Covid-19

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who raised a crucial point about the need to be able to see loved ones in care homes. He is quite right.

I begin by taking the opportunity to put on record my thanks to all those working on the frontline in Newport East during an extremely difficult year, with challenging months ahead of us. I thank the NHS workers, emergency services, local authority staff, civil servants, those in retail and food banks, and many more who have gone above and beyond to help.

My constituency includes communities in Newport, who are entering their second week of local restrictions, and in Monmouthshire, who are under the general Welsh restrictions. There is some evidence that the more cautious approach represented by these restrictions is working, and I am grateful to constituents for adhering to the rules, however challenging that might be.

In Wales, we are doing some things differently, and I know from constituents that the clear majority appreciate the measured, careful, thoughtful, and considered leadership of First Minister Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Government. As an example, while I was driving down today, I listened to a representative from UKHospitality on 5 Live talking about the 10 pm curfew for pubs and bars, which has been referred to a lot today. The UKHospitality representative pointed out how much more sensibly it had been implemented in Wales to avoid a hard cut-off time of 10 pm and the kind of mass exodus on to the streets that has been seen in other places; my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) alluded to it earlier. My constituents have appreciated the clearer and more sustained messaging from the Welsh Government, in contrast to the genuinely confusing messages from the UK Government to go out, go back to work and go on holiday, which has now been followed by the reverse.

The Welsh Labour Government are working on plans to prevent evictions in Wales, and we are spending triple the funding that is being spent in England on avoiding rough sleeping, but in England the Government are lifting the ban on evictions just as the second wave strikes. We are continuing provision for free school meals for those who are shielding or self-isolating into the autumn. It is not clear that the same is being done in England, so there are differences. In Wales, bonus payments have been made to care workers in recognition of the sacrifices they have made. The UK Government have decided to tax and make deductions from those payments, leaving some who are on universal credit with just £125.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington said, the measures announced by the Chancellor last week to help those who are in work fell short of what was required. There is nothing for those who have lost their jobs, or for those in professions in which the Chancellor has deemed jobs to be non-viable. There is no covid recovery plan or strategy for retraining. There is no strategy for the young, who, as we know from previous recessions, will be hit hardest. Everyone under 25 should have the chance to get a job, training or education. The job support scheme should have incentivised employers to keep more staff on, rather than incentivising them to bring some back full time and let others go. The gaps in the job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme have not helped those highlighted by the campaign for the 3 million excluded, including new starters, those who pay themselves dividends and those who earn half their income from self-employment. Then there are whole sectors that have been left out, be it the creative sector, the hospitality supply chain or the exhibition and events industry. For those having to claim universal credit, the five-week wait causes huge debt problems. Now is the time for the Government to fix the in-built failings in that system and turn advance payments into grants, not loans.

It is clear from my casework in Newport East that, for obvious reasons, the pandemic is having a severe impact on the operation of key Departments such as the Home Office, and especially UK Visas and Immigration. Can Ministers look at the fact that processing times have skyrocketed to up to two years for some people? I ask that on behalf of a young constituent who cannot take up a place at medical school this year because he has not had a decision, at a time when we desperately need his skills.

Can Ministers also look at the issue of holiday companies and airlines refusing to pay refunds for pre-booked holidays, as local and devolved lockdown restrictions are not covered by UK law? Ministers have said that this is an anomaly, but we need the Government to take action quickly. Finally, as the USDAW campaign has highlighted, since the start of the pandemic the average retail worker has been assaulted, threatened or abused every six-and-a-half days—more than double the rate in 2019. Can we address that issue?