Public Health

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The Business of the House motion just agreed to by the House provides for the motions on the five statutory instruments on today’s Order Paper, each relating to public health, to be debated together for up to three hours. Those are SI Nos. 1518, 1533, 1572, 1611 and 1646. At the end of the debate, I will put the Question on each motion separately. A large number of Members want to contribute to the debate, so we will start with a five-minute time limit.

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

I beg to move,

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation and Linked Households) (England) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1518), dated 11 December 2020, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11 December, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this we shall debate the following motions:

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1533), dated 14 December 2020, a copy of which was laid before this House on 14 December, be approved.

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1572), dated 17 December 2020, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17 December, be approved.

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Obligations of Undertakings) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1611), dated 20 December 2020, a copy of which were laid before this House on 21 December, be approved.

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1646), dated 24 December 2020, a copy of which were laid before this House on 29 December, be approved.

[Helen Whately]

Before I say anything else, I want to say thank you to all our health and social care workers who have been working day and night through Christmas, Boxing day and the bank holiday. I know that every single one of them is feeling the strain and that they are not just tired but exhausted, having gone not just the extra mile but miles and miles of extra miles. I would also like to thank everyone across the country who has forgone the joy of sharing Christmas with family or friends. We have all missed those precious moments, and I know that this has been particularly painful for those facing what may be the last chance to spend Christmas with a loved one nearing the end of their life. That is why I say thank you to them from the bottom of my heart for what they have done, not so much for their own sake but to protect others.

I would like to take a moment to celebrate the good news of the authorisation of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for use. Although the development of vaccines is an international collaboration, we should recognise the contribution of the British life sciences sector, which offers the UK a way out of this disease and will make a huge impact on the global response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

One thing that I will do when I have finished speaking is see whether I can look up the specific data for the hon. Member’s constituency. In general, however, the announcements made today, just as with previous announcements, are based on the data that we are seeing, which includes rapidly rising rates of infection in certain areas, the level of new infections, the trajectory and hospital pressures.

The tier 4 regulations require all non-essential retail, indoor entertainment, hairdressers and other personal care services to close. International travel is also restricted to business trips only. However, we have listened to hon. Members and the public about what is most important to people in their daily lives so, unlike in the November restrictions, communal worship and a wider range of outdoor recreation are still permitted. We also recognise the restrictions’ impact on businesses and continue to provide them with ongoing support to help get through the crisis.

We know that these measures are hard. We know that they keep families and friends apart, yet we also know that they are necessary for us to get through this situation and to prevent the loss of lives as we do so. This virus thrives on the things that make life worth living, such as social contact, but that means we can all play our part in stopping the spread—as I said, if not for ourselves, then for others. The end is in sight, but for now it is our duty here in Parliament to put in place these restrictions—onerous though they are—to control this virus. I commend the regulations to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As I said, we will start with a five-minute time limit on Back-Bench Members. I remind hon. Members that, when a speaking limit is in effect for Back Benchers, a countdown clock will be visible on the screens of right hon. and hon. Members participating virtually and on the screens in the Chamber. For right hon. and hon. Members participating physically, the usual clock will operate.

Covid-19

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is good to have the floor for more than the 180 seconds that was allowed in the debate before the last lockdown, which only gave us time to say our name and serial number.

I pay a very great tribute to the Government for what they have achieved. I think one of the crowning glories of what has been achieved in some of the testing data is the granularity of borough-by-borough data, which I will refer to that a little later. We have rolled out polymerase chain reaction—PCR—testing to a higher percentage of our population than anywhere else in the world. I had some doubt that we would ever reach 100,000 a day, let alone half a million, so this has been a real triumph in flexibility that our country has been able to achieve. We are now seeing the roll-out of lateral flow testing. Thanet schools will have the mobile testing units landing very shortly, as will other parts of Kent.

We have had a level of financial support that is almost unparalleled anywhere in the world. Of course, some businesses have not got what they thought they deserved, but we have to accept that this was new ground; we did not know what was around the corner and different support schemes had to be rolled out very quickly.

Then, of course, our own MRHA, the council that approves medicines, has rolled out at high speed but with absolute safety the first of the vaccines for licence around the world—the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine—and there are others coming round the corner. The one that we all hope for is the home-grown Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine—a rather more traditional vaccine, which is easier to store and administer. What is coming out of the billions that have been spent around the world in a very short time is this new messenger RNA-style of vaccine. Once we are out of covid, there could be—maybe, doubtless, possibly—a similar type of pandemic in years to come, and we will be better armed to respond rapidly to it, so hopefully our planet will not be in this situation once more.

We look at the vaccines as the way out of this, but we have to tell some truths. Some are being rolled out as we speak: my father of 86 is getting his vaccine No. 1 this Friday, and tomorrow vaccinations are being rolled out locally from GP surgeries in my Thanet constituency. That is all great news, but there are 66 million people in this country, and we need two vaccinations. We have limitations on the delivery of the vaccines and there is global demand for exactly the same product, so we need honesty about how we will scale it up and deliver it. It is not just about the numbers; it is also about the availability of staff and those who are able to vaccinate. It is a major undertaking.

We must pay real tribute to the NHS staff who have stepped up to the plate, shown massive flexibility and kept the show on the road. We all have fantastic communities that have been looking after the old people in their streets, church groups that have done their bit, and food banks and similar organisations that have risen to the challenge. The Minister, who is looking at me intently, can be quite sure that that is the end of my unalloyed congratulations for where we have got to thus far. I still have a number of fundamental concerns about the moving science that we are living under, and I aired some of them in the previous debate.

We had the ridiculous situation that, as we approached lockdown version 2, we pretty much banned everything. We banned swimming, gyms, golf courses and non-essential shops. We had what I then called the Wilkinson conundrum: the big shops could open, but the small shops selling some of what the big shops were selling were not allowed to open at all. We could not have group worship. Thankfully, under tier 3 and tier 2—obviously, 99% of the country is now under tiers 2 and 3, and the whole of Kent is under tier 3—some common sense has prevailed. All those shops can open, and we can indulge in group worship and do quite a number of the things that we could not before. That indicates that there has been some granularity of thought about these things—funnily enough, exactly what I was saying some months earlier—and it determined that those things were not so dangerous after all.

I am not here to be part of the difficult squad. I know I am in the Covid Recovery Group. I am attempting to be a serious critical friend of the Government, but we still have our hospitality industry, which many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned this evening, and I suspect that more following me will do so. I feel that, because we are getting somewhat desperate to get out of this mess, we are losing sight of what works and what does not work. I find it hard to believe that we will all be going Christmas shopping. I am sure the density in our supermarkets will be that much higher over the next 10 to 12 days, as we scramble around for the cranberry sauce and the turkey. That is allowed. The nail bars and the hairdressers, thankfully, are allowed. [Laughter.] Well, my nails are not looking too bad. But we are not allowed to go to a well-managed location of hospitality, and I just cannot see the sense of that.

I still have my concerns about the economics of tier 3 and lockdowns. I think London will suffer greatly over the next couple of weeks. We still have not really seen the analysis of what other deaths may be caused because people are too fearful of going to health locations. Macmillan Cancer Support said just this morning that lockdown version one is likely to have led to 50,000 people not seeking the help for an early diagnosis that they might have sought. That means that once they are diagnosed, their cancer may have advanced to a higher level and treatment will be more invasive, more expensive and more unpleasant—and there will be deaths.

I am not sure we are considering the effect on mental health sufficiently. I know that has been mentioned on the Floor of the House many times. There is not just one example, but I think very much of the multi-generational family business of some standing, with a bit of a status in the community, that goes bankrupt through no fault of its own. I worry about the likelihood of suicide in such instances.

Her Majesty’s Treasury is very capable of modelling almost anything—it certainly tried to model Brexit over many years—yet it seems incapable of properly modelling the economic impact of these ongoing lockdowns. We had the spending review and the Office for Budget Responsibility report just a couple of weeks ago, which suggested that, at the mid-way point—a sort of tier 2 point—there is a permanent 3% scarring of our economy. Obviously, tier 3 has to be a little worse, if not a lot worse. As we have discussed on the Floor of the House over many years, there are reports from diverse organisations that say that long-term poverty, and the scarring of our economy that this will cause, will lead to worse life opportunities, fewer life chances and shorter lives. None of that has been factored in at all.

Let me turn to a couple of points that I hope the Minister will take away. I mentioned how useful the granularity of borough data has been. I think we all watch that avidly. Strangely, Thanet, part of which is in my South Thanet constituency, was at the very highest level of infection rates per 100,000 a few weeks ago, despite having been in the very lowest league at the end of the summer. I cannot explain that; I do not know why. We have our backs to the sea, and we do not have a community that mixes like a big city may. Thankfully, though, it is the only borough in the whole of Kent where the figures are now just on the way down. We are at 425 per 100,000 today, whereas we were at over 500 just a couple of weeks ago. That compares with a national average of 181.

My concern as we go forward is that we have seen that the tiers only get stricter. We have these five bases on which we are trying to interpret whether an area should go up or down. We have the pure numbers—that rate per 100,000, which we have all become very familiar with. I do not know what the threshold is between tier 1 and tier 2; it seems to be around 200, but I am really not sure. The shape of the graph is important: is it going up exponentially, or is it plateauing and going down? There are also the bases of the rate of infection among the over-60s, the most at-risk group for obvious reasons, and the positivity rate and whether that is going up or down. I have no idea about positivity rates—whether a rate of 2% is good or 10% is bad. Then, of course, there is the pressure on the NHS.

Concentrating on the pure numbers, however, I think that could be one of the tools by which we keep a lid on this—squash the sombrero and bide our time until we get to the vaccine. I do not know about any other Members in this House, but those numbers have really worked on me. At the end of the summer, when Thanet numbers were low, we had a spring in our step; we were not quite so worried—we were quite happy to walk down the high street to go shopping, and if we saw somebody without a mask on it did not really worry us too much. However, as those numbers have got to very high levels, I know that my behaviour has changed. If I see someone in the supermarket without a mask on —thankfully, it is a pretty rare event these days—I give them a very wide berth, of not just 2 metres but perhaps 3. I think we just do more careful things, too: we carry our hand sanitisers with us on a daily basis when our local numbers are high. I have the feeling that those numbers could be the most powerful tool in affecting behaviour.

Of course, the last of the five bases that we have to consider is pressure on the NHS, and I have a number of concerns about that. The community can affect the other bases—people can do something for themselves—but they can do very little, I am afraid, about what is happening in our hospitals.

I am very concerned. Last week a number of hospitals were reporting the percentage of their in-patients who had acquired covid within the hospital location. If our hospitals are under pressure, that creates more pressure for them. I find it hard to believe that this—the so-called nosocomial infection rate—cannot be solved. It was reported last week in The Daily Telegraph that 10,000 patients could have been affected, and we are all hearing about this. I am afraid I am hearing about it far too often; I hear about when patients go in for a routine treatment and are placed in a hot ward—in a mixed ward with others who are covid-positive. Last week, I watched ITV—national ITV—report on a situation at Medway Maritime Hospital. Few things really shock me these days, but this really did. A chap called Paul Tucker, aged 57, went into hospital with a serious condition that was nothing to do with covid and he died because he was in a mixed ward with covid-positive patients.

I can give another example, about someone I know: an old gentleman who broke his leg and went in for treatment. He came out solved, but he had had a covid test the day before discharge and no test result came forward. He went home for five days, and in those five days he had up to five carers attending to him every day—he is a gentleman on his own with no family living nearby—and on day five the hospital rang and said, “Ah, really sorry, but the test was a bit late: you’re positive.” Five carers every day had been attending a man they thought was covid-negative, and those same carers would be going out to possibly 10 different clients on a daily basis. The declared hospital-acquired infection figures that we are hearing do not count infections that have been created by such new spider’s webs because of a failure in a hospital. If there is a takeaway from tonight, Minister, it is that I beg you to get infection control under control in our hospitals.

I think I will leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker, but these are serious times. We are not going to be out of this immediately or any time soon. Rolling out 66 million vaccines, times two, will take time. We need to live with the virus in a sensible way, and going in and out of lockdown, with the damage to health, the economy and mental health, must form part of the balance sheet of how a nation deals with this infection.

I give the Government great credit for their achievements. They are world class. Very few nations in the world can say that they did it as well and as rapidly as we have tried to do it. It is all very well being the specialist after the event, saying what might have been or what we could have done that might have been better, but the world is not like that. I give top marks to the Government, but there are some takeaways that could make it even better before we are fully out of the woods.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. There is not that much pressure on time, but we have to be slightly conscious that everyone will want an equal go.

Ockenden Review

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As questions 14 and 15 have been withdrawn, the final one is from Kerry McCarthy.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

In that case, I thank the Minister for what is clearly a very genuine response to the concerns expressed today. What has been said about the culture within the NHS, revealed in this review, has echoes of the Bristol heart babies scandal, and it is tragic that parents must still fight to have their voices heard now. One of the things mentioned by families contributing to the Ockenden review is the desperate need for longer-term support following experience of baby loss. I know from my constituents that the NHS has struggled to provide that during the current pandemic. What more can we do to ensure not just that parents are listened to at the time of losing their baby, but that they are supported from then onwards, too?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, sincerely, and for her important question. Baby loss is something that we discuss in this House—rightly so—and we are discussing what happened at Shrewsbury and Telford, because many parents there lost their babies. The report makes a recommendation that the care and support that parents are given following a bereavement are strengthened, and that measures are put in place to ensure that the right package is there. Many charities work in this area across the UK—I will just mention Baby Lifeline, Sands and others—and have themselves put in place both practical and emotional measures to help parents at such a time. It is the worst time, in anyone’s life, to lose a child. We say that so many times in here, and it is our responsibility, both in the Department and in society as a whole, to hold those parents and to help them through those awful times. I thank the hon. Lady for her question—this is something we take very seriously in the DHSC.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for her statement and her full responses to all the issues that were raised by right hon. and hon. Members. We will now have a three-minute suspension for the safe entry and exit of right hon. and hon. Members.

Coronavirus Vaccine

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Oh yes—mass testing is rolling out as we speak. My team have been working with Kirklees Council to make sure that the council’s enthusiasm for mass testing is matched by the resources that come its way in terms of the tests themselves, the financial support—£14 per test, as the hon. Lady says—and the logistical support from the armed forces. Kirklees’s plans are very advanced, I pay tribute to its local leadership and look forward to working with them to make it happen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I want to get everybody in but we are getting a little behind schedule, so I ask for succinct questions.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State and our Government on their brilliant work to make sure that we were the first country in the world to have a vaccine approved.

It would be worth the Secretary of State’s repeating the criteria and pecking order for the 800,000 doses. A colleague of mine, Councillor Bentley, always says that people need to hear something at least eight times before they embed it, so will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to repeat it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is right. The candle of hope is burning brighter today. On the mass testing she is so enthusiastic about, I can tell her that this morning when I asked my officials to ensure that the community testing programme that is being developed for Hyndburn is advanced as quickly as possible, they told me that they had been told of the need for it by so many people and that so many people had been lobbied by her, that it was already in hand. I suppose that that goes to show just how vociferous my hon. Friend is in fighting for the people of Hyndburn.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We will have a three-minute suspension.

Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).

Covid-19

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

The people of Darlington have followed the rules, but this invisible virus has continued to infect them. Sadly, the infection rate remains high, with 337 cases per 100,000 last week. The local hospital trust, which includes Darlington Memorial Hospital, has more covid-positive patients than at the peak earlier in the year, so we welcome the additional 10,000 tests that have been made available to us.

As we entered the national lockdown, negotiations were under way to move the borough of Darlington, along with the other four Tees valley local authorities, into tier 3. It is my sincere hope that the efforts and impact of the lockdown will be such that, as we emerge from the current restrictions, we can remain in tier 2. My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General is aware that I and other colleagues from the Tees valley were opposed to an early move from tier 1 to tier 2, not because we wanted the virus to continue to spread but because we were concerned about the impact on the mental health of our constituents and the economic wellbeing of our communities. Part of that concern was alleviated by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s additional support for those businesses able to remain open in tier 2 but adversely impacted. I welcome Darlington Borough Council’s efforts to distribute the grants as quickly as possible.

Darlington hospitality is legendary. We are proud to fly a purple flag, celebrating our town centre night-time economy. While hospitality businesses across Darlington are presently closed, I am confident that the support that has been forthcoming to Darlington will help us bounce back. We have had 9,000 jobs protected through furlough; 2,000 self-employed people supported, over £50 million of bounce back loans, millions in grants, rate exemptions and reductions. There is also the continued delivery of our levelling up agenda, with tangible investments, including £100 million in our expanded mainline train station and over £23 million through the towns fund, setting our plans on track for the development of the rail heritage quarter. Those investments will truly level up and help us bounce back.

I and many colleagues were elected not only to get Brexit done but to breathe new life into towns that stagnated under Labour control for decades. I am proud that, despite the wholly unprecedented challenge that this year has brought, we are continuing to deliver on those manifesto commitments. Recent figures reveal that in September the economy of the north-east bounced back at a faster rate than any other region of the country: a really positive sign.

We have the energy, drive and ambition of our Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, who has been at the forefront of much support through these times. With a saved airport, investment in hydrogen buses, trains and cars, carbon capture and storage and massive investment in offshore wind, new jobs in emerging technologies are putting the Tees valley at the heart of the green revolution. They make me confident that, certainly in the Tees valley and specifically in Darlington, levelling up is having a tangible and visible impact on the community I serve.

We all want to see the back of this virus. It has destroyed lives, changed everyone’s way of life and wreaked financial havoc on many businesses. I have been a champion for all the Government have done to support businesses, but on behalf of the people of Darlington, caught between the desire for liberty and their commitment to protecting the most vulnerable, I urge Ministers to continue their support for our local businesses and charities, and in particular—I declare my interest—to provide more support for our hospices not only in Darlington but across the country.

Finally, I pay tribute to the team at Darlington Memorial Hospital. They have adapted at pace, doubling their capacity in A&E and in ICU and working around the clock. They are doing all they can in the fight against this disease and delivering their other services too.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I can see that we still have a fair number of speakers, so after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to five minutes. It may have to go down a little bit more after that.

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[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), although I do not agree with her obsession with trying to restrict free speech and information for the general public. Surely it should be for the general public to discuss and determine these things themselves.

The Minister referred to evidence, data and scientific advice as being the watchwords of the Government. Those words ring rather hollow with my constituents, because they regard that as spin rather than substance. Earlier today, I suggested to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions that the million-plus people who had tested positive for covid-19 and had recovered should be exempt from the regulations because their T cells would give them immunity for at least six months. That is the evidence provided by and published in The BMJ, and yet the Prime Minister seemed to cast doubt on it, despite the fact that that evidence was produced in collaboration with Public Health England and has won plaudits from the Medical Research Council.

One of the advantages of providing such an exemption is that it would deal with the people who are suffering from long covid, to whom the Minister also referred. In Sweden, they apply such an exemption. I know that any references to Sweden are anathema to the Government. Last time I mentioned Sweden, the Minister tried to pour cold water on my statistics. She was wrong, and I questioned her and have not had an answer. Again, I make no apology for referring to the comparable statistics.

In the past week, ending 17 November, there have been 85 deaths from covid-19 in Sweden. In the similar period in the United Kingdom, there have been 2,975 deaths. Taking into account the population difference, there are six times as many deaths per capita in this country as in Sweden, and that takes no account of all the collateral damage that we are causing to our people who cannot get access to healthcare, including 5,000 excess deaths from heart disease alone.

The Minister was saying that we talk about evidence. In answer to parliamentary question 111413, asking about the public health justification for refusing to allow the giving and receiving of the sacrament in places of worship, this is the answer I received:

“Public Health England had not been requested to research and publish detailed specific data on the numbers of COVID-19 cases related to place of worship and allied settings on outbreak investigation. This is now being performed.”

That answer came in 10 days after it should have done, but why was that work not done before? Why are we refusing to allow people to receive the sacrament in places of worship without any evidence in justification? Similarly, I asked about the difference between two people playing golf on a public golf course and two people walking a dog on a public footpath. There was no satisfactory response from the Government.

On another issue, while the Government say that people are at great risk if they go to play golf together, the greatest risk, it seems, is to have the misfortune to go to hospital and then contract covid-19. In answer to a question yesterday, I have been told by the Minister that in October alone there were 3,934 cases of people who went to hospital without covid but got covid while they were there, as a result of hospital transmission of infection. In October, in Poole hospital, which serves many of my constituents, 120 people were in hospital, and some 73 of them contracted covid as a result of infection within the hospital.

The question I ask of the Minister, therefore, is: when we get the vaccination, will someone getting a vaccination automatically be exempt from the lockdown rules? If not, why not? Also, when we get into discussing criteria for moving out of the lockdown, what will we do about false positive tests? If there are 500,000 tests a day and 5% are false positives, we will have 25,000 false positives. That is number enough to justify a continuation of lockdown—based on false tests. Surely that cannot be sensible policy for the Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. It will be obvious from the Order Paper that I have to reduce the time limit. I will do so to four minutes, but after the next speaker.

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[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney).

I pay tribute to all the amazing key workers who have worked tirelessly this year in the care system, the NHS and local government, which I think is quite often forgotten, as well as the police and our teachers. However, I also pay tribute to the local people of my constituency of the Cities of London and Westminster. Many people think that central London is an unfriendly place, but I can tell them that it is a place that is full of community spirit. I have seen that at first hand in the City, on the Golden Lane estate, in the Barbican and on Mansell Street. I have seen it at the Square Mile food bank, which has done brilliant work. It is manned by volunteers, and I pay tribute to them. I have seen it in Westminster, among the residents of Pimlico, Marylebone, Covent Garden, Belgravia and Paddington, who are really working together to help the more vulnerable in our society. I saw it when Westminster City Council launched its Westminster Connects volunteer scheme, which I took part in myself, helping to prepare food for the rough sleepers we have brought in. Some 90% of rough sleepers were brought in under the Government’s Everyone In scheme, which was outstanding. So I pay tribute to everyone today.

I pay tribute to the Government. Let us not forget how far we have come in 10 months. Yes, there have been difficulties, but we now have amazing laboratories doing the testing, we have the PPE, and we have the NHS working so well. I pay tribute to the Government for doing that, and I look forward to the vaccine coming on board and to us being able, hopefully, to get back to some normality at some point next year. It is also important to pay tribute to the businesses. Central London is usually first out of the traps when it comes to facing up to an economic depression or recession. Sadly, this time, I think we will be one of the last to get back to normal. We used to see 1 million people come into my constituency to work every day, but they have disappeared and the retail and hospitality sectors have paid the price, as have other service industries such as beauty therapists, cobblers and dry cleaners. Those small businesses rely on workers and visitors coming in every day of the week, but they have disappeared. I also pay tribute to the brilliant financial schemes that the Government have brought in. I held a roundtable for representatives of the theatre industry in my constituency last week, and every single one of them paid tribute to the furlough system.

However, there are still things we could do. I would like to see an extension to the business rate holiday. I would also like to see an extension to the VAT cut, maybe to other industries such as the beauty industry and hairdressers, who have been hit particularly during the second lockdown. As we move towards the lifting of restrictions, hopefully in a couple of weeks’ time, we need to plan ahead. Businesses need to know what tier they will go into. We also need to look at the 10 pm curfew, which to me is counterintuitive. I would rather see the ability to stagger the times at which people leave restaurants and bars, because I think that would be safer. I would also like to thank the business organisations that I have been working with, such as UKHospitality, who have made their arguments. I have enjoyed working with those people, because they care about their sectors and about recovering the economy when it is safe to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

In order to try to accommodate everybody, I will reduce the time limit to three minutes after the next speaker.

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[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

Amid a deadly second wave and record-breaking numbers of covid-19 infections, it is important to act for change. The virus is continuing to rise. The measures put in place are not working. Time is running out. My constituency of Leicester East knows this only too well as our city has been under enhanced restrictions and/or lockdown longer than any other area in the UK, yet our numbers are continuing to rise.

People in Leicester East and across the country cannot afford to live below the minimum wage. Even before this crisis, more than half of the 40 million people in poverty in the UK were part of the working poor—suffering in-work poverty. Child poverty is off the scale due to a decade of austerity, extortionate rents and declining living standards. The Conservatives have overseen an unacceptable breakdown in our social contract in which a job no longer provides a route out of destitution. Yet now, during an unprecedented crisis, the Government are handing out poverty payslips and driving our residents into hardship. Will the Government today commit to ensure that no one receives less than a living wage throughout the remainder of this crisis? We are only as safe as the most vulnerable in our society, so, yes, local and regional authorities need funding to use their discretion to fully support undocumented workers and those on no recourse to public funds. Will this Government relax the barriers and grant status now to all undocumented workers, so that they can access much-needed social security benefit and not be destitute or desperate?

What makes this lack of support even more disgraceful is the billions that the Government have been willing to pay to private companies to oversee the disastrous test, track and trace system. The recent National Audit Office investigation into Government procurement has highlighted cronyism at the heart of Government. That has had a devastating impact on the spread of the virus in Leicester. In one week this month, the success rate of Leicester’s privatised contact system was just 55.5% and this has decreased by more than 5% on the previous month. That means that, in one week alone, nearly 700 Leicester residents who may have been exposed to the virus were not informed and therefore did not self-isolate. This is a Government who are frivolous when it comes to handing out public money to Tory donors or private companies, but penny-pinching when it comes to bailing out communities and the 3 million excluded, including the self-employed across the country.

As the representative of one of the most diverse areas of the UK, I am also especially concerned about the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on African, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Recently published research by the universities of Leicester and Nottingham found that black people were twice as likely, and Asian people 1.5 times more likely, to be infected with covid-19 compared with white—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claudia Webbe]

Does the hon. Member not agree that the intensive care beds are filled today with covid-19 patients from African, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds—back at levels seen during the first peak, despite earlier pledges from the Government to learn lessons and protect the vulnerable? What we need is change now.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I really do urge people not to make interventions, because it is going to prevent other people from speaking.

[Paul Bristow]

I thank the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) for her comments, but if she listens further to my speech, she might fully appreciate the points that I am trying to make.

The conclusion that the NHS is somehow structurally racist can come only from the new logic of our age. The standard form of this new logic is this: if 10% of people are characteristic x, then 10% of workers should be x, 10% of every company should be x, 10% of every role should be x and 10% of all chief execs should be x, and where that is not true, it is offered as evidence of discrimination—differences are inequalities, and the logic assumes that what is unequal must be wrong. We have seen this logic applied to sex, gender, education or geographical background, disabilities and race, and now it is being applied to a virus: if 10% of NHS staff get covid, 10% of NHS staff with characteristic x should get covid, and because that does not hold for BAME staff, it is viewed as evidence of racism. I am staggered by how many intelligent people seem to have bought into this argument.

Characteristics cannot be taken in isolation; we have to control for variables. Moreover, no free society will ever see equal distributions for anything, even if individuals started from the same place. And, Madam Deputy Speaker, we do not—we do not in character; we do not socially; we do not genetically; we do not economically; we do not in terms of upbringing, geographical opportunity or education; we do not in health and diet; we do not in career paths; and we do not in our preferences. These may be inequalities, but they are not evidence of discrimination. That does not change when characteristics are used to define groups. As any scientist should know, correlation is not causation. As scientists also know, getting particular diseases and viruses is not uniform, particularly across ethnic groups. No organisation could escape from this mad progressive logic: if it was not damned for one thing, it would be damned for another, no matter how woke its values—just look at The Guardian.

I want to be very clear: obviously there are incidents of racism within our NHS. There is still racism within our society. The NHS is far more diverse than most organisations, but it employs human beings, and it gets its fair share of bad ones. This needs to be detected and it needs firm action. Likewise, the NHS can be unwieldly and inefficient, so problems are not always dealt with as they should be. But this pandemic has shown our NHS at its best and its staff at their best. We ought to be proud of them. If—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has had longer than three minutes.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I echo the sentiments of many Members in thanking our NHS workers for the work they have done throughout this crisis and will be expected to do through the winter ahead. I want to focus on an issue that affects them very keenly: the national scrubs crisis, which leaves NHS workers without the equipment they need to do their job in fighting covid on the frontline.

In answer to a written question I asked, the Government assured me in August that

“NHS Supply Chain, the main provider of consumables and equipment into the National Health Service, report that its suppliers have sufficient supplies of scrubs for NHS customers to order.”

That is not the case on the ground, as I am told by so many NHS staff and by those who are sewing scrubs on a voluntary basis across the country. The Government are lying, in denial or blissfully unaware of the reality on the ground. I would like the Minister to take the time following the debate to look into the scrubs crisis, to meet the leader of the Putney scrub hub, who is a very inspiring woman, and to find out what is going on at NHS Supply Chain in order to sort this out.

It is essential that our NHS workers have enough scrubs and the right scrubs in the right size. Scrubs must be lightweight enough to be worn under other PPE, and they must not take three months to order from abroad, as they currently do, if an order can even be got in. There has been a massive increase in the need for scrubs in hospitals, clinics, care homes, prisons and now vaccination clinics. The demand for scrubs will increase at a time when we cannot even provide enough scrubs to our NHS workers. Staff are being told to go home. There is one hospital that has 500 staff and 300 scrubs, so 200 staff are being sent home because they do not have the equipment they need. Newly qualified medical staff are being told to find their own scrubs, and they cannot get hold of them.

The Putney scrub hub in my constituency, which has a highly-skilled leader, is making 15,000 scrub sets, all from a squash court in Roehampton. Those volunteers are still making those scrubs, and they want to go home. That is why I implore the Minister to look into this. The most recent orders they have had are from a psychiatric unit in West Middlesex University Hospital, from King’s College Hospital, Central Middlesex Hospital, the West London Kidney Patients’ Association—I could go on, but this demonstrates that a lot of NHS providers do not have enough scrubs.

There seems to be no central co-ordination of scrubs procurement and no national plan to deal with obvious supply issues. In July, I said that the Government needed to put this at the top of their to-do list to sort out in the summer. It has still not been sorted out, but there is time. Can the Minister address this and enable Putney scrub hub volunteers to put down their scissors and get back to their normal lives?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We will start the winding-up speeches at 6.44 pm. There are three speakers left, so if colleagues take two minutes instead of three, we can get everybody in. I call Tom Hunt.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will happily respond. I am sorry that I did not have a lot of time at the Dispatch Box. However, during the course of the debate I arranged for the covid-19 taskforce—who, through the Cabinet Office and my office, will co-ordinate this—to have a meeting with the hon. Lady and any other people, whether colleagues in this place or the local resilience forum. The notes that she has given us today on further logistical support are incredibly important, and we will act on them. I will see her after this debate to confirm all that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Thank you. I should just say that both Front Benchers agreed to keep their contributions shorter than they ordinarily would have done in order to accommodate as many Back Benchers as possible.

Smokefree England: Covid-19 and PHE Abolition

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) on securing this debate and on her introductory speech? I am going to start in time-honoured speaking fashion by telling you, Minister, what I am going to ask you, and then elucidating on that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Liz Twist]

Sorry. I will start by telling you, Madam Deputy Speaker, what I am going to be asking the Minister and then perhaps expanding on that. First of all, Minister, I will be asking you about the tobacco control plan, which my hon. Friend has already referred to. If we are going to achieve the smokefree by 2030 ambition, that needs to happen quickly, and I will be asking you what you can do—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady really must refer to the Minister, because when she says “you”, she is talking to me.

[Liz Twist]

Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am getting carried away.

I will be asking the Minister what he will be doing to ensure that vital maternity safety programmes, such as the saving babies’ lives care bundle, can get back on track. I will be asking him what he will do to develop a national strategy for reducing rates of smoking in pregnancy among women from disadvantaged communities, learning the lessons from the areas where the greatest declines have been seen in smoking in pregnancy. I will be asking him how he will ensure that mental health trusts are required to implement National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance and that the Care Quality Commission is directed to assess that when it carries out its inspections. Finally, I will be asking him what steps he will take to ensure that smokers with mental health conditions receive evidence-based advice about switching from smoking to vaping.

I want to elaborate a little further on those issues. As a result of comprehensive action at national, regional and local levels, significant progress has been made over the years on bringing down smoking rates in England. The 2019 prevention Green Paper’s commitment to make England smokefree by 2030 was an appropriately ambitious and welcome commitment to continuing this important mission. However, a year on from the end of the Green Paper consultation, we have yet to see the Government’s response or their promised and much-needed further proposals, which would enable us to meet the 2030 ambition.

Despite our national progress, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable illness and death in England. Each year, smoking kills more people than obesity, alcohol, drug misuse, HIV and traffic accidents combined. Smoking is a particular challenge in my constituency of Blaydon, where 17.4% of adults smoke, compared with 15.3% across the north-east and 13.9% nationally. Smoking costs Blaydon £1.8 million every year, largely as a result of NHS treatment costs, lost productivity due to ill health and premature death caused by smoking. For communities such as Blaydon, achieving the smokefree 2030 ambition will be tough, but it remains essential for the health and wellbeing of our community. However, analysis by Cancer Research UK finds that on current trends, disadvantaged communities such as my own will not become smokefree until the mid-2040s. This rate of progress is not acceptable and not affordable for our most deprived communities.

The last tobacco control plan was two years late, as we have heard. It should have been published in 2015, and it was delivered in the summer of 2017 only because of the commitment of the then Health Minister, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who I am pleased to say has just joined us. The tobacco control plan that he introduced included the ambition for a smokefree generation, and now that the Government have committed to deliver this by 2030, the pressure is on. Our current tobacco control plan is set to run out in 2022, leaving an eight-year gap in which, according to Cancer Research UK, the rate of smoking prevalence decline must be 40% faster than our current trajectory if our nation is to meet the 2030 tobacco control plan commensurate with the scale of the ambition to be smokefree by 2030.

I shall turn now to the NHS long-term plan. The successful delivery of the plan is essential to the achievement of the smokefree 2030 ambition. The plan published in January last year sets out welcome commitments to tackle smoking in the NHS. By 2023-24, NHS-funded tobacco dependence treatment will be offered to all hospital in-patients who smoke; all pregnant smokers and their partners, too, if they smoke; and all long-term users of specialist mental health and learning disability services who smoke.

The evidence is clear of the benefits this will bring, both to smokers and to the NHS. Smokers are 36% more likely to be admitted to hospital and smoking is responsible for almost 500,000 admissions each year in England. One hospital patient in four is estimated to smoke. The increased demand that smoking places on NHS treatment capacity translates into an enormous financial burden. Each year, smoking costs the NHS around £2.6 billion, including avoidable secondary care costs estimated at £890 million a year. The cost in the north-east to the NHS is around £132.3 million a year, with smoking in Blaydon alone responsible for around £300,000 of that. Across the north-east, it is estimated that implementing the long-term plan commitments at just 40% coverage, as is aimed for by the end of 2021-22, would deliver net savings of nearly £12 million to the NHS in the north-east.

In the north-east, progress towards implementation of the long-term plan’s commitments on smoking is well under way. Treating tobacco dependency is one of two key priorities for the north-east and north Cumbria integrated care system population health and prevention work stream. To focus efforts across the region, a dedicated north-east Smokefree NHS/Treating Tobacco Dependency Task Force was established in 2017. The taskforce has provided strategic direction, developing regional resources and facilitating partnership working with all stakeholders, including NHS trusts, local authority tobacco commissioners, Public Health England and primary care.

As of April 2020, all NHS trusts in the north-east had achieved smokefree NHS status by implementing updated smokefree NHS policies and pathways to identify and treat smokers from admission, in line with national guidance. Across the north-east, trusts have established good links between hospitals and community stop-smoking services funded by local authorities to ensure treatment started in hospital is continued after patients leave hospital. Trusts are training staff to build capacity. They have also signed the NHS smokefree pledge as a clear and visible way to show commitment to helping smokers to quit and to providing smokefree environments.

Elsewhere, progress has not been so heartening, and it is clear that the funding and focus promised by the long-term plan are much needed. An audit of smoking cessation advice and services in NHS acute hospitals, published earlier this year by the British Thoracic Society, concluded that there is poor adherence to national standards and slow progress in identifying and treating smokers. In fact, in many cases the situation is worse than at the time of the last audit in 2016. One smoker in two is not asked whether they would like help to quit. Only one hospital in three has a hospital-funded smoking cessation practitioner, compared to one in two in 2016. Referral to hospital smoking cessation services is available in only four out of 10 hospitals. In 2016, the figure was more than half.

Progress on the long-term plan’s commitments has also not been immune from the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Early implementation sites chosen to stress test the new tobacco dependency treatment pathways set out in the long-term plan were due to start in April, but this had to be delayed until last month. With winter approaching, and the risk of co-circulation of covid-19 and seasonal flu looming, there is a real risk that work to deliver the long-term plan’s commitments on smoking could be derailed. If we are to achieve the smokefree 2030 ambition, addressing smoking where contact with smokers is greatest is an opportunity that must not be missed

Let me turn to smoking in pregnancy. The Minister is as concerned as I am about this issue, on which there is too little progress. This needs to be a major focus of the next tobacco control plan. Ensuring that more pregnancies are smokefree not only protects the baby as it grows and reduces the risks of complications such as stillbirth and miscarriage; it also gives children the best start in life. NHS England has included addressing smoking as a key part of the initiative to reduce stillbirth and neonatal deaths through its saving babies’ lives care bundle, which is designed to encourage trusts to implement evidence-based measures to improve the safety of pregnancies. However, as with other aspects of NHS activity, this work has been undermined by the impact of covid-19, with a key aspect—carbon monoxide breath tests for all women—currently suspended. I understand that there are also reports from local authorities’ stop-smoking services that fewer pregnant women are being referred for them for support by maternity services. What will the Minister do to ensure that those vital maternity services get back on track as a matter of urgency?

Despite work in the NHS, progress has not been made anywhere near swiftly enough. There are big variations in the performance of different parts of the country. In a soon-to-be published analysis, Action on Smoking and Health finds that rates of smoking in pregnancy have increased in the past five years in a third of clinical commissioning groups, while declines have been seen in less than half, or 44%. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Government seem so unlikely to achieve their ambition of reducing rates to 6% by 2022. In the north-east, we continue to have some of the highest rates of smoking in pregnancy in the country. These are driven by high levels of disadvantage in the region, but, unlike in some regions where rates have even increased, rates in the north-east have fallen in the past five years, from 17% in 2016 to 15% in 2020. Progress has been driven by the regional tobacco programme in the north-east and by the work of NHS England, Public Health England and local government.

The Minister might be interested to hear that a recent analysis by The Times found that areas of the country that were likely to have seen big drops in rates of smoking in pregnancy were also more likely to have implemented financial incentive schemes to support pregnant women to quit. Evidence on the effectiveness of these schemes has been accumulating for many years; they have been shown to increase quit rates when implemented alongside evidence-based quit support. Such incentive schemes are in place in Greater Manchester and South Tyneside. Madam Deputy Speaker, I can see you looking at the clock, so I shall press on.

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Covid-19

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As I am sure colleagues can see, a large number of people wish to participate in this debate. We did not manage to get everybody in the last general debate, so I am imposing a time limit for Back Benchers that will start at five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

If I may just respond to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), I do not feel that this House is ignoring Scotland; I feel that this House has voted for very large sums of extra money to be devoted to Scotland. But perhaps my Government need to be more mindful of the fact that these things can be so easily misconstrued in the heat of Scottish politics, and it is the responsibility of the Government to make sure that they are not so misconstrued.

This crisis was incredibly unexpected, even though it took months to arrive, and almost every western Government was extraordinarily ill-prepared for it. There have been unprecedented challenges, inevitable mistakes, much experimentation, much learning and much wasted, but much achieved. However, the politics of this country inevitably tends to revert to type, and we have seen a bit more of that in the House of Commons today with what we do best in here, which is to disagree with each other for the sake of disagreement. Somehow we have to try to rise above that in this crisis.

The opposition to these measures on the Government Benches reflects declining public confidence in the Government’s covid response, and it is public confidence that the Government should, above all else, strive to address. So what needs to be done to strengthen public confidence? We heard quite a lot about that in the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). A lot of it is about having a plan, explaining a plan, and giving people hope that there is a plan. The measures announced on Saturday are another reaction that has set the course for the next four weeks, but beyond that, the Government have not published any plan. I have been asking for some time for a plan called “Living with coronavirus”. There may be a single vaccine that gets us out in one go, but that is most unlikely to happen, so we will go on needing to manage the spread of the virus for many months and possibly even years. How are the Government going to do that? The Royal Society certainly does not expect an instant vaccine.

There are basically three choices facing this House. The first is to control the virus with more of these economically ruinous lockdowns. We all agree that that is not going to be acceptable, and we have heard frustration being expressed by some of my colleagues. The second is to expand the NHS to gargantuan proportions so that we can deal with as many people who get infected. We cannot afford to do that and we do not have the capacity to do it. The only solution is to try to manage the virus, perhaps with vaccines but certainly with Test and Trace. We have had six months to get Test and Trace to where it is. Let us celebrate the 500,000 tests a day and the huge organisation that has been established, but we should ask ourselves what needs to be done in order for us to have as effective testing and tracing as people have in Japan and in Korea. They had years practising in the aftermath of SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome. We have had to achieve this very much more quickly, but that does not mean that we cannot adapt those experiences of very different societies to our own immediate future to make sure that we do a much better job.

We need to carry on improving the data. The fact that Test and Trace is divided among four different directorates in four different locations, and that the data directorate has had three directors general in the past five or six months, does not suggest that there is much continuity or co-ordination across Test and Trace.

We need to deliver a campaign to change behaviour on the street. This cannot be done from a spreadsheet in Whitehall. It cannot be done from remote call centres with unfamiliar telephone numbers. It can only be done with person-to-person human contact. Go and ask the Japanese how they are doing it. It is very analogue. It is very old-fashioned. There is an app— every country has an app—but an app is a tiny proportion of what people can achieve. People are not going to use an app if they think it just results in them being rung up by some stranger and told what to do. That is not working.

Above all, NHS Test and Trace needs a single command structure and a single plan. However localised the delivery is, and I am very much in favour of using local authorities—the local authority pilots that have been carried out already have proved very much more successful in contacting a much higher proportion of people—every local authority should be so funded. However, we need a central headquarters, preferably run by a military capability that can bring this together and win this together.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. In order to get everybody in, after the next speaker I will need to reduce the time limit to four minutes, which is what was in place in the debate before the recess. Perhaps colleagues might like to tell the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) when he returns that it will be four minutes for his speech.

Covid-19

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Colleagues will see that there are many who wish to contribute to this debate. Therefore, I will impose an immediate five-minute time limit on Back-Bench contributions. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

I see that the Health Secretary agrees with me somewhat. Everybody on these islands is tired at the moment, but those making the tough decisions do not have the option to give in to the tiredness. I might not always agree with everything they are doing—I do not generally agree with most of what they do—but I understand that everybody is an expert these days.

Some of what the Government did in response to the pandemic was good. Furloughing was not just good; it was fantastic. I am not going to qualify that. These islands were not alone in having the idea, but it was a great idea. When I sat and watched the Chancellor’s initial response, I thought he was fast, flexible and responsive. I felt at that point that ideology had gone, that politics had been taken out of the situation and that the Government were simply doing what they could to support people as best they could. In fact, I remember thinking that when the Chancellor appeared on “Spitting Image” he would be wrapped in the red flag, so socialist were some of the furloughing policies.

We also heard about people slipping through the net. As everybody keeps saying, we are in unprecedented times. We had those Paymaster General calls every day, and much of what we reported was acted on initially. It was a terrible time, but it was a good time for politicians to work together in the interests of the four countries of these islands.

Not everything was acted on, however, and not everyone was supported. Some of those gaps were never filled. I want to mention two things in particular. First, my constituency has many wholesalers who chose not to furlough their staff because they wanted to play their part in responding to the pandemic. They wanted to ensure the flow of food and drink, particularly to hospitals. I know something was said in the statement earlier today, which I have not yet seen, but they have felt for a long time that they did not receive a response.

I wrote to the Chancellor to ask about that and I just want to say something about the responses I have been getting. The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) made a point of order about this earlier. Some of the responses have no reference—when we put a reference, they do not include it when responding. One of the complaints made in the point of order was about a six-word response to a question. I got an eight-page response to something, but I have no idea what the question was because, as I said, it did not give a reference. In addition, it seemed to be eight pages of “Isn’t the Government great?” which is just not acceptable. I do not know why the replies are like this. I wonder if it is an attempt to stop us asking questions in the first place, because I am certainly giving up sometimes.

The people who have formed the campaign organisation ExcludedUK have not given up. I am part of the all-party parliamentary group on the ExcludedUK. They have been incredible, but they are in a really difficult position and I, too, would have been in their position had I not won my seat in December. I was self-employed but I had not been self-employed for long enough. I will not go into the details, but I know that if I were one of them right now, I would not be living in the home that I have lived in for 10 years. I do not know what would have happened to me, so I identify with them and want to keep supporting them.

It was really good that the Government added £1,000 a year to universal credit, although it had been cut to the extent that that simply brought it back up to 2011 levels. On the other hand, I did not expect a Conservative Government to do that, so I am glad that they did. However, they need to extend it and they need to add it to legacy benefits. I implore them to do that and to extend the furlough scheme. Whenever that is mentioned in this place, Government Members shout, “For how long can we do that? We can’t sustain it forever!” But it would not be forever, and even though we do not know exactly how long it would last, we can estimate and reasonably suppose that by next summer there will be some kind of normality, so why not extend it until then, if needs be? In the past few months, I have noticed some terrible situations with employers and I have many examples. I already gave some examples when I spoke in the debate on whistleblowers a while back, but I want to raise one situation today, because I am hoping that Government Members will do something about it. It is a very serious matter. The employer is the Government. Whoever took the decision that I am going to tell the House about should be ashamed of themselves.

There are three service centres in Glasgow for the DWP and the situation concerns people working in those service centres who do not have to do face-to-face. I am telling the House what is happening in Glasgow, but I am sure this will not just be the case in Glasgow; I imagine that it is widespread across these islands. Workers were on a work-from-home pilot scheme. Some teams were allowed to work four days a week at home and one day in the office. Others worked three weeks at home and one week in the office.

On 23 September, the Prime Minister and the First Minister both gave the instruction that anybody who could work from home should work from home. Naturally, those workers expected that they would be allowed to work from home full time, but they were refused permission to do that. Some of the workers, who are all kitted out at home, are having to bring their equipment into the office on that one day of the week or that one week of the month, despite what the Government were saying people should do. They were constantly being told that it was fine, it was safe and that there was no danger to them. Well, that was not what the Government were saying.

On the week ending 9 October, it was announced that two members of staff in that building had tested positive. On 12 October, another three members of staff were reported to have tested positive. On 15 October, a further two members of staff tested positive—seven cases in less than a week. On 19 October, Monday of this week, there was another case and on 20 October, Tuesday, there were another two. So that is 10.

I am sure that Members can understand the fears that those workers were experiencing, but I will tell them who did not understand—or maybe they did and just did not care. Last Friday, a senior manager at the DWP held a Skype meeting with the teams to reassure them that the office was safe and to remind them that the pilot could not be changed and there could be no flexibility, despite what the Prime Minister and the First Minister were telling employers to do. I understand that the tone was more threatening than reassuring. The senior manager warned that if workers continued to raise concerns the pilot might be cancelled and they would all be forced to work in the office full time. She “hoped” that that would not have to happen. That is workplace bullying and I hope the Secretary of State will raise it with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I certainly will be raising it.

Yesterday, just to bring everyone up to date, staff were told that the pilot had been suspended. That is good in the short term, because all those who can work from home are now doing so full time, but there is no information and no answer to their questions about how this situation will progress. Given threats that speaking out might mean that the pilot is cancelled and everyone will be forced to work in the office, one can be forgiven for thinking that that is what is going to happen. So I just want to ask a few questions. Why, if they could work from home and are equipped to work from home, were they forced to work in the office? Of the 10 testing positive so far, how many were part of the work-from-home pilot? How can a Government agency be given permission to ignore the restrictions that everyone else is rightly following? Will management punish the “unruly dissenters” who complained about it by forcing them all to work in the office, as was suggested by the senior manager? Do the Government understand the message that the workers are getting, which is, “You don’t matter, you have no power”?

Well, not only do they have no power, but their MP seems to have no influence. My attempts to represent my constituents started on 4 October, when I had a meeting with DWP senior managers. I had just been made aware of the situation—the meeting was about something else—so I said I urgently needed to know who to contact to raise the issue on behalf of the employees. They got back to me yesterday, 21 October, after being prompted three times. I waited 17 days and their response was, “You might need to give us some more information.” If I cannot represent those employees as an MP and make any difference to their lives, and they cannot as workers, who else can?

Madam Deputy Speaker, you are looking at me like you want me to stop—[Interruption.] No? Oh, that’s excellent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sure the hon. Lady is aware that there are a great number of speakers, but I am quite happy for her to finish her remarks.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I have had less than half the time that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) had, but I thought his speech was great anyway.

I want to talk about some other people who have been prevented from working from home—namely, MPs. We can participate virtually in question sessions, and when it comes to voting we can nominate a proxy, but we cannot participate virtually in debates such as these. I heard the Leader of the House confirm this morning that the virtual Parliament would be extended to Easter, so we will be able to speak in question sessions and nominate a proxy vote, but we will not be able to take part in the debates that are the lifeblood of our democracy.

I was interested in the so-called reasoning behind that decision in response, this morning, to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who again questioned why MPs who cannot be here in person cannot participate in debates virtually. His microphone was muted and there was a 10-second gap while that was resolved. The Leader of the House then used that as a justification for not allowing virtual debates, but he had just said that it was fine to participate virtually in question sessions. The question session that they were taking part in had a glitch of 10 seconds, but the question got asked and it got answered, and the roof did not cave in and nobody came to any harm. No catastrophe would fall upon us if there were such a glitch in a debate like this, so why does this place, which many like to think of as the mother of all Parliaments and a great bastion of democracy, silence the voices of MPs who, through no fault of their own, cannot be here in person? Worse, why does it silence the voices of their constituents?

Madam Deputy Speaker, I will stop there, even though I have a good eight minutes more, because I know lots of people want to get in.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for being so understanding. I am going to reduce the time limit to four minutes, but Members will need to brace themselves for the fact that not everyone will get in. However, there is a whole day’s debate on covid-19 on Monday 2 November, the day we come back from recess.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The tier 3 restrictions are put in place when the local NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed. We will not keep people in restrictions for one moment longer than we need to. Nobody wants to have the restrictions in place. They are there for a reason and that reason is clearly set out, which, as my hon. Friend said, is to save lives with the minimum negative impact while protecting the economy and education, and supporting the NHS as much as possible. That is the strategy and I think it has very widespread support both in this House and among the public. The measures we put in place to deliver that have been put in place with the deepest reluctance. The single best thing that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend or anybody in this country can do is abide by the rules and be cautious about social interaction—hands, face, space. That way, we can all help to restrict the spread of the virus and get it under control while we support our scientists to come forward with the innovations that will eventually get us out of all this.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. There will be a suspension of some minutes to allow safe exit and entry.