Excess Death Trends

Debate between Alexander Stafford and Andrew Bridgen

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered trends in excess deaths.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this debate and my 17 colleagues from across the House who supported the application for a debate on the trends on excess deaths. This debate follows on from my Adjournment debate on 20 October on the same issue.

The eyes of history are upon us. Every generation looks back in wonder at the incredible mistakes of its forebears. They will ask questions such as, “How could they possibly not have realised how wrong they were?”, “What on earth happened to them?”, “Why did they ignore the evidence for so long, as well as their values and every opportunity to learn from the mistakes of yesteryear?” and “What madness captures men?”

From 2010 to 2019, annual death rates in England and Wales oscillated between 484,000 and 542,000. In 2020, there were 607,000 deaths, which is 65,000 more than the maximum figure in 2018. In 2021, there were 586,000 deaths, which is 44,000 more than the 2018 figure. After such a rise, there should be a significant deficit. In fact, our most vulnerable and elderly, who might have lived a while longer, were sadly taken from us early. In 2022, there were 577,000 deaths in England and Wales, and in 2023 there were 581,000. That is a huge rise when a significant deficit would, and should, have been expected. The deficit has been filled not with the extremely old and vulnerable, but has been filled—and then some—with many, many others who are often young or in the prime of their lives.

Some people might want to ascribe the excess deaths in 2022 and 2023 to the virus, but that would be a mistake; that is not what their death certificates say. Moreover, far too many young people are dying. Far from being below the recent rolling average, excess deaths in 2022 were above that average: 6% above. In 2023, when one might have expected deaths to finally fall below the average, the excess was also 6% above. Those numbers are higher in the younger age groups.

No one with integrity can fail to be troubled by those figures. What is actually going on? That is why we need to have this debate. This problem affects us all. It affects every community in every constituency across the country. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members attending this debate, and we need to thank the public for their interest, which has stirred the interest of colleagues. I am very encouraged by the turnout for today’s debate, which is considerably better than we have seen in the past.

Not everyone in this room will be comfortable with analysing scientific data and figures, but that is not my position. I was fortunate enough to take a degree in biological sciences from Nottingham University many years ago. I specialised in biochemistry, genetics, behaviour and virology.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has secured a very important debate. In 2022, we saw nearly as many excess deaths across the UK as during the blitz. In my region of Yorkshire, there have been excess deaths every year since the pandemic. My constituents are very concerned about that. They are also concerned about the almost deafening silence from the NHS about what is causing this, why this is happening and what it is doing to alleviate it. I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this very important debate. Only by talking about this can we get to the root cause of the issue—and there clearly is an issue.

[Andrew Bridgen]

That is the whole point of a representative democracy. We are here to raise issues on behalf of our constituents and to look after their best interests at all times. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his attendance. We had enough signatures for a three-hour debate in the Chamber, but we are having a 90-minute debate in Westminster Hall. I mentioned to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee that I felt that that was a bit of an insult, given the gravity that the issue we are debating has for those who have lost loved ones over the last few years.