Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) (No. 2) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 General Committees

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. The Labour party will not oppose the regulations, which lift many, although not all, of the additional restrictions Leicester was put under as the first area to go into local lockdown.

I hope that the Committee will forgive me, however, for raising questions on behalf of my constituents and of people across the city about why some restrictions remain in place, and for raising a number of serious concerns about how this whole process has been handled and the lessons that we might learn for local lockdowns in the rest of the country; about the impact Leicester’s extended lockdown has had on the lives of people in our city; and about the support that we need to minimise that impact, ensuring the best possible recovery. That is something that now applies to other areas in local lockdown. Finally, I will touch on the very real problems that we in Leicester are experiencing with test and trace—problems that are mirrored across the country—and the lessons that we can learn to put that right. Sorting out test and trace is essential to getting on top of the virus and avoiding even worse harm to our economy. Those issues are incredibly pertinent to announcements made today.

I will start by asking why some restrictions are still in place. One of the most important questions, and one that my constituents ask repeatedly, is why they are still not allowed to meet their families in their gardens. I cannot stress how horrible it has been for people to be separated from their families for months on end. They understand why being indoors causes difficulties, but why can they not be outdoors in their gardens? The Minister for Care told me in person that the reason is that reaching the garden would involve going through the house, and there are concerns that the infection might spread indoors; people might be less careful in the private atmosphere of a house than in the garden. In response, I asked, “Can you publish that? Can you put that description of why you are doing it with the evidence that underpins it online?” I have had many emails from constituents about it, but I am not a scientist; I cannot speak for the science, but I do want my constituents to know. Ivan Browne, Leicester’s brilliant director of public health, has also asked for that evidence, but it still has not appeared.

Why there would be a problem with outlining that reasoning online for my constituents? As the Minister will know, if we want people to comply with rules, there has to be trust, and for there to be trust, we have to be open with people about those reasons. I believe that the vast majority of people are completely reasonable and will listen to the reasons and follow the rules.

Will the Minister publish evidence or an explanation of why the Government are lifting the requirement for people in Leicester to shield from October 5th? Lots of people who are shielding are really pleased about that, but others are really concerned about why we are doing it, particularly in the context of the news that we have heard today about infections rising exponentially. Will the Government stick to that policy or change, it and can we have some information, because it is really important for people who have been shielding to know why?

I will turn now to the handling—or, rather, mishandling—of the additional Leicester lockdown and subsequent reviews. I will not go over what happened when the lockdown was first announced—as the Minister knows, I went through that last time we debated similar regulations—but I have never seen anything like the mishandling of that lockdown and the subsequent reviews, and I have worked, for my sins, in and around Parliament and Government for 23 years, including in the Department of Health. I understand that these are unprecedented times, but that could have been handled better.

Let me tell the Committee what happened when the results of the second review of the restrictions came out on 30 July. People were desperate; they were absolutely clinging on to the news for answers. “Am I going to be able to see my mum and dad and my brother and sister?”, “Am I going to be able to go back to work?”, or, “Is my business going to be able to open?” We were told by the city council that we would get the results of this review by mid-day; then just after lunch; and then by 5 pm. We waited and we waited, but by 8 pm there was still nothing. Finally, at 8.30 pm, I received a message from my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the shadow Health Secretary, asking, “Are you on this call?” It turned out that an email had been sent after 8 pm, not by this Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary but by the social care Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. I got on the call and I discovered that it was not about an announcement regarding Leicester; it was a call that included all the other MPs in the midlands and the north whose areas were going into an extra lockdown. People can imagine just how agitated many of them were. And even after that call, nothing was properly communicated to the public, so it was left to me and the other Leicester MPs to tweet what we had very briefly been told in that call, because our constituents were desperate to know what was happening.

I say all that not because I give a monkey’s about how I am told, but because I care about how my constituents are told and how they are treated, and because if we want people to abide by the rules, they have to know what the rules are, rather than being left to scrabble around to try and make sense of a tweet by the Health Secretary at 9.15 pm. And just for the record, I do not think that it is ever good to tweet at that time of night; that is true in general, but particularly on an issue such as this. I think the vast majority of people are prepared to do the right thing and make sacrifices, but they expect fairness from the Government and at the bare minimum to be treated with respect, and as if their lives and livelihoods matter. That is what my constituents told me; they said they felt that they did not matter and had just been left hanging on for news that completely affects their lives.

That is not good enough. The Government need to change how future local lockdowns are announced. They need to set clear dates and times for announcements, and say how they will be made. My constituents think that the Government have to provide concise and readily available information to the public. The Government must not ever send a tweet to make this kind of announcement.

I turn now to the impact that the extra lockdown has had on our city and the need for more support. I should say in advance that I know these issues are way beyond the Minister’s direct remit, but she will understand why I want to put this on the record.

All of us in this room know the terrible toll that the virus has taken on people’s lives and livelihoods, and the situation has been even worse in areas with local lockdowns. Leicester, which was the first place to go into local lockdown, has suffered the longest. People are still not able to meet up with the people they love the most—their mums, dads, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, nephews and nieces. As I have already said, it is vital that the Government explain why such meetings are not allowed, even in people’s gardens.

The pressures on unpaid family carers are perhaps even more severe. Many tell me that they have been pushed to absolute breaking point, providing many more hours of care a week or being forced to shield with the people they care for, so as not to risk infecting their loved ones. They have received no extra help or support, let alone any desperately needed breaks. As one woman told me in a recent surgery: “I have nothing left. You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Will the Minister explain why the Government’s winter plan for social care contains nothing on improving support for family carers, beyond saying that they will get guidance, a phoneline and a free flu vaccine? How will that help the people upon whom the whole health and care system relies?

People with relatives in care homes also feel pushed to the limit, as they have been unable to see their relatives for nearly six months. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) told me about a constituent who had contacted her about this issue, describing the anguish that her family was experiencing. Her constituent said:

“As someone who has a family member in a care home”—

that is, in a care home in a ward that was particularly affected—

“I’m seeing and hearing (via Skype) my family member becoming very distressed, withdrawn and their condition deteriorating due to the lack of physical and visual contact with their family members...My family are absolutely distraught by the fact that we are not being allowed to see our family member but are having to hear them sobbing on the telephone and being told by staff how agitated they are and how lockdown is affecting them and causing their condition to deteriorate. We can’t get this time back with our family member and time is precious.”

None of us wants to risk bringing the virus back into care homes, but instead of banning family visits in high-risk local lockdown areas, why do the Minister and the Government not make it their top priority to get visits happening again by guaranteeing at least one family member a weekly covid test, so that they can see the person they love and, crucially, that person’s health does not get even worse?

As I said in our last discussion on the regulations, families are under massive financial pressure, too. Since the start of the pandemic, the number of people on universal credit in Leicester has doubled and unemployment is rising month on month. More and more people are struggling to make ends meet, pay their mortgage or rent, keep the gas and electricity on, and even put food on the table. As chair of the “Feeding Leicester” programme to tackle food poverty in the city, I see the brutal impact of the virus on a city where 40% of children were already living in poverty even before it struck. Our emergency food partnership of 16 local food banks has seen a 300% increase in demand since the pandemic began. Christ the King food bank in Beaumont Leys, which I visited the other week, went from supporting about 80 families a week to 400, through the unbelievable, amazing efforts of its volunteers. The volunteers told me that, whereas at the start of the lockdown they were helping many people who were shielding, they now see more and more people who have been made redundant. With one in three employees furloughed in Leicester, they are worried about what will happen when the furlough and self-employed schemes finish next month. As winter is fast approaching, many people face the awful choice of heating or eating.

I know that those issues are beyond the Minister’s direct responsibility, but why will her Government not consider the approach taken in countries such as Germany and France? Those countries have extended their employment schemes until 2021 and made them much more flexible, so that people can work part time, or a few hours, to keep contact with the world of work and keep their business going, but still get enough support to pay the bills, or people can have support tied to training to develop new skills in areas of the economy that are likely to grow in future. Ministers must end their one-size-fits-all approach and continue to support the hardest hit sectors of our economy, where people still cannot go back to business as usual, as well as parts of the country such as Leicester that are still subject to local restrictions.

Leicester’s businesses have been subject to the longest lockdown in the country. While some additional—and hugely welcome—support has been made available, it will not be enough to help many of them survive, even though they were completely viable before the pandemic and have done the right thing. After lobbying from me and other MPs from the city and the county, the Government agreed to provide an additional £2.6 million for Leicester’s businesses to help them to cope with having to stay shut for longer, but I am afraid that, as the East Midlands chamber of commerce has said, Government support for businesses in areas of extra lockdown “only scratches the surface”. What we really need is

“a comprehensive package of support from Government for firms affected by local restrictions, which are sadly becoming more frequent each week.”

I hope the Government will fully acknowledge the additional funding that our local councils need to keep on top of the covid crisis. Leicester City Council’s response to the pandemic is already set to cost more than £40 million, and that figure is likely to get even greater as cases rise and additional lockdown measures come into place.

Finally, I turn to test and trace, the problems we see in Leicester, and what the Government could do to get it right. I pay tribute, as the Minister has done, to the amazing work of our local director of public health, Ivan Browne, his team and all the other Leicester City Council staff who have been working around the clock to get tests to the people who need them. As part of that, the adult social care team under the fantastic directorship of Martin Samuels is working really hard to prevent infections in care homes. In the past 11 weeks they have been ringing each care home at least twice a week and collecting data directly, as little information has been available from the national test and trace system. I do not understand that. Why can we not get the information on care home test results from the national test and trace service back to our local system? Perhaps the Minister can explain that. We have consistently found that staff are being tested about once a fortnight, not once a week—only half as often as recommended.

My own calls with local care homes show that some are having real problems getting test results back and sometime having to wait up to seven days. That means they have to do the next test before getting the results back from the last, with all the risks that that brings from having potentially asymptomatic staff at work for a whole week. The Government first promised weekly testing in care homes with a 24-hour turnaround of results in July, but that is still not happening, even in a high-risk area such as Leicester, where it should have been an absolute priority.

The problems with testing are not confined to care homes, as I am sure hon. Members know from their own experience. Schools in my constituency are also reporting serious issues with testing, particularly for children. Previously, we had lots of walk-in centres in Leicester because of our outbreak. People could simply walk in and get tested, but now parents are being told they must book an appointment first. Not only has that caused confusion, but there are no appointments available to book, so pupils are missing out on yet more time in the classroom. They have to go home and self-isolate because they cannot get a test at all.

The Children’s Commissioner was absolutely right to say today that the Government “risks failing a generation” of children if they do not sort out the testing fiasco, and that the progress made by reopening schools just weeks ago risks being “thrown away” unless the tests are available to keep children in class. That must be an absolute priority. Two things need to happen. First, there has to be much closer working—

[The Chair]

Order. I gently remind the shadow Minister not to stray from the scope of the regulations.

[Liz Kendall]

No, I absolutely will not. You will be relieved to hear, Mrs Murray, that I do not have much more to say. Forgive me for trying to get this on the record but, as a local MP, the lockdown is the most important thing that has happened to our city, and I want to make sure I reflect on that.

We have to work much more closely with local public health teams to share information and build their capacity on test and trace, rather than have a centrally driven approach. We know that our teams get much better results when they call people, because people recognise a local number. That is a basic, simple thing. The teams tell me that when the person they get hold of on the phone gives them all the contacts that they have had in the last 10 days, they have to give that information to the national test and trace system. How on earth does that make sense?

We also have to build lab capacity, which we desperately need to grow to help to bring the testing backlog down and speed up turnaround time for results. Many universities and research facilities stand ready to help, but the Government have again insisted on national contracts with private sector organisations instead of also having a really good local approach. I hope the Minister will say what steps she will take to shift the focus to a more locally led approach to test and trace in Leicester and across the country. That is relevant to these regulations. I do not want the Minister to come back here to put them all in place again because we cannot get the test and trace system working. I want the Minister and the Government to succeed on test and trace, on keeping our kids at school, and on opening our economy, because that is what is best for my constituents.

In conclusion, many lessons need to be learnt from Leicester’s experience. There must be much better handling of local lockdowns in terms of how decisions are taken and information shared, both with residents and those responsible for making the lockdowns work. We must get to get to grips with test and trace, with a more locally led approach that builds on the knowledge, resources and capacity of local public health teams who know their communities, rather than a centrally managed and controlled system, and we must have a much more tailored and flexible approach to supporting local economies that have faced extra restrictions.

People do not want handouts and they do not expect Government schemes to carry on forever—that is not something that I have ever argued for—but they do expect support to help them get back on their feet when they do the right thing. Above all, we need to understand that the failure to sort out testing is making our economic recovery even harder. We cannot deal with the economic crisis unless we effectively deal with the health crisis, and I am afraid the Government have been sadly lacking on both. I thank the Committee for its forbearance.