Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely understand the noble Earl’s points. On WOMAD, I have a particular interest in that fine festival and I am extremely sad to hear that it has been cancelled, and to have to change my family plans accordingly. I reassure the noble Earl that we have not overlooked the arts at all. They are absolutely paramount in our thoughts. The events research programme is making progress, but it consumes a high number of tests and we simply do not have the capacity, despite the huge investment we have made, for the kinds of figures that would be needed to open up the whole of the arts world at this stage. But I am hopeful that the research we are doing will create the kind of persuasive data necessary to figure out safe ways of reopening the arts, so that we can get back to the life we had as soon as possible.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the Minister’s openness and transparency about his conduct. I also support what he said about the attacks on Dr Whitty. If there are no arrests before the end of the day, it will just show how useless the Metropolitan Police is under its current leadership. In his Statement, the Secretary of State talked about keeping the NHS safe. What I have not really connected, both from the previous Question and this Statement, is that keeping the NHS safe cannot be done in isolation. The issue of social care and its reform is inexorably linked to keeping the NHS safe, and that point does not seem to be used by Ministers as a serious connection. Finally, without abuse, if this country starts boosters or third jabs later this year when people in countries such as Nepal are still going without vaccinations, it will be a thundering international disgrace.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I have failed in my mission, because I have sought to convey to the Chamber that we completely understand that the NHS, social care and public health—the three sectors of our healthcare system—are inextricably linked. That is why we are bringing to the House the health and social care Bill that we are. That is why we have already brought about a large number of reforms, including ICSs and the integration of various diagnostic elements, and have sought to bring more parity for social care workers and those in public health. The noble Lord absolutely hits the nail on the head. I completely agree with his point, and that is our guiding star for the future.

Social Care and the Role of Carers

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we know what the problem is. We have just heard that the Lords Economic Affairs Committee spelled it out in detail in July 2019, and the House debated it in May this year. In the meantime, of course, the Prime Minister has more than once told us that he has a plan—famous for social care plans is our Prime Minister. I will use just one speech, made in Dudley, on 30 June last year, as an example, when the Prime Minister said

“we won’t wait to fix the problem of social care that every government has flunked for the last 30 years … We are finalising our plans and we will build a cross-party consensus”.

There is another chance today to hear from a Minister the excuses for no action being taken on the plans that the Prime Minister has more than once said were finalised.

The Lords Economic Affairs Committee said that an injection of £8 billion was needed—of course, that was two years ago—just to restore the level that the coalition Government of Tories and Lib Dems inherited from the Labour Government in 2009-10. The Mencap brief for today’s debate gives one example of a £180 million gap in local authorities for people of all ages with a learning disability to be able to live a decent life.

The question is: how do we get the cash? Not from people selling their homes, as the Prime Minister is against that—but it is happening every week. It has to be a national effort, shared as we share the funding for the NHS. The Government want to be consistent with their manifesto, so here is my solution. Yes, it will involve more tax, but it will save money and misery in the end. My bid is simple: the over-40s pay an extra 2% on income tax as a social care supplement. As for national insurance, why on earth does it cease at the age of 65? I was on a salary until I was 72, and paid no national insurance after the age of 65. Today, I am an 80 year-old, 40% taxpayer, yet I pay no national insurance. You could keep the rate the same, or tweak it after 65, and stay in line with the Tory manifesto, and you could get this social care supplement from employers as well. The extras for pensioners, such as winter fuel and bus passes, are all great and convenient, but we should make them taxable. As the Minister who introduced the 75p pension increase in 2000, while ensuring that the poorest pensioners got £3, I say we need only the double lock introduced by Labour; the triple lock cannot be justified any longer.

Folic Acid

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, this Government’s progress on this really came to a head in the consultation in September 2019, and we have been on course to implement these measures since then. It is unfortunate that the Covid pandemic intervened at that point and we had to put work on this project on hold until April of this year. Since April, we have had to deal with the elections in the devolved Administrations. That, unfortunately, creates an insuperable barrier to taking the measures through all the necessary checks and alignments. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are totally committed to this policy, we are moving at pace and I look forward to further progress shortly.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

I very politely remind the Minister—and it is on the record—that the three devolved Governments were in favour of this policy before the English Government were, so there cannot really be any substance of any delay from the devolved Governments. I know this because, with scientists, I discussed it with some of the Ministers. My other point is that, given that we already fortify with three substances, there cannot be any technical difficulties whatever in the flour mills in adding folic. There should not be any long-term delay of a technical nature, should there?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. Can I just take a moment to bear testimony to his patient and determined campaigning on this issue? He has held the Government’s feet to the fire on it, and I am grateful for his focus. He is right that we are hopeful that there should not be any substantive delay with the industry. A huge amount of work has gone on in the consultations and the dialogue we have had, and I am grateful for that. However, the Senedd and Scottish parliamentary elections in May meant that new personnel were at the top of government. We hope that they are as supportive as the noble Lord so rightly pointed out, but there is a process to get the official endorsement that we need to take this forward and we are waiting for that paperwork to come through.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I hope that the noble Baroness will accept my apology if I have in any way suggested that I am flippant about inconsistency—I am not. What I have in my mind is the huge amount of work that is done by policy officials in order to try to be as consistent as possible. I pay tribute to the colossal human effort that goes into trying to make sure that everything we do is aligned. It is a monumental and very difficult task.

The noble Baroness is right to say that Wimbledon is a big event pilot, quite different in its ambition and its tone to some of the other events—for instance, the care homes that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred to. What we are trying to do is to take fairy footsteps out of the pandemic. Wimbledon, for instance, will account for many hundreds of thousands of tests as we use very rigorous testing procedures to try to protect the rate of infection in that big event. If it is successful, it will help us lead our way out of this horrible arrangement.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

At a personal level, I feel very sorry for the Minister. He must realise that there are considerable doubts across both Houses about the Prime Minister’s sincerity and truthfulness. Have we been told the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the delay over dealing with India?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Yes, we have.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Local Authority Enforcement Powers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, nothing I shall say to the Minister is addressed personally to him; he is not in charge of this.

On 21 April, a devastating report was published by the Hansard Society and the Constitution Unit about the marginalisation of the House of Commons under Covid. Although it was specific to the Commons, it applied to Parliament as a whole. Of the five ways in which powers have been undermined, I just want to deal with those in paragraph 2, headed “The erosion of parliamentary control: regulations”. It says:

“Over 400 Coronavirus-related Statutory Instruments … have been laid … All have been subject to little or no scrutiny, a situation described as ‘totally unsatisfactory’ by the Commons Speaker … An unusually high share of Covid SIs have been subject to the ‘made affirmative’ scrutiny procedure—meaning they became law before being scrutinised, and require only retrospective … approval”.


This is such an SI. The report continues:

“This mechanism, which severely undermines accountability, has been described as ‘addictive’”


by those who watch us. It goes on:

“The government’s casual approach to the scheduling of debates on SIs means they have often been in force for weeks before MPs could consider them … Frequent errors that need to be corrected, the lack of Impact Assessments, and discrepancies between law and guidance have all compounded scrutiny problems … for the wider public”.


This is such an SI, as it corrects errors in another: No. 364. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, it was made at 10.30 am on 9 April, laid before Parliament at 1 pm on 9 April and was in law on 12 April. It was debated in the Commons on 26 April for 24 minutes. People would have been lonely in the room because, as far as I can see, only two people spoke. On 17 May, it was in the Lords.

The preamble to this SI is essentially a two-fingered salute to Parliament. It is about time the Commons got off its knees, and the Lords should encourage it to do so. I shall develop this theme further on Thursday in the debate on Covid and the Lords.

Folic Acid

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply from Lord Bethell on 23 March (HL Deb, cols 717-20), whether they have reached a conclusion on the findings of their consultation on the proposal to add folic acid to flour which closed on 9 September 2019.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for keeping this issue live. Noble Lords will appreciate that we are in the pre-election period for the Welsh and Scottish parliamentary elections and, as this is a UK-wide consultation, we cannot make any policy announcements at this time. But I can advise that, since my last reply, Ministers have looked at this extremely closely and hope to discuss it promptly with the devolved Administrations after 6 May.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

For my 16th Oral Question, may I ask about value for money? Why can the UK Government not use their own estimate in the impact statement for the consultation, which said:

“Preventing an NTD carries a lifetime benefit of up to £3m”


per person with spina bifida? It said that fortification presents

“a significant reduction in NTDs, possibly … equivalent to 150-200 NTDs per year”.

This is every year, not a one-off, so the savings from fortification amount to hundreds of millions of pounds. The work in the United States on the CDC website confirms massive financial savings. Why are the Government so reluctant to save this money?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I would be glad to take the noble Lord’s recommendation back to the department; he puts it extremely persuasively. As I said, we have looked at the substantial point closely and it is extremely persuasive, as the noble Lord rightly put it. We hope to come forward with recommendations as soon as the elections are over.

Covid-19: Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, all the major vaccine companies are already looking at tweaking their existing vaccines, or developing new ones, in response to the new variants. AstraZeneca, for instance, has been working on that for some months. It is not clear, at this stage, whether we will have to start again on the vaccine programme or simply arrange new booster shots, or whether the existing vaccines will, in fact, run the full course. It is unbelievably frustrating to be in this hiatus of short knowledge—that is where we are at the moment—but please be reassured that this Government are investing absolutely everything necessary to ensure that vaccines will be available for whatever comes down the track.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

I can confirm what the Minister said about other services in the NHS. The staff at the Macmillan Renton Unit at Hereford County Hospital were working flat out this morning when I went for one of my check-ups. I have two brief questions for the Minister, one of which follows on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said, in a way. First, there was a reference in the Statement to the flu issue. I understand that our flu jabs have always been made in India, which will be more than occupied producing Covid vaccines for itself and others in the next few months, so where are the UK flu jabs for the forthcoming season later this year coming from? Secondly—if I cannot have an answer now, I would like a letter—who is responsible for maintaining and monitoring the shelf life of the PPE that we have?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord in commending the people who work at Macmillan and all the other important diagnostic centres that have remained committed to their work throughout Covid under extremely difficult circumstances, delivering hugely important healthcare services. The noble Lord is stretching my knowledge of vaccination with this question, but it is my understanding that most of our flu jabs are grown in eggs in East Anglia and we do not rely on Indian supplies for the flu jab. This may seem like an extraordinary fact, and I doubt it, even as I stand here at the Dispatch Box, but I would be glad to write to him to confirm the point.

Folic Acid

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the reply from Lord Bethell on 3 September 2020 (HL Deb, cols 444–5), whether they have reached a conclusion on the findings of their consultation on the proposal to add folic acid to flour which closed on 9 September 2019.

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

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his stamina on this important issue. Since the consultation on folic acid in flour closed, there has been considerable progress on this policy work, although this has been hampered by Covid. I commit to bringing an update to the House as soon as I reasonably can.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his Answer but, as he will expect, it is not good enough. Notwithstanding the Covid pressure on the health department, it found time and resources to produce an NHS reform White Paper, so the priority was organisation, not preventive health. Since the Minister answered the previous Question on this in September, on average there will have been 500 pregnancies affected by neural tube defects, resulting in more than 400 terminations, and around 80 live births of babies with a lifelong disability. Fortification can cut these figures by up to 50%. My last question is: how will Ministers face the Daily Mail, which for 15 years has supported the scientists advising that this policy be adopted? I shall be back next month, I give notice.

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

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will be incredibly brief. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Chapman on her maiden speech. The Minister has been asked a lot of questions about these issues, now and previously, so I assume that statistics are being collected. How many unoccupied young people have arrived from red-list countries since the imposition of the regulations? How many private aircraft have arrived from red-list countries? I am not clear whether private aircraft can use all five airports or are restricted to one. What statistics are being kept on this? It has been alluded to as though it is not a problem.

If people come in from red-list countries via indirect means, presumably there are some statistics on that. The Explanatory Memorandum is massive, which shows the issue we are dealing with here. I have some sympathy with the Minister in that respect, I might add. But just how many people are trying to circumvent the system by coming via indirect countries? Presumably these statistics are being collected because we will need that evidence when we look at further regulations, which are inevitably bound to arise.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for teeing up what I hope can be an insight about the future. We will have to work much more closely with our international allies and colleagues on this matter. We must invest in vaccines, therapeutics and antivirals on a prophylactic basis to be ready for when the worst viruses, including coronaviruses, emerge. We will have to bring international flying standards up to a much higher level so that the spread of viruses when pandemics occur is kept under control. We will also have to put the necessary surgical capacity into our healthcare systems to ensure that they are much more resilient than they were in the past. These are just three examples of the kind of changes that are on the horizon. I am hungry to get on with them and I am sure we will have a fantastic impact in our battle against disease.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, did the Minister have time to watch the David Harewood documentary shown at prime time on BBC1 on Tuesday about the massive health inequalities in the UK, which of course the Marmot report and reviews have been documenting for a decade? Why have so many Covid deaths been among the poor and the BAME communities?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am not an epidemiologist who can totally nail that question, but I recognise and acknowledge completely the assumption. This disease has hit the least advantaged the hardest, but trying to understand the correlation and causation of that is extremely difficult. The evidence so far suggests that some of these causes are to do with the environment: the houses that people live in, the circumstances of their employment and their behaviour within that employment. But some of this is about comorbidities and healthy lifestyles, as well as weight, which I mentioned earlier. These are all matters of grave community concern. We have to take an interest in the public health of the whole nation and we are only as strong as the weakest part. I agree with the noble Lord’s implication: this is a wake-up call for the whole country and we have to address the health of absolutely everyone.