A few days ago I hosted an interesting seminar in the House of Lords on “Tackling Transmission of Healthcare-Associated Infections”.  The purpose of this was to bring together policy-makers on the subject from within the Department of Health, representatives from the voluntary sector and involved service users, researchers and legal experts, front-line NHS practitioners, and a number of Parliamentary colleagues to discuss what has been achieved and what are likely to be challenges in the future.

There were some interesting points made in the discussion, such as the need to empower patients to challenge doctors and nurses about whether they have washed their hands, and some excellent comments such as “Anyone who doubts Darwin should look at how pathogens respond to antibiotics”.

However, I was particularly pleased to hear a contribution from Sandra Barrow, the leader of the Department of Health’s Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI) Technology Programme.  She described how the Programme is aiming to speed up the process of identifying useful technological innovations that can help deal with HCAIs, encouraging front-line NHS staff to work with industry to develop innovations, and then fast-tracking the evaluation process so that innovations can be utilised more rapidly.

The Programme recognises that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will often provide the most innovative ideas, but may also face the greatest difficulty in getting their ideas developed and adopted in the NHS.  The Programme has involved workshops involving 500 frontline NHS staff and a road show engaging with a similar number of SMEs to identify the most promising technologies for reducing and preventing HCAIs.  Several hundred ideas and products emerged from this process which have then been assessed by an expert panel to identify a short-list of products that are being evaluated in eight showcase hospitals.

The ideas emerging include innovative air disinfection technology, new infection detection techniques and the use of nano-technology to provide anti-bacterial protection layers for surfaces.

What excited me about this was the way it recognised that SMEs are a key engine for innovation and the way in which emerging innovations were being rapidly appraised and assessed for early adoption.

The approach being taken, like the INSTINCT programme designed to harness new innovative technologies to address challenges in counter-terrorism, demonstrates how Government can work with industry, especially SMEs, to make the best of British scientific ideas.

I have just made a telephone call here in the House of Lords and lying next to the telephone was the confidential briefing that the LibDems have given to their spokespeople on what to say if they are asked about a hung Parliament.

It starts with a stern admonition:

“The only benefit of a debate about a no-overall-control Parliament is if we use it to get across our key policies.

Entering into speculation about the mechanics of a “hung” or “balanced” parliament will simply see you dragged into further complexity.“

And we know that Liberal Democrats cannot cope with complexity.

Apparently, “only if pushed” are LibDem spokespeople supposed to say:

“There will be no deals, understandings or agreements of any kind before peole have voted.  No such conversations have or will take place.”

So what are they hiding?  Why can that only be said, if pushed?

And then they have their mandate line (but still “only if pushed”:

“IF voters decide no party deserves an overall majority, then the party with the strongest mandate will have a moral right to be the first to seek to govern on its own or seek alliances with other parties.“

So that is a nice, unconvoluted, set of words.

And sorry to be a pedant but each voter is an individual casting their ballot in a single constituency – so voters cannot collectively decide that no party should have an overall majority.

And what constitutes the strongest mandate?  Helpfully there is a little Q & A to explain it:

“Q:  Does the ’strongest mandate’ mean more seats or votes?

A:  It will be abundantly clear after the election which party has the strongest mandate.  It would be pointless to speculate at this point as to whether that means seats or votes – we are setting out a principle, not a mathematical formula.“

Errr pardon?  Would you just run that past me again? 

I thought that the Liberal Democrat principle was that we needed electoral reform so that the precise national balance of votes cast was reflected in the numbers elected to Parliament.  But now – despite our so-called unfair voting system – seats matter just as much as votes.

So like all Liberal Democrat principles, this strongest mandate thingee is eminently flexible and Nick Clegg will be open to the best offer on the day …

They might call that a “principle”; I ‘m not sure that I would.

Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former Dame Eliza and Director-General of the Security Service (MI5), gave the Mile End lecture in the House of Lords a few hours ago.  Her topic was “Reflections on Intelligence” and I understand that the text of this will shortly be available on the Parliamentary web-site.

In the Q&A after the lecture one Jack Bauer enthusiast asked her about torture.  She was unequivocal in her reply:

“Nothing – even saving lives – justifies torture.”

She’d earlier made some comments about US “waterboarding” activities at Guantanamo Bay and she added the caustic comment:

“The sad thing is that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush watched “24″.”

Admiral Lord Alan West, the Security Minister, has spoken out today about the cyber-threat that Britain faces.  I am pleased that he has tackled the subject so directly.  Too many businesses and too much of Government have been complacent about what has been happening for years.

When I first started raising the problem in the House of Lords more than five years ago, I was repeatedly assured that there was no significant threat and that the protection around the critical national infrastructure was more than sufficient to fend off any problems.

When I started asking questions of each Government Department about how often their systems had been compromised, it was apparent from the answers that some Departments simply didn’t know.  I was clearly making progress when two years ago, I started being told it was “not in the national interest” to divulge the information.

When I found three reputable penetration-testing companies prepared to check Government systems pro bono, I was assured such external testing was not needed.

Now – at last – the real and present danger of such cyber-attacks is being acknowledged and the necessary systems to combat it are starting to be put in place.  I just hope it is not too little too late.

It is nice to know that debates and questions in the House of Lords have an impact in the outside world.  In June 2005, I asked the following question in the House of Lords:

“Whether the time spent preparing the e-Government Unit’s document, Tomatoes are not the only fruit: a rough guide to taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies and the like, represents value for money.”

This was not, of course, entirely serious, although it did seem to me to be a particularly jargon-led approach to promoting e-government and the wrong approach to making e-government easy and accessible.

I haven’t thought about the matter since then, so I supposed I should be flattered/embarrassed to discover it appearing yesterday in a blog hosted by the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama.  The blog has the catchy title: “Metalogues from the Delta” (I wish I’d thought of that one first) and is subtitled “A Bama SLIS student’s weblog on all things metadata”.

The blog’s first paragraph is a classic:

“While reading Heather Hedden’s “Better Living Through Taxonomies,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of a brief article on taxonomy that circulated about Dr. MacCall’s LS 500 class during my first semester in the MLIS program. Really, how could anyone forget a title like Tomatoes are not the only fruit: a rough guide to taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies and the like?”

And the blog then refers to another earlier blog entitled 

025.431: The Dewey blog

Everything you always wanted to know about the Dewey Decimal Classification® system but were afraid to ask …

Clearly, there is a big academic market out there for Lords debates.

For those who want the original exchange here it is:

e-Government Unit

11.22 am

Lord Harris of Haringey asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether the time spent preparing the e-Government Unit’s document, Tomatoes are not the only fruit: a rough guide to taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies and the like, represents value for money.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, yes, the document was published in 2002 by the Office of the e-Envoy, at the request of technical users in government who were new to the subject. It was produced in-house at an estimated cost of less than £100.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that information. I ask him to congratulate the civil servants concerned on the diligence and speed with which they must have produced 12,000 words and four charts on the subject of Tomatoes are not the only fruit, containing such gems of information as:

“How long has it been for many of us since the primary meaning of the word ‘mouse’ has been ‘a small furry mammal that frightens elephants?’”,

 or the information that carrots can be either salad or root vegetables. That will no doubt come in very helpful in promoting e-government.

Can we also congratulate the authors of the Guide to Meta-Tagging with the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary, which gives another eight pages of valuable advice and information? It includes the information that the phrase “common agricultural policy” may appear under the phrase “European Union” or under “Farming” but will mean the same under both.

Given the diligence of the civil servants in the unit, can the Minister assure the House that the same energy and effectiveness is being applied to delivering information security throughout the public sector? Are such arrangements susceptible, or likely to be susceptible, to external challenge?

Lord Bassam of Brighton:

My Lords, I shall of course pass on my noble friend’s congratulations. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that civil servants are, as we speak, listening carefully to his kind congratulations and warm words.

As to my noble friend’s second point, there is an important issue at root here—I said that with a straight face. The Government are paying careful attention to those information security issues. The document, although it has attracted a certain levity, is, I am sure, most useful to those who work in government IT services.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, can the Minister not pass on congratulations to the civil servants on producing a document that is completely incomprehensible to a normal person and really does not make any sense at all? Why cannot they learn to write English?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, having looked at the document, which has a modest number of words, I disagree with the noble Earl. I believe that IT users in the business will probably find it very helpful and useful. Certainly, when I read it, I began to understand notions relating to taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, although the use of what the Civil Service calls “controlled vocabulary” may operate as a disincentive to get online  
to the Government, can the Government say whether there has been a significant improvement in access to e-government over the past two years? It was made clear in June 2003 that only one-tenth of the population was using the online e-government services, as compared with 50 per cent of the population in Canada, with its single portal.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there have been improvements, and I am sure that the e-Government Unit is aware of its role and responsibility in ensuring that those improvements continue. There is an increasing number of visits to government websites and increased participation—as I understand—in www.govtalk.gov.uk. So I believe that people are learning their way around the system.

Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, would the Minister comment on how successful the OGC has been in implementing Sir Peter Gershon’s e-government efficiency review?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I can only at large and in general say that I believe that there have been improvements. The work of Sir Peter Gershon has been widely welcomed throughout government, and our IT record is one of continued improvement and success.

Viscount Eccles: My Lords, is the Minister aware that if he were unfortunate enough to have cancer of the bladder, medical advice would be that he should eat no more tomatoes? Is that information on the website?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, not that I am aware, no.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I really wonder whether the noble Lord is aware of the extent to which he has attracted to himself this morning the wholehearted sympathy of the House at the appalling ordeal that he has had to go through in not giving a single answer to a question and really fluffing what he has said beyond the limits of comprehension.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord always makes generous remarks across the House, and I suppose that I have to be the beneficiary of those remarks on some occasions.

I have had a rather scary thought.

This evening there was a meeting of the Labour Peers’ Group.  Now normally I follow a strict rule that I never post on this blog about private meetings I have attended, nor reveal any privileged information I acquire on such occasions.  However, to explain my scary thought I have to reveal just a little about this meeting. (I promise I won’t deviate again.)

This evening’s meeting received an oral briefing from Black Rod, who is amongst other things responsible for security in the House of Lords and about which he was briefing colleagues.

I have just remembered the last time Black Rod (or rather his predecessor) attended a meeting of the Labour Peers. It was for a similar purpose.  And I remember on the previous occasion a number of (very) senior colleagues making scathing remarks about the need for any greater security in the Palace of Westminster (there was no repetition this evening I am pleased to say).

And the date of this previous visit? 

Wednesday 6th July 2005. 

Remember what happened the following morning ……

Each session of Parliament begins with the pageantry of the State Opening, the summonsing of the Commons to the House of Lords by Black Rod and the Queen’s Speech, in which the Monarch lists the Bills that the Government will put before Parliament.

The Sunday Times, however, has revealed secret Tory plans to change all of that. Apparently, there is:

“a radical idea to reform the Queen’s speech”.

The plan is that:

“she should no longer read out the traditional shopping list of bills. Instead, her address at the first state opening of a Cameron government would not mention any specific legislation but would offer a more general message.”

This extraordinary idea would turn the present anodyne statement of proposed legislation into a sort of regal party political broadcast packed with the sort of meaningless feel-good sentiments that Cameron’s Conservatives prefer to clarity about their real plans.  And even at that late stage the public wouldn’t be permitted to know what laws the Tories were intending to put through Parliament.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  But I wonder what Her Majesty thinks.

It looks as though a key element of the Conservative Party’s election strategy is going to be the deniable dog-whistle.

The Observer has revealed today that in a seemingly concerted initiative leaflets have been circulated by the Conservative Party in Andrew Rosindell’s constituency of Romford saying that immigration has caused a population control and that EU treaty obligations on free movement of labour would somehow be over-ridden by a Tory Government.

At the same time, Loanna Morrison, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey and Old Southwark has endorsed the BNP writing on Conservativehome:  “Britain is full, declares Nick Griffin at every opportunity, and he is right.”

Officially, of course, the Tory Party denies that either reflects official Party policy and can distance the Party from such free-lance comments by “junior” politicians.  In reality, the comments come from an official candidate selected to be a Conservative MP and the other comes with the imprint of a sitting Conservative MP.

I expect we will get more of this.

Rather belatedly, I have been looking at the new GLA web-site.

I am sure it is very wonderful and well worth its cost in terms of the improvement on the old web-site.

However, it does show us the limited ambition of Mayor Boris Johnson and his administration.

At the foot of the Home Page is the heading “WHO RUNS LONDON” followed by a helpful list of the key figures and agencies.

Not surprisingly, the London Assembly is bottom of the list.

But second from the bottom is the Mayor of London (below Londoners and the London Boroughs).

And what heads the list:  Central Government, of course.

So now we know – Mayor Boris Johnson has already run up the white flag and surrendered.  Is that why he is so keen to get back in the House of Commons?

The House of Lords has been without a Minister at the Department of Health since Lord Ara Darzi stood down last July to resume his role as a full-time surgeon at Imperial College.  In the intervening time, all health matters in the Lords (and apart from a substantial legislative load there are a huge number of health related questions) have been dealt with by Baroness Glenys Thornton, in addition to her role as a Government Whip.  Finally, after seven months, the position has been rectified with Glenys being appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health.

This is being widely welcomed in the Labour Peers’ Group where her hard work – hitherto unrecognised – leading on Department of Health issues has been much praised.

And it is good to see a former Chair of the Greater London Labour Party being properly rewarded.