Wednesday 14th April 2021

(2 years, 11 months ago)

Grand Committee
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Baroness Walmsley Portrait Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]
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My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for introducing this debate, which promises to be important and wide-ranging. As she said, to ensure a more equal society we need to build back better and learn lessons from the pandemic. I will raise four issues where there is great potential to do just that.

First, we need to build back greener. It is clear that, in coming years, there will be a demand for large numbers of new jobs in industries contributing to reaching our goal of zero carbon by 2050. This has already begun and must only accelerate—indeed, the sooner the better, as it is cheaper to act now than later. But there are thousands of workers, many of them young, in industries such as retail and hospitality, which may never reopen. Is this not an opportunity for a massive retraining programme to help equip us to tackle climate change while offering sustainable, well-paid jobs to those who have been hit hardest by the pandemic? Do the Government have a strategy to achieve this change of direction?

Secondly, the evidence that health inequalities have contributed to Covid-19 deaths is strong, and obesity has been a major factor in susceptibility to serious disease and death. The Government have published their obesity strategy but there is much more to do. I would like to see the Government mobilising the food industry to reduce the obesogenic environment which surrounds us. During the pandemic behaviour scientists have worked on the most effective messaging, both in content and delivery, to persuade us to adjust our behaviour to protect ourselves and others from the virus. I would like to see these advisers given the task of developing the messages which will help people reach and maintain a healthy weight in order to avoid non-infectious diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, and to build resistance to future infectious diseases such as Covid-19.

There is a lot more to health inequality than obesity. Poverty is a factor as people are forced to choose cheap, high-calorie, less nutritious food when money is tight. We have seen children going hungry during the pandemic, relying on the goodness of local people and food banks. Will the Government ensure that they respond positively to the forthcoming food strategy to ensure that we are no longer a country in which children do not get enough nutritious food?

My third point is also about children. Abused or neglected children will struggle to achieve their potential in life. During the pandemic, social workers who monitor children at risk have had to do so remotely. Recently the Government laid a statutory instrument to extend this arrangement until September. This is undesirable—remote monitoring is much less effective, and we know that there has been an increase in child abuse during the stress of the pandemic—and entirely unnecessary. If you can go to a pub for a pint, why can you not meet a child at risk face to face in the open now and indoors as restrictions are lifted? Will the Government please withdraw this SI?

Finally, during the pandemic local councils were able to take homeless people off the street using empty hotels and student accommodation. Valuable lessons were learned. In tackling the many problems of homeless people, such as substance misuse, poverty and ill health, it has long been known, and it was reinforced during the pandemic, that getting them into stable housing is a very effective first step. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have to provide a sustainable solution to the problem of homelessness, learning the lessons from the pandemic?