Health and Care Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head: if we are to tackle obesity as a country, we have to look at the most successful outcomes. Fundamentally, I believe those to be ones of education, ensuring that parents are empowered to be able to make the best decisions for their children and ensuring that people are empowered to come to the right choices for themselves. The point about these amendments is to ensure that we are not giving a green light to one side while harshly penalising another for hosting these adverts.

The nub of the point is that the broadcasters will, in effect, have to pre-clear any advertising that is put on to their platform and there will be very harsh penalties, leading right up to the point of revocation of their broadcast licence, if they fail to do this. By contrast, although the Bill puts significant restrictions on the online platforms, they are not put through that same test. They are not put through the same harsh restrictions and requirements that are broadcasters are. This is especially important when we consider recent evidence that has been put into the public domain. The Advertising Standards Authority recently drew considerable attention to the mass flouting of the rules by online influencers across many sectors. This House’s Select Committee on Work and Pensions made an important point about online regulation in a report in March this year on protecting pension savers. It said:

“Regulators appear powerless to hold online firms to account”—

for online advertisements—

“in the same way they would be able to for traditional media.”

We need to bear that in mind as we consider this Bill, because if current regulations do not work in that field, I fear that the regulations on online providers proposed in this Bill will not either.

I offer these amendments as a call to those on the Treasury Bench, including the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)—an excellent Minister who will consider these points carefully—to rethink the practicalities of what we are saying to the broadcast and online sectors. If the Government are intent on pushing this forward, I ask them to find that parity that ensures that broadcasters are not unfairly penalised. Great British broadcasters—ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five, Sky—already produce some incredible educational programming about diet, cooking, wellbeing and lifestyle. It would be horrendous for us to cut off their lifeline of funding.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I have put my name to my hon. Friend’s amendments because I agree with the points that he makes.

It is surely vital that those responsible broadcasters should not be penalised when they are doing the right thing—and yet there is effectively a wild west on the internet, where we are simply not able to manage the issue. I recognise that the Minister will be concerned that the online harms Bill will also deal with some of these matters, but we need to find a cross-Government way of dealing with this.

[Greg Smith]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks with great experience from her time as Secretary of State at DCMS. That is the fundamental point of the amendments; it is not a complex or difficult case, but purely one of fairness and treating the different platforms—the diverse media of 2021—the same, rather than pretending that the media from the old analogue age can somehow be treated differently from those of the digital age.

Let us not cut off the lifeline that funds so many good educational programmes. Let us think again about restrictions on advertisers, move forward in a way that can enable people to make the right and healthy choices about what they and their children eat without this level of restriction, and ensure that, when restriction is brought in, it is fair.

Covid Vaccine Passports

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his excellent citation of the vaccine success in Scotland. NHS Scotland has done a tremendous job, as has the NHS in Wales, Northern Ireland and, of course, England. He raises an important point about essential services. In the process of parliamentary engagement and scrutiny, we will be able to share the detail of that in due course.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister, who is defending a policy that I do not think his heart is truly in. May I ask him a technical question? If a fake vaccine passport is used, who will bear responsibility? Will it be the venue, the person who checked it, or the individual who used the fake passport? Who will police it? Will we be asking our local police, our local authority or some other agency?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My right hon. Friend asks an important question. When I or a Minister from the Cabinet Office stands at the Dispatch Box and shares the detail of the implementation, we will address that issue in full.

Covid-19: Effect on Retirement Communities

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I am trying to remember whether I have done so previously, but I am delighted to do so this afternoon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whom I will call my hon. Friend from Strangford. I know he was concerned beforehand, but I want to reassure him. I do not know whether it was because of my 19 months in Northern Ireland as Secretary of State or something else, but I understood every single word that he said throughout the whole of his contribution, and I agreed with much that he said.

It is perhaps unusual that I am contributing to a debate introduced by the hon. Member for Strangford, rather than the other way round, but I wanted to contribute because I have a number of retirement villages in my constituency that offer a fantastic service, a real alternative to independent living in later life. I want to talk about how they tackled covid in a way that was as kind as it could be. Let us be clear: there is nothing about the pandemic that I like. I do not particularly like the fact that we are in the Boothroyd Room rather than the Grand Committee Room for a Westminster Hall debate, even though I fought very hard as Chair of the Procedure Committee to get this room opened up because it can host hybrid proceedings.

I do not like not being with my family and friends and not being able to see people freely, and I do not like what has happened to the more elderly in our communities. In my constituency, loneliness and social isolation have been prevalent among the elderly during the pandemic, and I want to talk about the role that retirement villages have played. Also, I want to talk about the role that I think they can play in the future provision of health and social care.

By retirement villages, I mean places with independent living: campus-based community living, but each individual or couple living independently. People have their own home and their own furniture. It is equipped for them to live the way they want to live, but in a communal setting. There are shared communal facilities with club rooms, restaurants, hairdressers, gyms and spas, and sometimes even swimming pools in what we might call the more desirable accommodation. They offer an alternative way of life for those who are post their careers, an alternative that perhaps means they can have a longer independent life than they might have had if they had stayed in their own homes.

As I say, I have a number of retirement villages in Staffordshire Moorlands. We have an older-than-average population, demographically, by which I mean that proportionally, there are more people aged over 55 in my constituency than there are in others. We therefore have an awful lot of traditional retirement homes, traditional care homes, traditional home care services and the housing with care alternative—independent living. One that I have visited on a number of occasions is Bagnall Heights. For people travelling into the moorlands through Light Oaks, Bagnall is the first village that they see after leaving Stoke-on-Trent. In fact, Bagnall Heights could be called the gateway to Staffordshire Moorlands. It is owned by the Vincent family, David and Phil, and run by the fantastic Sue Clarke.

I have had many visits to Bagnall Heights, and I have always been made incredibly welcome. I have also always been incredibly challenged by the residents, who very much enjoy getting a politician in and grilling them. They have had a difficult time during covid, as has everybody. Sue Clarke contacted me thanks to the work of Councillor Sybil Ralphs MBE, who is leader of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and represents Bagnall at ward level. I will read out what Sue said, because she put it incredibly well and there is no point trying to paraphrase her. She said:

“Here at Bagnall Heights we have done amazingly well as we went in lockdown as soon as we had the information and as we were in a gated complex, we were able to monitor anyone coming in and out. We have always had plenty of PPE available and always done temperature checks on everyone and we have never let our care staff go home in uniforms since we opened.”

That is not just during covid; it is a full-stop thing for Bagnall Heights. She continued:

“We arranged for all residents and staff to have Covid Vaccinations”.

Sue said that residents had both by May and staff had both by April 2021, and she went on:

“We have done shopping for residents to cut the risk of families coming on site and we have managed to keep our residents all safe by working together as a community and with the help of excellent staff working all hours this has worked well.

We only let deliveries come to reception and leave everything with us so we were able to deliver to residents’ homes. The same with milk and papers. We have always had a good relationship with our 84 residents and were able to keep a close eye on everyone and know if they were feeling low and we were there to offer support with care needs or just as a friend. The families and friends of our residents know that they only need to call the manager if they needed to pass anything on or ask our advice on anything.

Here at Bagnall Heights we are set in beautiful gardens”—

I can absolutely vouch for that—

“and were able when restrictions were lifted to organise Sir Lee Pearson”,

who is one of our local celebrities, and a Paralympic gold medallist several times over,

“to come and give us a dressage with his gold medal Olympic winning horse Zion, and a local band playing in the gardens and all the residents were able to sit in the grounds at social distance and have a wonderful afternoon with ice cream van that they went up to one by one to stay safe. We also had meals delivered by local pubs/chip shops and we delivered them to the residents to keep everyone safe.

We also did Quizzes weekly and raffles and exchanged cheques for cash so they did not go short of anything they wanted.

We are registered with the county council to do weekly Lateral flow tests for our residents and twice weekly for staff and staff also have one PCR test a week. Before this we had them delivered and registered with the NHS.

We have now organised 6 residents per day to go in the lounge together for chats and to let us monitor track and trace if we did ever have anyone to test positive. This also lets us do a thorough clean each day. We have always done touch point cleaning 3 times a day on a rota throughout the pandemic. We make the Paramedics and Doctors smile when they come as they say we are the only ones that check their temperatures before letting them enter.

We all work as a team and to get through this we must appreciate that the government have had very hard decisions to make and need us all to help and work with each other. This has been so hard and now we all feel that we must try to get back to some normality.

It has been my pleasure working with such dedicated and loyal staff in such difficult circumstances, and for a company that cares. Bagnall Heights is more than just a retirement Village that offers care.”

That was Sue Clarke, the estate manager for Bagnall Heights. Once David Vincent found out that this debate was happening, he called to make sure that we heard from him. He made it clear that Bagnall Heights had taken a very proactive approach. He said that if a resident had to attend hospital, for whatever reason, the staff made sure that the resident went into their independent, private home and isolated for the requisite number of days before they went to hospital, and a designated carer moved into their home to isolate with them and look after them. He says they are a well-knit community within a community and felt that everyone was cautious on the whole. To me, that speaks of a real success story in dealing with covid. It has been difficult for everybody, but to hear what the management at Bagnall Heights have done—I can vouch that this is also happening at retirement villages around the country; it is not unique to Bagnall Heights—shows what can be done by a community working together in the way that they have.

That takes me on to my more general points about housing with care facilities—retirement villages. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the statistical evidence is that they have dealt with covid in a safer way than other, comparable facilities. As he said, the St Monica Trust and the Housing Learning and Improvement Network published research in April showing that only 0.97% of housing with care residents died from covid-19 between March and December, compared with 1.09% of those of the same age living in the wider community. That might not sound like a very big number, but when we are only talking about relatively small numbers, percentage-wise, of people dying from covid who contract it anyway, the fact that the number was lower in that cohort indicates real success. The majority of housing with care operators also had no or very few confirmed or strongly suspected covid cases during each month in 2020, with fewer than 1% of residents with covid-19 in any of their properties through to November last year.

I think this is a real model for how care can be provided. I want to be clear: I am not criticising traditional models of care homes or retirement living. There has to be a full suite of facilities available, so that the right facility is available to the right person. It would be absolutely inappropriate for Government, Ministers or an MP to suggest what would be right for any individual, but this is a lifestyle approach for those in later life that I think should be considered more. It is worth noting that only 0.6% of over-65s in the United Kingdom, or one in 200, live in one of these kinds of facilities, whereas in the US, New Zealand and Australia the figure is closer to 5% to 6%, or one in 20. If 10 times as many people proportionately are living in them in other places, we might want to consider why that is.

The hon. Member for Strangford said—this has come from the Associated Retirement Community Operators—that it is partly down to the lack of sector-specific regulation and legislation, but I think it is also down to other things. In part, I think it is because this kind of facility needs to be looked at with a cross-Government approach. ARCO is calling for a cross-Government taskforce. I would urge the Minister to consider that, because this is not an issue that merely sits within the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or any other Department. It is a cross-Government issue that needs to be looked at in the round.

Indeed, there is a real opportunity to use this kind of facility to assist with the housing crisis and bring it into the debate about the housing crisis. One of the operators told me that every night there are 20 million spare bedrooms in homes of elderly people who are living in the old family home but have not yet downsized. Twenty million spare bedrooms a night goes a long way to tackling affordable housing needs in certain parts of the country. That has to be part of the agenda and discussion.

There is an opportunity for people to move into housing with care, and the attraction is that care can then be provided at home if needed. Care can, of course, be provided in family homes, but they often have to be adapted at great expense. Perhaps people feel they do not want that to happen in their home and they end up going into care homes unnecessarily, when they would not want to go into a traditional care home and it is not right for them, but it is the only option available at the time. Those in independent living—in housing with care facilities—have that care provided at home. Few of the people living in those facilities end up going into care homes. That has to be part of the answer to the care crisis. I am well aware that it is not the only answer, but it has to be part of it.

I am a big supporter of retirement villages, including those in my constituency, and a big supporter of making sure that they are part of the Government’s approach to dealing with the housing crisis for younger people and the care crisis for the elderly. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and shadow Ministers.

Coronavirus

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

May I join you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on her well-deserved honour? She is a marvellous example of a Dame, and I am pleased to call her my right hon. Friend.

My right hon. Friend and I know that the art of government, and the art of being a Minister, is balance. It is about taking conflicting lobby and interest groups, analysing and assessing them, and working out what is the right decision to take in the interests of the country. That includes money that the Government can spend—it is taxpayers’ money, not our money—but it also includes where the resources of the Government must go. It is a difficult job. Competing interests come to explain why their interest is the one that matters; they are not interested in whether someone else’s interests will be affected by their interest. Actually, Ministers are probably doing quite a good job if nobody is terribly happy, because it probably means that they are catering to all interests a little.

I have had a fear throughout the whole sorry saga of the pandemic. I pay tribute to the work that Ministers have done. They have done an incredible amount of work and acted in the best interests of the country, but “follow the science” has become the mantra and sometimes simply following the science is not enough, because the science is looking for one outcome and one single thing. It is really reassuring to have heard Ministers over the past few days say that we will have to accept that this is an endemic virus and learn to live with it, because there was a time when all we heard is that we would eliminate it, which we simply cannot do.

I ask that Ministers think very hard about not just the science but the interests of people. We have been told for so long that we must do just essential activities. For a long time that was merely sleep, eat, drink and possibly go out for an hour for exercise. Well, life is more than that. Life is so much more than the essentials. Life is those weddings, with dancing and greeting loved ones. Life is being able to see loved ones in hospital when they are sick, something that we have been unable to do throughout covid. Life is about attending the British grand prix and many other occasions. Life is about the joy that we can get from such occasions and events. We are constantly being told that we cannot have that joy because it will have an impact on the science.

The Government have to start to celebrate and take advantage of the vaccine programme. We have the most successful vaccine programme in the G7—something that I am sure the Prime Minister reflected on last week. I am very proud that in the north Staffordshire clinical commissioning group, which I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), we have the highest level of vaccinations anywhere in the country. We need to start to reap the benefits of that vaccine programme.

With a heavy heart, I say to the Minister that I cannot support the Government this evening, because I cannot find a way to explain to my constituents why the things that they are looking forward to getting back to doing have to wait. I understand how it will have been put to the Minister—“If you do not do this, Minister, it will cost lives”—but we have to accept that we cannot save every life. I might have been persuaded if the Government were able to support businesses that are unable to open, but that support is simply not there for the weddings industry, the hospitality sector and nightclubs. With a heavy heart, I will not be able to support the Government, although I will on procedural matters.

Coronavirus

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer).

I originally put in to speak in this debate because of the procedural motions. I expected there to be a separate debate on the procedural motions and therefore, as Chair of the Procedure Committee, I was expecting to make some comments. As there other things to debate, I shall mention some other things.

On the procedural motions, the motions that have been tabled are in line with the report issued by my Committee. I do have to point out that there was a division in the Committee. It was the majority of the Committee, not the entire Committee, that wanted to see the motions in the way that they are tabled today, but that is what the Committee decided and I am pleased that the Government have acted on that. Some may think it odd that they are the only motions that we are debating today that actually end on 21 June, but I will come on to that point later.

I also make the point—I hope that those at the Whips’ end of the Treasury Bench will listen to this—that, yesterday in the Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister committed to a debate in the future so that we can consider whether we want to continue with some of the procedural things that we have been doing over the past 12 months. There may also be other procedural changes that we want to make. The Prime Minister committed that such a debate should happen.

In my remaining two-and-a-bit minutes let me move on to the main event of the day. First, let me make the point that, when we pass laws in this place, they are the law of the land. We cannot say that we do not want them to be enforced. We cannot say that we would like them to be ignored. We expect law enforcement and others to enforce the laws that we pass. The difficulty with these laws is that they are contrary to the way that we normally carry out laws. Under the common law system, one is free to do whatever one wishes unless the law says otherwise. These laws are Napoleonic. They give us permission to do certain things. They say that we can do nothing unless we have permission to do it. That has led to enormous confusion, enormous difficulty, for people. It has meant that the interpretation of these rules has been very difficult for all of us. I will just say that, while I understand that we must have the rules in place—perhaps in a pandemic it is impossible to do them in any other way—we should not be critical of those who enforce the rules that we make in this place if we do not like the way that they are enforced.

Secondly, let me talk about the amount of time that we have for debate. Three-and-a-half hours for a debate on these topics is simply not enough. The length of the call list makes it easy to see just how many Members wish to take part. I say to the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), that the Government should not be frightened of amendments, because if an amendment is proposed that has the support of the majority of the House and the Government cannot find a good reason to say no to it, it is probably a good amendment. I suggest that the Government think about providing more time for debate and more opportunities to amend. I do not agree with every single thing in these measures, but I will support the Government today. The Secretary of State’s opening remarks were very conciliatory, and they set out very clearly the direction of travel, and I will therefore support the Government.

I want to make a final point about managing public expectation. I had my vaccine on Saturday—I was one of the large number of people who did so—and one of the volunteers in my vaccine centre said to me, “Now you’ve had the vaccine, you can vote against the stupid restrictions.” People are expecting that these restrictions will end. They are queuing up in droves to get their vaccine, because that is the end of these lockdowns. That is their passport out of the pandemic, and the Government need to make that happen.

DHSC Answers to Written Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I was going to say that, as ever, I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his tone, right up to almost the end of his remarks. On his substantive points, when it comes to accountability to this House, he will know from our regular double acts at this Dispatch Box and in Committee that I and fellow Ministers do not shy away from our accountability to this House in all its forms.

On volume, as I have said, during the same period last year we received 4,000 written questions; this year, the figure has been 8,000. That cannot be addressed by increasing administrative resource alone, because the technical expertise of policy experts is required to provide accuracy in the answers that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members seek. The same policy officials are dealing, day to day, with all aspects of the response to the pandemic.

The hon. Gentleman talked about accuracy, and he is right about the importance of accurate and timely answers. Given that we have answered 8,000 parliamentary questions between March and, I believe, October, some may, sadly, not live up to his expectations. I know that he will hold me and other Ministers to account when that is the case.

In answer to another of the hon. Gentleman’s question, yes, I and other Ministers read not only the answers and the questions, but the background to those questions. If we do not, we will quite rightly end up at the Dispatch Box, being asked those questions again and being challenged on the Floor of the House. In view of that, and in view of our obligations to the public and under the ministerial code, it is absolutely right that we take the answering of written parliamentary questions very seriously.

On the hon. Gentleman’s final point about NHS Digital and the publication of data and so on, I am happy to take that away and look at it for him.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is a fellow member of the Procedure Committee. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Department takes the answering of questions seriously, because the answering and the monitoring of written questions and correspondence from MPs will help Ministers to identify problems in the implementation and roll-out of their policies.

The Procedure Committee, which I chair, has shown some leeway to the Department in recognition of the pressures that it faces, but I invite my hon. Friend to come to the Committee in the next few weeks to explain how he is going to address the backlog.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. As a former member of the Procedure Committee, I recall when she kindly appeared before the Committee to answer questions on parliamentary questions at the Home Office. I look forward to the reversal of the position in the coming weeks.

Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I have three quick points. First, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcements on the tier system and, in particular, the granularity that has been allowed. In my neighbouring borough of High Peak, we are seeing ward-based restrictions, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) for his work on ensuring that that happens. I urge that there should be more granularity in what we do, led by local health professionals.

On the matter of hospitality, this is where I have to declare an interest. My family has run a pub for 53 years, from my grandfather to my father and now my brother, and they have never faced anything like this in all that time. I recognise why my right hon. Friend is doing what he is doing, and I agree with him that schools and workplaces have to be our priority, but we also have to think about the businesses that have spent thousands on making themselves covid-ready and now face a very uncertain future. Shift workers and those who work in hospitality are now completely excluded from any socialising with their friends, because the bars are simply not open at the time when they can go and enjoy themselves.

Also, people do not understand why there are differences around the country. Why is Wales allowing a drinking-up time? Why does Northern Ireland have an 11 o’clock closing time? I say to my right hon. Friend that I will support the Government’s measures today, but please can we look at having some more flexibility? I would be very happy to talk to him about some of the suggestions that my brothers have put to me during this debate, including on off-licence sales, drinking-up time and perhaps more flexibility on Friday and Saturday nights, which are the lifeblood of hospitality industries around the country, particularly in areas outside the big cities.

My final point is about this place, which is leading the way. We are sitting here in a socially distanced way. We are the most visible workplace in the country and we are abiding fully by the rules. However, if we have a Division this evening, we are putting ourselves at risk, and we are putting the staff of the House at risk. As the Clerk said in evidence to the Procedure Committee yesterday, if we do not have enough security staff able to come into this place, we cannot open. I want to see this place open. I want to see us scrutinising what the Government are doing and to be able to have these debates. We will be able to do that a lot better and a lot more safely if we vote in a safe way, and that means allowing the House to make a decision about whether we return to remote voting.

Covid-19

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I half agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and that is because I think that international co-ordination is important—I have been participating in regular G7 calls, as have the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer—but different countries are also in different places on the curve. For instance, we have introduced measures such as these earlier on the curve than similar countries, such as France and Germany.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

May I repeat the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) about pubs and restaurants? I have been contacted by a number from the Moorlands today that are particularly concerned in the run-up to Mother’s Day, which would normally be one of the busiest days of the year. Can the Government give firm advice now as to whether pubs and restaurants should close or not, so they can claim on insurance?

[Matt Hancock]

We are advising against all unnecessary social contact. I appreciate that this has consequences and I regret having to take these measures, but we are having to fight this virus.

Coronavirus

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Members of the Procedure Committee are, like many in the House, concerned about how we make sure that we properly represent our constituents if either Members of Parliament or their staff have to self-isolate. The Committee is meeting regularly this week to discuss the changes that might be needed to our procedures in that event. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will work with us to ensure that all parliamentarians are able properly to represent their constituents?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, that would be a pleasure.