Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I offer my congratulations to the two Members who have made excellent maiden speeches, and I look forward to hearing one more later in this debate, I believe. In particular, I am delighted to welcome my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, for whom I have the deepest respect. Our debates will be much enhanced by his presence, not to mention his ornithological expertise. In fact, I would gladly have donated my four minutes directly to him, just to hear more of his innate common sense. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that if she thinks the Whips will be able to control him, dream on.

These last months have been the strangest and, for my generation and many others, probably the most frightening we have ever seen. The images from around the world of hospitals struggling to keep up with those infected with the virus, not to mention the body bags, struck home to the vast majority of the population. In my opinion, the Government had no real option other than to impose through this Act the measures they did. Yes, the economy took a back seat while human lives were given priority, but the Government have done a lot for the economy and for individuals. I believe that this Act deserves to be extended for a further six months. Of course, I have every sympathy for those who are talking about how devastating it is, from retail to sports. However, if the rules were relaxed now, the Government would be seriously criticised: damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

One feature of the last few months has been the unremitting scrutiny of the measures by the media and the public at large. By and large, despite what one might think from the media or, even more extreme, from those views expressed on Twitter, I believe the public generally support these measures and, as my noble friend Lord McColl said, sometimes think they do not go far enough. But suddenly we have become a nation of experts on pandemics. It seems to me that you could, and still can, find scientific experts with a gamut of what should be done, and the media search around for someone to have a different opinion.

While I understand the view of my noble friend Lord Robathan, I still have faith in this Government’s measures and I support them in the need for the Act that we are discussing today. I might have a view that more scrutiny in Parliament would be beneficial except that I already see that some are wishing to exploit this pandemic for purely political reasons. Of course I would prefer a few nuances here and there—perhaps children under five need not be included in the rule of six—but I have to respect the view of those advising the Government on this. Similarly, I do not want to see any woman giving birth on her own, and I am pleased that that seems to have been remedied.

Unfortunately, it seems that while the vast majority of the British public are exercising common sense, there are still some who flout the rules, putting themselves and, more importantly, others at risk. Is it because there are some who seemingly do not care or are unable to ascertain what those rules are? That is why we have these somewhat draconian measures.

I add my admiration to that of those who have previously spoken to my noble friend Lord Bethell for his exceptional service to this House and the way in which he keeps coming back and taking these debates. I support the Government and I cannot support my noble friend Lord Robathan in his Motion.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the user cases for different tests are being drafted and interrogated as we speak. The user case, for example, of an anaesthetist going into a delicate operation would be very different from the asymptomatic testing of a large school, or of people thinking about going to the pub in the evening. Matching the tests with the user cases is an important and necessary step. Once that is agreed with all relevant scientific committees, we will publish those user cases so that manufacturers can make the tests according to the required dimensions and specifications.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will agree that at this serious and critical moment it is imperative that all the rules are observed. It is, however, important that the rules are seen to be practical and workable. I urge my noble friend, therefore, to reconsider in the near future the current decision to include children under 12 in the rule of six. Will the Minister also confirm that no woman will have to give birth alone?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the rule of six treatment of children under 12 is extremely heartbreaking. I have three children under 12 and I find it very awkward. The CMO’s view, however, is crystal clear: children, whether under 12 or not, can be vectors of infection, and if a whole generation of children is infected with the disease it will roll through the generations to those who are older or vulnerable, as sure as night follows day. For that reason, we are holding the rule as it is.

Nurses: Recruitment

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

I entirely support the observations of the right reverend Prelate. I have already said that retention is incredibly important. The culture in which nurses work is vital to achieving the kind of retention objectives we have in mind. That is why we are working on a people plan for the NHS. One thing we have learned from Covid is that when you give professionals the scope to deliver their best professional results, you get the best out of them. That is something we want to apply in the NHS people plan.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

I was pleased to hear my noble friend announce the additional funding for nursing students, but will he give serious consideration to reviewing funding considerations for all nursing students in England, perhaps with a view for the Government to cover tuition fees for future students as long as they stay in the NHS for a period of years?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

We have made a clear, well-defined and thoughtful new funding package for nurses. We would like to see how that is applied and what the response is. Once we have done our review, we will look at alternatives or potential supplements.

Covid-19: Masks

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as my noble friends Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Balfe said, there is a great deal of confusion among the public about not only the wearing of face masks but what constitutes a suitable face covering. For example, does a cotton scarf constitute a suitable face covering? I hope that my noble friend the Minister will tell us that there will be ample publicity to ensure that the public know exactly what is what.

Covid-19: NHS Contact Tracing App

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, it is entirely right that test and trace does not need a digital app to be effective. I reassure the House that prevalence levels are reducing across the country, as is the infection rate. It is only because prevalence and infection are reducing to manageable levels that we can even consider reducing the lockdown and maintaining pressure on infection through test and trace. The app brings many benefits of being able to automate millions of transactions a day, but it is not intrinsically necessary, and we believe that it would benefit from being introduced later, rather than earlier, than human-based tracing mechanisms.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, what discussions has my noble friend’s department had with other Governments around the world, and what lessons can be drawn from their experience of such apps?

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, we are in discussions with many other Governments—those in the east, which have a tradition of these apps, and fellow travellers like ourselves. It is a highly technical and difficult area; Britain is leading the way in many ways and we have learned an enormous amount. I have personally spoken to the Taiwanese Government, who have taught me an enormous amount, and those conversations continue regularly.

Covid-19

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I reassure my noble friend Lady Altmann that we are making this a massive priority. It has huge advantages over other therapeutics because it is plasma and can therefore have an accelerated regulatory advance. I signed for procurement of £20 million-worth of fractionating machines last week to help the blood transplant service create the hyperplasma to which she alludes.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

The Statement rightly reinforces the message that non-Covid NHS services are open for patients. Would my noble friend agree that it is important to give parents confidence that essential vaccinations, especially MMR, should not be ignored and that they should speak to their GP for further advice and support?

Mental Health and Well-being of Londoners

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

First, I would like to apologise to the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), because I was not able to be here for her speech. I heard some of it upstairs, but I had been detained in my constituency and did not think the debate would start quite so early. My powers of being able to work out such things when I was a Whip are obviously diminishing fast with my impending retirement.

This is a very important subject and, unfortunately, it is not often tackled. As Members of Parliament we see a large number of people who suffer from some form of mental health issue, and I have to say that it is one of the things that I find most difficult to deal with. In the past 12 months, one of my constituents, Miss Deborah King, who is very active in making people aware of the problems, has drawn my attention to a mental health first aid course, but I regret that I have not had time to go on it. The course tells people not how to treat others, but how to recognise and deal with the issue. I have said that I have not had enough time, but I should have made time. It is rather like saying that I do not have time to exercise. Time should be made for such things and I urge those who will be Members after the general election to see whether such mental health first aid courses will be available. Mind organises them in our area, but there may be others, too.

I would also like to suggest some form of training for first-time MPs—perhaps the House authorities could lay something on—because this is one of the issues of most concern. As hon. Members have said, we now know that mental illness is much more common than we would have liked to have thought 20 to 30 years ago. We know the statistics of how many people will be touched by some form of mental illness—it could be a person’s close family member, for example, or that person themselves—but we do not know the reasons for it. We can think of obvious reasons, some of which have been mentioned. One example I have come across—and not just during my time as a Member of Parliament—involves people who come here from another country. Their spouse may not be too conversant with the language and find themselves incredibly isolated. They do not have the stress of unemployment, but a culture change can cause a lot of problems and that may explain why quite a lot of the people I see in this context were born abroad.

I am also worried that some families, for reasons that are human and understandable, do not want to believe there is a problem. We have to educate ourselves that mental illness should be treated in exactly the same way as physical illness. I might find it easier if my spouse or one of my children came to me with a physical complaint. I could cope with that and understand how we might be able to get treatment, but mental health is still incredibly stigmatised.

That leads on to what my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about jobs. Over the decades, Members of Parliament have had serious mental health issues, but they have been hushed up because it would not have been particularly good for their electoral chances; there also used to be a ruling on such matters. It is the same with other jobs. If someone came to us and said that they had a history of mental illness, we as employers would have to make a difficult decision. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon say that he would take someone on; I hope that I would. It should not be a difficult decision, but something innate in us might give us concerns.

[Ms Abbott]

I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s very thoughtful speech. His earlier point about how people who come from abroad can feel isolated may account for the very disproportionate mental health figures for the black and minority ethnic community.

[Sir John Randall]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that very valid point. Anecdotally, I can bear that out from constituents I have seen, although not by any means exclusively.

Another issue I have come across is when someone desperately needs help—they need to see someone to try to sort things out and to get treatment—but, possibly because they are quite far down the line, they do not accept that they have a problem. I can think of several cases where a husband or a wife was so nervous that they looked at me and said with their eyes, “Can you please do something?” but when I said that they should perhaps go to see their GP because it was a very stressful time for them, the immediate reaction of the ill person was to say, “There’s nothing wrong with me—I’m not going.” I do not know how to get round that: we do not want to force people, but it is very difficult to help them if they will not accept that something is wrong.

Another group with which I have become connected, because I am interested in this area, involves victims of human trafficking and modern slavery. People who have been, as it were, freed we now call survivors. They have been taken away from the world in which they were working —forced labour or sexual exploitation—and outwardly they seem fine, but they do not appear to have any help. We have only to think of what they have been through to realise that they almost certainly have severe mental health issues, but there do not seem to be readily accessible services for them. In many cases, they are not EU citizens or have entered the country illegally, so they are concerned that if they present themselves to the immigration authorities, the first thing that will happen is that they are deported. That only makes the situation worse.

The hon. Member for Islington North made the very valid point that when we talk about health—a general election is coming, and there is lots of discussion and dispute about the health service, with figures and statistics bandied around—mental health statistics are hardly ever mentioned. As he said, we should have targets on how quickly people see successful outcomes, as far as they can, and on where resources are going, but we do not have them. As Members of Parliament, we are aware from our meetings about the various illnesses that people have, and we know that a lot of people feel like Cinderella because their illness is perhaps not as well known as cancer or something else. Mental health services, however, probably deserve the title of Cinderella services, because people do not recognise them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon spoke about a confessional, but I will say only that during my time in this House—particularly serving in the HR department in the Whips Office—I have seen people who suffer from extreme depression and stress caused by all sorts of things. The House authorities, to their credit, have improved mental health services and people can be referred to them, although often they do not want to be. We must be much more sympathetic. If such things happen here with the people we have in this place, goodness knows what it is like for people in the less affluent areas of our constituencies.

London has a problem because of the nature of big cities—I am sure that is the case. The title of this debate mentions the well-being of Londoners, and that is something we should consider. My personal therapy involves open spaces and bird watching, although I recognise that is not for everybody. Open space, a bit of exercise, walking around—that is good therapy, and we should ensure that those facilities are open to all.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington on securing this debate. I am sorry for my late arrival and also that—last thing on a Thursday and just before a recess—this debate has not attracted large numbers of people. That has allowed me to speak, for which I am grateful, and I wait to hear the Minister’s response.

Changes to Health Services in London

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Hillingdon CCG supports the changes because it recognises the profound impact they could have in addressing health inequalities. I know that that is precisely what concerns the hon. Gentleman. His constituents will be big beneficiaries of the changes we are announcing today. The funding formula is an extremely difficult issue. We have decided to depoliticise it by making it a matter for NHS England—it is decided at arm’s length from politicians because we believe it is very important that things are decided on the basis of an independent formula.

[Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. We in Hillingdon are very pleased for our near neighbours in Ealing and in Charing Cross for this reprieve—rather than stay of execution—and it will take pressure off our residents. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), however, about the pressures we are facing in Hillingdon. Perhaps we could have a meeting with my right hon. Friend to discuss some of these issues, including the funding formula and the winter pressures.

[Mr Hunt]

It is the first time I have responded to a question from my right hon. Friend, so I shall take the opportunity to congratulate him on his knighthood. I am more than happy to meet him and his neighbour as long as they understand that the funding formula is not in my gift—it is decided by an independent body. As for the winter pressures money, the allocation was not decided by Ministers: it was decided by the people who are responsible for making sure that we head off winter pressures. They decided to concentrate resources in the third of the country where the problems were most severe, and that is how that selection was made.