Business of the House

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend, as he so often does, puts his finger on the right issue. Shop workers have been fantastic, phenomenal and brave, because they all stayed at work at a point when we knew much less about the disease than we do now and thought that it might have been much more risky even than it has turned out to be; they were a real frontline emergency service. Without them, the crisis would have been infinitely worse, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the tribute he has paid to them. I can reassure him that there are already offences that cover assaults against any worker, including those in the retail sector, such as common assault, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. In July, the Government published the findings of a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers, and we will continue to work with the British Retail Consortium and other partners to stop these crimes. I pay tribute to the British Retail Consortium for the work that it has been doing to highlight this important issue, and encourage my hon. Friend and the BRC to continue raising it.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Over 15,000 people have died in our care homes—many because of the Government’s shameful policy of discharging patients with coronavirus from hospital into care homes. Both the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary confirmed to me from the Dispatch Box that they took full responsibility for those deaths, and the policy then changed. But my local trust recently issued new guidance stating that covid-positive patients are again to be discharged back into our care homes. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State to come to the House and explain this dangerous policy?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government take this issue with the utmost seriousness and have been doing a great deal to help care homes, including issuing more than 100,000 tests a day to care homes across the country, overhauling the delivery of personal protective equipment to care homes and setting up a £1.1 billion infection control fund. The issue that the hon. Lady raises is one of great seriousness. I assure her that it will be taken up on her behalf with the Secretary of State for Health immediately after this statement.