Covid-19 and Health Inequalities: West Yorkshire

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid proceedings. Members should clean their spaces before they use them and when they leave. Also, Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn when not speaking.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered health inequalities and the covid-19 outbreak in West Yorkshire.

Thank you for calling me, Mr Hollobone. I thank everyone who has enabled me to secure this important debate so that a Yorkshire voice can make the case. I will be speaking about covid and the vaccine, so first I should like to place on record our thanks from every part of the House to everyone who helped to develop the vaccine, be they scientists, pharmacologists or all the people who have rolled it out. It has been an incredible journey, which shows humanity in a common endeavour against a disease. I congratulate all those involved.

I need not detain the House for long, but I will make a clear case for my constituency in West Yorkshire, where I have lived all my life, although there are lessons for the rest of the country, too. Let me raise two brief points before I get to the central issue. First, statistics. They talk about lies and statistics. I have confidence in the statistics that I will use, because I have been tracking what has been happening since January. They vary a bit, but I am sure that the trends I will describe are correct.

I will use comparisons between my area and the Minister’s area—not to suggest that somehow she has been neglectful of our area while protecting hers, but because the differences are extraordinary. Not for one second do I think she is anything other than someone who wants to do their best for the whole country. However, there are chronic underlying problems in the way that our country is organised. The Government have said they will begin to level up; hon. Members will see how far we have to go. If I were to draw a map of England—the health service that we are responsible for—and shade the economic-social demography, it would be clear that there continues to be a north-south divide. If I were to draw a map of covid, the same would apply. It is striking.

The averages conceal quite a bit; none the less, there has been a rapid decline in covid infections. The figures that I will quote are per 100,000. In January, there were 406 infections per 100,000; now, it is 28 per 100,000. That is remarkable.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am really interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Are the figures that he just gave for West Yorkshire?

[Jon Trickett]

The figures were for the UK as a whole. It has gone from 406 in January to 28 now. We often hear that no one is safe unless everybody is safe. There are clear hotspots where the infection is still raging, while in other areas it has almost been eliminated. To make the areas that are already low safe, we have to tackle the hotspots.

The UK average is now 28 infections per 100,000, but in my council area it is three times higher, at 72 per 100,000. In West Suffolk, infections are 8.4 per 100,000. Infections are nine times higher in my area of Wakefield than in the Minister’s constituency. That is a staggering difference.

I represent 23 small former mining villages in my constituency. In one ward, the figure is five times higher than the English average, but 17 times higher than the figure for the Minister’s constituency. It is staggering. Across the whole of West Yorkshire, there are 20 areas with levels of ongoing infection that are at least 12 times higher than those in her area. Mine is not even the highest in West Yorkshire. The figures are stark.

Plotting a graph—clearly I cannot illustrate it here, although I would like to—shows that the rate of infection in my constituency was around the English average back at the beginning of January. Suddenly, the line on the graph takes off relative to the national average. That was within three or four days of the decision that was taken—by scientists, I presume, but with the support of the Government—to reduce the vaccine supply to Yorkshire. They halved the amount of vaccine coming into Yorkshire. The average rate in England has continued on its way, whereas the rate across Yorkshire has accelerated rapidly. On the other hand, Wakefield—my area—is vaccinating more than the Minister’s council is. I assume that it was a short-term reduction in supply of the vaccine, rather than something that is continuing through to this day, but perhaps the Minister could confirm that.

There are four underlying factors. I want to focus on one at the end of my speech, but why is it that some areas of the country have alarming hotspots, such as the ones in my area that I mentioned? The four factors all relate to socioeconomic class, stratification or however one wants to describe it. The first is deprivation. Covid is definitely a disease that feeds off poverty in deprived areas. My constituency is the 111th most deprived; the Minister’s constituency is the 417th. Added to that is the fact that I represent former mining communities, where many older men have serious respiratory problems, which obviously makes them vulnerable to a respiratory disease.

The second factor is the cuts that have happened. About 38% of our expenditure has been cut since 2010, which leaves our communities less resilient to all kinds of things, including covid, than they would otherwise be.

The third factor that I want to briefly highlight is the reduction in the number of bed spaces. There has been a kind of consensus that there were too many beds. I never agreed with that; I fought the cuts in the hospitals in my area, unsuccessfully. Some 21,000 beds—I think I am right in saying critical care beds—have closed since 2010, which is too many. We were not ready for the pandemic.

I will discuss the fourth factor before I come to the main issue that I want to raise. We have low access to car ownership in my community, and more than a quarter of households do not have access to a car. As I have already said, I represent a series of villages. The buses are not very good and there is not a frequent service—I am sure thata many hon. Members could say the same thing about their areas. It is very hard for someone to get to hospital if they do not have a car and the bus service is rubbish.

There is a problem not simply with the aggregate number of beds throughout the country, but in connection with population sparsity. I wonder whether more work has been done on this issue. I do not necessarily expect the Minister to reply to me now, but has the relationship between sparsity and access to hospital services ever been properly considered? It was in my area, because I made sure that the people who were making the decisions fully understood the implications of closing hospitals and reducing the number of beds. There are 10,300 households with no car in my constituency alone, which is a problem.

My final point, in terms of what is causing not only our area but West Yorkshire to be a hotspot, is to do with homeworking. Anyone looking at the data will see how striking it is that the proportion of the population who are homeworking varies considerably across the country. For example, in Yorkshire just over a third of people are working from home; two thirds are still working at their place of work. That compares with nearly 60% of people working from home in London. In the Minister’s region, there are 10% more people working from home than in Yorkshire.

As might be imagined, seven out of 10 people in professional occupations are now working from home, whereas in caring, leisure and other services it is only 15% and among process plant machine operatives it is only 5%. So, 5% compared with 70% shows that there is a stratification issue. Why is that relevant? Because people who are working from home are clearly less prone or susceptible to possible disease transmission at a place of work. As their place of work is their home, they are in their domestic bubble.

It is striking that homeworking or working in the workplace relates precisely to occupational structure and the character of the local economy. With an economy such as the one that we have in my area, lots of people work in small manufacturing, warehousing, care services, retailing and other forms of services. We could say that they are all key workers in one form or another because they have kept the country going, but they are working in the workplace rather than at home, so they are exposed to the possibility of workplace transmission.

I have given a lot of figures already, but it is good to get them on the record. Yorkshire has 9% of the English population, but 36% of all workplace transmissions for the whole of the country occurred there. So, it is clear that workplace transmission, reflecting the occupational structure and economic base, is a factor. So, more than a third of all workplace transmissions were in Yorkshire alone, which is an important point.

There is a second related issue, which is access to cars. If someone lives in a village and their place of work is, say, a large warehouse near the A1, then they have to get to work. There are no buses or trains, so what do they do? They share a vehicle, either a minibus or a car, with someone else who lives in the village. The possibility of transmission related to work is clear.

Another point is about the vaccine roll-out. Rightly, the vaccine roll-out tackled the oldest and most vulnerable people first. We are only now arriving at vaccinating the under-50s, but they are the people who are often working in the workplace rather than at home. The vaccine has not reached many of the people who are working in the workplace and who are obviously the most vulnerable to workplace transmission. I would not suggest that we should have done anything differently, but the Government, and we as a country, need to think clearly about the issue of workplace transmission of the virus.

I have one further point on this matter. Some people might say that we should lock down the hotspots, but that will not work. Why do I say that? Because a lockdown affects people who are not key workers. People who work in key industries, such as retailing, care or warehousing, if they are delivering important services or commodities, are still going to work. A lockdown does not protect the people who are at work, and therefore it does not prevent workplace transmission. That seems to be quite an issue for us. Again, I am not saying that the Government were wrong to do the regional lockdowns—we could clearly see that those had an effect—but at the end of the day, they abandoned them. I do not want anyone to listen to my points and say to themselves, “Well, actually there’s a bit of a problem in Yorkshire. We need to protect other parts of the country; let’s lock down Yorkshire.”

If I am right—I would be interested to know whether the Government have other statistics on this—workplace transmission is a serious issue. I spoke about that with the local GP in the most seriously affected village in my constituency, and he thought that it is now about workplaces, and car and minibus sharing. I spoke to the director of public health, who told me broadly the same thing. She said that the figures are slightly susceptible to small variations at ward level, but she still defended them. I then spoke to the chief executive of our health trust. Obviously, he was most concerned about the number of hospital admissions; although that number is now going down because of the medical treatment that we have developed, the ratio is still far too high in our area. He also thought that workplace transmission was an issue.

What do I think ought to happen? Well, the Government may well have already formed a view about workplace transmission. I read in this morning’s newspaper, which covered some of the issues that I am trying to raise, that the Government had responded by saying, “We’ve made available to employers the possibility for an enhanced test, trace and isolate service.” Although I welcome that, because there needs to be as much emphasis as possible on trying to find out who is infected and ensuring that they isolate, there are two problems. First, some people are on very low wages and will not necessarily volunteer that they have symptoms because they are worried about the financial impact on themselves and their households. Secondly, employers are variable, just like any other part of the population. Some employers are very careful, others less so.

I have been approached by a firm, which I will not name, that has a large warehouse in my constituency. It is a household name that provides goods on the high street—everybody knows the name. The workforce, most of whom live in my area, have repeatedly raised with us a sense of not feeling safe at work. I asked the council to visit the employer, and work has been done to make the warehouse a safer place and to reduce transmission. However, my point about sharing cars to and from work still stands, as people share cars if they are not on large incomes or if they live in rural areas such as mine. Also, at the start and end of shifts large numbers of workers are squashed into a small space to get in and out of the workplace, so there are lots of opportunities for workplace transmission.

The employer said to me, “Well, we have told people that if they don’t feel safe, they can go home, but we won’t pay them and we won’t furlough them.” That is not acceptable behaviour from an employer in 2021. It is simply unacceptable that they leave people feeling exposed and at risk but then say, “It’s up to them, but we won’t pay them. They can stay at home with no money.” I live in a fairly poor area, and that is not an acceptable prospect.

Here is what I hope might happen—that the Government and the public authorities accept that employers and employees have a duty and an obligation to try to eliminate covid at work and elsewhere. I do not think it is good enough simply to leave it to the employers. The public authorities need to intervene in hotspot areas and identify what is going wrong. Although the figures in my area are going down quite rapidly, as a multiple of the average, they are horrific, really. It is unacceptable that we are in this situation.

On Tuesday I spoke to Wakefield Council leader Denise Jeffery. I asked whether it was possible for her public health people to identify hotspots of transmission and move in—almost like a hit squad—to test and trace, and perhaps also accelerate the vaccination programme, although that might undermine the Government’s age-related vaccination priorities.

Will the Minister reflect on the points that I have raised and could we have a further exchange, to see what can be done to tackle this chronic problem? I thank the House for listening so courteously.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 11.30 am.

Health and Social Care Update

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is absolutely our goal. The hon. Member is 29; I am 42. The fact is that we have to vaccinate an awful lot of people of our age to save the same amount of lives as vaccinating just one octogenarian. We will take this time to loop back and find as many people in the most vulnerable cohorts as possible. That is the way to save as many lives as possible and reduce pressure on hospitals as much as possible. I hope that she will bear with, in the same way that I am having to bear with, until we are able then to open up vaccinations—first for those in their 40s, then those in their 30s, and finally the youngsters.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Kettering-born Professor Sarah Gilbert of Oxford University, who has led the team that developed the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, attended Kettering High School for Girls, which is now Southfield School, in the 1970s. It was at that school that she first decided she wanted to work in medical research.

As Sarah is a heroine of the town, her name is today being added in a mayoral ceremony to Kettering’s historic timeline in the marketplace, which commemorates key milestones, achievements and famous local people. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Sarah on that thoroughly well-deserved accolade from her home town, praising her outstanding work and recognising her as a role model for young people everywhere who want to enter a worthwhile career in science?

[Matt Hancock]

I am sure the whole House will agree with every single word that my hon. Friend said. They say that success has many fathers, and Kettering has discovered another extraordinary daughter in the vaccine roll-out. Sarah Gilbert worked on the Ebola vaccine before this one and has played a role in saving many, many thousands of lives over her career in medical research. I have no doubt that she will save many, many more in the future. We all salute her work, and we salute her attitude and her team work too, because that is one of the characteristics that has made it possible to deliver these vaccines so fast.

Covid-19 Update

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

No, on the contrary, we removed the travel corridors to ensure there is a self-isolation requirement that is mandatory for all those who are coming to this country. Protecting this country from new variants coming from abroad is important, hence we have taken the action swiftly, and we did that on the basis of the scientific evidence.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Could I commend the Health Secretary for the difficult and brave but correct decisions he made early on in the pandemic in relation to vaccines, which have led today to Britain having a world-leading vaccine roll-out? Could I also draw his attention to NHS Northamptonshire, which, thanks to the very hard work of all the local staff and volunteers, has one of the very best vaccine roll-out programmes in the whole country?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I have been watching the progress of those at NHS Northamptonshire, who are going great guns, and I know they are working incredibly hard. This does not happen by magic; it happens by hard graft, especially of the GPs and the pharmacists, and the support teams and the volunteers, who are doing such a great job in Northants.

I am very grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. We did take decisions at risk early, before we knew whether they were going to come off, and knowing that we would be criticised if it did not work out. However, that meant we could get those contracts signed ahead of many other places, and it means that we will be able to deliver vaccines for UK citizens and then, of course, play our part in ensuring that everybody across the world can have access to this life-saving vaccine, too.

Walthamstow Toy Library Eviction: NHS Role

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the NHS’s role in the eviction of the Walthamstow Toy Library.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I want to start by saying that I am sorry that we must have this debate, because I know there are some incredibly serious issues facing our health service. All our communities are dealing with the consequences of the pandemic. I wish I were asking the Minister about that, because that should be his priority. However, under the cover of the pandemic, something is taking place in my community.

I am hoping this morning for a bit of a Christmas miracle and some positive news for my local community about something that hundreds of residents have expressed concern about, and I know many more will. It is the fate of our local toy library. The Walthamstow toy library has been there for more than 40 years, serving thousands of children and their families locally. It is vital community resource. It does not just loan toys, but helps with children’s social development and provides emotional support to parents in the ninth poorest community for child poverty in the country.

Its mission is to provide a safe and stimulating place for young children and their parents and carers to play, learn and interact. What does that mean in practice? It means a wealth of activities: help to support new mums to breastfeed, mental health support for those with post-natal depression, support for children with special educational needs, advice on healthy eating and living activities, and outreach, as well as the promotion of wider social objectives such as recycling and, of course, loaning toys and encouraging child development.

Do not take it from me, Minister—take it from the users of the service. Stacy, one of the many mums from Walthamstow on a low income, wrote to me:

“As a first time mum, I found the social aspect of motherhood very daunting. The thought of meeting other mothers whilst supporting my child to play and interact with other children seemed almost impossible! This was until I came across the Toy Library. You would assume such facilities and service wouldn’t be available to those who couldn’t financially afford it but this isn’t the case. The Toy Library doesn’t have such barriers in place, so it means if you are a parent who needs that financial support through borrowing of toys or affordable entry/membership it is available. I felt very supported and encouraged to become part of the Toy Library without being judged for my circumstances.”

The Minister might say to me, “That sounds all very nice, but what about health care?” That is ultimately his priority. I want to highlight that we have a very high level of challenge in my local community when it comes to child and maternal health. The World Health Organisation has a vaccination target of 95%. I am sorry to say that my borough does not meet that for any vaccine: under 30% of two to three-year-olds have had the flu jab in my borough this year. Our measles, mumps, rubella rates are well below the England average, with only 83% of children aged 24 months in Waltham Forest vaccinated. Our rates of childhood obesity are also above the national average.

The library supports not just children but their mums. During lockdown, my office has been inundated by mothers with post-natal depression who have had no support since health visitors were taken away. It has been the toy library that has offered vital help for those mums, too. Indeed, during the pandemic they stepped up to support many low income families in Walthamstow, offering one-to-one contact with 150 of them, providing activity ideas and helping to deal with the isolation that so many families have felt in the past months. They offered parents one-to-one support with a trained counsellor, renewed play sessions, when they could, and offered craft packs to nearly 1,000 local children. These are critical services that have never been more needed, which have a health outcome. They deal with mental health and mean we have a connection with some of the hardest-to-reach children in our community.

The Walthamstow toy library has just eight members of staff and an annual turnover of £85,000. That means that the work they do and the impact they have is all the more remarkable. They do not receive any public subsidy. Occasionally, they have a grant from the council, but they fund all their activities through relentless fundraising and a network of alumni, who recognise the value of their work to local children and the community. That is why I am asking for a Christmas miracle from Ministers today. We are in danger of losing this vital resource in Walthamstow, which, importantly, represents value for money.

Walthamstow toy library has been in the same building since 1986. It is a purpose-built building, on the site of the original toy library that was knocked down to make way for the Comely Bank campus, which is the space it is now in. The Comely Bank campus was a local improvement finance trust company initiative for the NHS, which is where the Minister starts to begin to take responsibility for this. The Minister should be worried not just about my local toy library, but about what this episode reveals for the wider NHS property account, for which he has responsibility.

LIFT was supposed to be the not-for-profit version of the private finance initiative—that old chestnut—helping to bring much-needed properties to the NHS, but it is clear that the company running this building is motivated by money, not the needs of my local community. When it was first built and run by the primary care trust, it was agreed that the toy library would have a peppercorn rent, so the toy library would be there, work with healthcare providers and provide all those services to the local community.

LIFTCos also meant that the NHS would have some control over GP services and primary care facilities in those buildings. Although the PCTs only had a small stake, they had some ability to determine how local facilities were built and used. Since PCTs were abolished and their stake referred to a company called Community Health Partnerships, all that local control has gone.

LIFTCo behaviour is now dominated by their private financers, often hidden from view, who are seeking to maximise their returns by charging extortionately high rents and service charges. As this case shows, the overriding drive of Community Health Partnerships is not what our community needs or wants, but how it can generate as much income as possible to pay back the debt and provide a return to its shareholders, known as RWF Health and Community Developers Ltd.

For eight years, and through multiple ownership structures of the building, including the eventual abolition of the PCT and then working with the NHS Waltham Forest Clinical Commissioning Group, the Walthamstow toy library has frankly been treated as a nuisance by the CCG and CHP. Those organisations have also failed to provide adequate healthcare services to my community. Indeed, the CCG is one of the services most complained about to my office.

For years, the volunteers who work at the Walthamstow toy library have been trying to sort out their lease, to work with the CCG and to be commissioned to provide services to help address issues such as the poor vaccination rate or childhood obesity. Frankly, the CCG has not just refused but has been point-blank rude about those offers, including to me and the volunteers. The volunteers have tried, in vain, because they know how much it means to the community and because they have suddenly started getting bills for hundreds of thousands of pounds for the building.

Suddenly, Waltham Forest CCG wished to claim that the cost of having a toy library there is around £60,000 a year. For property aficionados, let me be clear what we are talking about: it is 120 square metres, with a kitchen, two toilets and a garden. I know everybody thinks that Walthamstow village is fancy and expensive, but I have talked to local estate agents and even if it were the most swanky building, the most they think such a building should cost is £30,000 a year, with service charges. I thank community estate agents, such as Strettons, for helping us and for being so shocked for our community.

It is not just about the rent they are trying to charge. When we look at the amounts of money that the CCG and CHP seem to want, the toy library’s charges seem to have increased at a much higher rate than for the property as a whole: from £77,000 in 2019 to £102,000 in 2020-21—an annual increase of 32%—yet the overall lease for Comely Bank seems to have increased by only 2.8%. One might query why the toy library, a charitable organisation, is suddenly being asked to pay an excessive amount of rent and charges, compared with anyone in the rest of the building.

Leaving that aside, the CCG itself—it has not negotiated with the toy library but summarily issued documents—has agreed to pay for the presence of the toy library, honouring the original agreement for a peppercorn rent so that the toy library could be in Walthamstow. However, it should trouble the Minister, given the concern that I know he has for value for money, that any one side of the NHS should be charging another double the cost of a building, before service charges. I think that the honest truth is that that is why the CCG has refused to work with me and residents to try to save the toy library, and why, indeed, it is colluding in evicting it.

It should also trouble the Minister that Andrew Meakin, the regional property director for CHP, wrote to me threatening to send bailiffs to the toy library to recover nearly £200,000-worth of debt that he claimed it owed in building and service charges. He argued that CHP is a publicly-owned company and could not see any option except to progress debt collection through the usual channels, to recoup public funds. That was in October. Those were costs that the CCG had already claimed it would pay and, indeed, that CHP knew about and subsequently, mysteriously, issued credit notes for. However, one can imagine what it must feel like for volunteers to receive a bill for £200,000 from an organisation claiming to represent the NHS.

I draw to the Minister’s attention the detail of the coronavirus legislation that places a moratorium on commercial landlords evicting people. The current time of great uncertainty in funding and operations for the toy library means that it is hard for it to raise funds. Mr Meakin is acting as the Christmas Grinch in trying to chase revenue sources for which he has already been paid twice, to justify evicting the toy library. It gets worse, however. He demanded that the toy library should act as a commercial operator and charge fees for services that it does not provide, suggesting that its offering is less commercial than those of its rivals in my constituency, as though the building was a commercial one. The whole point about the service is that it is not commercial. It is open to everyone. That is the benefit.

It is interesting to me that CHP demands commercial behaviour and transparency from the toy library while it is unwilling to be honest about its own activities. Despite being a public sector body, it is wholly unaccountable about revealing how much it makes through charging such extortionate rents. For any other PFI deal I could go to the Treasury database and see the interest on the loan that is driving the situation, but it has refused to reveal that information, even with a freedom of information request, claiming that to do so would prejudice the commercial interests of CHP and its private developers, RWF Health and Community Developers Ltd. It then argues—this is surely meant to be ironic—that revealing how much money it is making would impact on its abilities in relation to services in areas of high social and health need, which I presume means areas such as my constituency.

I am not sure what the commercial interests are with respect to what is supposedly an NHS building, but I guess that some of them are overseas. In the FOI response it was claimed that there have been no subsequent sales of shares in the project since it was first commissioned. However, a look at the company accounts shows that the subsidiary and the ultimate parent company, HICL, have been part of nine different holding companies for the building. Indeed, Barclays sold its share in this LIFTCo to HICL in 2013. It is not clear how much Barclays sold the share for, but, as we have all seen with PFI, HICL was registered offshore in Guernsey at the time, and remained so until 2018.

It is also clear that around £3.2 million in management fees has been extracted from the subsidiary of the LIFTCo between 2007 and 2020. It looks as though that is in addition to the returns to shareholders and the interest on debt repayments. That sum would be more than enough to cover the alleged cost of having the Waltham Forest toy library in there for decades to come.

I ask the Minister, as a starting point—given that he is a stakeholder, and that ultimately CHP is owned by the Secretary of State—whether he can tell me what the internal rate of return is. I am sure that he would agree that it is in the public interest to know that. What does he think the commercial interests are? It is my understanding that the CCG is colluding with CHP to evict the Walthamstow toy library so that it can put another tenant in the building. However, that is the same CCG that will, I have no doubt, come to the Minister at some point for funding for property. Essentially, one side of the NHS is asking the other for over-inflated rents—robbing Peter to pay Paul. That would irk me less if the CCG had not presided over a building that has been under-occupied for years. The under-occupation rate has been 20% since 2016, and in the last year it has been 30%—all in a building whose lease finishes in less than 10 years.

In the absence of being able to hold CHP accountable, I have come to the Minister to ask for his help and to ask whether he believes that the decisions that are being taken square with his statutory duties under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to reduce inequalities and promote a comprehensive health service. It is not acceptable to say that these are just decisions for the local LIFTCo or CHP, when CHP is owned by the Secretary of State and it is refusing to answer questions. There is a vacuum in which the interests of private finance have come before the public in Walthamstow.

This is not just a constituency problem, because CHP manages 5% of the NHS property estate. If it is behaving in such ways in other parts of the country, other communities are also being overcharged for their properties. In other parts of the NHS, social prescribing has been the way forward, working with community organisations, such as at the Michael Burke Wellbeing Centre in Suffolk or Houghton Primary Care Centre in Houghton le Spring.

We know that PFI was the wrong move—Governments of all sides have recognised that—and we all want to sort it out, but LIFTCos have not had the same level of scrutiny. Can the Minister tell me who will own the building in less than 10 years’ time? Can he tell me how much it is costing us as taxpayers? Can he tell me whether he believes that in evicting the Walthamstow toy library, CHP is adhering to the original lease, as it is required to do, which talked about non-NHS use and working with local communities? Above all, can he offer me some advice and help on how I can support my local community, which is struggling in the pandemic, and those children who rely on the toy library, to make sure that we have a toy library for many years to come in Walthamstow?

I know the Minister has been told one thing by the CCG and CHP, but I would be happy to inform him of my experience of dealing with these organisations and the truth of the attempts at negotiation. With Christmas just a few days away, will he play Santa to the children of Walthamstow and commit today to supporting the Walthamstow toy library and helping us to save it?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 11.30. I call the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that the hon. Lady is not allowed a right of reply. Generously, I will allow her to intervene on the Minister, if he agrees that he has not finished his speech, but the intervention has to be brief.

[Edward Argar]

Apologies; when I said “Thank you, Mr Hollobone”, I thought that I had caught your eye and you were about to stand, so I sat down. If I may, I will finish my conclusion, and should the hon. Lady wish to intervene on me, I am happy to take that intervention.

Deaths in Mental Health Care

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hartlepool on the wonderful way in which he opened the debate and the two preceding speakers on their powerful contributions. I rise to speak on behalf of my constituent, Mrs Marian Coles, who was alerted to the debate and contacted me. I want my speech simply to be what she has written to me, to place her concerns on the record. Mrs Coles said:

“I am writing regarding the Westminster Hall debate concerning deaths in mental health care which calls for independent investigations into deaths in mental health settings. As a family that has been personally affected by this after our son took his own life whilst a mental health inpatient in Kettering in May 2017, we would ask if you would represent us at this debate. This was the second suicide at this facility 7 months apart. Staff failings were admitted at the inquest and 3 nurses were disciplined but they refused to give us the details. It has taken us 3 years for the NHS to settle this case.

We were involved with the serious incident report that took place but strongly support an independent inquiry being held after such deaths as is allowed in other organisations. Why should an organisation investigate itself over a death that may have been caused or contributed to by failures of its own staff or systems? The lack of an independent inquiry hampers the ability to root out issues of system neglect or misconduct and also jeopardises the welfare of future patients by failing to address such concerns. There is overwhelming evidence that the current system for investigating deaths in mental health settings is not fit for purpose.

“We very much hope that you will be able to take part in the debate and offer your support”—

I do—

“for an independent inquiry for families that may be affected by these tragedies. I am deeply traumatised by the death of my son, as is all of my family and we have to live with this every day of our lives”.

It is a privilege for me, as the local MP, to place Mrs Marian Coles’s concerns on the record.

Covid-19

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Because our advice to everybody is to reduce unnecessary social contact to protect themselves.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I commend the personal resilience of the Health Secretary during this crisis, and all the staff at Kettering General Hospital. Do we have any lessons to learn from the German experience, given that Germany has had five times as many confirmed cases, but only a quarter of the number of deaths?

[Matt Hancock]

I have discussed that point with my German counterpart, and I am afraid that I wish there was something we could learn because it is important. We think that the reason for the difference in ratio is that the early cases in Germany were largely people who had been skiing in northern Italy and therefore were more healthy, whereas the mortality of this disease is very strongly correlated with age.

Coronavirus

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely; this is really important. We have some supplies of these sorts of things, in the supply chains and, in some cases, within the shops themselves, and we are working with the shops to ensure availability of things that can be critical to people’s care. We are working on that with DEFRA, the NHS and within the Department, particularly in relation to pharmacies, to make sure we get the right kit to the people who need it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I commend the Health Secretary on doing a difficult job in trying circumstances extremely well. Likewise, I commend all the staff at Kettering General Hospital, who are working their socks off to ensure that the hospital is fully prepared. The only easily understandable benchmark our constituents have to judge the scale of this thing is seasonal flu, so can he tell the House, on average each year, how many people catch seasonal flu and how many people die from it?

[Matt Hancock]

That is a great question to which I do not have the answer in my head, but it is a matter of hundreds of thousands in the first instance and thousands in the second.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Final question: Philip Hollobone.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the hospitals Minister for his personal attention to Kettering General Hospital, and for the plans for a new £46 million urgent care hub. Can he assure me that progress on the delivery of that facility is on track?

[Edward Argar]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. The fact that the money is being invested is largely due to his campaigning efforts and those of his colleagues. I look forward to the opportunity to visit him again soon, and to see progress on the ground when I meet the team.

Coronavirus

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The first question we must ask is, “How effective is this measure—is it effective?”, and the second is, “Are we going to get unintended consequences from people acting differently in a way that actually hinders the overall effort?” It is for the scientists best to explain the reason why they have scientifically come to this advice. But it is clear that there are other measures that we can take that are more effective and have fewer negative side-effects.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My constituents in Kettering are struggling to understand why we are not banning flights from quarantined areas of north Italy.

[Matt Hancock]

The reason is that there are many UK citizens in that area who may want to come home. Also, crucially—this is very important—the evidence shows that banning flights from affected areas does very little to protect us. Indeed, Italy was the only country in Europe that banned flights from China earlier in the progress of this disease: it did not work, and now Italy is the epicentre of the European outbreak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend did some incredible work in this area when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In fact, he presided over the Department being renamed to draw reference to the importance of social care. He is absolutely right that we must ensure that councils have the money they need for the short term, but we must also work towards a consensus so that everybody will have safety and security and that nobody will be forced to sell their home to pay for their care.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I declare my interest as a member of Kettering Borough Council. Taking advantage of imminent local government reorganisation in Northamptonshire, will the Minister continue to encourage local councils and the two local hospitals to bring forward innovative proposals under one budget for an integrated health and social care pilot in Northamptonshire?

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend has already been a really good champion of collaborative health and social care work. He has made some excellent suggestions, and we have seen how things such as the better care fund, through which health and care pool their resources, can have a positive effect for local communities. I encourage his local area to look closely at how that sort of work can be maximised and moved forward.