Coronavirus Vaccine

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I will. There is a significant problem with the epidemic in Medway and north Kent, which I know my hon. Friend is concerned about. I pay tribute to those working on the frontline at Medway Maritime Hospital, which is one of the most pressured hospitals in the country at the moment, and also thank other parts of Kent and other trusts across Kent for providing mutual aid. We have to get this virus under control in Medway and across north Kent. The way to do that is for everybody to abide by the tier 3 restrictions and to do everything they can to ensure that they do not pass on the disease, and then we can get these cases coming down. At the same time, we are going to inject a huge number of tests into Medway. We are working closely with Medway Council on this, and we will be using the armed forces to help make it happen, because we have to get this virus under control in Medway.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

I add my thanks to the scientists and to the volunteers who put their own health at risk so that we could beat this pandemic. My constituency has been under enhanced restrictions for many months now. The community has worked with the councils and others, and we have finally had a 41% drop in infections in the past week, but we need to go further to get out of the restrictions. Part of that is mass testing. Can the Minister clarify my understanding that councils get £14 per head for mass testing but do not get those boots on the ground from the Army—they get logistical advice and support, not physical help? We cannot do mass testing on the cheap, so will the Minister confirm that he will give the resources to councils? Will mass testing roll out before February 2021?

[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.

Public Health

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

Two thirds of the north’s population are now living under some form of local restrictions. Batley and Spen was one of the first. The announcement on Twitter the night before restrictions came into effect caused confusion and distress. My constituents deserve better. The restrictions have certainly hit businesses including coach companies, wedding companies and beauty salons—to name but a few. They have all been hit hard, and although we are resilient in Yorkshire, as the weeks roll by it is obvious that these businesses will need the financial support that I have asked for many times in this House.

I am pleased that the Government have agreed to a £500 grant, but the communication has been another disaster. Is it open to those on low pay or just on benefits? Is it open to those who are self-isolating? What about those with no access to public funds? This is obviously a fast-moving situation, but the new restrictions —such as the 10 pm curfew—seem to be implemented so arbitrarily that they are potentially counterproductive. As elected representatives for our constituencies, we need swift and transparent answers. A generic reply is not good enough.

We know that there is a hard winter ahead, which is why we need a locally controlled test and trace system, with councils able to draw on money when needed. Our hospitals are under pressure. I thank Kirklees Primary Care Trust and the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which are stretched to the limits. We want to do the right thing by our communities, but we want to support common-sense restrictions. It must be a joint endeavour. Local council leaders and mayors must be part of making decisions that affect their communities. Our high streets are also struggling.

Without any clarity around the parameters for coming out of restrictions, and with no sense of an exit plan, we will all suffer: families who cannot see loved ones; those who are shielding, terrified to go back out into the world; and those who have lost their businesses or jobs, and are locked in a cycle of loneliness and poor mental health. For those people, who need hope or light at the end of the tunnel, we need a clear strategy to exit the restrictions, and start the job of recovery and renewal of our economy.

Covid-19 Update

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, we are looking at exactly that, and I am very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about it.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Health Secretary has announced restrictions in the north-east. He will know that, in my community, we have been under those restrictions for quite some time now. This has impacted on beauty businesses, soft play centres, wedding companies and, particularly, coach companies. With my constituents doing the right thing and trying to beat this virus, but with furlough ending and winter looking like we might have continued lockdowns, does he agree with me that we now need a financial package to support the businesses that are suffering so that they do wither on the vine, and so that my constituents can do the right thing in having to choose between leaving work in order to keep people safe and putting food on the table?

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, because in Kirklees it has been difficult in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, we are seeing continued cases in Kirklees. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced further support for businesses. She rightly argues for that in Batley and Spen, and I will see what I can do to further that.

Covid-19 Update

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is something we work on constantly. It is not always perfect, as this questions session attests, but it is something we are constantly working on to try to minimise the distance that people travel. The team have done a good job of getting that distance down to 6.4 miles, not least with the roll-out of dozens of new testing sites every week, but there is always more work to do.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

The reason why Kirklees has managed to buck the national trend and keep our infection rates relatively stable is the great work that the council has been doing with Government and other agencies. We have been working really hard in Batley to get our restrictions lifted. Coming into what could be a difficult autumn and winter, can the Secretary of State commit to keeping the extra resources—the mobile testing units—in our community, so that the R rate does not spike and we have to close down again?

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to Kirklees and colleagues who represent the seats within it, who have worked across party lines with national and local government. We have put more resources in, and they will continue for the time being when they are needed. We are, of course, driven by the data, so in a way, it would be good news if they were not needed, because that would mean that the number of cases had come down. The hon. Lady represents exactly the sort of approach that we should be taking. We are all on the same side against this virus. It is far better to be constructive and work together in a team effort. That is what the public want and expect. They do not want sniping from the sidelines, like we have seen from the Labour Front Bench.

Covid-19: BAME Communities

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) on successfully securing the debate, and I share the concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement about the stark inequalities and injustices that are faced by black people and other ethnic minorities. Covid-19 has been devastating in our communities, care homes and hospitals. So many hearts have been broken by loss, and today we have heard powerful statements from the heart.

This debate is rightly focused on the impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities—a point extremely pertinent to my constituency. In her maiden speech, my predecessor, Jo Cox, said of Batley and Spen:

“Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency, or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 674.]

I quote Jo Cox in the week of the fourth anniversary of her murder, and she is still desperately missed in this place and in Batley and Spen. That quote perfectly describes the diversity of my constituency. That community is already exposed to underlying health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma, and we now know that there is also a raised risk of death involving covid-19, when compared with people of white ethnicity.

As a proud GMB MP, I know that GMB supports many thousands of ancillary staff, from hospital porters to cleaners, ambulance workers and admin staff, and it has pressed for risk assessments. Sadly, those risk assessments came too late for many staff, and when they did come, they focused on access to PPE and social distancing challenges.

[Naz Shah]

I think my hon. Friend and I might have been on the EveryDoctor briefing together, which highlighted that although BAME staff make up 17% of the NHS workforce, only 11% of them are in senior management, and that figure then drops to 6.4%. A BMA survey stated that 64% of BAME staff felt pressured into working without PPE, compared with 33% of non- BAME staff.

[Tracy Brabin]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful comment, and I will get to that point later in my remarks. We must not allow pressure on people to do their job to affect health outcomes for them and their family, and I thank her for that brilliant intervention.

With all that in mind, plus the fact that Pakistani deaths are 2.9 times as high as deaths among white British people, it sadly seems as though my diverse constituency is at a greater risk of being disproportionately affected by covid-19. It is therefore with some optimism and relief that I note the most recent statistics, which show that the Kirklees local authority area remains one of the lowest affected by covid per size of population, with 179.6 cases per 100,000 people. On Tuesday this week, no new deaths were recorded at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust over the previous 24 hours. These low figures clearly reflect the sacrifices of the people of Kirklees and of Batley and Spen, who listened to Government advice and followed the guidance to protect our NHS. I would like to thank the leadership of Kirklees Council and of Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who have worked tirelessly to keep the public and stakeholders informed so that we can all work together to keep people safe.

One serious worry is that the results of the covid testing regime are being held centrally and not shared with the trust, which could make the most of the data in an increasingly fluid situation. That does seem extremely odd. Our NHS trust is the local expert and the institution that people look to to keep them safe, so if it could factor in testing—how many tests are done and in what geographical location—and build a response based on the breakdown and composition of positive results, we would all be better served.

The impact on my community goes further than falling ill. The economic impact also affects my BAME community more deeply than others as we are a large manufacturing region and manufacturing is particularly exposed in an economic downturn. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies data showed only this week, workers in shut-down sectors are more likely than average to be BAME women and part-time workers, with 15% from BAME backgrounds in comparison with the workforce average of 12%. Let us not forget that these are a group of workers already disadvantaged in the labour market, with the ONS showing pre-covid BAME unemployment at 6.3% in January to March 2020, compared with 3.9% of the whole population. Anxiety about money and job prospects will also have a profound impact on their mental health.

As we know, according to the report from Public Health England, racism can make people from BAME backgrounds less likely to ask for help or insist on PPE. Some 90% of the doctors who died during the pandemic were from BAME backgrounds. Doctors from these communities were three times more likely to say that they had felt pressured to work without protective equipment. We must do more to tackle institutionalised racism in the care sector and the NHS. For that to happen, we need to have better data reporting, to support those in low-paid jobs to speak up, to develop a risk assessment for BAME staff members exposed to large numbers of the general public, to deliver culturally sensitive messaging across the community and to intensify health messages around the conditions that can lead to vulnerability.

Before I finish, let me say that each and every one of the statistics has family and friends mourning their loss. I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful, thoughtful and very well liked Dr Nasir Khan, who worked on one of the medical wards at Dewsbury and District Hospital in my constituency. He fell ill with the virus last month and, as a resident of Bolton, was admitted to Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, where he sadly died. His son made a moving tribute to his father. He ended with the words:

“We strive to achieve the greatness that was my dad and fulfil the dreams he has left behind.”

Let us hope that Dr Khan’s sacrifice was not in vain, and that Government will now implement the changes needed to ensure that black, Asian and minority ethnic workers are not allowed to be collateral damage in this fight.