My Lords, I welcome the Minister to consequential SIs from the passage of the Health and Care Act. Some of those present will remember the long debates we had during the passage of that legislation, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Reay, has returned us to today.
I will start on water fluoridation. My points were actually about consultation, and I will return to those, but the noble Lord has a point: there are now scientific records to show that excess levels of fluoride do cause damage. There is a very good academic article entitled “Assessment of fluoride levels during pregnancy and its association with early adverse pregnancy outcomes”. It concludes that this happens mainly in developing countries where the level of fluoride is not managed. I echo the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, just made, that if the four Chief Medical Officers for the four countries of the United Kingdom believe that it is safe, that should be enough for us.
Of course all care must be taken and monitoring must continue, but the other point I want to make is from a dentist in Australia, who was very supportive of Australia’s move to fluoridation a while ago. He said that the region where he lives was one of the last to add fluoride. He talks about the experience of having to give very small children repeated anaesthetics and pain relief, and the effect on them. He says:
“Since fluoridation was introduced to Geelong in 2009, my colleagues are much happier, as severe dental abscesses requiring tricky anaesthetic techniques are much less common, and tend to mainly come from areas in the region which still aren’t fluoridated.”
He goes on to say:
“The other anecdote … was that one of my colleagues who had worked in Europe for a few years went away with 3 children under the age of 6, who were the same age and social demographic as our own children. When they returned … 2 of his 3 children had needed dental treatment”
under general anaesthetic. The key point is that they went to unfluoridated places. Although I hear the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, I hope we can be reassured that everything we debated during the passage of the Health and Care Bill shows that this is being done very carefully.
During the passage of that Bill, my noble friend Lady Pinnock made a very important series of points about how to decide where to consult about fluoridation of water, given that we have so many reservoirs where water goes in lots of different directions. Often, you cannot identify each of those areas. Although it was good to hear the Minister talk about the way that consultation will happen, and it is good news that there has been broad consultation in the north-east and that there are some resources there, might the Minister comment on how it is possible for civil servants to identify the relevant areas for consultation? This was one of the reasons why we said during the passage of the Bill that there needed to be very broad consultation.
Moving on to the other statutory instrument on training on learning disabilities and autism, and on virginity testing and hymenoplasty, I signed both of those amendments during the Bill’s passage. Each time it came back I spoke to both of them. It was wonderful that the Government listened and accepted the amendments on training for health staff working with people with learning disabilities and autism. I know that this is only a technical amendment to remove the CQC, but this is a moment to thank the Government for listening to the concern of those of us who work with and know many in the learning disabled and the autistic communities, who have often found that they have been treated by people who do not understand their conditions, which makes it that much harder to communicate with them.
I will now move on to virginity testing and hymenoplasty—I welcome the Minister to the language that we have all had to learn. We were very pleased that the Government decided to support measures on this. I have one question for the Minister. He mentioned that this was about the suitability of foster parents or of their household. It is not clear how wide that household is regarded; is it literally the people who live in that house, or, as in other safeguarding issues, would it also include a member of the foster parents’ family who might be visiting that house on a regular basis and who, in any other safeguarding terms, would have to be notified? If the Minister cannot answer that today, I would completely understand, but I look forward to the answer because I have a particular interest in safeguarding. Apart from that, I support all three elements in front of us today.