Covid-19 Update

James Murray Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am afraid I do agree. All councils, including Leeds City Council, should make it clear that if students have coronavirus symptoms—and we all know what they are: a new continuous cough, a temperature or a loss of taste and smell—they should come forward for a test. If they have symptoms of another illness—not coronavirus symptoms—they should not come forward for a test. We have set this out very clearly once again in the prioritisation document that we have published today, and I hope that everyone will follow it.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Schools that become aware of a covid-19 case have been encouraged to take swift action and contact the dedicated advice service introduced by Public Health England. However, several primary school heads in my constituency have reported that the service appears to be overwhelmed, with significant delays in Public Health England getting back to schools with advice. Can the Secretary of State tell me what the average waiting time is between a school contacting Public Health England and its receiving the advice that it needs?

[Matt Hancock]

I do not have those figures, but I would be very happy to look into specific cases, because the speed of turnaround in the instance that the hon. Gentleman describes is very important.

Coronavirus

James Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I have looked very closely at the situation in Sweden, and the challenge is that Sweden brought in significant laws curtailing social activity and that the population in Sweden followed more closely more than in almost any other country in the world a lot of guidance that was not enforced by law. The case rate in Sweden was also higher than in other geographically comparable countries.

The conclusion I have come to is that the approach we are taking, where we look around the world, learn from similar countries and take action where necessary, is the best way to control the virus and protect the economy. The rule of six is designed to try to restrict the transmission where we see it happening most, which is in social circumstances, and to protect the economy as much as possible by keeping the economy open within those social constraints. We are constantly vigilant and we are looking around the world for other examples of where we might be able to make changes. As my hon. Friend knows, we have made changes to our approach as we have learned throughout this unprecedented pandemic.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

My constituent Rachel has an 11-year-old daughter who came down with covid symptoms on Sunday. All her family have spent days self-isolating and desperately trying to book a test. At one point, they were directed to Wales, which is a six-hour round trip. At the same time, Rachel has seen private tests for £140, and often much more, that seem to be easily available. Does the Health Secretary think that this disparity is acceptable?

[Matt Hancock]

We do not recommend any private tests that are not signed off and verified. Therefore we are providing as many tests as we possibly can with a growing capacity. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details of that individual case, I will absolutely look into it and make sure that one of the hundreds of tests that are being done in Ealing today is available for his constituent.

Covid-19 Update

James Murray Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I can think of no better way in Lichfield than to get my hon. Friend out and about making that case—in a socially distanced way, of course. He is quite right. We have to get the message across, in the first instance to Members of this House, and I hope we are doing that today. We are also making clear in the communications around the process of getting a test that, if people do not have symptoms, they are not eligible. We are reviewing what more we might need to do, because we have to use our record testing capacity for the people who need it most.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

This morning, the Transport Secretary was unable to say what enforcement powers the Prime Minister’s new covid marshals will have and what their responsibilities will be. Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), does the Secretary of State know what powers these marshals will have and what training they will have to undergo?

[Matt Hancock]

We are giving local authorities more enforcement powers—for instance, to be able to close venues should that be necessary on public health grounds. We will set out more details of the marshals shortly.

Covid-19

James Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. Stoke-on-Trent provides another example of a local action that worked. We did not have to go to a full lockdown, which I am very glad about. The combination of enhanced support from the national system plus assiduous work locally and the responsible and strong voice of the local MPs, including my hon. Friend, has meant that the cases are coming right down. I am very grateful to the people of Stoke-on-Trent for responding as positively as they did to what were challenging circumstances. At one moment, it looked like there might be a full-blown local lockdown, but that did not happen because Stoke-on-Trent got in there fast and acted.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Secretary of State mentioned the importance of local efforts in keeping infections down, so can he tell me what additional financial support the Government will now provide to support local test and trace efforts, specifically in those areas where the level of infection places them on the watch list or under lockdown?

[Matt Hancock]

We do enter into those sorts of discussions. Of course local councils have a statutory obligation as well, but what matters most is that the response is as effective as it can be. Thus far we have been able to ensure that councils have the support and the capability to be able to respond, but, with their statutory duties, it is absolutely at the top of their priority list to prevent a local outbreak as well.

Covid-19 Update

James Murray Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are providing funding for local support, but I just want to reiterate to those who are in Leicester right now and listening to this debate, that the furlough scheme is in existence and it works now in the same way that it has worked across the country.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Ealing Council, which covers my constituency, is one of those concerned about receiving all the data it needs as quickly as it needs it for local outbreak plans to work as well as possible. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that full testing data will be shared with every local authority, GP and director of public health, and commit to there being no time lag between these tests being carried out and the data being shared?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, that data was made available last week to all councils, subject to a data protection agreement, which the vast majority have returned.

Coronavirus

James Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Localised data is available through the work of Public Health England and local directors of public health, including the director for Bedfordshire, and then through our survey data, although that is stronger at the national level than at the regional or local levels. Pulling all this data together, and then ensuring that it gets to the decision makers so that they can base their decisions on it, is the task of the joint biosecurity centre. I will ask its head to write to my hon. Friend with details of the data it has on Bedfordshire and what further data it is working on in order to answer the questions that my hon. Friend rightly asks.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Will the Health Secretary confirm that, in May, his Department wanted local councils to have local outbreak plans ready for 1 June, but that councils had to ask him to move the deadline to later this month because his Department had been so late in asking them?

[Matt Hancock]

I do not recognise that, no.

Coronavirus and Care Homes

James Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I say happy birthday to my hon. Friend and pass on the best wishes, no doubt, of the whole House. The question he raises is a difficult one, because in many cases, the best place for somebody is not in a hospital. Indeed, people can catch diseases in hospital, so it needs to be done on a clinical basis. That is why we have put in place the testing, isolation procedures and infection control of people who are leaving hospital to go into care homes.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

At the Health and Social Care Committee on 5 May, the Government chief scientific adviser told me:

“We need to get on top of it in care homes. We have been clear about that.”

He added:

“What SAGE does is try to distil the scientific advice into a form that then others need to operationalise and take accountability for”.

Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing all the SAGE advice that his Department has received throughout this outbreak about infection control in care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

We do regularly publish SAGE advice.

Coronavirus

James Murray Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

All of the hospitals that have so far dealt with cases—and, indeed, the four confirmed deaths—have protocols in place to ensure that the hospital remains a safe place to treat everybody else. The evidence so far is that that has worked well, but of course we keep working at it.

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many careworkers are on zero-hours contracts and work for multiple providers. This means that they may struggle to prove that they are eligible for statutory sick pay, forcing them to choose between protecting their clients and paying their bills. The Secretary of State mentioned statutory sick pay earlier. What is he planning to do to help care staff who are not eligible for statutory sick pay or who might struggle to prove their eligibility?

[Matt Hancock]

I am working very closely with the Work and Pensions Secretary to address this exact point.

User-led Social Care

James Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered user-led social care.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I draw inspiration today from Jerry Ndi, a student at Northolt High School who just last night won the Ealing regional final of Jack Petchey’s “Speak Out” challenge. I am sure that all Members here will join me in saying that everyone who took part and spoke last night should be very proud of themselves.

Social care is in crisis. Some 1.5 million people over the age of 65 do not get the social care they need. More than a third of people who receive local authority-funded care or support have to purchase additional support themselves. In fact, over the past two years nearly 10,000 people have had to approach their local authority for help after running out of money. That is the result of the Government’s deep cuts to public services since 2012, with a total of £7.7 billion taken out of social care budgets. As councils have been forced to narrow the eligibility criteria for social care, far too many people are denied the support that they need. This chronic underfunding, alongside a shift to private providers, has hit not only those who need social care, but those working in the sector—people who are routinely paid below the London living wage or the living wage outside of London.

There are more than 122,000 vacancies in the adult social care sector. Care workers are far too often undervalued, underpaid and overworked. The numbers providing care informally to friends and family is growing rapidly too; 1.25 million people in the UK, nearly 70% of whom are women, combine looking after young children with caring for older or disabled relatives. Nearly 90,000 of these care workers provide more than 35 hours of care each week, and half are still in paid work.

Our social care system is in urgent need of proper funding and a system that no longer incentivises a race to the bottom on quality and on workforce conditions, which is why, on 16 January, after giving my maiden speech, I voted to ensure that health and social care are properly funded, with an additional £26 billion in real terms. This extra funding is vital to support the social care system that we need.

Alongside greater funding, we also need to look at the way that social care is provided, which is why the focus of the debate is on the key role that co-operative principles can play. Under a co-operative approach to social care, care services should be not-for-profit. We will never be the caring society that we should be when services supposed to help the vulnerable are driven by profit. Services should protect workers’ rights. Those who protect this most valuable and often difficult of services deserve our support and protection, not to be forced on to lower wages and insecure contracts. Services should put care workers and providers at the heart of decision making. The commissioning and running of services should benefit from the invaluable knowledge of those who receive and provide care.

These principles and co-operative approaches to care are not just theoretical; they are beginning to be implemented and developed in places across the country. The Equal Care Co-op in the Calder Valley is just one example of a local area leading the way. I am pleased that the London borough of Ealing is also taking a lead on this. Following the local elections in 2018, Ealing Council held a public meeting for local residents who were interested in establishing a care co-operative. That led to a founding group being formed, including carers and those receiving care, who deserve our thanks for their valuable work on this matter. The group is currently developing a feasibility study, and their experience, particularly of the challenges they face, can help us to better understand the barriers that co-operative models of care face more widely, and therefore what support is needed from national Government.

It will not surprise anyone listening to learn that the feasibility study faces the challenge of growing demand for care services in the face of inadequate funding. However, it also faces challenges with the competitive commissioning regime, the current system of Care Quality Commission registration and the lack of an appropriate Government funding framework.

The experience in Ealing shows that councils could do far more if they had support from national Government, so I will put several points to the Minister. First, there should be a right of first refusal for social workers to step in and take over failing private organisations that provide social care. At the moment, when private organisations face financial difficulties, they are often sold on to another private organisation or simply closed down. Where private organisations are failing, employees should have an opportunity to take on all or part of that organisation.

Secondly, we need protection against asset stripping. Mutualised social care services should be asset-locked, to ensure that assets of all types are locked within the organisation, which is crucial to preventing asset stripping or demutualisation. Thirdly, we need regulation to support co-operative models over for-profit ones. Currently, all non-state providers are categorised as independent, which undermines the ability of care users and their families to distinguish between for-profit and not-for- profit providers. The CQC should modify its inspection methodology to ensure that the benefits of non-profit co-operative models can thrive. Fourthly, local authorities should be given a duty to promote co-operative organisations to deliver care in their area. We can learn from the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, which puts a duty on local authorities to promote co-operative organisations to deliver care in their area.

These steps by national Government would help support co-operative approaches to social care, putting the people who need social care, their families and their care workers at the heart of decisions about how social care is provided. We must stop allowing private companies to profiteer while those who rely on social care, and the workers who provide it, pay the price.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Hanwell health centre, which works hard to serve many of my constituents, has told me that it has been trying to appoint a salaried GP for three years, as well as a large number of nurses. There is generally a four-week wait for an appointment, although the centre has provided 75 more appointments to cope with demand. Under the Secretary of State’s plans, when will those waiting times come down?

[Matt Hancock]

This is precisely why we need to recruit more GPs, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across the country, and also recruit more other clinicians to general practice. [Hon. Members: “How?”] I will tell you how, Mr Speaker. In the first instance, the record numbers of GPs in training will help, but that is not the entirety of the plan. I urge the hon. Gentleman to get on board and support general practice.