Social Cohesion and Community during Periods of Change
Lord Bishop of London Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly as a commissioner on the National Preparedness Commission. I am glad to be taking part in this debate today. It is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, and I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, who has much to offer this House. I have the privilege of being Bishop of London, and I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that London is full of great diversity of political views. I extend an invitation to him to come and see where we wrestle with some of our Christian faith and politics.
The riots over the summer were a wake-up call to us all to prioritise community cohesion. There is much to be said about this, and I echo much of what my friend the most reverend Primate has already said. I am going to focus my remarks on two issues which are central to this topic but are particularly related to health, although they have a much wider application, and those two topics are trust and partnership.
First, on trust, as the most reverend Primate indicated, we have much to do to improve trust within the Church of England. Not least, we must ensure we have a greater survivor focus and introduce independent safeguarding and mandatory reporting. I join my friend the most reverend Primate in apologising for the shocking failures that the Makin report highlighted.
Moving wider, the pandemic was a world-changing event that impacted on all of us differently, but I am sure that everyone in your Lordships’ House was horrified by the high death rate. We know that those from ethnic communities were more likely to have caught Covid, to have been hospitalised and to have died from it. According to ONS data, the Bangladeshi population faced a death rate five times higher than the white British population. The Pakistani population’s rate was three times higher. Even within these brutal statistics, we cannot properly communicate the extreme and severe loss that some communities experienced. We know that there were unequal health outcomes before Covid, but in some ways Covid demonstrated the scale of them.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, reminded us in the introduction to the first report of the Covid inquiry that the state has a responsibility to protect its citizens. It is easy to see how the pandemic has damaged our communities’ trust in institutions, including the health service, and how that damage worsened during the events over the summer. We have already heard how important it is for us to celebrate and recognise our differences, and it is true that one of the greatest strengths of this nation is, in fact, our diversity, but the experiences of some receiving care with a lack of cultural competence tells us that we have a way to go. Part of this is a lack of understanding and celebration of difference for patients and staff. It is vital for us to understand our ethno-religious identities because they change our experience not just of health but of communities.
My Christian belief that we are all made in the image of God motivates me to ensure that we can do better here, but trust is key. Although having sufficient GP appointments available is important, what is more important is feeling confident that you will be listened to and understood. As we will no doubt be aware from our own communities, there were moments of brilliance throughout the pandemic in which faith groups demonstrated neighbourliness and commitment to service, even when people’s day-to-day lives were really restricted. There are lessons to be learned from their ingenuity in building support for their communities and about how to build trust out of a crisis situation. It is important that we recognise the huge amount of work carried out by faith groups while respecting the difference in values that we may have.
Partnership that utilises diversity is key to ensuring cohesion. Working for the good of a place that you live in and seeing a difference is one of the most important and fulfilling parts of our citizenship. We tend to have a greater appreciation and support for something we have helped to build, and it is good to see this encouragement being prioritised on my doorstep with the new City belonging networks established by the Lord Mayor and others across London. We saw wonderful examples of partnership working across local communities, faith groups, the NHS and voluntary and community groups where people in the midst of the pandemic worked together to provide community cohesion.
We are here to reflect on a moment of crisis over the summer, as is right. Indeed, the cumulative impact of previous moments of crisis in our nation and abroad, including serious conflict, mean that a time of fear and uncertainty, and even bereavement for some, is what they experience in the midst of their community. That makes it important that we work together. It is difficult but important work.
However, partnership and engagement with groups and people different from ourselves, particularly on the part of government, cannot be sought only during times of crisis or in reaction to a crisis. Sustained involvement that involves local communities over the long term is required to combat the short-termism of electoral cycles and funding periods. Some faith groups have been serving their communities consistently for generations. When this goes unrecognised, it is detrimental to trust. Indeed, building relationships over the long term and working in partnership are what will build resilience so that, when a crisis occurs, we are better able to cope.
We are encouraged by God in Jeremiah 29 to,
“seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare”.
I hope that this will be an opportunity for us to seek the welfare of our nation, communities and those who are different from us, for it is there that we find our own welfare.
Living in a COVID World: A Long-term Approach to Resilience and Wellbeing (COVID-19 Committee Report)
Lord Bishop of London Excerpts(1 year ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. First, it is a pleasure to be participating in an important debate on this report. I thank all those involved in the committee, particularly the chair, for all the work they have done. This report rightly encourages us to increase our understanding of the lessons we can learn from the pandemic and to act on them in having a long-term view of the future.
This is a crucial topic. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, in her view that our electoral system does not naturally lend itself to having a long-term view of the future. I shall focus today on recommendations 1 and 2. They are, in fact, interconnected. Those topics are first, inequalities, following the noble Lord, Lord Patel, particularly in health, and, secondly, community engagement.
Health inequalities have been a focus of many of my contributions in your Lordships’ House, and I welcome the understanding that the report demonstrates of why addressing them is so important. It says:
“The pandemic has shown that national level resilience is undermined by financial inequalities and health inequalities, which are often exacerbated by racial injustice”.
The moral argument for reducing health inequalities is an important one which continues to motivate me. However, the pragmatic argument is also shown here. If we are starkly unequal in our health, we as a society are more vulnerable to health and other challenges that we face. There is also an economic argument: improving the health of a population and reducing inequalities increases the ability of the population to contribute economically.
I do not need to impress on noble Lords the seriousness of the health inequalities we face. The gaping differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy persist. The trends in health inequalities were further exacerbated by the pandemic, as already mentioned. The Beyond the Data report, written by Professor Kevin Fenton and Public Health England in 2020, highlighted that during the pandemic some ethnic groups were more likely to be exposed to Covid-19 and, once infected, were more likely to contract a serious infection and die.
In their response to recommendation 1 of the Covid-19 Committee’s report, the Government pointed to the levelling-up White Paper and promised a White Paper on health disparities. I was and remain disappointed that the critical work that has been done on both these pieces of work has not been brought forward. In the absence of this, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to prioritise reducing health inequalities, especially since the report lays out so well why doing so is key to our preparedness and resilience as a country?
Secondly, the report places a heavy focus on sustained and long-term engagement with communities. This is an extremely welcome and important part of what is required for resilience. Recommendation 2 of the report is a call for
“Renewed efforts to build trusted relationships between the state and all groups within society, including racial and religious groups, young people, disabled people and others”.
In their response to this, the Government said that they are already acting to build trust in local communities. As an example, they said,
“the government established vaccination centres in 50 religious venues, worked with ethnic minority celebrities & influencers”,
and so on. Although I commend the setting up of vaccination clinics in these spaces, this is not a means of gaining trust but the fruit of trust.
After the worst of the pandemic, I convened a health inequalities action group to examine the role that faith groups had played in the pandemic and the role they could play in reducing health inequalities across London in the long term. During the town hall events that were held as part of our work, we heard stories of faith groups stepping in to promote health-seeking behaviour and provide for their communities during the pandemic. We heard that faith leaders hold the trust of their communities, often much more than government or other civic bodies. The Government’s health inequalities strategy, Core20PLUS5, shows us the importance of “plus”, that is, those who are not thought of by or engaged with public services.
There is a faith group in every community. Professor Fenton’s Beyond the Data report explains that faith leaders often have the understanding and trust of their communities. This trust is key. As the adage goes, “Change happens at the speed of trust”. However, in our work on inequalities, we found that since the vaccination centres were set up during the pandemic, the Government are no longer engaging with the health-promoting work that faith groups do and would like to do. The relationship has not been sustained, and I fear that the value of faith leaders is not recognised, certainly in respect of the significant difference that could be made within health inequalities. Faith leaders continue not to be regularly consulted at a local level and the truth is that there is some work to do to equip local leaders and faith leaders with the tools of engagement. It is in these sustained relationships that our interconnectedness and resilience is realised.
I just want to mention social prescribing. This is another key way that faith groups can be involved in the health of our community, especially in light of the report’s emphasis on well-being. There is an understanding of not just physical or mental well-being in many faith groups, but also of our well-being as whole people with social, emotional and spiritual needs, all of which contribute to health and, I believe, the resilience of our communities. At the heart of the report is our understanding of our mutuality and interconnectedness, which is key to our public health and well-being. In the light of this, will the Minister say what efforts the Government are making systematically to engage with faith groups and maintain relationships with them? What assessment have they made of the key role faith groups can and already play in public health?
Before I finish, I would like to mention the nod in the report to the long-term funding of public services. The Government’s response to recommendations 24 and 25 was to highlight the 10-year mental health plan which, at the time, was in consultation. Of course, that is no longer happening, in favour of the major conditions strategy. There also remain a number of questions about the major conditions strategy in the absence of the health disparities White Paper. I also suggest that spending on public health services does not feel like a long-term investment as things stand.
To conclude, I warmly welcome this report and its recommendations. I hope that we will hear from the Minister about the Government’s ongoing response to this and their efforts to build and hold relationships across difference for a more resilient society.
Restoration and Renewal: Location of House of Lords Chamber
Lord Bishop of London Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, again, I am not going to speak for my right honourable friend, but the noble Lord makes a cogent point which would need to be considered by all of us within Parliament in respect of its future operation. Those of us who have had experience of a Parliament by Zoom know the importance of personal contact within and across the Houses to the good operation of government and Parliament.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, can the Minister reassure both this House and the public that a full cost-benefit analysis is being undertaken to ensure the good and proper use of public funds?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, as far as the R&R scheme is concerned, that is a matter for both Houses. As far as government property is concerned, obviously that is a matter for the Secretary of State. The right reverend Prelate makes a cogent point.