Covid-19: Update

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the Statement made in the Commons yesterday. I pay tribute again from these Benches for the amazing work of all the NHS staff and volunteers in delivering the vaccine to so many millions of people. However, as the chief medical and scientific advisers have repeated many times in recent weeks, the virus is still among us, creating new strains and threatening our recovery in the UK. It is therefore vital that the Government continue as we emerge from this lockdown to be led by data, not dates.

It is clearly right to add India to the red list. In the UK we have deep ties and bonds with India of course, but it was the correct thing to do in the circumstances and it is also right that the Prime Minister should postpone his visit. Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which have lower rates than India, have been on the list since 9 April so I wonder why it took so long to add India.

Can the Minister update the House on the presence of all three new variants identified—the Indian, Brazilian and South African—and their presence and spread in the UK? Indeed, can he update the House about the global co-ordination of surveillance of the new variants?

With regard to protecting our borders, this week Hong Kong identified 47 Covid cases on a single flight from Delhi. Before the Friday deadline there will be hundreds of people arriving on flights from India. Is this not very risky?

Even with high levels of vaccination across the population, there will be significant groups who are not vaccinated—children, for example—so the virus will be endemic. As the Chief Medical Officer has recently confirmed, papers from SAGE model a third wave this summer. How do we avoid that?

The poorest and lowest paid in the most insecure jobs do not isolate as they should because they cannot afford to do so. From these Benches we have pointed out time and again that one way to ensure self-isolation—and therefore help the Government tackle this—would be to pay higher sick pay and expand its scope. Will this happen?

There is no mention in the Statement of vaccine passports. Does the Minister anticipate that they will soon be needed for football games and concerts?

I regret that we need to turn to the media stories about lobbying and the revelations in the Sunday Times regarding the former Prime Minister acting on behalf of Greensill and the payday financing scheme. As my right honourable friend Jon Ashworth said in the Commons yesterday:

“This was not an act of altruism to staff in a pandemic but an investment plan to package up loans to sell to investors, with the former Prime Minister, not nurses, in line for a payday windfall. Cameron wrote in one of his emails: ‘As you can imagine, Matt Hancock’ is ‘extremely positive about this innovative offer.’”—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/21; col. 659.]


What was being sought was a partnership with NHS Shared Business Services, which is jointly owned by the department, to access the personal and financial data of thousands of NHS staff for their electronic records for commercial gain. I expect the move would next be to the social care sector. We know that at least 30 trusts may have spent valuable time considering the adoption of this untested payday lending scheme as a result of the lobbying by Mr Cameron. Can the Minister ensure that publication of all the text messages, emails and correspondence with David Cameron will happen? Can the Minister tell the House how many NHS leaders and officials Mr Cameron and Mr Greensill lobbied and met? How many NHS trusts in total were approached about this expensive—and, indeed, unneeded —scheme? Even today, we see further allegations of contracts being granted without proper scrutiny and governance, following the Secretary of State’s own links with Topwood. Questions about conflicts of interest are inevitable.

Apart from the issue about pay levels in the NHS which might necessitate such a scheme, can the Minister accept that NHS staff deserve a pay rise and support, not payday loan apps forced on the NHS by speculators trying to make money out of the pandemic? What is his view of this? Does he appreciate that honesty, probity and transparency are directly linked to people’s acceptance of and adherence to the rules we have all obeyed for many months to beat this pandemic?

Last year, a former Conservative chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Feldman—who was running a lobbying firm with healthcare clients—acted as an unpaid adviser to the Minister himself. When I was a Minister I was told that one must not only be scrupulous and transparent in one’s dealings but that one should not do anything that could be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

I hope the Minister will not just get angry as he has in the past and say it is all not true and how hard everyone is working to get the pandemic under control—everyone knows how hard he and the public servants are working—as he will be missing the point. The point is about the reputation and standing of government, democracy and accountability. Does he believe it would be a good thing for the Government to reflect on the Nolan principles of public life, particularly with regard to recent procurement processes, and the lessons that might be learnt?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I add my tributes from these Benches to all those who continue to work well above and beyond the call of duty in all areas to do with managing the Covid pandemic. This includes the vaccination teams, the invisible workers—the scientists working in labs and all those who we do not see on a daily basis—as well as our overtired doctors, nurses and other clinical healthcare workers, and those in social care who are still taking remarkable precautions.

It is worth noting despite the reduction in cases, hospital cases and deaths that daily cases are still double the level that they were at the lifting of lockdown 1, so it is good that the Government are not speeding things up. We need to continue to move carefully and steadily, as later parts of the Statement talking about the India and South African variants give cause for some concern. It is also reassuring to see that uptake of the vaccine is excellent. However, the Statement is silent on when all adults will have been offered the second vaccine. That is important because, as scientists constantly remind us, two doses are needed. Focusing only on the first vaccine is giving the vast majority of the public overconfidence about protection. If people want to go on holiday, one dose of the vaccine will not be enough, whether that holiday is in the UK or abroad.

That leads also to those who are immune-suppressed and to those under 18, because until all are safe, none are safe. Can the Minister say if there is any news on the OCTAVE clinical trials on the ability of those who are immune-suppressed to make and retain antibodies? Those formerly shielding—including me—still need to avoid mixing with people. They are still waiting for news to see if they can relax, even after two doses of the vaccine.

What is the news for children? I understood that the trials on over-12s had been halted following the blood clot issue with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Is that still the case? What are the long-term plans to ensure that our under-12s and, indeed, our under-18s are safe? The Statement says that:

“The vaccine is our way out of this pandemic”.


Not on its own, it is not. We must continue to test, trace and isolate to keep people safe. The Government are to be applauded for the large number of lateral flow tests because they are useful, but they are not as effective as PCR tests for really tracking the virus.

Had I not been unable to do so, I would have loved to have been at Wembley on Sunday supporting my team, which, sadly, lost to Leicester. I would have been delighted to have been part of a testing arrangement to see what happens, but other fans have said that they were only asked to be tested in advance and that there is no testing afterwards. Is that correct? In other words, how detailed is this testing for moving back into normal life going to be?

I am a member of the All-Party Group on Coronavirus, and this morning we heard from scientists who are bemused that immediate contacts of those who test positive are still not routinely PCR tested, which all the countries with a truly effective test and trace system operate. That is vital with the high percentage of people with Covid still having no symptoms, so they would believe that there is no reason for them to be tested, and it is particularly important with the information about the spread of the variants from South Africa and India.

I have family who live in Wandsworth. This time last week, as the announcement about mass testing across Lambeth and Wandsworth was made, we were told that everyone in those areas would be publicly informed. Three days later, not only had my son heard nothing, but he walked past a newly set up testing site a few hundred metres from his house, went in, and discovered that he did need to be tested. So, he and my daughter-in-law had their tests. It transpires that the only notification from Wandsworth Council before the weekend was a tweet, with none of the mechanisms used elsewhere such as texts via GPs, posters up in the street, word of mouth, or even leaflets. How on earth can that be real surge testing if only a small percentage of the population see a handful of tweets?

On the India variant, scientists also told the APPG this morning that the estimated figure of 103 cases was considerably lower than the likely number of cases circulating because only 10% to 15% of positive lateral-flow swabs are sent on to laboratories where they are scanned for variants. This might mean that the actual number is 10 to 20 times the official estimate. This brings us full circle, back to test, trace and isolate. Even with vaccines, it is vital to have an effective test, trace and isolate system to keep people safe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, outlined, adding India to the red list but giving people three-and-a-half days’ notice before implementing it, means that a large number of cases are likely to slip into the country. Even if they are caught through positive testing, we are unlikely to have a real sense of the actual number of cases.

This follows on from the concern that we from these Benches have had about successful self-isolation and quarantining for a year. The APPG heard evidence this morning that demonstrated that arrangements at our borders, particularly in airports, are not Covid safe, either for travellers or staff, and they risk becoming breeding grounds. This now needs to include effectively separately passengers who arrive from red-list countries from those who arrive from others, and ensuring that all quarantine rules are observed. We heard evidence that people were leaving their quarantine hotels early, and that others, quarantining at home because they did not come from red-list countries, were being forced to use public transport to get to testing centres for their day eight tests. Worse, border staff are discovering around 100 fake Covid test certificates daily, and there are probably many more. If that does not signify a real worrying standard for the possibility of vaccine passports, I do not know what does. When will a proper test, trace and isolate system be put in place that includes immediate contacts and more lateral-flow tests being tested for variants, along with vital, proper, paid arrangements for self-isolation, including quarantining and proper separation in the transport arrangements for those coming from abroad?

Finally, I will spend just one minute on Greensill. It is not just Greensill: we need desperately to see full publication of all meetings and correspondence—informal and formal—that Ministers have had regarding all contracts, whether it is payday loans, PPE or testing arrangements. This also includes the new quarantining partners; the Health Secretary said on Monday that two have already been sacked, having been in place only for a short time. It is vital that the smell-test on all these contracts is evident and sure.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to both the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton, for such thoughtful questions. I totally and utterly endorse both with regard to their massive thanks to NHS staff, to the vaccinators and, in particular, I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who thanked the invisible workers. I am acutely and particularly aware of the lab technicians, many of whom have worked unbelievably hard in difficult circumstances, often located far from their homes, supporting our laboratories up and down the country. There are many other categories of invisible workers in our healthcare system and they deserve our huge thanks.

I am as concerned as the noble Baronesses about the threat of variants of concern. It is an absolutely frustrating and anxiety-making fact, that we simply do not know a huge amount about what the impact of these variants will be on transmissibility, severity and escapology. We are throwing absolutely everything we have got at this to try to understand the features of this disease. However, it is true that while we can study them in a mathematical or computer-generated model, we get only so far with that. We can study them on the workbench and get a little bit further, we can stick them in a tube with some serum from someone who has had a vaccine, and maybe figure out a bit more, but it is only when we have the real-world data of how the vaccines have worked in real life when put up against the virus that we can accurately conclude what the impact will be. Therefore, only the passage of time will give us the critical data we need to go forward.

In the meantime, we are standing up a huge international effort to try to understand the variants that are emerging around the world. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked me about global co-ordination. Britain is absolutely playing its role; it is using its chairmanship of the G7 to full effect. As noble Lords are, I am sure, fully aware, we have a world-leading facility in genomic sequencing. We have made a massive, open-hearted offer to the world to sequence the genomes of any variants of concern, from any country in the world, through the newly launched New Variant Assessment Platform. We are working to set up hubs to develop expertise in that capacity around the world. We are working extremely closely with multi-laterals such as the WHO, with the relevant major trusts such as the Gates and Rockefeller foundations and the Wellcome Trust, and with individual countries, to provide the insight, the fast-turnaround analysis and the assessment of new variants as they turn up.

Within our own country, it is concerning that variants have made landfall, but I reassure noble Lords that we have put in place remarkably diligent efforts to close down any spread of variants of concern when they have occurred, whether they are from India, Brazil or South Africa. It is a fact that the Operation Eagle process, which is supported by local authorities, DPHs, test and trace and by the JBC, has so far—touch wood—proved to be extremely effective at closing down community spread. We have numbers of the variants in the UK but a very large proportion of them are known to be related to travel and they have not yet created clusters of infection of the kind that might cause concern. The MQS—Managed Quarantine Service—has played an absolutely critical role. I pay tribute to the MQS team, who are at this very moment putting in place arrangements for managed quarantine for flights with travellers from India. They have put in place the necessary pre-testing, the hotels and the assessment.

While I hear, loud and clear, the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about that process, I reassure her that her list of concerns is quite different from the operational notes that I am given every day. The truth is that it has kept a lid on any spread of VOCs in the UK to date. On Wandsworth, I pay tribute to the enormous civic response to our concerns around the cluster there. I recognise the concerns of the relative of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in that area, but there has been an absolutely massive news and community-marketing promotion of the home testing, pharmacy testing, MTUs and ATSs in Wandsworth. Very few people indeed cannot have heard of the arrangements that are in place.

With regard to the OCTAVE clinical trials, that is of grave concern to all those who have immunosuppressed circumstances. We are working extremely hard with Birmingham University, with Professor Paul Moss, to understand more about the response of those with immunity issues. It is a frustrating fact that those with pre-existing immunity issues are likely to be the ones who have the lowest and least response to the vaccine. We are trying to understand as best we can how that can be supplemented. As noble Lords may know, we have already invested considerably in new arrangements for therapeutics and antivirals that we believe will support those with immunosuppressed conditions. I would be glad to write to the noble Baroness about our arrangement for vaccines for the under-12s.

If there are any other questions that I have not had time to answer, I would be glad to write to the noble Baronesses with full answers.

Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and congratulate Laura Trott MP and the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, on promoting this long-needed Bill. It is important to say from the start that we on these Benches believe that this Bill will provide a safer environment for those children and young people who are tempted to seek treatments, including Botox, fillers and cosmetic treatments, which currently can be administered by unqualified individuals. To be frank, like some other speakers today, we would welcome stronger regulation of those administering these treatments to adults too. But we have some questions about how this Bill, as it stands, might be improved to ensure safety and regulation to make it work.

We have heard from noble Lords horror stories of staff treating individuals with complex and sometime disastrous consequences. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and my noble friend Lord Addington that young people, mainly girls, are encouraged to have treatments such as these. That speaks to the very dangerous body image agenda that is far too prevalent. Although not part of this Bill, we must ensure that schools and wider society reinforce the key point that we are all different, and that judging people on the way that they look is short-sighted and damaging.

As my noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned, in the UK, Changing Faces is a charity that supports everyone with a visible difference, including people born with, and those acquiring, visible differences during life. Changing Faces makes the point that these young people may need the use of invasive or non-invasive cosmetic interventions to help them manage and control their condition, mark or scar, along with other physical treatment or mental health support that they also need to access. It is vital that any child or adult is appropriately supported with the right information. Along with Changing Faces, we hope that people—whether children or adults—would always have this advice and treatment from a healthcare professional. It is good that this Bill starts that process for those under 18. Changing Faces has a long track record of signposting its clients to their GPs and consultants to make sure that they get the correct advice. This is excellent practice.

We also agree that adverts for these treatments should not be available to the under-18s. Advertisements have too often promoted a stereotypical perception of beauty, and offering to “fix” perceived imperfections can be damaging to a child or young person, particularly one with a visible difference. Hannah, a young client of Changing Faces, explains her experience:

“In the early days of social media, there were constantly adverts for different cosmetic procedures and I felt everywhere I looked, someone was saying I was ugly and needed to be fixed. Young people, whether they have a visible difference or not, must be protected from advertising that promotes cosmetic interventions. How can young people be expected to craft a healthy body image when the world is telling them that they can be fixed? Online spaces are tricky to make safe for young people, but it is possible to minimise the impact that unrealistic body image has on their developing minds by limiting advertising.”


Hannah is so right.

Our second concern from these Benches is on the effective policing of the proposals in this Bill. As outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, can the Minister confirm that the regulation proposals in this Bill match tattoo parlour and sunbed regulations? This should be an absolute minimum, because the treatments outlined in today’s Bill are less reversable than tattooing, piercing and tanning. Can the Minister explain how local authorities will be able to enforce these regulations? The Government’s repeated cuts to local government have severely impacted local weights and measures teams. Without the resources to police it, this Bill will fail, meaning that most enforcement will be retrospective, so that the offences by bodies corporate will be important.

That brings me to my final point. For any Bill to have effect, the threat of serious financial harm to organisations is the most likely deterrent. The most obvious defence is that corporates will need to be fully implicated. It is set out in Clause 3(2), which starts:

“If the offence is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of … any director, manager or secretary of the body corporate”


et cetera. This seems analogous to the corporate manslaughter situation, whereby virtually no CEO ever gets prosecuted and yet fewer are convicted.

We are concerned that the Bill, if passed, would not be policed due to under-resourced councils and, if dealing with a breach, only the local, low-paid operative would be prosecuted. Can the Minister say whether the Government have a plan properly to license, resource and supervise such therapies? I look forward to the Minister’s response and to supporting this Bill as it starts its passage in your Lordships’ House.

Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I would like to reassure the noble Lord that the scenario I described typically includes two gastroenterology consultants, a clinical intermediate fellow, a GP partner and a patient representative. It is exactly this kind of team approach that delivers the best patient outcomes, as the noble Lord rightly outlined.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

In 2012, NICE published a treatment pathway for Crohn’s and colitis. It was a groundbreaking change to ensure consistent and comprehensive services, including the team approach referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, and outcomes for all patients of this autoimmune disease across England. NICE further updated this in 2019, so there has been a pathway for nine years. Why is it not being adhered to by NHS England? What will the Minister do to ensure that all Crohn’s and colitis patients get the treatment they are promised by NICE?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am not sure it is correct that it is not being adhered to widely, but there is some variation in all parts of the NHS. That is why we are developing a right-care scenario for IBD with key stakeholders. This will create a very clear template for all patients and all those involved in their care. It will, I hope, help create more consistent standards across the healthcare system.

Covid-19: One Year Report

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, on Tuesday, we marked the sad milestone of the anniversary of the first lockdown by remembering all those who have died from Covid in the United Kingdom. We know that the shocking number of 126,000 is an underestimate, given that the count is of those who tested positive in the previous 28 days, and there are many who died beyond that period. But even with that, we are top of the world league in deaths per million at 1,859. To every family and friend of those who have died we send our deepest sympathies.

Before I come to why we have tabled this regret Motion, it is important to note the things that have gone well, such as the commitment of so many people in key roles across the country—in the NHS and social care, and our scientists and technicians in laboratories. Especial thanks go to those in our universities and research organisations who have found treatments and, most importantly, vaccines. We thank all those who have ensured that the vaccine pipeline has worked so well so far. Despite bumps on the road, it is impressive.

We also want to thank the teams in the Civil Service, local government and communities which have stepped up to the plate to ensure that core services and voluntary community groups remained working. One year on, they are all exhausted. We thank Ministers too; we understand the pressure that Ministers face every day. Sometimes, we have to hold them to account, and I know that can be hard. We thank them all.

We on these Benches have not tabled this regret Motion lightly, but from a growing frustration that the Government are still behaving as if we were in the early days of this pandemic and have not learned the lessons of what went wrong earlier on. Monday’s BBC “Panorama” programme interviewed the President of South Korea and asked him why the UK had done so badly, despite all the evidence from those countries that had been affected by SARS locking down early. His answer was telling. He said that each country in Europe appeared to have to go through its own crisis to understand the strong, clear actions it should have taken right at the outset, then repeatedly to prevent the virus escalating or re-entering the country. The UK death toll is, sadly, the evidence that the Government have got it wrong.

One year on, this has changed from a public health emergency to a civil liberties emergency, where women at a vigil for a murdered young woman are held to the ground by police with their knees on their backs. One year on, the Coronavirus Act has an unprecedented 100% unlawful prosecution rate. The CPS has identified at least 250 people being wrongfully charged. It is still causing enormous confusion among police and prosecutors, which is not their fault. It is not fit for purpose, but it cannot be amended today because we have a “take it or leave it” take-note Motion.

One year on, all people want are hugs and holidays with their families and friends, but the messages from Government are at odds with their own experts on how we make sure that mixing together and beginning to travel again are safe. Only on Monday, the Government published the annual review of the Coronavirus Act for the debate today. That report typifies much of the frustration we have with the Government’s overall performance.

Last March, my noble friends Lord Newby, Lord Scriven and Lady Barker all pushed Ministers to ensure that there was information publicly available on the government website about powers in SIs being turned on and off. We were concerned that many regulations would be made under the Public Health Act, not the Coronavirus Act, which the Minister has referred to, and this has proved to be true. My noble friend Lord Newby asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe:

“At Second Reading yesterday, my noble friend Lady Barker suggested that the Government should produce a grid to explain which clauses of the Bill have been implemented, and exactly how. That is a very good idea and I hope the Government can accept it, but could they go slightly further by having, as part of that grid, a list of all the other provisions introduced to deal with the coronavirus, but not necessarily under this Bill? I cite, for example, the power to close restaurants and all other places where people congregate, which was introduced under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That would be helpful not only for specialists, as it were, like us, but for those who want to find and then look at the legislative basis for decisions.”—[Official Report, 25/3/20; col. 1765.]


The noble Earl replied to your Lordships’ House:

“The noble Lord, Lord Newby, proposed that the website report should be comprehensive. I believe I can give him that reassurance.”—[Official Report, 25/3/20; col. 1772.]


But that has not happened. Only the SIs in relation to this Act have been covered. It is not fit for purpose.

The Hansard Society’s excellent SI dashboard tells us that last year, more than 400 SIs were published relating to powers in an astonishing 118 Acts of Parliament, five orders and five EU Acts, which are now held in UK law since 31 January.

On accountability, Ministers repeatedly said during the passage of the Bill a year ago that there would be special efforts to remain transparent and accountable to Parliament and the public. Too often, Ministers have not answered questions put to them in Parliament, nor written to answer them afterwards. FoIs are often answered late and without real information. Details of dodgy contracts are not published, nor are the arrangements for the so-called VIP channel that gave fast-track access to many Tory donors and friends. The Liberal Democrats will not give a blank cheque for this cynical bypassing of the long-established and respected transparency and accountability of Ministers and Government to Parliament. It is not fit for purpose.

The Act sets in place the arrangements for furlough, the self-employed, those self-isolating and those shielding if they work in non-Covid safe spaces. But millions of the self-employed have fallen through this safety net. Thousands who needed support to self-isolate found that they were turned down because the rules were too tight, and those shielding will have their benefits turned off from next week but are still told that they must not mix with people in non Covid-safe workplaces. This Act is not fit for purpose.

The SIs in front of us continue to typify some of those contradictory issues. On international travel, there will now be a £5,000 fine for someone going on a package holiday to Greece. But the Prime Minister’s father is allowed to go to Greece to deal with his property there—the Stanley Johnson special treatment clause.

SAGE advised the Government on 21 January this year that

“No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully prevent the importation of cases or new variants.”


We agree with SAGE. Until we take every step to ensure that new variants of coronavirus cannot be brought back into the country, it cannot be allowed to run rife in our communities because we lock down too late. When we will learn from South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand that the only way to save the economy is to fight this virus hard and not create special rules or confusing laws? This Act is not fit for purpose.

I move on briefly to the arrangements for international travel covered in the SI on the steps to unlocking. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there was no need to test haulage drivers as they arrived in the UK, despite the fact that those leaving the UK have to be tested. At the Liaison Committee he was clear on this matter. Everyone accepts that drivers of haulage vehicles must be on the excepted occupation lists; we understand why it is difficult to make them quarantine. The government website lists such drivers and the specific arrangements for each of the excepted occupations. I was shocked to see that, unlike virtually all the other excepted occupations, drivers arriving from non-red countries do not need to take any tests at all, not even on days two and eight, as most others do. We accept the argument for some excepted occupations but a system under which drivers have no testing requirements at all is not fit for purpose.

In recent weeks Public Health England was trying to trace an unknown individual who had brought the Brazil variant into the country. New international travel regulations had already come into force, three weeks before, but it beggared belief that there was no link between testing and people quarantining—or worse, that there was no system to ensure that anyone taking a test could be tracked back to where the tests were sent. That is not fit for purpose.

Today’s new issue is about the use of vaccine passports in England for access to pubs and other venues as lockdown is lifted. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said at the Liaison Committee that he saw a role for domestic vaccine passports. Today, sensible people such as Jonathan Neame of Shepherd Neame pubs explained why that is complex and asked rightly who will police it and make decisions about those who cannot or have not been called for their vaccines. Will it be a young member of bar staff? Surely not.

One year on, there is no recovery plan looking forward, just crisis regulations being created and statements made that are then contradicted or discovered to be only half what was needed to prevent more cases. Where is the plan that will demonstrate that the Government are moving out of crisis mode and are prepared to remove all those regulations that we no longer need, and which put constraints on people’s lives?

Last week, the National Audit Office said that many of the Covid contracts relating to PPE and testing were not value for money and, worse, not transparent. We agree. Last June, Ed Davey MP asked the Prime Minister to agree to an independent public inquiry. He did agree, but there is still no information about what or when. Worse, there was not even an interim review last summer to learn the lessons from lockdown one, which might well have helped reduce the slow lock- down before Christmas that caused many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

I have read with interest the Motion to Regret in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I hope that she and her colleagues can support ours. Her frustration with the Government’s management of the pandemic is evident, too.

In conclusion, we stand at a crossroads. We are no longer in the emergency phase that we were in a year ago. Parts of the legislation are now either out of date or unworkable and that needs to be remedied. The Government must show Parliament that they can put the recovery first. They should follow the advice of their experts, bring a plan to Parliament and the people, and deliver it.

I will be calling for a vote on my Motion in order to test the opinion of the House.

Health and Social Care Update

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement from last Thursday. We heartily welcome the rollout of the vaccine and place on record huge gratitude to the scientists from everywhere, the NHS staff—all of them—the local government officials, the pharmacists and the volunteers who have worked so hard and seamlessly to produce such a successful outcome so far. I also take this opportunity to support the AstraZeneca vaccine. I am sure we were all very pleased with the news from the USA, which supports all the scientists in the UK and Europe, that the AZ vaccine is both effective and safe.

However, it was not great news to learn that this amazing vaccine effort will have to slow down due to supply problems, and, I have to say, that did come as a surprise. We have one of the worst death rates in the world and our economy has taken a massive hit. Many key workers under the age of 50—such as teachers and police officers—who through the nature of their work have not been at home, are going out and are more exposed to risk. I imagine that many had hoped that vaccination for them was not very far away. An update on the vaccine supply, particularly on the issues around discussions with the European Union, which seem to have become more fractious, would be appreciated.

But, specifically, what has happened to the Moderna vaccine? I understand that it will start in April. Is there any prospect that, if Moderna supplies come on stream, new appointments can be offered in light of that? Can the Minister assure the House about the second vaccine which many of us await? Will there be sufficient supply and will providing the millions of second jabs delay further the first vaccines for the 30 and 40 year-olds? It seems that the vaccination programme will need to ramp up to about 3.5 million doses a week from May to ensure that everyone under 50 is vaccinated by mid-July. Is the Minister confident that these supply issues will be fixed by May?

Adam Finn of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said that infection rates may rise as a result of the delays. Does the Minister anticipate that any of the stages or dates in the road map for easing out of lockdown will be pushed back, given that we are rightly judging the road map by data, not dates?

There are two other issues that we particularly need to address today. May I ask about the impact of the EU-AZ concern on vaccine hesitancy in the UK? It has been reported that there was a jump in no-shows and people questioning or refusing to go ahead with the AZ vaccine in the last week or so here in the UK.

Many poorer areas today still have the highest infection rates relative to elsewhere in the country, and at the same time their vaccination rates are below average. The worry is that places such as Oldham, Leicester or Hartlepool might be facing a double whammy: they still have high infection rates, but they are not getting the vaccination rates up to the levels needed. Not only will the disease continue to circulate there, with the risk of people catching it becoming severely ill, this also raises the question: will these towns and cities be left behind as the rest of the country eases out of lockdown? Some areas such as Leicester have endured the longest coronavirus restrictions of any part of England, remaining in lockdown since last summer. Closer to home here in London, I understand that in Enfield there are 16,000 people who do not have GPs and are in wards with high levels of poverty, high Covid rates and low vaccine rates—some as low as 55%. What are the Government’s plans to support these areas and ensure that they are not left behind?

Secondly, vaccination centres are detecting a rising number of queue jumpers as Britain prepares to face a four-week jab drought. Officials say that people pose as care or health workers to cheat their way to an early jab and fear that fraudulent bookings will soar before next month’s slower rollout. When the cheats are caught, vaccination slots that could have gone to people entitled to a jab are wasted. In addition, according to anecdotal evidence and the Times article of yesterday, it seems that some centres more recently are not being diligent about requiring proof of the eligibility of the person claiming to be a care worker.

Anyone can fraudulently book a jab on the national booking website by ticking a box to say that they work in health or social care or provide “personal care” for people in their homes. The NHS insists that those who do this but do not bring proof of that to their appointment “will not be vaccinated”. But officials say that the loophole means that rising numbers are trying to exploit a system that is “open to abuse”. Some sites are catching 15 queue jumpers a day and fear that more are slipping through. The problem is that those appointments are lost and those vaccinations wasted. The centres therefore face a “difficult balance” between wanting to avoid wasted doses and appointment slots and rigorously checking ID cards. Bhaveen Patel, who runs a Covid-19 vaccination clinic in Brixton, says that he turns away 15 queue jumpers a day.

Finally, children make up about 21% of the population. That is a large segment of the population who will lack immunity. Obviously, research and trials are ongoing, but does the Minister have a timeline for when he hopes to vaccinate children? Does he anticipate, for example, being able to vaccinate children this autumn, as Anthony Fauci in the US has suggested could well happen over there?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, from these Benches I also thank the noble Lord for the Statement given in the Commons last Thursday and thank and congratulate everyone involved in the creation and delivery of all the vaccines so far, and for their continuing work to protect the world against mutant strains of the virus. It is good news at a time when much else is still worrying.

I also start with the availability of supply. Can the Minister explain to the House what guarantee there is for people on receiving their second doses? He has reassured the House before, but I am hearing from GPs worried that they have not had confirmation that they will receive enough doses or that they are getting any supplies at all at the moment, as well as from people who have had their first dose from their GP but who have been told they cannot book their second dose via the online national system because their first dose was delivered by their GP. There are a lot of confused people around.

Today’s news about the EU-UK war of words on the vaccine supply chain gets more bizarre by the hour. Are Ministers seriously considering holding back exports of the special lipids from the UK to the EU as a proposed retaliatory action if the EU holds back doses in the Netherlands? There should not be a war of words but the best possible collaboration to ensure that the “lumpy supply”, to quote the Prime Minister, is smoothed out.

On the issue of queue jumpers, both the NHS and the care sector have an effective ID system that has been in place for some time, although obviously it was probably easier to do when they were in the first group of people to be vaccinated. What are the Government doing to ensure that every vaccine centre understands what they need to see from people presenting for vaccines from the care sector?

On the hesitancy in uptake, I too have heard of the increase in no-shows. What are the Government doing to encourage especially those from the first six groups who have not yet come forward to do so? The publicity campaign that is beginning on reassurance about the AstraZeneca dose is good, as is the test news, but we need much more than that. We know that hesitancy tends to be reduced when people, especially doctors and nurses, talk directly to their patients.

As we have said from these Benches, it is good that the UK is playing its part in funding vaccines via COVAX. However, there is a lot of discussion at the moment that the UK should support TRIPS and encourage the sharing of intellectual property rights of vaccines. I have some concerns about this approach and agree with Professor Sarah Gilbert, who said:

“If another company tries to take the IP and go it alone, they are manufacturing a different product. The regulators would see it as a different product; it would have to go through all the efficacy trials again, and that would be very wasteful and very slow. I want to get rid of the idea that we should be sharing the IP and letting everybody make their own vaccines. It does not work like that. We have a way of sharing the materials and the expertise, and that is what we have been working very hard to do. That is the correct way to do it, because that is how we get the right vaccines to as many people as possible.”


The work of places such as the Serum Institute of India are examples of how this collaboration can work at its best. Can the Minister say what the Government will do to encourage and support more examples of such collaboration worldwide? Can he also say whether the UK Government plan to donate some of the spare doses that they have ordered to less developed countries and on what timescale this might be enacted?

The Statement refers to the end of shielding on 1 April. As a shielder, I have received another long letter from Matt Hancock and Robert Jenrick which says to shielders:

“Until the social distancing rules are eased more widely, it is important that you continue to keep the number of social interactions that you have low and try to reduce the amount of time you spend in settings where you are unable to maintain social distancing. Everyone is advised to continue to work from home where possible, but if you cannot work from home you should now attend your workplace. Your employer is required to take steps to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace and should be able to explain to you the measures they have put in place to keep you safe at work … From 1 April you will no longer be eligible for Statutory Sick Pay … or Employment and Support Allowance … on the basis of being advised to shield. Clinically extremely vulnerable pupils and students should return to their school or other educational settings.”


I said last year when I received an almost identical letter that this feels very strange. You are told that shielding ends but you should continue to do all the things you were doing before shielding—unless you were in receipt of SSP or ESA, because that is no longer available for those who have to go back to work in an unsafe workplace. In response to a question about shielding I asked at a briefing the Minister kindly held for parliamentarians with Chris Whitty, he said that shielders who are immunosuppressed should continue to shield unless the results of the OCTAVE clinical trial for immunosuppressed people was available. But it has not been announced yet. There is total silence from the Government, but there are many immunosuppressed people who will have received this letter and think that they are okay to start moving around more.

The end of the Statement talks about safe discharge, and the £594 million for safe discharge is welcome, but is that to go to the NHS or the better care fund, or will part of it go to local government? Is the £341 million mentioned later in the Statement to support adult social care with the costs of infection prevention part of that same £594 million or is it in addition and completely separate? How will that money get to social care providers?

Once again, why is only adult social care getting this funding? Once again, paid and unpaid carers for young disabled people, who are often extremely vulnerable to any infections, not just Covid, appear to be excluded from this grant. Can the Minister please explain?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the questions from both noble Baronesses. I will try to address them and if I omit any, I will be happy to write to them with more details.

I will speak first about supply and its importance to the rollout of the vaccine. We have always said that a vaccine programme of this pace and scale may have lumpy interruptions in supply. Noble Lords will be aware that we have done incredibly well to get to the kind of rates that we saw over the weekend in the way that we have; more than 800,000 in a single day is an absolutely astonishing figure. However, delays are envisaged. This is in part due to a delay to a shipment from the Serum Institute of India, which is doing a herculean job of producing vaccines in such large quantities, and because of a batch that we already have in the UK that needs to be retested. We will receive slightly fewer vaccines in April that we did in March but that is still far more than we did in February, and the supply that we have will still enable us to hit the targets that we have set. I emphasise that point. That means that by 15 April we will be able to offer a first dose to everyone over 50 as well as those who are under 50 but clinically vulnerable. It also means that we will be able to give second doses to everyone who has had a first dose within the 12-week window, which means around 12 million second doses in April. It also means that we will be able to offer a first dose to every adult by the end of July. I hope that provides the reassurance that the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, are looking for.

On the Moderna vaccine, it is a fantastic achievement that the British Government have secured 17 million doses. These will come into play by mid-spring, and my understanding at this stage is that they will be in time to help supplement the rollout of the vaccine to some of the cohorts 1 to 9 at the end of April.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about our approach to EU relations. I reassure her that the British Government are utterly committed to a spirit of partnership and to respect for contract law in all our dealings. If the noble Baroness has good networks and friendships in Brussels and other EU capitals, it would be much appreciated if she could communicate those values to those in her network.

On those without GPs who would like to have the vaccine, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that it is possible to get the vaccine without a GP, an NHS number or an NHS login. There are systems in place, and if anyone turns up at a vaccine centre without any of those materials, they will be guided and given the assistance they need to get the vaccine they need. I emphasise that the vaccine has proved to be a terrific opportunity for a lot of people to get to know their NHS number a bit better, to bring their GP records up to date and for many to register with an NHS login in order to get to know their patient records a bit better. It will be a massive inflection point in the digitalisation of the NHS, and that is an opportunity we are grabbing with both hands.

I will take some of the noble Baroness’s questions about queue jumping back to the department. I do not know the specifics of the stories that she described, but I reassure her that NHS records are matched against those for the vaccine, as are those for social care. We do not take a blind or naive approach to the rollout of the vaccine, but it is true that it is not the role of vaccine centre staff heavily to police those who come forward for the vaccine. I am not aware that this has been a material issue, but I should be glad to find out more for her.

Of course we are fully aware of the dangers that the European rhetoric on the AstraZeneca vaccine might lead to a rise in hesitancy here in the UK, but I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that the signs are not there yet. It would seem that the British public remain incredibly committed to the vaccine rollout, the numbers coming forward remain astonishingly high and the public attitude surveys that we are doing seem reassuringly concrete.

We are extremely keen to nut through the last remaining numbers in the cohorts 1 to 9. These few weeks will give us a really good opportunity to give time to GPs and other healthcare staff to spend time in dialogue with those who have legitimate questions. That principle of dialogue and answering questions has been the way we have approached the entire vaccine rollout, and we will continue to use that dialectic method in order to get people over the line. We are also very keen to get the vaccine rolled out among younger people, including, perhaps—if the clinical advice is affirmative—children. It is of course the case that children are eligible for and encouraged to take the flu vaccine, not because they are particularly in danger of hospitalisation or severe disease from flu but because they are transmitters of flu. Exactly the same principle applies to Covid. That is why we are extremely keen to get the message across to young people, and it is extremely reassuring that the rollout of the vaccine among older people may have a profound effect on loved ones in the same family unit. We are hopeful that that will be a big influence on younger people.

On our international approach, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that Britain is as collaborative as a country possibly could be on the vaccine. I take my hat off to AstraZeneca, which has an extremely collaborative approach and, as she knows, a no-profit protocol for the vaccine. The MHRA has led the way in transparency and sharing of data. On therapeutics and clinical trials, we have shared an enormous amount of data around the world. We remain enormous financial sponsors of all the major vaccine programmes, including COVAX, Gavi, ACT and the others. This approach will continue, and we remain convinced that Britain should take a leading role in the global rollout of the vaccine. We will be using our chairmanship of the G7 to play that role.

Lastly, I hear and appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on the shielding letter. Those who are shielding are in a very awkward position, but I am afraid that it cannot be solved overnight. The OCTAVE programme is extremely ambitious: it is looking carefully at extremely complex and difficult questions about those who, for one reason or another, have suppressed immunity, and that includes a very broad range of conditions. Professor Paul Moss at Birmingham University Hospital, who is leading that programme, is doing a terrific job, and I pay tribute to him and all his team. We are looking at whether they have the right amount of resources. I had reassurances very recently that everything was in place, but we are looking extremely closely at this area, because the noble Baroness is right: those who have suppressed immunity are in a very special case and we need to be absolutely sure that they have the right vaccine delivered at the right time and the right information to make the decisions necessary to go back into life. Those decisions simply cannot be rushed. A passage of time is necessary to understand the effect of the vaccine on the human body, but we are doing everything we can to answer those important questions.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2021

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, from these Benches I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, on her maiden speech and welcome her to this House. Once again, we are debating these measures, which have a significant impact on the liberty of individuals, a full five weeks after they came into effect. In your Lordships’ House, we have been challenging the Minister and his predecessor about enhanced passenger testing, travel arrangements and hotel quarantine consistently since January last year. Well over a year on into this pandemic, the Government can no longer credibly cite a “public health emergency” for lack of scrutiny. This is not a surprise or an emergency, and from these Benches we too ask why a negative instrument has been used.

Ministers should look to other countries around the world for examples of what we should be doing regarding international travel, testing and quarantine. Other island nations have had great success with border controls, and we must learn from their successes. In Taiwan, a country I know is close to the heart of the Minister, they have “hot taxis” which are used only to take international arrivals to their place of quarantine. The drivers are paid a full day’s wage even if they have no passengers, so there is no incentive for them to take other clients. Other support includes calling people every day to check they are okay and do not need medication or other urgent supplies, and to use their phones as an electronic tag to ensure that they do not leave the facility or their home. These are only some of a series of effective safety and support measures that Taiwan uses to ensure exceptionally strong quarantine compliance. In the UK, however, there is evidence of woefully poor checks on those quarantining.

In New Zealand, everyone must obtain a travel voucher which allows access to a state-run isolation facility, and where you go depends on your symptoms and test results. The evidence from countries such as Taiwan and New Zealand is clear; the UK Government’s policy is not. We need to remember that only a few weeks ago Public Health England was scrambling to try to trace an unknown individual who had brought the Brazilian variant into this country. This was after these regulations came into effect. It is evident that, even with the regulations, there are huge gaps in the system.

Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England said at the time that the team trying to track down the mystery person included those from laboratories, logistics and data analytics and that they all had virtually no information to go on. Any effective system needs to know exactly who is coming into the country, where they are isolating and what their test status is.

It beggars belief that there was no link between testing and people quarantining, and worse, no system to ensure that anyone taking a test could be tracked back to where the tests were sent. We cannot have situations where public health officials are trying to track down cases that should be known with very little information to go on. Can the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that both these loopholes are now closed?

It is inevitable that these restrictions significantly impact on people’s liberties. At the moment, we have the worst of both worlds: some restrictions on liberties, but also far too many half-measures that see international arrivals jumping on to public transport, or worse, coming via another country to hide that they have come from a red list country—while many others have to pay thousands for quarantine hotels. Such a chaotic system undermines public trust and makes people wonder what they are making their sacrifices for. Will the Government put clarity and consistency at the heart of further reforms for travel restrictions and quarantine? On 21 January this year, SAGE advised the Government:

“No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully prevent the importation of cases or new variants”.


When will the Government implement this unequivocal advice in full?

Finally, when we talk about quarantine, we must always think about what might motivate individuals to break that quarantine. We know that the £10,000 fine is a strong deterrent. We also know that most people want to do the right thing. Not for the first, or even the second time, I ask the Minister: how are the Government supporting people in quarantine? How are they dealing with exceptional circumstances, such as allowing individuals to break quarantine to visit dying relatives, as set out by my noble friend Lady Miller? Can quarantining people get supplies, especially medication, delivered to them? Is it true that people with coeliac disease are not permitted to travel into the UK at the moment because quarantine hotels say they cannot cater for gluten-free people?

We all know border controls are important due to the threat of new variants. We cannot allow the hard efforts of our vaccination programme to be undermined by importing vaccine-resistant variants. This means working with scientists, medical professionals and Governments across the globe to ensure that research and information can be shared in as collaborative a way as possible to combat this global crisis. Above all, we must have effective travel restrictions and quarantine so that neither people nor the virus can get round them.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, with regard to the publication of contracts, the number of contract award notices that have been published is 609 out of 609. For contract finder notices, it is 892 out of 913—97.7%—and of the redacted contracts to which the noble Baroness refers, it is 792 out of 913, which is 86.7%. That is an enormous proportion of the contracts that exist that have already been published. The redaction is utterly according to Cabinet Office guidelines. I encourage the noble Baroness to have a look at them; it is remarkable how much detail there is in those contracts as they are published.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the inevitable public inquiry will eventually set out the truth of what has happened with contracts during the Covid pandemic. In the meantime, given that the Urgent Question Statement says that the Government

“have always been clear that transparency is vital”,

can the Minister say how many of the private meetings that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, held on test and trace matters were with companies or their directors or staff who won contracts subsequently?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I do not know about a public inquiry; that will be for others to decide. I absolutely re-emphasise the Government’s commitment to transparency. As for my noble friend Lady Harding’s meetings, I do not have a full account of them in front of me, but I remind the noble Baroness that of course she met suppliers of test and trace. That is part of her role and that has been an important part of the engagement necessary to put together a very large organisation from scratch, and she has done a terrific job in the way that she has done it.

World Health Organization: Pandemics

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. A multilateral approach is at the heart of our response to the pandemic, and I agree that we are not safe here in the UK until the whole world has addressed the question of the pandemic.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the World Health Organization recommends regular handwashing as a critical preventive measure against Covid-19, but 3 billion people worldwide lack access to soap and water at home. The UK’s Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition responded to the onset of the pandemic with a £100 million commitment to reach a billion people, but this project is now ending. It is wonderful to have the Government’s support for this project, but will they put their money where their mouth is and continue to fund this vital project?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her tribute to the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition. I cannot offer guarantees from the Dispatch Box on its future funding, but I will inquire about the matter. As the noble Baroness suggests, it sounds like a fascinating and important project.

NHS: Pay

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I start by saying how much nursing staff and all healthcare staff are appreciated, not only by the Government but by the entire public. Of course we stand by that appreciation, and there is no way that the Government have anything less than the most enormous amount of appreciation for all those who have committed so much during Covid. On test and trace, I remind the noble Lord that that is an essential service which delivers value for money and, of course, pay increases are recurring and last for a long time. However, the evidence to the pay review body is clear: affordability is a key challenge for the whole country and we wait for the pay body to review that evidence.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, last year, at the height of the first lockdown, we on these Benches argued that all NHS and social care staff should receive a one-off payment from the Government as thanks from a grateful nation for their tireless dedication and sacrifice. Not only have they not received this but the Government are now reneging on this year’s pay rise as set out in the NHS 10-year plan. What on earth do the Government plan to do to retain and recruit staff after letting them down so badly?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that retention is necessarily the challenge that the noble Baroness suggests. There has in fact been a 26% increase in acceptances to nursing and midwifery courses when compared to last year, and 1,290 more applications were made in 2020 compared to 2019. The truth is that nursing is a challenging job but one that many people want to take up. There is a long queue of people who want these positions because they are rewarding in many different ways. We appreciate the contribution made by nurses and the whole healthcare sector, but there is no disguising the fact that these are attractive jobs, which many people wish to take up.

Women’s Health Strategy

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome this Statement, made yesterday on International Women’s Day. We believe that the six pillars it outlines are important signals of the need to take women’s health very seriously. It is welcome that the Government want to understand the plight of women throughout the country. However, although the Statement says that this strategy is the first of its kind, that is not the case. For example, when the Government launched the women’s mental health task force in 2017, the Minister responsible for mental health at the time, the honourable Member for Thurrock, Jackie Doyle-Price, said:

“This report is a call to action for all providers, commissioners and practitioners across the health care system to drive forward the ethos of trauma- and gender-informed mental health care.”


That is absolutely right, but we have to ask: why are the Government asking exactly the same questions four years later? The three matters that I want to raise with the Minister are: the questions that arise out of the effect of Covid on women’s health and well-being; the troubling matter of breast cancer and sexual health; and the implementation of the recommendations of the Cumberlege report.

Analysis of Covid-19 data from around the world suggests that men make up a higher share than women of reported hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths, but the impacts of the pandemic extend far beyond health outcomes for people who have been infected with the Covid virus. There have also been significant economic impacts from measures adopted to control the spread of the virus, and those have affected women in specific ways. For example, what support can be offered to a woman who experiences baby loss without her partner by her side?

The Statement is right to highlight the fact that black women are four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth. I welcome the launch of the forum but the Government have known about these inequalities for many years. Now we need to see some actual investment and action.

Covid-19 has worsened the mental health crisis among young women in the UK. Before the pandemic, young women aged 16 to 30 had the worst mental health of any age and gender group in the population. In the last 12 months those in this same group have experienced a bigger fall in their mental health than any other. The mental health of teenage girls and young women is now a very serious health issue. This will need some investment and attention in the call for evidence launched yesterday.

I turn to the issue of working mothers and the increase in the burden of care. The Government were quite rightly criticised for their sexist “Stay at home” advert depicting women doing schooling and housework. I am very glad it was withdrawn at short order. But this is the reality of the lockdown in many households with young children. The pandemic has revealed stubbornly persistent gender stereotyping in the division of domestic labour. It has shown that men and women are not equal when it comes to unpaid childcare and housework.

Before the pandemic, women did more than 60% of home childcare. When schools and childcare closed during the first lockdown, they took on roughly the same share of the massively increased burden of additional care. Evidence from the ONS indicates that women have taken on even more of the burden of home-schooling during the 2021 lockdown. Two-thirds of mothers, compared with half of fathers, report that they have personally home-schooled their children. Half of those who have done home-schooling report that this has negatively affected their mental health and well-being.

Looking at older women, before the pandemic, those aged 70 and above enjoyed a relatively high level of mental health compared to the population as a whole. But they have experienced one of the biggest falls, far greater than that of older men. An important factor is of course that older women are likely to experience a higher level of bereavement, since older men have a higher risk of death from Covid-19. We have seen a higher level of grief following deaths, with the inability to say goodbye to loved ones. The cost of grief has received relatively little attention from economists, with some notable exceptions, but it is a very important factor in the mental health of older women in our society. The cost of grief needs to be factored into this inquiry.

Women are still being misdiagnosed in 2021, with male bodies being seen as the default body. There is a huge historical data gap in understanding women’s health needs. It is shocking that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack, simply because their symptoms differ from those of men. The research of the government commission needs to bridge that divide.

I turn to breast cancer specifically. Almost 11,000 women in the UK could be living with undiagnosed breast cancer because of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new analysis by Breast Cancer Now. It says that 10,700 fewer people were diagnosed with breast cancer between March and December than one would have expected. That data has to be factored into this commission of inquiry.

I turn now to women’s sexual health. Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust said that

“600,000 tests failed to go ahead in the UK last April and May … in addition to a backlog of 1.5 million appointments missed annually.”

Thousands of IVF cycles were cancelled or postponed in the early stages of the pandemic, with many clinics then facing a backlog of patients. Again, this needs to be factored into this research.

One of the most potent symbols of how the health service fails women is that identified in the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, First Do No Harm. It shows decades of women being ignored and dismissed by the medical profession and all of those in it. The report talked of the

“disjointed, siloed, unresponsive and defensive”

health service not adequately recognising the needs of women over decades. Surely the best way to mark International Women’s Day would be to commit to implementing all the recommendations in that report, would it not?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the warm words in this Statement regarding women’s health inequalities are certainly a start, but there is so much to do. Many of us in your Lordships’ House have been working on the Domestic Abuse Bill, where looking at access to health and mental health support for victims—the vast majority of whom are women—has exposed that there is a major problem.

Mental health has been brought into sharp relief, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has already said. But we know that it has been underfunded, and services pre- pandemic were already at breaking point. The pandemic has really exposed these shortcomings. What are the Government going to do to provide that parity of mental health services they committed to in 2015, which women in particular are finding difficult to access?

The Statement talks about women’s experiences of specific services. For pregnancy and maternity support, the pandemic exposed that, for far too long, pregnant women have been isolated and their partners not permitted to be with them. My own niece had a baby during lockdown and was not particularly well. When she went in for her weekly tests, not knowing whether she would have to stay in until the birth, her husband was not allowed into the hospital with her until she was actually in the delivery suite. That caused tension for far too long.

We have also seen that the vital role of health visitors and community nurses, which has been curtailed somewhat, is absolutely evident when they are not there. Community services for young mothers are really important, and I hope the Government will look at that.

The Statement talks a lot about endometriosis. I was diagnosed with endometriosis well over 40 years ago. I am pleased to say that treatment in hospitals has advanced considerably since those days. But what seems not to have changed is diagnosis and referral. I ask the Minister this: what support is there to train all GPs, primary care nurses and employers to recognise when women have these problems? They should not be dismissed as “a bit of a bother” because all women have a problem at that time of the month. It is not just an information issue for women themselves to recognise it. We need the professionals and the business community to understand that endometriosis is a very serious illness.

The Statement notes that

“77% of the NHS workforce and 82% of the social care workforce are women”.

They are absolutely on the front line but too often have been let down. Despite that enormous ratio of women in the workforce, there are still pay gaps—certainly at a higher level. It would be interesting to see the publication of the percentage of male and female staff at each level and for all trusts and CCGs to publish their pay gaps on an annual basis, as we ask large companies to.

We also know that a higher percentage of BAME women were at risk of serious Covid and death. This was particularly amplified for our front-line NHS and social care staff.

I echo the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about caring responsibilities. It is not just about care for children who are home from school. The pandemic has brought into sharp relief the unpaid carers of adult family members. I would like to make a call out, and I hope the Minister will support me: when it is time for every one of us to fill in our census form in 10 days’ time, please will unpaid carers tick the box saying that they are carers? We need to know how many people out there are doing this. We know that the majority of them are women.

The Statement talks about issues facing women with disabilities. Yesterday, it was wonderful to see a series of tweets from disabled women about their lived experiences in our society. Some of it, especially on access to health services, was pretty depressing too.

Women with learning difficulties are also often at the end of the queue for health treatments. Ciara Lawrence, who is a Mencap ambassador, is an absolute shining example of how women with learning difficulties can get access to those services. She went for her cervical smear test a year ago. Since then, she has not only been promoting it among other young women with learning difficulties but is teaching the NHS how to work with women with learning difficulties to encourage and support them to have their tests. Women with learning difficulties also say that access to family planning services can often be harder too. Will the Government make sure that these issues for this group of disabled women are addressed?

The paper refers briefly to LBGT women, who also face particular difficulties in accessing services throughout their adult lives. What will the Government do to reach both these groups? I note that, towards its end, the Statement talks formally about working with women’s organisations, but so much will be missed if women who also have other protected characteristics—and their organisations—are not specifically asked.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton, have both made their points incredibly well, and I will not argue the toss about any of them. I completely acknowledge that Covid has hit women harder than men, for all the reasons that the noble Baronesses have given—I could have listed even more. Women who have worked from home have undoubtedly shouldered more of the burden and done more of the teaching, and that has led to adverse mental health outcomes. Those outcomes are a real struggle for a health system to cope with when it is trying to deal with social distancing. We have done our best, using telemedicine to try to bridge the gap, but there is a shortfall and we will have to work extremely hard to catch up. I know from my own experience the challenge that young girls in particular have felt during Covid, and the statistics confirm that.

I agree with the observation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about IVF—it has been extremely tough. It has been hard for the HFEA to restart clinics, and there are women for whom the clock is ticking who have no other options. We have worked really hard to try to meet the practicalities of that service but there has been bad news for some people. That is felt very hard indeed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke very movingly about pregnant women whose partners had not been able to be there for the scan. There are sometimes good reasons for that because the scanning equipment may be in the basement of airless diagnostics rooms where social distancing is not possible and the risk assessment is very tough. That does not detract from the fact that that has massive and distressing mental health consequences.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned baby loss. There are many aspects to this. Bluntly, deaths during Covid hit all of us hard but women in particular. The noble Baroness spoke movingly of making grief an aspect of health planning; that is a good point, well made.

I completely accept the point made by both noble Baronesses that this plays into a long-term problem—it is not isolated or new. The review by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege paints a very clear picture of a defensive and siloed system that does not always do well for women; the culture is not always right and the practicalities do not always suit women’s lives and women’s bodies. The clinical trials regime has too often suited men. I will not defend every point that the noble Baronesses have made but I pay tribute to those who ran the clinical trials for the vaccines and did an enormously good job of recruiting women and getting a gender balance in those very important trials.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is, however, also right about data: too often it is skewed towards men. She mentioned in particular data about LGBT and disabled people and the importance of the census, which I completely endorse. But I know from my own work in the data area that too often our data is skewed away from those who belong to gender, disability or ethnicity minorities. The critical example—the one that is quite rightly often cited—is heart attacks, where the male symptoms are cited and the female symptoms are not. That is such a graphic and good example.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is right to raise pay gaps and representation, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to cite the treatments for breast and cervical cancers, which have not always met the need.

I will not defend each and every one of these points. I would like to convey, however, the strong sense that we are trying to get one thing right in particular: listening. Anyone who reads the Cumberlege report, or speaks to my noble friend, will be struck by the really powerful testimony of patient groups who said that what agitated them most—more than almost anything else—was the feeling that they were not listened to. That has many effects, but two in particular. One is that we do not hear the symptoms and diagnostics: we get the health recommendations wrong because we were not listening. The emotional consequences of illness are, therefore, amplified. People feel frustrated and agitated because they can tell that they are not being listened to. We are absolutely determined to get that right.

This is a big exercise—bigger than the mental health exercise, because we have opened it up to the general public. We have had a phenomenal response, even in the day that it has been open, with more than 2,000 responses from the general public—a figure that I expect to grow dramatically.

We want to ensure that this exercise rights the wrongs because we really listen to women: we give them a platform and an opportunity to be heard and our response will be judged by whether we have truly listened to what we have been told.

I urge all noble Peers to put their evidence before the commission. We want a really good response that is truly diverse. There is always an anxiety in these situations that the groups with the loudest voice will predominate, but we are determined to make this evidence-gathering as diverse as possible. So I call on all in the Chamber to submit their evidence and encourage and enable those who have something to say to use this opportunity with vigour.