Covid-19

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

May I offer my heartfelt condolences to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy)? There is nothing worse than losing a member of your family that you love, and the reason I am here today is to speak on behalf of a mother in my constituency who also lost someone very dear to her—her 21-year-old son, Jamie. Jamie represents a cohort that often falls through the cracks in care, not just during a pandemic but in everyday existence. It is the cohort of working-age disabled adults in long-term residential care.

Jamie’s mother battled for him from the day of his birth to ensure that he had the care and provision that he needed to succeed. She was a teacher, and she is a local community champion. During lockdown, she was denied access to her son. She was unable to visit him and watched in horror as his health and situation deteriorated day by day. He became catatonic, refused to eat, and developed open wounds and bed sores. It was not until lockdown ended that she was able to have access to her son, her only son, but by that point it was too late. Jamie had passed away the week before.

I had been unaware of the situation that Jamie was in, and I am speaking today to raise awareness so that other family members may have access and special visitation rights to a child who is in adult social care and who is struggling during the pandemic. I hope that my speaking about Jamie will help them to get that access and that we will remember to have humanity and compassion for those who are vulnerable and suffering during the pandemic. As a mother myself, I cannot imagine not being able to see my child. I know that many Members in this House have older children, and perhaps they will testify that parenting does not stop at 18 or at 21. You are a parent to your child forever, and to be unable to help and advocate for a child with complex disabilities who cannot speak for themselves is a tragedy. I am here to speak on Jamie’s behalf so that others will have a voice.

I am so grateful for the Government’s announcement that a vaccine is coming and that a mass roll-out of testing is being organised. That will go a long way to help the most vulnerable, but I want this very small cohort to be remembered. I want safeguarding measures to be put in place. As we go into the winter months, we must remember that this patient cohort needs additional support, care and patient advocacy, and that the parents need visitation rights so that they can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.

I would like to pay special tribute to the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), for her work behind the scenes on this issue. She has spent a great deal of time helping and assisting, and she does not get the credit she deserves for trying to advocate for this patient cohort and raising the need for additional support. I thank her, and I thank the Minister here today for answering our questions during this debate. I would also ask that perhaps in future Ministers from other Departments could come to the House to respond to the covid-19 general debates, so that we can ask specific questions and tailor our debate perhaps towards education or the Treasury—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need to move on.

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[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank all those on the frontline at Warwick Hospital, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire and our care homes, as well as the police, our local council and those in our schools who have worked throughout this period. I thank all the volunteers for the extraordinary work that they have done in such extraordinary times. There has been such little respite for all of them; I commend and thank them all.

Regrettably, it is going to be impossible to address all the problems that we face in four minutes, but perhaps I could say that it would have helped greatly if the Government had been able to lead by example and been more consistent in some of their policies. For example—I have mentioned this previously—how was it that, for some reason, we could allow people to travel on an aeroplane for three and a half hours, sitting cheek by jowl, but we could not allow those same people to sit in a cinema or a theatre, on a train, a bus or elsewhere? How was it that garden centres were allowed to open, but car showrooms were not? Eventually that was agreed to, and I press again for it to be allowed now.

I will focus my comments on the impact of covid-19 on our social care sector. If I have time, I will also mention the self-employed and furlough. The public were forgiving at the outset for many months, but they are rapidly tiring, and the Government’s actions are having a profound impact on their tolerance of and compliance with the guidance. That guidance is not clear; it is inconsistent, and people are struggling to follow. We have tier for this and tiers for that—tiers for universities and tiers for different parts of the country. But it is as we enter winter with the prospect of not being able to visit loved ones in care homes that my constituents are desperate to see family members and demand urgent action.

In the first lockdown up to 12 June, almost 20,000 residents of care homes in England died with covid-19. In fact, 28,000 excess deaths were recorded in care homes in England during the same period. In Warwickshire, we saw more than 400 excess deaths, which is why I called for—and continue to call for—an inquiry. As Amnesty International concluded in its report in early October,

“a number of decisions and policies adopted by authorities at the national and local level in England increased care home residents’ risk of exposure to the virus…notably…Mass discharges from hospital into care homes of patients infected or possibly infected with Covid-19 and advice that ‘[n]egative tests are not required prior to transfers/admissions into the care home’.”

If Amnesty has time, I would very much welcome its representatives to Warwickshire in to help me get this inquiry, which is essential and should have been done through the summer to prepare us for this second wave.

The ongoing restrictions have meant that people continue to be unable to visit their loved ones. It is a fact that over half of care home residents die within 15 months of moving into a care home. Many residents have now spent more than eight months without any visits from family or friends, with huge consequences for their wellbeing. Many care homes in Warwick and Leamington have stopped all visits due to the second wave, so it is critical that the Government act urgently to enable family members to visit their loved ones.

A simple action would be to amend visitor status. Organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society are urging for an acceleration of the pilot key worker status scheme to enable family members and carers with access to regular testing and PPE to visit safely and provide care that people with dementia so desperately need. After all, SAGE states that infection rates from visitors to care homes are very low, and if visitors had access to PPE, weekly testing and infection control training, the risk would be significantly lower still. We also need to be clear about discharges from hospitals into care homes—a process that led to a significant proportion of care home deaths in the first wave. If there is one thing that the Government could do, it would be to change the visitor status of family members so that they could see their loved ones over the coming months and allow them the dignity that they should be afforded.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I want to try to get everybody in, so I will reduce the time limit to three minutes after the next speaker.

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[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Broadly speaking, I recognise the hard truth that lockdown 2 was necessary to keep our NHS and emergency services from being overrun. Although I would have wanted to see the tier system endure a bit longer, I recognise that it took strong leadership from the Government to make the strong calls that they have done, and I commend them for that. It is also hugely welcome to hear the news of the vaccine developments, and I recognise the huge human cost that has been spoken about a great deal this evening.

I want to focus if I may on the economy. We are now past the point of no return with regard to the economy. If we choose to go back to the tiered system, it cannot come soon enough, given the lives and livelihoods put at risk by the restrictions. We need to see the UK open for business. Yes, we must take the virus seriously, but we cannot let it prevent us from living our lives. Therefore, if a new normal is necessary, we need to learn to live alongside the virus, not to hide from it.

There are certain areas that the Government would wish to focus on right now and it is really important that we do that. First of all, aviation is a particular concern to me. It concerns 330,000 jobs worth more than £28 billion. It is a desperate position for aviation.

The leisure industry has also been hit harder than most. Despite reports of very low infection rates at fitness centres and outdoor sports providers, not to mention the ever-growing body of evidence of mental health benefits, they are yet to be recognised as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. We have 600,000 signatures on a petition against gym closures, and I urge the Government to please look very closely at that.

Turning now to entertainment, although it is great to see elite sport back on TV, we cannot forget those grassroots sports providers—league 1 and league 2 clubs for example—and also the Football Association redundancies, plus the whole raft of sports all across the UK. Exhibitions employ 600,000 people. The UK currently exports £2 billion-worth of exhibition services every year. We are a top 10 global exporter, so we must put that right as soon as we can.

Lastly, I have a few words to say on my constituency of Bracknell, if I may. These points have come directly from my constituents via correspondence over the last couple of weeks. First, the infringement of civil liberties needs to be balanced against the need to restrict the spread of the virus, so I urge the Government please to perhaps look at that balance more carefully. Some 100,000 people currently make up the cancer backlog, and we must do some work there as well. On flu jabs, I believe there is a shortage of flu jabs. People are asking locally about getting flu jabs at local pharmacies and surgeries, and I again urge the Government to look at that. Finally, I would like to see a permanent Test and Trace site in Berkshire.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The thing is that if everybody took two minutes, instead of three minutes, everybody would get in. I am not going to reduce the time limit officially, but if colleagues want to be considerate to each other, that would be my advice.