The Pharmafocus Interview: Shadow health minister Mark Simmonds
pharmafile | December 11, 2008 | Feature | |Â Â Conservatives, hcÂ
The Conservatives have led in the opinion polls throughout 2008, and even with Gordon Brown’s rating enjoying a bounce over his handling of the economic crisis, the Tories still have a small lead over Labour. That means that with the next general election no more than 18 months away, the Conservatives could be nearing a return to power after more than a decade in opposition.
This has been made possible by David Cameron’s reinvention of the Conservative party, just as Blair rebranded his party as New Labour in the Nineties. A crucial component of Cameron’s re-casting of his party has been declaring his support for a publicly-funded NHS, a clear change of direction after a succession of earlier Tory leaders advocated a growth in private healthcare provision.
Mark Simmonds, the shadow health minister, is part of the team led by shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley and is responsible for producing new policies on NICE, cancer care and the pharmaceutical industry. He tells Pharmafocus that, among other new approaches, pharma would receive far greater support from the Conservatives than from the incumbent government.
The Cameron appeal
Mark Simmonds is in happy possession of all the requisite qualities for success in today’s Conservative party.
Aged 44, he is young, sharp, and talks promisingly of change, and bearing a passing likeness to David Cameron which is impossible to overlook. He even has the same blue-eyed appeal of his leader and, perhaps more importantly, he puts a shrewd distance between past Tory policy and the party he represents today. But there is also grit beneath Simmonds’ charm, and conviction when he talks of the hard work and perseverance that led to his current role.
The new middle-ground
Mark Simmonds won his parliamentary seat for Boston and Skegness in 2001, and after holding several other posts in the shadow cabinet (see box), he was appointed minister for health in July 2007. Despite citing Thatcher as a role model, Simmonds separates himself from the Tories of the Eighties and Nineties, and maintains 1997 was a turning point for his party as well as himself. “We had to appeal to a much broader spectrum of the UK electorate and change the perception of the Conservative party. It was very much the perception that the Conservative party was only interested in a very narrow section of the affluent end of society.”
He is confident of Conservative success at the next election, due to David Cameron’s steer back to the middle ground, “which is where elections are won,” he says.
“I think a lot of what we needed to change as a party, David Cameron has started. He has moved us back to centre ground, and is not just talking about issues that people naturally expect Conservatives to talk about.”
He cites topics such as social services and international development as examples of policies aimed at helping the many instead of the few.
“All of these things are absolutely fundamental to Conservative philosophy, which is about helping other people. Particularly people that are less fortunate than us.”
Conservative ideas adopted by Labour
Though both the Conservative and Labour parties have crept towards the centre, and their policies have become less polarised, Simmonds believes the Conservative party is at the forefront of reform when it comes to health.
On relations with pharma, both parties called for more ‘risk-sharing’ with companies and a move towards value-based pricing, but he insists his was the first party to form the policies.
Speaking shortly before the Department of Health and the ABPI agreed the new ‘pro-innovation’ Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) agreement, Simmonds said: “I think we have to welcome the government move to policies that we suggested. We were the first to suggest value-based pricing and we were the first to suggest risk-sharing. And of course we want to believe the government are serious about it but the evidence doesn’t support that at all.”
Simmonds says the government showed a lack of support to the industry in terminating the previous PPRS agreement, and its “confused” behaviour over future pricing has made the UK unattractive to pharma.
“We certainly would not have done what the current government have, and broken an agreement [the PPRS] halfway through. It created an enormous amount of uncertainty in the pharmaceutical industry and an enormous amount of concern.”
He added. “Once that important trust is broken, there is very little to ensure the UK is a safe and attractive place for the pharmaceutical industry to invest in; particularly if they don’t have some sort of guarantee or confidence in the pricing structure.”
The Conservatives have pledged to maintain the new PPRS if they come to power, and only introduce their ideas on value-based pricing over a number of years, to ensure they have the industry onside.
Simmonds says the Labour government has also hurt the industry environment further, beyond the pricing negotiations.
“There is no doubt the policies that the government are forming, in terms of taxation, bureaucracy and red tape, are starting to drive pharmaceutical companies outside of the UK. We want to reverse that.”
He says he is currently working to form detailed policy to change this, and holds that a Conservative government would be more sympathetic to pharma.
A new survey of MPs commissioned by the ABPI backs up this claim, with the Conservatives polled clearly the most sympathetic towards the industry on a number of key issues.
Asked two negatively framed questions – do you think pharma overcharges for its products, and do you think it does too little around transparency and ethical issues – the Conservative MPs were the only ones to refute both questions, while Labour and the Lib Dems MPs agreed.
Like David Cameron, Simmonds is happy to talk about his family life. His wife hails from Venezuela and they have three children, and he says they are a great motivator in his political life.
“I think that is one of the main driving forces behind me, as a parent of three young children. That’s what I came into politics for.”
Raised on politics
Mark Simmonds landed his parliamentary seat for Boston and Skegness in 2001, but discovered his affinity for politics far earlier, while growing up in Nottinghamshire.
His grandmother had stood as a Liberal candidate for parliament in 1945, and his mother taught politics at school, and Simmonds says both had a strong influence on his decision to go into politics.
“We always discussed the latest political situation around the Sunday lunch table.”
Unfortunately for Simmonds, the turning point in his career coincided with the Conservatives’ 1997 slump, and his first attempt at gaining a parliamentary seat was thwarted.
He was defeated in Ashfield by Geoff Hoon and wryly comments: “It was a safe Labour seat when I started campaigning, and an even safer Labour seat when I finished at the 1997 election!”
He admits at this point “the whole country was absolutely fed up with the Conservative party.” But the defeat was a turning point for Simmonds, who “thought very seriously about what needed to change.”
In 2000 he was selected for the Boston and Skegness seat, held previously for 35 years by Sir Richard Body. When Body stood down it became a primary target for the Labour party in the 2001 election.
Though viewed as a safe seat for Labour, Simmonds’ dedication to party and constituents had paid off and his popularity continued to increase: “I hung on by just 550 votes. I worked very hard between 2000 and 2005 and my majority went up to six thousand votes.”
Appointed shadow foreign office minister under Michael Howard in 2004, less than a year later he was made minister for international development. In July 2007 Cameron made Simmonds shadow minister for health, and his responsibilities include healthcare commissioning, cancer, NHS information and the relationship with NICE.
Simmonds has come a long way since his early political discussions around the dinner table, but he credits another strong woman for his decision to align himself with the Tory party. “I saw Mrs Thatcher put the country back on its feet, after the destruction caused by the Labour party in the late 1970s. That was a formative time for my political beliefs.
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