Black Maternal Health Week

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hollobone, to serve under your chairmanship today.

I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for securing this debate in Black Maternal Health Week. Clearly, she is determined that something will be done to change this terrible situation, and rightly so. Persistence very often pays off and I am sure that she will persist until change comes. I also know that this is a very personal matter for her and nothing that happens in the future can change what happened to her and her child. The fact that she keeps fighting so that the situation changes for others says much about her and I am more than happy to offer her my support.

Just as the hon. Member and others will keep raising this issue, so should we all keep raising it again and again, as others have today, until it is no longer true that black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women. I repeat that: four times more likely to die. Women from mixed backgrounds are three times—

[Kirsten Oswald]

To highlight what my hon. Friend is saying, it seems to me that it is inconceivable that the general public know about this issue. If people understood what a huge disparity in maternal health outcomes there is for black women and for mixed race women, I feel sure that there would be a huge outcry. It is really important that the Minister takes that point on board and takes every step possible to deal with this terrible blight.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is up to the many Members of this House who are not already doing it to do it, and those of us who are doing it must keep repeating over and over again that black women are four times as likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth as white women. For women from mixed backgrounds it is three times as likely, and for Asian women it is twice as likely.

The reason we need to keep saying that is that, despite the fact that the inequality and disparity in maternal and newborn health has been highlighted for many years, we still do not fully understand why it exists, as we have heard, and we do not have the targets that we need to tackle it. The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, of which I recently became a member, said that the statistics are so stark that there should be immediate change. She called on the Government to meet ambitious targets rapidly, and I completely agree.

In the previous debate on this matter, I focused on some of the shocking statistics that MBRRACE-UK highlighted in its confidential inquiry into maternal deaths; I shall repeat some of them. For every 100,000 women who gave birth between 2016 and 2018, 34 black women, 25 mixed ethnicity women and 15 Asian women died, compared with eight white women. Behind those numbers are people—women and babies. Compared with babies of a white ethnicity, black babies have a 121% increased risk of stillbirth and a 50% increased risk of neonatal death, and the gap has been widening since 2013. So there are these tiny human beings—boys and girls—who never got a chance at life. There are grieving fathers and husbands. There are whole families and whole communities.

In addition to the higher mortality rates, other concerns include the number of near misses and the number of times that women have felt that their voices have not been heard because of their skin colour. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) described a terrifying experience, when she must have felt completely powerless. That is wrong. I was shocked to hear many stories of mothers denied pain relief or left to suffer with undiagnosed post-partum conditions. I know that these things happen to women who are not black—it is always wrong—but for someone to be treated differently because of their skin colour surely compounds the problem. Just as we would research and address any medical causes of these things, we must research and address this issue. I echo the calls of the hon. Member for Streatham for the Government to address it.

As someone who is white, it took me some time to learn that people who are black just know when someone’s behaviour towards them is because of their skin colour. It is hard to explain. It was hard for me to understand at first, and obviously it is harder for me as a white woman to explain it because I do not experience it, but I have no doubt about it. I encourage everyone who does doubt it to really listen to what black and Asian mums are saying and trust that they just know.

NHS GP Dr Adwoa Danso has pointed out that instances of medical mistreatment have impacted on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities’ faith in the health services, and we saw that when it came to getting the covid vaccine. There is a further suggestion that, as the majority of migrants are disproportionally black, Asian and mixed ethnicity, the Home Office’s hostile environment immigration policy makes public services incredibly difficult to access. The right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) talked about the hostile environment and has campaigned hard against it for many years.

Women seeking asylum have been blocked or refused by reception staff acting as gatekeepers, often in conjunction with expectations or experiences of prejudice and discrimination. The hostile environment also leads to decisions such as taking women seeking asylum out of supportive communities and into places such as the so-called mother and baby unit in Glasgow, where tiny babies are put in tiny rooms with not even enough room to crawl. The frustrating thing for me as an MP representing Glasgow North East, in a country where we have our own Government, is that our Government can do nothing about it because all the decisions about it are taken down here in Westminster.

[Ms Abbott]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the hostile environment affects not just the pregnant women themselves but may well affect black staff, who feel, as we have heard, frightened to speak up about what they are seeing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely. The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North mentioned evidence from the Women and Equalities Committee. I was not on the Committee at the time, but NHS staff gave evidence saying that they felt unable to speak up. A number of years ago when I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I met with a group of South African nurses, and they were astonished that they were able to meet with a parliamentarian, because they thought it was not their right to be represented. They told me the things that were happening to them in their jobs in the NHS, and they certainly needed someone to support and represent them, so, yes, I do completely agree with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

Maternity Action research found that, just like staff who were too afraid to report, black and minority ethnic women tended not to report negative experiences, and they were less likely to be treated with kindness by health professionals or spoken to using terms they could understand. Although data has not been collected recently, a 2007 confidential inquiry into maternal and child health found that between 2003 and 2005 10% of all maternal deaths were women who could not speak English. As we heard earlier in an intervention from my hon. Friend the member for—Eastwood?

[Kirsten Oswald]

East Renfrewshire.

[Anne McLaughlin]

It is Eastwood in the Scottish Parliament. Forgive me, Mr Hollobone. As my hon. Friend said, studies in America show that even among women who come from fairly well-off backgrounds and who do speak English, black and Asian women are still disproportionately affected.

If I worked in maternity care in the NHS and heard someone like me saying these things, I would naturally feel defensive. Instead, what I ought to do is think about it, read up on it, question myself—and I do regularly—and really listen to what people are saying. I have no doubt that the vast majority of healthcare workers care deeply about the people they work with. The debate is more about the system itself and the inbuilt structural inequalities. For those who may be watching and do not know this, if we say the health service is structurally racist, it does not mean it is populated by racists: it means the way in which it is structured is for white people from certain backgrounds. It takes into consideration their needs, culture and language, with very little flexibility to take into account anyone else’s. Changing the structures makes them more flexible, and that is what the debate is calling for, in addition to addressing the very specific problems that have been talked about. After all, our NHS is not a white person’s NHS, it is an NHS for everybody.

I had decided that I was only going to speak for five minutes, and I think if I had not taken interventions then I would have done, but I think it is worth saying why I had decided that. I wanted to give the hon. Member for Streatham longer—and I know she will want to say a few words at the end—because, even though I have ended up taking 10 minutes, I do believe that part of offering support is saying less and listening more.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Health Minister, Nadine Dorries. After the Health Minister has spoken, Bell Ribeiro-Addy will have a few minutes to sum up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Dorries]

Absolutely. The office will look at all pregnancies, and the negative contributing factors. I believe that one in four women—black and white women—who present in labour are obese. That has an incredibly high risk factor during labour, so it is to address inequalities across the board. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North mentioned socio-economic groups, and the disparities they experience: smoking, alcohol and other negative factors that contribute during pregnancy are across the board, and they need to be addressed. That is the reason why the office has been established.

The cessation of smoking during pregnancy was something we campaigned on a lot in the past. I have noticed, probably since we passed the legislation to ban smoking in many places, the emphasis has almost come off the importance of not smoking during pregnancy. The CMO’s report highlights that, in some areas of low socio-economic grouping, 25% of women are starting pregnancy smoking. That highlights the fact that we need to put more emphasis on, and focus on, those health disparities.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is going to look at things like smoking—you can stop smoking and can be supported in that, and you can stop drinking and can be supported in that—and I think all this is really good, but people cannot change their skin colour. Will it be looking at how ethnicity impacts on women’s and babies’ chances?

[Ms Dorries]

Absolutely—across black, Asian and mixed ethnic minority groups as well. The point has been made today that black women do not feel listened to. We hear stories of complaints about pain, prolonged labour and other issues, and black women just do not feel as though they are being listened to in that environment. The core finding of the Cumberlege report, which addressed mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos, was that women are not being listened to, and black women probably even more so in the maternity setting. That issue for women, black women, Asian women and women from mixed ethnic backgrounds needs to be addressed. Women have to be listened to.

Turning to covid-19 and vaccinations, covid-19 has further exposed some of the health and wider inequalities that persist within our society. While considering disparities in the context of the pandemic, initial data suggests that vaccine uptake among ethnic minorities is lower than for other groups. Covid-19 vaccines are recommended in pregnancy. Vaccination is the best way to protect against the known risks of covid-19 for women and babies, including admission of the woman to intensive care and premature birth of the baby.

New findings from a National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit-led study showed that of the 742 women admitted to hospital since vaccination data has been collected, only four had received a single dose of the vaccine and none had received both doses. That means more than 99% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with symptomatic covid-19 are unvaccinated. That is quite stark.

Black Maternal Healthcare and Mortality

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]]

I am happy to speak under your chairmanship today, Sir Gary, although what we are discussing is a very unhappy set of circumstances. I thank Five X More for the petition and the debate, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for leading it. I confess—I know I am not alone in this—I knew very little about this subject until hearing from Five X More , and I am someone with a long-term interest in racial inequality, so I thank it sincerely. Many hon. Members have spoken powerfully today. I pay particular respect to the courage of the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).

In the UK, almost 800,000 women give birth every year. That is 800,000 interactions with their national health service, making childbirth the No. 1 reason for engagement with the NHS. For a large proportion of women, it is their first adult contact with health services, and maternity care should be a unique opportunity to mitigate some of the factors that perpetuate health and social inequalities. I have no doubt that for many it is, regardless of ethnicity. I also have no doubt that the vast majority of healthcare workers care deeply about the people they work with. This debate is more about the system itself and the structural inbuilt inequalities.

We are hearing through heartbreaking testimony and alarming reports that these inequalities are very much there, putting black mothers and babies at a significantly higher risk of maternal and perinatal death. It is worth repeating again and again that black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth than white women. Women from mixed-race backgrounds are three times as likely and Asian women twice as likely. Most alarming to me is the fact that this inequality and disparity in maternal and newborn health has been highlighted for several years, yet there is still no target to end this. Why on earth not?

I want to pay tribute to MBRRACE-UK for the work that it has done in the confidential inquiry into maternal deaths. There is a coldness to research and statistics that often lets us forget what MBRRACE-UK points out: behind each number is a mother, a father, a baby, a family and a community left devastated by these events. Five X More has published a comprehensive list of suggestions for the Government to act on, as many hon. Members have noted today. I will note just one: the advice to listen to the voices and experiences of black women. Listen!

Maternity Action notes that a reason for the disparity, as the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) has noted, is that migrant women with insecure status face charges of £7,000 or more for essential NHS maternity care. That will clearly deter lots of these women from attending for care. Maternity Action has rightly called for an end to no recourse to public funds rules, as others have today. The rules exclude some migrants from access to top-up payments such as housing benefit, universal credit, child benefit and other critically important benefits. Many working people are paid so little that they require those top-ups just to survive, but many migrant women with work visas and jobs and others with limited leave to remain do not have the right to what is considered essential for everybody else.

Finally, Maternity Action and others are calling for a welfare safety net for all pregnant women. I will add to that by talking about how important universality can be. In Scotland, there is universal access to free prescriptions, but even more relevant to this debate is universal access to the baby box. It is not a poor baby’s box, but a “welcome to the world” baby box. It is free to all new parents and is based on the Finnish model, which has a proven record of decreasing infant mortality. The box includes essential items for a baby’s first weeks and months, and it provides a safe space for babies to sleep near their parents. However, one of the most important aspects of the baby box is that it brings women in touch with healthcare workers before and after the baby is born. Those workers can then support the mother and baby.

Every baby should be born with an equal start in life, and the SNP Government are exploring even more ways in which the baby box can be used to promote women’s health and support mental health. I mention the baby box not to say that Scotland does everything so much better than the rest of UK, but it is something that I would love to see the rest of the UK adopt. It is not just about health and being in touch with health services; it is about the psychological impact of the Government telling people, particularly migrants to this country, that their babies are welcome and loved. So much work was done on ensuring that it was not seen as a poor baby’s box that, in 2019, 47,000 baby boxes were delivered to new parents in Scotland—a 93% uptake. That is what happens when there is universality.

As we know, the mortality risk from covid-19 among ethnic minority groups is twice that for white patients, and that is after potential confounding factors such as age, sex, income, education, housing tenure and area deprivation have been taken into account. A recent report found that black pregnant women are eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital with coronavirus, and Asian women are four times more likely. There is simply no hiding from this issue. If we are to fully understand race and health, we have to fully understand the role of ethnicity and racism in our society—the everyday acts of discrimination, the unconscious and implicit biases, and the cultural and structural racism that we are now being told does not exist.

I do not have the time or expertise to delve deeply into this issue, so I am glad that others are speaking about it. One of those is Dr Christine Ekechi, who is the spokesperson for racial equality at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She said:

“it’s important for us to acknowledge that we are still humans, and so there are lots of things that can operate at a conscious level, but there are many things that operate at a subconscious level.”

Dr Ekechi has suggested that we need more diversity in healthcare systems and that healthcare professionals should check themselves for whatever biases they may have. I expect the vast majority would want to do that, and we should be supporting them. It is one of the things that we will be looking at on the all-party parliamentary group on unconscious bias, because it does exist. We should be finding ways to help people unravel their biased thinking, because it has a massive impact on people’s lives.

I want to add to some of what others have said about the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report. Rather than focusing on structural inequalities, it attempted to explain them by talking about economics, geography and family units. Academics have accused the report of cherry-picking data to reach predetermined conclusions. They say it is littered with mistakes and selective quoting, in an attempt to tell us that

“the British discourse on race is obsessed with victimhood when it should be celebrating progress.”

That is not surprising, given that the author has already said many times in the past that he does not believe structural inequality exists, but it also chimes with a growing trend among Conservative politicians to claim that there is no such thing as structural racism in the UK. However, even the Prime Minister now seems to be distancing himself from the report, saying recently:

“I’m not going to say we agree with every word.”

For those who may not know and who may be watching, if we say the health service is structurally racist, it does not mean that it is populated by racists. It means that the way it is structured is for white people and that it takes into consideration their needs—culture, language, health trends and so forth—with very little flexibility to take account of anyone else’s. We need to change the structures and make them more flexible, which is what this debate is calling for. After all, our NHS is not a national white person’s health service; it is supposed to be for everybody equally.

This is a moral issue. As Alexandre Dumas wrote:

“Moral wounds have this peculiarity—they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.”

I will end with the words of Amy Gibbs, the chief executive of Birthrights:

“A lot of black and brown people in the birthing world are understandably frustrated by calls for more research when what’s needed is action.”

I think she is right. We need to act now. No more endless research: let us just do something about this.

Covid-19

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I would like to start by acknowledging that the Government are in an unenviable position. This is a tough gig.

[Matt Hancock]

Hear, hear!

[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: BAME Communities

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I encourage anybody here or watching at home who missed the opening speech by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) to catch up on it, because that would be very worthwhile. It was a really interesting and informative speech.

I have been self-certifying. The fact that I am here is an indication of how strongly I feel about this subject matter. I speak as the SNP’s women and equalities spokes- person in Westminster, as the MP for Glasgow North East—one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in Scotland—and as an ally. I have no illusion: I will not and should not be leading a campaign against racism; I should be supporting those who experience racism. That is not me, and it is never going to be me.

This report has brought into sharp focus the institutional racism that exists on these islands, so race and racism are what I want to look at. I will focus on three main things. First, I will say something about Scotland, the SNP and race. Secondly, I want to look back in time and cover a bit of history. The third and final thing I will talk about is what I am going to do about it, how I am going to be an ally and how I am going to support BAME leaders in the fight against racism.

Starting with Scotland and the SNP, here are the good bits. The SNP Government and Parliament clearly stood last week in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The SNP Government have put equality and human rights at the heart of their response to coronavirus, and Nicola Sturgeon today announced further analysis of the impact on people from BAME communities in Scotland. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) is not in her place, but she mentioned the National Records of Scotland figures. So far, the Scottish Government have looked at figures for those who are very sick with covid-19 and in hospital, and an expansion of that was announced today.

The SNP provided the first Muslim Member of the Scottish Parliament, the late, great Bashir Ahmad; I cannot look at my colleagues here, because we will all get emotional. Political leaders in Scotland have long spoken positively and often about migrant communities in Scotland, and that has an impact on the population. They did it when it was not popular to do it, but it does rub off on the population, and this Government might want to take note of that.

I turn now to the not-so-good bits. As a party, we have not built on Bashir Ahmad’s legacy. We have one BAME Member of the Scottish Parliament: Humza Yousaf. He is the Justice Secretary, and he is doing a brilliant job. But even he, speaking in the Black Lives Matter debate in the Scottish Parliament last week, checked his own privilege and noted that there are no BAME women in the Scottish Parliament. That is odd, because I know so many who would do a fantastic job in that Parliament. He did that in a very honest speech, in which he also listed all the areas of public life where white people are at the top—I am struggling to think of one where they were not—and I was absolutely horrified.

Humza Yousaf also recently ordered a public inquiry into the death of Sheku Bayoh, whose family have waited five years to know how he died in police custody, and he instructed the inquiry to look at whether race played a part. Sheku’s family should not have had to wait five years for that inquiry to be announced, so we do have things that we have to face up to in Scotland.

Looking to the future, I feel a little more positive than I once did. A week ago last Monday, the SNP’s black, Asian and minority ethnic convenor organised a Zoom meeting. At two days’ notice, 127 BAME people signed up for it, 22 SNP MPs—we only invited SNP MPs, so do not worry; we are not competing—12 SNP MSPs and 12 councillors. That was at two days’ notice, and our job was to listen. We were not allowed to speak other than to say our names. Our job was to listen to everybody and hear what they had to say, and we will be building on that—or they will be building on that, and we will be supporting.

I wish to look a little at the history, which I talked about. There are a number of petitions and campaigns about teaching black history in schools. I have long supported that—in fact, I have spoken about it in this place—and I will explain why. I am confident that this is one very significant way to eradicate racism. Children are not born racist, and when they first become aware of it they find it very difficult to understand. It is not their instinct to be racist, and then they are taught it. If they go through nursery and school with positive role models from all ethnicities, and if their school books reflect those positive role models, they are far less likely to be able to be taught to be racist.

I have spoken to teachers who care deeply about this matter who told me that schools already teach about racism, as they should, but it others people and it portrays those classmates as victims. That is not to say that people are not victims of racism, but there is so much more that we could be doing to stop it in the first place. One of those things is looking at a positive role models in history and demonstrating that the ethnicity of the people who built these islands and this world is many and varied. One of them, whom I talk about a lot and who now has a statue across the road, is Mary Seacole.

The third and final thing that I want to cover— Oh, I have more time than I thought, so actually I will talk about positive images.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady has about a minute left.

[Anne McLaughlin]

A minute? I was told I had seven minutes. Right, I had better come on to: what am I going to do about it?

First, I have applied to have my constituency office registered and trained as a third-party hate crime reporting centre. I will very briefly say that the first of my colleagues to come back to me and say, “I want to do that too,” was the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan). I think all Members will join me in wishing her well as she recovers from what happened last week.

Secondly, I have set up the all-party parliamentary group on unconscious bias. Our inaugural meeting will be on 29 June. Members will decide what happens, but my intention is to have a number of distinct investigations. They could be into a number of things, but the first must be into race. I want the group to take evidence from people not necessarily about overt racism but about undercover racism, where even the person doing it does not know that they are doing it.

It is not just about hearing evidence. I want to make recommendations on what we can do to enable people to recognise their own thinking and to undo it—who should be doing that, and how they should be doing it. I want a UK-wide campaign of awareness, but I should not get carried away and pre-empt the findings. I thank the hon. Member for Brent Central for agreeing to be part of that APPG.

The third thing that I will do is keep listening, and listening more to people who experience racism, which, as I said, is not me. I will end on three very brief messages for the Minister and the Government. The first is that Black Lives Matter is not just about saving those lives, but the lives that people are leading when they are here. Secondly, please stop using the Lammy review as a cover. I am sick of hearing the Government answer every question about what they are doing with: “We’ve got the Lammy review.” They should act upon it, and speak about it only when they have actually done something about it. Finally, we can breathe and until we cannot we should fight racism and call it out wherever we see it, and whoever it is from—and that includes Prime Ministers.

Coronavirus

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am absolutely determined that should a vaccine come through, we are able to roll it out—in the first instance to those who are most vulnerable—across the UK, including to my hon. Friend’s constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme. That is incredibly important. As I said in my statement, AstraZeneca has now signed the contract to manufacture the vaccine, even ahead of the successful conclusion of clinical trials, which shows confidence. The Imperial vaccine, which is not as far ahead as the Oxford vaccine, but is promising and based on a different vaccine technology, which is important—it is slightly different—has gone into human trials as well.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The findings of the PHE report into the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on black and minority ethnic people are or should be embarrassing—they should be collectively embarrassing. If we agree not to point the finger and if we all take our share of the blame for the structural racism that so very clearly exists, can we stop denying it, stop making excuses for it and start working together to dismantle it? And can we do it quickly, because people have rightly had enough?

[Matt Hancock]

I agree with every word that the hon. Lady says.

Wuhan Coronavirus

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

There is evidence of potential cases of the coronavirus in Hong Kong, although the vast majority of cases are in Wuhan city. We will keep that under review.

The advice to my right hon. Friend’s Chinese residents is exactly the same as the advice to all, which is to avoid anything but essential travel to Wuhan city and that direct flights from Wuhan city appear to have ceased. An awful lot of people who work for Public Health England are already in Harlow, with more to come. I am sure he would want to join me in thanking them for the vigilant work they are undertaking.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It is obvious that the scale of this operation should not be underestimated. Shutting down a city the size of London as it prepares to celebrate Chinese new year is an extraordinary undertaking. What support has the international community offered to the Chinese authorities, particularly the health services, as they cope with this unprecedented strain on resources?

Some of my questions have already been asked, so I will just ask about the World Health Organisation, which is meeting today. What communication have the UK Government had with the WHO? Can the Secretary of State assure the House that the Government will remain updated, in real time, on developments and on what steps, if any, are required in the UK?

Finally, I have a number of Chinese constituents, as we probably all have, and English is difficult for many of them. When we give information to Chinese communities in the UK, is it provided in different languages?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, the advice will be available today in Mandarin and Cantonese. The UK is heavily engaged in the WHO response and, of course, we are engaging with the Chinese Government. That engagement principally happens through the WHO, which has well-established procedures to make sure we understand the nature of the outbreak so that scientists can investigate the epidemiology and come to an evolving scientific analysis of what is happening. We then base our decisions, as much as possible, on the scientific advice that flows from that. The chief medical officer, who is an expert on these issues, is co-ordinating the work here in the UK.

Psychosis: Early Intervention

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I commend the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing this debate and on his long-standing commitment to this and related issues. He clearly cares very deeply about them. He is shining a light on some of the problems with the way in which the targets are being handled across NHS England.

The principle of early intervention and access to treatment for psychosis is fundamentally a moral one: at its heart it asks how readily we respond to some of the most vulnerable people in our midst. As others have asked, is there parity with people suffering physical ill health? We know that treating patients early improves outcomes significantly, not only in their mental health by reducing the rate of relapse and boosting recovery, but by reducing the knock-on impact of psychosis in other areas of a patient’s life. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) gave us an insight into the impact on the person themselves and their wider network of family and friends.

If someone is struggling to deal with an untreated episode of psychosis, there can be rapid deterioration in many of their life circumstances, particularly their financial circumstances. I would like to draw attention to the excellent work being done by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute to look at how mental illness, which includes psychosis, can impact negatively on personal finances. It is investigating ways to support people in those circumstances and is taking expert guidance from people who have been there. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the case of an individual whose bills had not been paid—the chances are that he did not even know they had to be paid.

I want to give a simple example of something that the institute has come up with, with the support of the experts it is working alongside. Someone who may well suffer psychotic episodes in the future but is currently well lays out the key signs that they are experiencing such an episode. For example, they may say, “If I try to spend money between midnight and eight in the morning, that is a clear sign that I am suffering a psychotic episode. Don’t let me do it.” The banks are working with the institute and individuals to find ways for people to set parameters for their spending and be given support if that does not work out. As I said, the institute is taking guidance from people who suffer from mental health problems, but also from those who live and work with them, because they are the experts. I encourage anyone who has anything to say on the issue to join the expert panel; all they have to do is go to moneyandmentalhealth.org.

As many hon. Members have mentioned, particularly the right hon. Member for North Norfolk, £15 is saved in the long term for every £1 spent on early intervention. That is a powerful illustration of the importance and efficacy of that approach. It takes courage for Governments to commit to a course of action that might not produce results while they are in power or when they need votes but that will provide better outcomes for those who need them, so I am very pleased that the Scottish Government are now developing a 10-year strategy. I was interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) had to say about that.

As we have heard, many individuals have their first psychotic episode at an early age, but as many Members have said, we cannot exclude those over the age of 35 from the early intervention approach, which appears to have been happening in some parts of England. If roughly one quarter of men and one third of women experience their first incidence of psychosis after 35, CCGs are shifting the goalposts if they are applying the target only to the younger age group.

I hope that some of the progress that we have made on these issues in Scotland may be of benefit to the other nations of these islands, so I will mention a few of the key measures. However, I want to be clear that I am not claiming that all is perfect in the mental health world in Scotland, nor do I seek to set countries against each other. We are not competing. As many hon. Members have said, we should be sharing good practice. I want us to learn from the other countries in the UK and, as others have said, from international examples. However, I do think it is useful that, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow mentioned, the Scottish Government have appointed a Minister whose remit is dedicated wholly to mental health. That level of focus is vital and rightly reflects the impact of mental health issues right across society and across all Government directorates. As the right hon. Member for North Norfolk said—although perhaps not in exactly these words—we need a Government champion for mental health.

As I said, the Scottish Government are also developing a 10-year mental health strategy that focuses on early intervention and prevention. That longer-term vision is important for changing the way in which stakeholders across the public sector work and support mental health so that they are tackling issues head-on as early as possible. That is summed up by the principle of “Ask once, get help fast”, which is being put at the heart of the Scottish approach across this Scottish parliamentary term.

However, it is important for healthcare workers to understand that many people with mental health problems do not ask for help. Many of those they see on perhaps a six-monthly basis do not report what is happening to them, either because their mental health problem means that they do not want to be a bother or because they do not want to say what is happening to them. It is crucial that the holistic approach that my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow mentioned is taken so that families are involved and can give the person the support that is needed. Tackling mental health problems is not just the job of a psychiatrist and patient; it involves, or should involve, everyone the patient feels comfortable with.

On waiting time targets, the landscape in Scotland is slightly different in that, as we have heard, we have two key targets for mental health. One is that 90% of all those who are subject to a mental health referral should commence treatment within 18 weeks. I place on record my thanks to the mental health team at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which is currently meeting that target.

I would like to highlight the impact of Brexit and the British Bill of Rights on mental health provision. I make no apologies for raising those two issues, as it is surely self-evident that the country’s constitutional arrangements will have an impact across all policy areas. The Human Rights Act 1998 protects many vulnerable people who rely on health and social work support, and those safeguards must also be maintained for those suffering from psychosis.

I have a specific question for the Minister. The president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Simon Wessely, has stated that the UK’s decision to leave the EU will hamper the development of new treatments for illnesses such as psychosis. He said:

“I don’t believe there is a single scientist who does not think that being in the EU makes it easier to develop new treatments for mental disorder, and then to make them available.”

I would therefore be pleased if the Minister could tell us today how she will ensure that research and targeted funding for mental health from Europe is maintained or replaced.

I speak as someone who has close-up experience of significant mental health problems, including psychotic episodes. I will not say who the person is, not because I or they are at all ashamed or embarrassed but because there is still a lot of prejudice against people in that position. There is a lot of unnecessary fear. All of that only adds to the complications of trying to manage the condition. I mention this only because I hope the fact that someone close to me is currently in recovery from a traumatic psychotic episode, which I believe could have been prevented or at least been less traumatic had the person been able to access the services to which they were entitled, will add some weight to my words. Sometimes we have to look beyond the paperwork, policies and targets, important as they are, and find out what is happening on the ground, because people do slip through the net, and the impact on them and their networks can be catastrophic.

I commend the right hon. Member for North Norfolk again, and I also commend everyone else who has spoken in the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow and others for the very useful information that I have gleaned from them today. As someone with a close family member who is currently struggling and who initially did not get the help that they needed despite being entitled to it, I want to add my personal thanks to everyone in the room who continues to campaign for people such as my family member.