Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKarin Smyth
Main Page: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)Department Debates - View all Karin Smyth's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberMoving swiftly on.
In England, the number of tests, the availability of tests and the turnaround time simply are not good enough. So dire is the situation that the Prime Minister is arguing with the Health Secretary over whether testing even matters. The Health Secretary has said that
“finding where the people are who test positive is the single most important thing that we must do to stop the spread of the virus”,
and I agree with him. I agree with the Health Secretary. The shame is that the Prime Minister does not appear to, because he has said the complete opposite. The Prime Minister has said:
“Testing and tracing has very little or nothing to do with the spread or the transmission of the disease.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 822.]
Yet again, the Prime Minister refuses to take responsibility for his own actions and his own failings.
The testing of care home residents and staff is critical to saving lives, yet in England there have been repeated delays to the roll-out of testing, and people have waited days for their results. We are also witnessing chaotic scenes at our universities as students are locked down for the want of testing. The Prime Minister has been talking about a “moonshot”, but it is time he stopped looking up at the sky in vain hope and focused instead on what is happening in the everyday lives of families and businesses up and down the country. The failure to show that grip and strategic leadership has severely hampered the way in which the UK Government work with other Governments, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said. Some have not even been properly informed of lockdown plans for their own areas. Let us take yesterday as an example, when we had the chaos of the Prime Minister himself unable to outline what additional restrictions his own Government were implementing for the north-east of England. It is, frankly, an embarrassment, and people deserve better. If the Prime Minister actually bothered to communicate with some of the devolved Governments, he might learn something. In Wales, the tracing system is significantly better. The percentage of contacts that has been reached has been consistently higher than in England, and the Prime Minister ought to follow that best practice.
Let me turn to some of those most at risk in our society. The Health Secretary claimed to have thrown a “protective ring” around care homes in England. If that is what the Government call the shambles they presided over, I would hate to see what they consider a mess to be. Again, the Prime Minister tried to shift the blame, insultingly suggesting that
“too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures”,
and that was when the Government’s own advice at the start of the pandemic said that people in care homes were “very unlikely” to be infected. The truth is that too many care homes were left high and dry. There was not enough support, insufficient personal protective equipment and a lack of testing. I am sorry to say that some of the most vulnerable paid the price and, sadly, paid the ultimate price. Yet again, care workers, who should be lauded by the Government, were denigrated.
That failure on care homes is particularly relevant as we discuss and debate this legislation and its renewal, because the Act contains provisions that allow for the so-called “easement” of legal safeguards. The Health Secretary said that he thinks those are still necessary, but why are they still necessary? I read carefully the analysis that he published, which did not answer the question. He tried in his speech to make a positive case for it on the basis of prioritisation, but he must realise that that does not deal with the deep concern there is about the situation in our care homes, and he must surely understand that every vulnerable person, throughout this pandemic, must have the standard of care that they need.
We also have significant concerns about the curtailment of the use of GPs to sign death certificates. Again, the Health Secretary said that he wanted to continue with that provision. What assessment has been made about the use of this power? Why does it need to continue? Will he also tell us what its impact has been? Ministers have no excuse for being caught unawares, as they have had months to get to grips with this. We cannot afford for action to protect our care homes and other services to be as slow and chaotic as it was at the start of this pandemic.
On a more positive note, I welcome what the Health Secretary said about the easements under the Mental Health Act; they have not been used and I welcome his assurance that they will not now be used. But what about the easements under the Children and Families Act 2014? He did not mention that Act, and I assume from the silence that they will be continuing. He must bear in mind those with special educational needs and vulnerable children, whose rights should not be rolled back as a consequence of this pandemic. Some of the most vulnerable people have borne the brunt of this virus and this Government’s failings.
We have also seen, across our communities, that the impact has not been evenly felt. Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities have been some of the worst-hit by the virus itself and by the economic fallout, Disabled people and those with underlying health conditions have made up 59% of the covid deaths to date. Despite that, the Government have not done enough work on equality impact assessments on measures or made the necessary evidence available so that we can openly debate and vote to address these deep inequalities. Today, we are faced with an all-or-nothing motion, but let me put the Government on notice that we will not tolerate any discrimination in our society as a consequence of the implementation of these measures. That is why I say to the Government today that they should not be waiting another six months; they should be publishing a monthly review of the impact of this virus on individuals and groups, together with those detailed impact assessments. If the Government continue with the easements under the Care Act 2014, as they say they will, or under the Children and Families Act 2014, they must report regularly to this House about the impact of what they are doing,
I hope my hon. Friend agrees that the way the Secretary of State has approached this matter today is disappointing. Many of us sit on Select Committees and have scrutinised the way in which this Act has come forward, and are willing to spend more time doing that properly. That is our job as legislators. The approach has been most unsatisfactory, so I completely support my hon. Friend when he says that we need it to be better. There are recommendations in many Select Committee reports, and my hon. Friend should press the Secretary of State to take note of them.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She saves me from coming to another part of my speech. Quality scrutiny is available across the House on a cross-party basis, and we have had no credible explanation for why this debate is limited to 90 minutes.
The rights that I have referred to, relating to the easements that the Government are pushing forward, protect vulnerable people—those who need care, those with mental illness and children with special educational needs across the country. We cannot simply put their rights to one side.
On rights, there is a real issue with schedule 21. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) put his finger on it: the power to detain “potentially infectious persons”, which, as far as I can make out, could include virtually anybody. So far, it has been used for 141 prosecutions, each and every one of which was found to be unlawful when it was reviewed. I cannot think of any other piece of legislation in parliamentary history that that could be said about. All the Health Secretary said was that the guidance had changed and he would keep it under review. With a provision like that, he needs to speak to the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary and do so much better. A provision that has resulted in 141 unlawful prosecutions cannot be right.
I say to the Health Secretary that the Government have to be transparent and accountable. They must come back not in six months’ time, as set out in Act, but every month to answer for the use of these powers.