Care Homes: Energy Costs

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Thursday 8th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

That is a really important angle that I had not considered, to be honest. We recognise that, across government, many Ministers in many departments will be waiting at the moment with bated breath for the Prime Minister’s announcement to work out the impact on those stakeholders who have been contacting Ministers and others about the impact of energy costs. Clearly, something has to be done. The Prime Minister will announce it and then we will have to work through its impact. If I am still in post, I can come back to say how that will impact the health and care sector.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend look into the situation of care homes, whether they are in the private sector or not, that have not currently participated in the government handouts to help with energy costs? Second home owners have had discounts on their bills, but there has been no per-bed contribution from the Government to help care homes which are already struggling and for which many families are paying enormous sums.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend makes a point that I was not aware of, so I am afraid I will have to take it back to the department. However, it appears a very reasonable point.

Integrated Care Boards

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes the point about general practice. One thing that we are looking at, which will probably come up in the debate later in the week on the future of primary care, is the whole issue of what GPs do. There are many things they do that they do not have to do—these could be done by local partners, practice nurses, physiotherapists or social prescribing, and so on. In addition, Ministers and the NHS have been in conversation with GPs’ representatives, looking at these particular issues.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, could my noble friend update the House on the scheme for bringing in overseas workers to fill the gaps in social care that have opened up so seriously over the last year or two? There have been suggestions that the salary level—which currently does not allow sufficient numbers of care workers to come into the UK, when they are desperately needed—might be lowered. Is there any update for the House on that?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. The last I was aware of—and I shall look at it and write to my noble friend—was that, under the visa scheme, we were looking to bring in people from overseas to fill those vacancies. We have historically done that; as I said, after the war we looked to people from the Commonwealth, who came and saved our public services. Clearly, when we are unable to recruit enough people locally, we have to look at those issues and at whether it is something to do with the education system, and whether we can encourage them to come forward. But where there are gaps we will have to look more widely to our partners around the world.

Coronavirus: New Cases

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will have been in meetings with the devolved Administrations; sometimes they want to go their own way. For example, when we reduced some of the measures in England, the devolved Administrations were sceptical of what we had done. When the data showed that the measures left in place in Scotland were no more effective than us removing some of those restrictions, it demonstrated exactly why, although we talk to the devolved Administrations all the time, we also respect the devolved settlements. We have to agree to disagree at times.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we have lived with flu all our lives? I completely agree with his assertion that if this illness is not proving more deadly than illnesses we have lived with for a long time, what would be the purpose of upsetting the economic recovery and causing so much extra cost to the public purse—unless, as he rightly says, serious hospitalisation cases and deaths were to increase suddenly?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. You always have to look at these things in the round and you have to look at the trade-offs. Many noble Lords will recognise that, when we went into lockdown, there were build-ups in many parts of the NHS backlog and an increase in people suffering from mental health issues—the numbers were even larger than they were before—so clearly, we have to look at this as a trade-off. We have a living with Covid strategy. We constantly get updated by the UKHSA, which is looking at all this data. We are ready to stand up should we need to.

Social Care: Adults

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Many noble Lords recognise the challenges faced by not just this sector but all sectors, during Covid. One issue we have been looking at for many years, over subsequent Governments—we discussed this during the Health and Care Bill—is that social care was seen as a Cinderella service for many years. For the first time, thanks to noble Lords’ support, we managed to get the Health and Care Bill through to have a properly integrated health and care system. We are also looking at how we can make sure that we properly understand the health and care landscape, with the register and the hub, and that it is a vocation that more people find attractive.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I urge my noble friend, in light of the extraordinary number of vacancies in the social care sector—more and more staff are leaving to join other sectors—to urge the Government to revisit the Immigration Rules that do not allow overseas care workers, who could fill those gaps, to come in. We have a special system for agricultural workers; surely my noble friend agrees that we must not put picking fruit and vegetables above the needs of the most vulnerable in our society.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question, but make the point that it is important that we look not only to our domestic workforce but to recruit people from far and wide to fill those gaps. We have always done that. As I often say from this place, we must remember that public services in this country were saved by people from the Commonwealth after the war. They played a very important role in making sure that this country and its public services recovered after the war. On recruitment from overseas, on 15 February, we added care workers to the health and care visa and shortage occupation list, allowing these roles to be recruited from overseas. We hope that will enable us to fill thousands of eligible vacancies.

GP Access

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for the question. The important point is that sometimes the assessment is done at a local level, sometimes it is done at an overall level and sometimes the department gathers the statistics. As we modernise and digitise the system, a lot more of that information will be able to be processed centrally, so that we can understand where we need to have better planning and to redeploy resources to meet the needs in certain areas.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend mentioned pensions. I urge him to speak to his colleagues in the Treasury about the own goal being created by the pension rules. Doctors are being hit with an annual allowance, but the lifetime allowance is then driving early retirement, with a simple 20-times multiple making it worth while for them to retire in their 50s, as soon as they can, rather than wait for a penal tax charge on a higher pension later.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. A request I have often had at this Dispatch Box is to go and speak to my colleagues in the Treasury. We understand that early retirements are a key factor impacting GP retention. If you look at the demographics of the workforce, there are people close to retirement age who are saying, “I’m burnt out after Covid, and therefore I want an easier life.” Clearly, the other issue we are looking at is the lifetime allowance. There are some instances where the GPs may be better off staying in, but we have to make that quite clear. There has not yet been communication. We continue to engage with the Treasury on a variety of issues, and I hope to continue doing so.

Personal Protective Equipment: Accounting

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, it is understandable that in an emergency, huge amounts of taxpayers’ money may need to be written off for contracts that were not viable. I commend the Government on all they have done for the pandemic, but would my noble friend agree with me that, given that this was an emergency, and given where we are on the cost-of-living crisis, it would perhaps benefit the Government to rethink the national insurance increase that is coming in April, as the cost-of-living crisis itself is an emergency?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

If you consider how quickly the Government, and all of us, had to act during the early days of the pandemic, it was clearly an emergency. Lives were being lost. This is a stab in the dark, but maybe some noble Lords read a newspaper called the Guardian. One of its headlines from April 2020 read:

“Hospital leaders hit out at government as PPE shortage row escalates”.


Everyone knew that it was essential to get hold of as much PPE as you could in an incredibly challenging market.

Respiratory Viruses

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The Government have put in place a range of measures to protect children from RSV this winter, including expanding the passive immunisation programme for all at-risk infants, ensuring that the NHS has surge plans in place to respond to any increasing cases, raising awareness among parents and at schools of the symptoms of RSV and when to seek medical help, and increasing our out-of-season surveillance capacity.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, given that the elderly are more susceptible to respiratory viruses in the cold, and given the number of excess winter deaths we have already seen in recent years, the reduction in the earnings link for the triple lock and the lack of availability of any increase in the cold weather support for older people, will my noble friend consider whether the Government might introduce any emergency measures to help pensioners keep warm through the winter?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very important point that during the winter people quite often need some help and assistance with winter fuel and other issues. For RSV and influenza, this winter we have had the continued offer of vaccination for 50 to 64 year-olds for the first time, and to additional cohorts. By 19 December, 82% of people aged 65 years and over and 48% of people under 65 years in risk groups had received a flu vaccine.

Covid-19: Plan B

Debate between Baroness Altmann and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am not sure I agree with the noble Baroness on the figure she cites; I will double-check and write to her. On the triggers, it is clear that we have to look at a range of factors before deciding whether to move to plan B.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, clearly these are very difficult issues, but can my noble friend help the House—if not today then in writing—by explaining some of the statistics being used to judge what is happening with Covid right now? For example, the use of a Covid-positive test within 28 days of death is not necessarily indicative of what is happening, and the vaccine programme seems to have ensured that those who are seriously ill or sadly dying of Covid are those who are not vaccinated or have serious underlying other conditions—in which case, the statistics may be misleading us somewhat.