvement in the clinical trials information system. The Government would be well advised to take some, if not all, of these amendments, which all seek to do the same thing.
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