Speeches by Smyth.

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Before I turn to the detail of the statutory instrument, I would like to highlight the important role that the Medici…”

“I thank the hon. Members for Sleaford and North Hykeham and for Chichester for their comments, which I will try to address. As I think everyone agrees, the MHRA provides essential services that play a crucial public health role, and it is important that it recovers its costs, which is what these fee increases are set t…”

“May I add to that? I know that your purview is the Commons, but my colleague Baroness Merron has sight of what comes down from the Lords. Where a Commons question is asked on an area that she leads on—for example, on life sciences, women’s health or mental health—then it needs to be her and me, because she is the polic…”

“And Westminster Hall.”

“I am Karin Smyth. I am Minister of State for Secondary Care at the Department of Health and Social Care.”

“I can, but if it is in order, I would like briefly to make a few comments. I am really pleased to be here this afternoon. You said that WPQs are an important tool for parliamentarians. I absolutely get that, and the Secretary of State absolutely gets that; we understand how important it is for us all as MPs to respond …”

“What we see every time the Department puts out something major—and we are putting out an awful lot of change—is that that understandably results in a spike in what comes in. That is part of what has happened, despite us putting in those measures from July, at the beginning of our term in office. We have seen spikes aro…”

“On the post-election response, the volumes are really significant. Obviously, policy has changed with the new Government. That takes a bit of time. The redraft issue, which we also alluded to, is significant. I think I speak for all Ministers who respond when I say that it was our feeling that, as a new Administration,…”

“It is a very strange business turning up to the Department and doing this new work, as some of you will be aware. Certainly, when it was first brought to my attention, I was turning them around and signing them off very quickly. Some of you might know that I am a former NHS manager, so I look at targets. I said, “I’m s…”

“In one sense, it is very difficult. I think we are all conscious of the difficulty for staff in an uncertain environment. There are the teams in NHS England. In some cases, they need to go to through their parliamentary team into all our local systems to find out information and make sure that you get the right informa…”

“As I alluded to earlier, having been on the other side as a manager, I like to look at the process behind things and look at the target to see what has happened. I do think that is important. My interest was heightened by looking at this and meeting the team, which I did quite early on, to have them talk to me about th…”

“It is not a linear thing or a constant thing. Although you can see the volumes, we are a Department—this was put to me the other day on another subject—that is making a lot of announcements. We are wanting to keep abreast. We recognise how important health is to the population and to all our constituents, and that does…”

“It is quite competitive in the ministerial team.”

“Tom, do you want to go through the process?”

“Yes. We will get to you by recess, with, as a result of today, any other suggestions that you wish to make—if there are any other observations, we would be very happy to receive those—and any other questions that we haven’t answered, and make sure that we match that volume to supply issue and take on board some of thos…”

“We were looking at each other then. We are absolutely aiming for that target; we are writ large against that, and I will be looking at all those areas, and the areas that I don’t know, to absolutely get through the process. If the volume remains the same—and within some of the things we are putting in place that remain…”

“I think that is right. I think there will be others, though, that come out. We all have our pets, don’t we? That is one of the joys of Parliament. So there will be others that come out that are new, where information perhaps isn’t in the public domain, isn’t as clear, and it is right that Members of Parliament have acc…”

“It is a good example, and I would certainly be conscious of that when we are looking at oversight. I don’t see those directly because it is not my area, but as Tom says, it is about where the gap is. People absolutely need to have that information that is not available somewhere else, so that we don’t lose that in the …”

“Shall I take that last bit first? You are absolutely right to point out your experience. I think it is happening less, as hopefully after nine months in the job one gets a bit better, and people get more used to my own style, and the issues, the change of policy, and so on. As I have said a number of times, we are chan…”

“I am very happy to take that. I have answered questions and/or correspondence, but absolutely take that if people are not feeling that there is something. We know that your purview is not correspondence, but there are some backlogs and things that have not come out properly. We are conscious of that as MPs, because obv…”