Speeches by Malthouse.

“Final two questions from me. Was there agreement between the Departments about the level of the offer or did the Department of Health and Social Care overrule your Department, Patrick? Secondly, what was the explanation for the offer not being voted on?”

“It does not have to be agreed. If it is the Department of Health and Social Care’s budget, it gets a say, even if you say, “We don’t think that’s enough.””

“Either of you.”

“Mr Lucas, you did not answer the second question about when you first told the Government.”

“So in theory, we should have the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in front of us at some point to talk about the pricing mechanism, why he is not making an offer that the industry can accept, and whether he is willing to see the industry decline.”

“We are here because promises were made in February that have not been fulfilled. The Prime Minister promised to sort the system, and it has not happened. I guess what we heard from the industry was that it has reached a point where it does not have confidence that all the stuff you have talked about is necessarily goin…”

“I understand all that, but off the back of Speke and now this, we have the Lilly freeze, AZ in Cambridge: it is looking like there is a contagion, and I guess we were hoping you would come with a, “Here’s what we’re going to do to sort it out.” We heard in the previous session that the timing of this is disappointment …”

“There was an investment meeting in February where a number of CEOs were present, when the Prime Minister said that he would “sort the VPAG.”—I do not know whether the Merck global CEO was there. There has obviously been a period during which your expectation was that what the Prime Minister had promised was going to ha…”

“During those months of discussion, was it made clear to you that if there was not a resolution in a timeframe that was short enough, some investments might be under threat?”

“If you knew they were unhappy and the pricing mechanism was a problem, you have obviously had quite a lot of time since February to try to get it sorted. You accepted that the equation—the formula—had come up with an unexpectedly large amount. Who is stopping you from correcting it?”

“Who is making the decision about that offer? Is it you?”

“Minister, there will be one person who is making the decision, “This is the offer we’re going to give.””

“I understand that; you have explained that already. Who said, “We are going to make a £1 billion offer?” Who said, “We’ll make an offer that is not going to be accepted?” Was it the Chancellor? Was it the Secretary of State for Health? I guess what we are trying to do is find the person who has the levers they can pull…”

“You said there are not.”

“The events of yesterday come as no surprise to those of us in the Chamber who have raised the issue of the Israeli Government’s crimes, committed with an air of complete impunity. It should now be crystal clear to the Minister, as it is to so many across the world, that the Israeli Government are not interested in the …”

“I am not being facetious.”

“I certainly agree with you; the OBR could make an assumption about our general brilliance, and something will show up.”

“You are forecasting a black swan industry, right? Suddenly things appear that revolutionise. Weight loss jabs weren’t around three years ago, or they were in development; now, suddenly, they are here and taking over. It is quite hard to forecast or predict scientific discovery.”

“I wish. I once heard an interview with Guy Chambers on the radio—sorry, this is an aside—where he was asked, “Do you get bored with hearing that song, ‘Angels’, which plays all the time?” He said, “No, because I know that one song means that neither I, my children nor my children’s children will ever have to work again…”

“You were talking about the commercial incentive. Do you think one of the things we could promote is either a selectively or generally extended intellectual property life, in life sciences? As you know, at the moment it is 20 years, of which six, eight or 12 years might be eaten up with the development phase. It is 20 y…”