Covid-19

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) [V]]

I would like to cover three areas: inequality, covid-secure workplaces, and, briefly, cancer services, which I raised with the Prime Minister during his statement this afternoon.

I was rather concerned, following the Prime Minister’s statement, that the Government may not have learned the lessons from their previous mistakes, in that there is a direct and undeniable correlation between covid-19 and inequality. The many heat maps that have been published over the past year showing covid infections, hospitalisations and fatalities have illustrated the close correlation between covid prevalence and areas of deprivation and high inequality. Indeed, in recent days a worrying trend has emerged of a high covid infection rate in some of the communities that I represent in the Easington constituency. While infection rates across County Durham continue to fall, there are higher rates in Peterlee East and Horden compared with other areas.

One reason is that in many cases the poorest have no option but to continue to work, even in conditions that are not covid secure. Those in insecure employment or on zero-hours contracts—agency workers, for example—do not have the finances or security that they need to self-isolate. The poorest are facing greater poverty if the Government do not listen to the likes of my own trade union, Unite, which is calling for them to retain the £20 uplift in universal credit and for the uplift to be extended to the legacy benefits—a call supported by many organisations, including the charity, Macmillan Cancer Support. Remarkably, there are many instances of workplaces that staff believe are still not covid secure. PCS union members at the DVLA headquarters in Swansea are balloting for strike action today after senior managers and ministers, some of whom appeared before the Transport Committee, which I serve on, have consistently refused to listen to their concerns. This is despite the fact that there have been over 550 covid cases in recent months and we have seen the tragic death from covid of one staff member.

We need to change our approach to cancer services and the need for a dedicated cancer budget. The cancer backlog after the first wave could be 50,000 patients, and we could emerge from the pandemic with a backlog of 100,000. We all want a safe and orderly return to normal, but one of the biggest obstacles throughout this pandemic has been the Government’s inability to follow the science and their turning a deaf ear to criticism.