Covid-19: Care Homes

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The statistics which the noble Lord refers to are correct. It is probably more appropriate to compare the British care home statistics with those in Europe rather than Asia, which had previous experience and different models. With regard to care home testing, not everyone needs to be tested every day. Not every care home has an outbreak, and we must focus our resources on those that do. Regular testing may be necessary for them, but it is not correct that, for example, 2.5 million people need to be tested every week. That is not the advice from the scientists or the CMO. We want to focus our tests where Covid-19 has been found, and we must use our testing resources to expunge the disease from those locations.

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, we know how crucial the social care sector is, and the huge challenges it faced even before Covid-19, with 120,000 care assistant vacancies. Can the Minister therefore respond to the excellent suggestion from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury that we establish a royal commission on social care, not to blame but to learn, so that we have the right information to make the right decisions and provide the right services for these most vulnerable people?

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, this Government have already made a very clear commitment to review the social care sector; that was made before coronavirus. The experience of coronavirus will no doubt put a massive spotlight on our provision for social care. It is entirely right that we review all of our arrangements. The vacancy question that the right reverend Prelate raises is an important one, and that is why we have launched a massive recruitment campaign, and why we have brought in minimum wage legislation which has seen rises in the pay of social care workers that are historically at the high end.

Covid-19: NHS Contact Tracing App

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

Professor de Montjoye is entirely right that transparency is key. That is why we have published the open source code for our app, as well as a PPIA privacy notice, and blogs setting out the approach that we are taking. We will continue to go about our business in a transparent way.

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, the Minister has reminded the House that tens of thousands of people on the Isle of Wight have downloaded and used the app. People of the island often feel—with, I regret, some justification—that they are considered last if at all. Now, despite the questions about privacy, effectiveness and rollout, they have been the first to step up and make a significant contribution to the nation’s common good. Will he undertake to look at how their service might be recognised?

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, where the Isle of Wight leads, the country follows. We are enormously grateful to islanders for taking this pilot on board with energy and enthusiasm. I would like to consider ways of recognising that. One important lesson that we have learned from the island project is that the human touch of contact tracing is incredibly important and we will be implementing that at later stages.

Coronavirus

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that local authorities will undoubtedly provide a huge amount of the response to the coronavirus, not only in social care but in supporting business, giving pastoral care to those who are vulnerable and left alone and providing the community cohesion that we will need to get through a very difficult time for society. Extremely generous funding has been put in. That money is trickling through the system and I know that my colleagues at the Treasury are working hard to ensure that everyone has the information they need.

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, in thanking the Minister, may I ask him whether he can give any information on the precautions and particular challenges in prisons, where, for instance, social distancing, isolation and provision of hospital services will be difficult to achieve?

[Lord Bethell]

The right reverend Prelate is entirely right to raise the question of prisons. Prisons provide an enormous challenge when it comes to the virus. The idea of prisoners living in prisons while the virus passes through such a tight-knit community concerns us enormously. I reassure him that the Ministry of Justice is looking into this carefully. It is using the experience in Italy and in China to understand how to provide for this in a humane and responsible way that preserves the security of our communities. It will publish advice on that shortly.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, it is stating the obvious to say that these are turbulent, uncertain times, perhaps the most turbulent in living memory, even when that memory belongs to Members of your Lordships’ House—a particular, special demographic. It is striking in the face of so much that is uncertain and unknown that the Government’s rhetoric is of clarity, confidence, and even dash. However, while the terrain might be new, much of the rhetoric is from an older school. What is novel is from whom it comes.

The gracious Speech spoke of the Government delivering on “the people’s priorities”, words accompanied by the unmistakable sound of metaphorical tanks being driven with some purpose on to a lawn previously occupied by others. This represents a striking act of linguistic appropriation, but those occupying their new territory would be wise to exercise caution when speaking of the people as a single, homogeneous entity. Indeed, if Brexit has shown us anything, it is that the people are not one and that the bonds that tie us together—or that we thought tied us together—have become frayed and even broken.

We must thus applaud the Prime Minister’s repeated commitment to serve and heal one nation, a welcome recognition that we are all connected, bound together and obliged to one another. It is a welcome recognition too that the Government must seek to reconcile difference and dispute. We can welcome the spirit even if we differ on the nature of those obligations and perhaps the paternalism that underlies many ideas of one-nation politics. When Disraeli coined this phrase, it was precisely because this was not one nation. It was not a nation at one with itself, not least because of the obligations of those who had were not being discharged towards those who had not.

I was therefore delighted by the commitment to give the full living wage to those over the age of 21 rather than 25, but I urge the Government to put this into effect more quickly than the long grass of five years’ time. If fairness is promised in the system of taxation, so must it be in the world of work. A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay does not seem too much to ask if you are 21, 41, 51, or whatever.

My inspection of the Speech and its ancillary briefing suggested that some crucial support in building and sustaining one nation is absent, notably welfare and benefits—on which the Government are silent beyond the welcome review of PIP and disabled people. This is especially so in the wake of the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitments. One nation includes us all: hard-working families, businesses, those who cannot for whatever reason work, and especially those who raise children in poverty.

Civil society is doing a tremendous amount and, if you will forgive a plug for my diocese, I pay tribute to the efforts of so many there, particularly the work of Churches Homeless Action, headed up by Canon Bob White in Portsmouth. Over Christmas, it again spearheaded a scheme encouraging donations of shop vouchers and distributing them to those who have not. These were distributed so that these individuals have dignity, because they can choose how to use them. It met with an overwhelming response from the people of the city to support those in need at Christmas.

In another place, the Prime Minister described the get Brexit done programme in terms of a microwave meal, ready to cook. Rather than the Prime Minister’s convenience food, I prefer the rather healthier, if eccentric, maxim used earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that “fine words butter no parsnips”. I look forward to seeing how this avowedly one-nation Government propose to butter their parsnips and serve the people.