Health and Social Care Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Those were two extremely thoughtful and well-informed questions. I do not have the statistics at my fingertips, but I would be glad to go back to the department and write to the noble Baroness with the information she has asked for.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the NHS on the tremendous success of this vaccination programme, but we should now be doing more to look forward to how we can address the social and public health inequalities that led to Britain having one of the largest death rates from Covid in the world. I speak in the context of being a Cumbria county councillor. The public health grant is what we use to tackle issues such as obesity, inactivity, smoking and alcohol, which greatly reduce people’s chances of surviving deadly disease. Next year’s public health grant is a mere £19 million—an increase of just 1.4%. Not only is this, frankly, a pathetic response to the social problems that led to all these Covid deaths, but it is unfairly distributed. Central London authorities such as Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster, receive three to five times the amount per head that our authority in the north receives. How do the Government explain this and how does it square with their levelling-up agenda?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we are committed to both our levelling-up agenda and the kind of population health measures to which the noble Lord alludes. That is why we are bringing the NHS and social care Bill before the House later this year. I hope that the noble Lord engages with it to bring his insight to the debate.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend makes a key point on the dilemma we face. Do we prioritise the second dose or do we try to get the first dose to those who need it? Our policy is crystal clear: the second dose at 12 weeks will be delivered. Everyone who has had a first dose should get a letter or a contact in their 10th week and an appointment in the 11th week. That is our commitment, and we believe we have the supplies to see that through.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to pick up on the point made by my noble friend Lady Thornton about what is being done about refusal of the vaccine. I was rather alarmed by the Minister’s reply that there are no statistics on this. I accept that the Government have shown great transparency on vaccines, but the fact that there are no statistics on refusals is a worry. Do the Government think that more could be done by local authorities responsible for domiciliary care and care homes in their area to check on this? Could they be more active in trying to identify ethnic minorities on their lists who have not been vaccinated, so that something could be done?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am afraid to say that the noble Lord’s point makes no sense to me whatever. We are not going to go around the country asking people whether they refused to take the vaccine. We have a dialogue with the whole country, and we wait patiently for people to step forward. I cannot give statistics on people who have refused because it would make no sense at all to ask people whether they are in that category.

Coronavirus Vaccine

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the logistical nightmare, one of the nice things about vaccines is that they do not take up much space: they are relatively compact, so I am not sure that wide-bodied aircraft will be needed, but I thank the noble Viscount for the wise suggestion. In relation to certification, he raises an interesting prospect that we have not fully bottomed out yet. As I said in response to earlier questions, we do not know whether vaccination will reduce transmissibility. Our hope and expectation are that it will, but until that is proven, any thoughts of certification will be premature.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the Minister on his generous attribution of credit for this remarkable achievement, which was in very sharp contrast to the two Cabinet Ministers who sought to make cheap and inaccurate nationalist points about it yesterday—that is to his credit. Speaking as a Cumbria county councillor, I say again that his honesty about the constraints on the rollout is commendable, and I ask whether he agrees that, in rural areas, it is still very important that we concentrate on remedying the defects in our tracking and tracing system that our Cumbria public health director has identified? There is still a lack of proper liaison between the national and local systems, and this deficiency has to be addressed in this period, as people may become more relaxed as a result of the wider availability of a vaccine.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I welcome the noble Lord’s challenge and completely endorse his point that tracing will remain important. Not everyone will take the vaccine initially; it will not be available to everyone for months, as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer made plain in his briefing earlier today. Tracing remains a really important feature of our fight against this disease. However, I respectfully suggest that his information is a little out of date: the amount of collaboration on tracing between the national and local efforts, particularly with DPHs such as the one in Cumbria, has come on in leaps and bounds, even in the last few weeks. From my briefings and meetings with DPHs, I know that they have been provided with an enormous amount of data, support and access to tracing resources in order both to bring their local intelligence and insight to bear and to support the national tracing effort. I applaud all those DPHs who have stepped forward in this way, and I am very hopeful that the local-national combination on tracing will pay massive dividends.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for flagging up this important concern, which I acknowledge is a serious worry for those in the athletic and sporting arena. Colleagues at DCMS are aware of this concern. It is extremely early days and we do not know what the impact of the vaccine will be on the kind of protocols analysed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but we have sought advice from the WPA on this matter and I will be happy to convey it as soon as it arrives.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this week’s news about the vaccine has been a great uplift at a very grim time. However, rolling it out will prove a massive logistical challenge, as I think the Minister accepts, at the same time as we are trying to repair the gaps and strengthen our test and trace systems, and trying not to damage the rest of the services provided by the NHS. Does this not all require a massive upscaling of the command and control capabilities of the Government? What steps are they planning to put in place to manage this phase of the crisis more successfully than they have managed it so far?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s sentiment that the vaccine is an uplift and a source of optimism, but I hope that he will not mind if I also use this opportunity to say that the British public—all of us—must stick with the protocols that are in place at the moment. It is not early enough for us to depart from social distancing and the current regulations around the lockdown. However, his point is extremely well made. We are determined to use the respite of the current lockdown to fill the gaps, to improve performance where it is needed, to address acknowledged weaknesses in test and trace, particularly in the tracing area, and to improve our performance thoroughly. However, I do not necessarily acknowledge the need for an upscale in the command and control elements. Certainly for the administration of the vaccine, we will be working through the existing NHS infrastructure, putting GPs’ surgeries and pharmacies at the centre of delivery. Test and trace is run through existing ministerial structures, with accountability to Parliament, and we intend to keep it that way.

Covid-19: Response

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend makes an incredibly perceptive point on the BAME research. He is entirely right that this important aspect of our understanding in relating the ethnic, social and behavioural elements of the response to the disease is essential. The report has not covered all the ground yet: that work is being done at the moment, as I mentioned earlier. Frankly, only when all those elements are linked together will we get a full picture.

Regarding the “little boats”, we absolutely celebrate them. In order to get the industrial-level testing numbers up, it was correct to back big laboratories that could do the automation necessary to achieve that. I am a huge admirer of Sir Paul Nurse and have spoken to him often. The role of laboratories such as his is in connection with their local NHS trusts. Many local laboratories are doing extremely good work with local NHS trusts and we are putting measures in place to facilitate and encourage such connections.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My question concerns the “track and trace” system. I declare an interest as a county councillor in Cumbria, where we have had severe outbreaks of the virus. A world-beating system was supposed to be in place on 1 June and we were given, as I understand it, less than two weeks’ notice of what the local government involvement in this “track and trace” arrangement would be. Does the Minister think that this has been handled adequately? How does he see the relationship between what is done by local authorities and what is done nationally by the Serco system that is being recruited?

Covid-19: Response

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I am very sorry that the noble Lord had coronavirus, and it is good to see him on such fine form and in characteristically enthusiastic shape. The bottom line is that lots of people do not lose their sense of smell or taste, and the addition of this symptom was delayed because we did not want to put off those who had not lost their sense of smell and taste from declaring their symptoms. The WHO is right about many things but not about everything.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for the directness and frankness of his answers tonight, and I agree with his praise for the NHS workers and many others who have played such a valiant role in fighting this virus. However, does he not agree that, as time goes on, it is becoming clear that we have the highest number of deaths in Europe and that this gives a new and very tragic meaning to the concept of British exceptionalism? Does he not agree that there will have to be some kind of independent inquiry into where this all went wrong?

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right. As a nation, we have been hit really hard by this disease and it is heart-breaking. I would have loved this country to have somehow dodged the bullet and not been the one that was hit so hard. We all feel it: we feel a great sense of responsibility and a great sense of sadness that so many lives have been lost, and that there are so many for whom the result of having had the disease and survived will be life changing. One thing that we have learned is that this disease hits you really hard and some people will never fully recover from it. However, I cannot help but pay tribute to those involved.

I do not know why we have been hit so hard. I do not know whether it is due to British behaviours and the fact that we have obesity in this country. I do not know whether it is because we are such an international country with such a large number of people coming to and fro, particularly from China. I do not know whether the Government made massive and colossal mistakes, as their critics suggest, and whether we got it all completely wrong. All I know is that the response to this disease by the British public, the NHS and the Government has not lacked energy, innovation and enthusiasm, and I stand here at this virtual Dispatch Box extremely proud of our country and of the people who have played a role in the response to this disease.

Covid-19

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Liddle

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I note my noble friend Lady Buscombe’s question, but I reject the sentiments behind it. I do not regard a second wave as inevitable; I do not share her fatalism. The priorities of the Government are to save life and to protect the NHS and our care system. That requires us to lower the prevalence level, reduce infection and put in place systems such as track and trace to keep a lid on the disease so that we can protect life and our systems.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his frankness on this occasion. On European co-operation, how have we got ourselves into a situation where for PPE we are so dependent on supplies from China, Turkey and other faraway countries, and allowed ourselves to get into a position where we do not have much domestic manufacture? Similarly, on vaccines, I read a report in the Financial Times that we have no vaccination manufacturing capacity at scale in Britain. If that is the case, should we not look at whether European co-operation can help us there?

I welcome what the Minister said about testing. I had a report locally of care workers in Silloth, in the west of Cumbria on the coast of the Irish Sea, being told that if they wanted to be tested, they had to go to Gateshead, some 80 miles away, with no means of transport to do so. Will there be no repetition of that problem?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is not entirely right. We have fantastic manufacturing in the UK—I reinforce the view of my noble friend Lady Buscombe that the sector provides jobs for the economy—but we do not have low-margin, high-volume manufacturing. The image of a Burberry gown always sticks in my mind on this point. Burberry makes £500 shooting jackets, but it does not make £5 surgical gowns. That is something that we need to address, and it will be the priority of my noble friend Lord Deighton.