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.

Health and Social Care

James Murray Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to give my maiden speech. I will begin by giving my heartfelt thanks to the people of Ealing North for putting their trust in me, and I would like to thank one resident of Ealing North in particular: Mr Steve Pound.

Every morning in the run-up to the election, Steve and I would drive to a primary school to speak to parents outside the school gates. Those car journeys were filled with stories about Ealing North and jokes that were as funny as they were often unrepeatable. The warmth and affection the parents showed toward Steve was awesome and inspiring, and it was typical of people across Ealing North and beyond. It could be a little intimidating too, as he leaves very large boots to fill, but I drew some comfort on that front from Steve’s own maiden speech. Using characteristically direct language, he said of one his predecessors:

“I am somewhat tired of constantly being told how I compare to the right hon. Gentleman.”—[Official Report, 10 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 606.]

During the election Steve was unfailingly kind and generous when introducing me to people. He would tell them that I would be just as diligent an MP as he had been, but with more hair. I cannot guarantee my hairline after a few years in this place, but I know that nothing will recede about my determination to work tirelessly for the people of Ealing North.

It is the honour of my life to represent the place where I grew up. Before Christmas, I visited Perivale Brewery, on Horsenden Farm, just down from Horsenden Hill, where I used to fly my kite when I was a boy. Last year, I ran the Ealing half marathon, on behalf of the Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter, through Pitshanger Park, where I used to collect conkers with my grandmother 30 years ago. Those places, and others along the River Brent, Northala Fields and many more besides make up Ealing North’s wonderful greenery. They offer a calmness to balance the pace of life in part of the greatest city in the world and, let us be honest, the stress of traffic on the A40. But Ealing North is defined not just by its physical highlights; it can also be described by the strength of its many overlapping communities.

Our part of London is home to communities from India, Pakistan, Poland, Ireland, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, and many more besides. It is home to LGBT+ people building their lives and their families. It is home to people of all faiths who have invited me in, at St Mary’s, St Barnabas, St Stephen’s, Ealing Gurdwara, Shree Jalaram Mandir, the Greenford Central and Bilal Masjid mosques, the Ealing Liberal Synagogue, All Hallows, Holy Cross and many more besides. Our community organisations also bring people together, whether at the Royal British Legion Club or at the Wood End Residents’ Association’s legendary Christmas party. Members of the community look out for each other. Just last Saturday, volunteers were busy running the Ealing Foodbank next to my surgery at Greenford Methodist Church. Those volunteers deserve our deepest thanks and, as their MP, I will do everything I can to end the injustice in our society that makes their work vital.

I will work day in, day out, for the people of Ealing North. We need investment in public services so that our young people are safe from getting involved with or becoming the victims of crime. We need investment in new, high-quality council homes to make sure that everyone has a decent and secure place that they can afford.

I will stand up for a foreign policy that always avoids the rush to war. At my surgery on Saturday, a woman spoke to me through tears about her parents’ desperate situation as Iraqi refugees in Jordan. It was heartbreaking, and those in power should never forget that our country’s mistakes around the world cast a very long shadow.

I will fight for the health and social care system that we need, which is something that the people I represent so clearly and dearly want. It is also very personal for me. In the late 2000s, I was diagnosed with a rare, long-term neurological condition called myasthenia gravis. It causes muscle weakness, which made it difficult, or sometimes impossible, for me to do things like go running, speak at length or smile. But the NHS came to my rescue. My wonderful consultant and all his colleagues got me through a major operation and on to a painstakingly calibrated set of medications. I have been symptom-free since the early 2010s, and I will fight every day for our NHS with the strength that it has given me back. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

As the MP for Ealing North, I draw strength from local campaigners and their enormous determination to protect our NHS, and particularly local services that have been under threat. In 2015, the maternity unit at Ealing Hospital was closed. Since then, no babies have been born in hospital in Ealing. In 2016, the children’s A&E closed, too. Plans to close the main A&E were, in a triumph of public pressure, finally dropped after a seven-year fight, but across the London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, waiting times in A&E last month were over four hours for 39% of patients.

Across the country, our beloved NHS is creaking, yet the promises made by the Government are, as the Health Foundation has said,

“simply not enough to address the fundamental challenges facing the NHS’.

The Government have also failed to offer the plan or funding needed to fix the crisis in social care.

We must win the battle for the NHS and the social care system that we need. That is what I will fight for on behalf of the people I represent, and I thank them again for the honour of allowing me to do so. They must know that I will never flinch from my determination to fight for a fairer future for Ealing North, for our country and for our world.