Speeches by Smyth.

“We need to get to a state of being very clear what procedures we are talking about at different times. With the high-risk areas, once we get through that then they would be subject to the usual procedures about if something goes wrong. I am struggling a bit with what is behind that question in terms of recompense. We h…”

“I absolutely understand where the question is coming from, the need to educate the public about some of these risks and the horrors that we have seen, including deaths, and perhaps we will come on to this. But we need to get this right, and I am happy to bring in Aidan on some technicalities about what you ban and what…”

“I cannot add anything to what I have already said on that: we are working at pace to make sure that we get this right and we intend to have that out so that people can be clear what that looks like. In the meantime, we all need to make sure that we do as much as we can to raise awareness. This inquiry has raised a lot …”

“Yes, we are. Part of that was in the summer and actually the response and interest from the media was fantastic and I commend it. Largely, young female journalists have really taken this on because they can see what is happening in their own social media feeds and so on, and they have pursued some stories on behalf of …”

“In terms of the Department of Health and Social Care, unless I am advised otherwise, I would need to come back to you on what the specific relationship is, if that is okay?”

“On that point, I agree with what Adian has identified. Part of the wider work will look at how much it costs and how large-scale it is, rather than on anecdote, to see whether we can build it into routine datasets. We will do that as part of the continuing work. Again, I come back to the importance of the work and anno…”

“Indeed. I saw the college’s submission and obviously we want to work closely with it and we welcome its co-operation with working with this and I totally understand where it is coming from on this. In fact in August, when I announced this from Southmead Hospital in Bristol, it was the surgeons that were just delighted …”

“Yes. Obviously, this is a really important part of this work, and there is information available on the NHS website for people who are contemplating this. People should have all the relevant information about what the treatment involves, the benefits, the risks and where there are reasonable alternative treatments. Aid…”

“I am going to come to Aidan, but first though we worked with the college—”

“How this works operationally for people is to be advised about. As I said, the advice is there on the NHS website and more detailed in those other guidance documents. We need to be guided by what works ordinarily, and sometimes that is not known to people. How would those who are not involved in practising medicine kno…”

“Yes, which is why, as I said to Ms Niblett, we absolutely do recognise how important many of these businesses are, so we will have to balance that transition period coming forward. As I said, many of these industries are already paying for training their staff and are in well maintained premises and so they want to mak…”

“Those are absolutely parts of the discussion which is why we cannot do something today. That is why we want to be realistic with the Committee and the public and the industry and local authorities and talk closely with them about this. Clearly we are in conversation with them all in advance of the announcement, which i…”

“Again, that is the challenge that we are talking to people about right now; it is really helpful to have that aired and, if I may say so, for the Committee to raise that. We recognise that it is really challenging; it is like the proverbial onion is it not? You take away one part and there are more: the nature of the p…”

“More widely, it is not just a Department issue. You were alluding to young people; we are working closely with our colleagues across the Department for Education around mental health support in schools and so on. The advertising I referred to earlier—the linking with influencers—is an important role across government t…”

“This is really pivotal to the whole area of regulation. You probably heard the range of current training and standards out there from your practitioners, and how difficult that is to navigate as a consumer. Part of what will take some time in this is that we will have to consider the current education and training stan…”

“We should say that there are a lot of good people doing good work out there. You have heard from some of them; they want good standards because they do not want their industry to have this bad reputation. They want high standards and they do not want to be in competition with people who are cowboys, have low standards,…”

“If I take first and then I am going to bring the experts in. This adds to the complexity of the timeline about whether someone is medically qualified and what for, what those procedures are, and they are defined very closely as they are of course in usual medical regulations. Also, as Gavin said, in terms of what is al…”

“We will need to work with the industry. We recognise, and we say in all our comms and messaging, that this is a largely female industry largely for women and is an important part of our economy, particularly in local communities and constituencies. They want to work with us and we recognise that. Obviously many of them…”

“I cannot speak directly on that sphere; I am afraid it is beyond my particular purview. The Department will continue to make sure it works with the Advertising Standards Authority to make sure it knows what we are doing, which will obviously be important. As I said earlier, the link across DSIT, the Department for Educ…”

“Unless Aidan can tell me differently about the use of the word mandatory, I am not sure how to come forward on that. This is partly an MHRA issue around devices and so on.”