Covid-19

Lord Newby Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, to most of us, it was obvious that plan B restrictions had to remain in place. As the Labour Party, we fulfilled our responsibilities to act in the national interest to support these when the Prime Minister faced such strong opposition from his own Benches. No one likes or enjoys these restrictions, but when they are needed to protect public health and the delivery of health and other public services, they will have our support. Internal party politics or personal ambition should never be a factor at these times.

In his Statement, the Prime Minister rightly praised everyone working in the health service and social care and the volunteers for their work on the vaccination programme. Their work is very impressive and, generally, the public response to getting the vaccine is equally impressive.

The Prime Minister now has to get a grip on those issues which could derail plan B. He has an opportunity to finally get a grip on the pharmaceutical interventions which could ultimately bring the pandemic to a close. Our lives are more global than ever. We have to do all we can to prevent further waves and new mutations. That means vaccinating beyond our own shores. The UN Secretary-General has warned that the world is far off track from meeting the WHO goal of vaccinating 70% of people in all countries by the middle of 2022. What steps are the Government taking to increase global supply to the COVAX scheme and what support is being given to increase vaccination capacity in low-income countries when the doses arrive?

At home, there is also more that the Government themselves could do to end the Government’s cycle of restrictions. Can the noble Baroness outline today what steps they will take to drive up vaccination rates in the 12 to 17 age group, and if not, please can she write to me? The noble Baroness will be aware of the report about recent new orders from the Government’s Antivirals Taskforce. Is she confident that all antivirals on order will be effective against omicron? Given the incidence of transmission in schools, can she say anything today by way of an explanation about why the Government are taking so long to act on the SAGE advice about recirculating air and ventilation? SAGE first mentioned it over two years ago, and it seems that the Government are dragging their heels at a crucial time.

On testing and self-isolation, the new requirements on a daily lateral flow test for critical workers are welcome. However, the Government have to ensure that the capacity exists to facilitate it. Local services across the UK are already buckling because doctors, nurses, carers and teachers cannot find the tests to meet current requirements. I have to say to the noble Baroness that I welcome the commitment to 100,000 tests per day in England for critical workers. However, can she tell me what percentage of critical workers that covers? I looked at how many workers are employed in England in the food manufacturing industry, and it is something like 400,000, and something like 120,000 workers are involved in providing bus services. I am not quite sure where the 100,000 tests will go and whether they will be adequate to meet demands. I went online this morning to try to order lateral flow tests, and they are still not available. Just when the Government say that we need to test more often, they go into short supply. That kind of lack of joined-up thinking undermines public confidence.

Can the noble Baroness the Leader also confirm what modelling the department has produced on test demand over the course of the current wave? When do the Government estimate that the current shortage of tests will end? There has to be a long-term plan for testing capacity. Given that we all agree that we will have to learn to live with some degree of Covid, can the noble Baroness tell us what steps the Government are taking to scale up the manufacturing of tests here in the UK? I am quite interested to know the proportion of current tests that are produced here in Britain. She will have seen the reports from a company that is already supplying to the EU, has the capacity and wants to supply to the UK, but we are importing tests from China and we have a shortage. Something about the Government’s plans to address that in the short term would be welcome.

In addition to the scaling up of testing, it is equally important that the Government take action to ensure that those who test positive are able to self-isolate. We are now two years into this pandemic. When will the Government finally introduce sick pay provisions so that people do not have to choose between isolation to prevent others getting the virus and putting food on the table or paying the rent?

In the immediate term, we need to see real leadership from the Government on alleviating the pressure currently placed on the National Health Service. An increasing number of trusts are declaring critical incidents. Greater Manchester has been forced to halt non-urgent surgery and the West Midlands Ambulance Service has asked retired workers to return. Can the noble Baroness tell the House what support is being offered to trusts which have declared critical incidents and what action is being taken to prevent others being in that position as well?

We cannot ignore that the NHS is struggling, not just because of the pandemic but because of a decade of mismanagement previously. We entered this pandemic with the longest waiting lists on record, and so we need to hear from the noble Baroness and the Government what action will be taken, and clear targets to reduce waiting lists and waiting times. Waiting for treatment or surgery when you are in pain or unable to work severely affects the nation’s mental as well as physical health. The Commons Health and Social Care Committee has warned that 6 million people are currently waiting for treatment, so can the noble Baroness say something about what assessment the Department of Health and Social Care has made on the impact on the mental health of patients of that uncertainty about getting the treatment or surgery required?

We are seeing now that progress is being made, but there is still some way to go before we can be confident that we can all be living that normal life again. The country cannot afford any further mismanagement or slow responses from the Government.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing my support for the extraordinary work being done by NHS staff and all those—including pharmacies and volunteers—who are helping to make the booster programme such a success.

The decision to scrap the requirement for a PCR test following a positive lateral flow test clearly makes sense, given the delays which are regularly occurring both in sending out the PCR test and then in receiving the results of it. I know of cases where these waits have been of a week or longer, which has meant that they have not arrived until far too late to be of any use to the individuals concerned.

The new relaxed rules for travellers entering or re-entering the UK apply to those who are fully vaccinated, but this definition does not require people to have had the booster jab. Have the Government any plans to require a booster jab, not least to incentivise travellers to get the booster before they travel?

Despite the scale of the testing programme, there have been and remain serious delays in getting test kits to local pharmacies, schools and individuals. I repeat the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about the Government’s current assessment of the ability of the supply chain to deliver the number of tests to fulfil the Government’s own targets.

Despite the Government’s support for Operation Moonshot—do people remember that?—to create a domestic production capacity, only one British manufacturer is making kits which meet UK standards. Others, as the noble Baroness said, are making kits which pass EU standards but not our own, and as a result they are exporting all their kits. What plans do the Government have to expedite approval of further UK manufacturers and reduce our dependency on kits made almost exclusively in China?

Can the Leader assure us that the Prime Minister, in his efforts to remove as many restrictions as possible, is not considering following the strategy of the United States by reducing isolation to five days without two negative lateral flow tests? There is considerable evidence that many people shed significant amounts of virus on days six and seven and later, making them still contagious and a threat to public health, so making any reduction would be dangerous.

It is clear that hospitals and ambulance services are struggling at the moment, with 24 critical incidents already declared and people with a possible heart attack being advised to get a taxi or a lift to hospital. The NHS was clearly underresourced to cope with a pandemic such as this, not least due to its having lost thousands of beds over the past decade. Can the Leader say what assessment is being made of the resilience and ability of our health services to deal with future pandemics?

It is clear that there will be further disruption for many school pupils who have yet to catch up on their studies following the closures over the last 18 months. Will the Government therefore expedite the catch-up programme and start by providing every parent with a £30 catch-up voucher for every day their child misses school?

The Prime Minister repeated the government injunction yesterday for people to

“carry on working from home whenever they can”.

I fear that the Government are not supporting their own policy when it comes to your Lordships’ House. I accept that we can legislate really effectively only when we are here in person, but we know that we can vote effectively from home. Next week, we are asking people to take journeys on public transport of up to five hours and more to sit in an office, often not even in the Palace itself, simply to vote. This poses a potential threat to them and their families. It has been argued that reverting to virtual voting would pose a reputational risk to the House. I believe the opposite, and anecdotal evidence supports that view. I hope that the commission will look at this again as a matter of urgency and that the noble Baroness the Leader will now support this sensible change.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments. First, touching on the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about our international efforts, she may well be aware that last week, we pledged a further £105 million of UK emergency aid to help vulnerable countries tackle the omicron variant by scaling up testing capacity, improving access to oxygen supplies and providing communities with hygiene advice and products. That builds on the £1.3 billion of UK aid already committed to the international health response, supporting vaccines, health systems and economic recovery in developing countries. I am delighted to say that we met our 2020-21 target of delivering more than 30 million vaccines to more than 30 countries as part of our pledge to donate 100 million doses to the world. This year, we will be donating millions more vaccines, including 20 million AstraZeneca doses and 20 million Janssen doses.

The noble Lord and noble Baroness both rightly asked about education, and of course there will be more detail in the further Statement later today, but we have delivered almost 3 million doses to children aged between 12 and 17 in England. We continue to work on increasing uptake, including through repeat offers, ensuring parental consent forms are translated into appropriate languages and collaborating with leading social media platforms to direct people to trusted sources of information. Obviously, we must make sure that where people can get vaccinated is clearly evidenced, and we are working with the education sector on that.

In relation to catch-up, the noble Lord is absolutely right. It is a priority, and always has been, to try to keep schools open, which is why we have been putting so much effort into that, and we are incredibly grateful to all the teachers and other staff in schools who have been helping to make that happen. We already announced £5 billion for education recovery, including £1.5 billion for tutoring, to provide up to 100 million tutoring hours for five to 19 year-olds by 2024, more than £800 million to fund 40 additional hours per student in 16 to 19 education and more than £950 million in flexible funding for schools to use how they see best. We are very cognisant of the need to ensure that young people do not suffer yet more during the pandemic, and we have a lot of work in place to do that.

The noble Baroness asked about antivirals, and I am pleased to say that we are leading in the number of antivirals bought per head of population in Europe. We are currently rolling out neutralising monoclonal antibodies and antiviral treatments for patients at highest risk of severe disease and hospitalisation, and up to 1.3 million patients could benefit if they are clinically eligible. We have a plan to personally communicate with those patients and make sure that they receive prioritised PCR test kits to ensure early access to treatment if they become ill. Antivirals are and will be playing an increasing role for us in coming to live with this virus, so I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that we are in the forefront of making sure we have access to the drugs, which are developing constantly, to help tackle Covid.

The noble Baroness asked about lateral flow tests for the 100,000 critical care workers. These kits will be sent directly to organisations, including those who work in critical national infrastructure, national security, transport and food distribution and processing. These are separate and in addition to the tests already allocated to our public services, and we will be working with those sectors on distribution; but, as I said, tests will be sent directly to those sectors.

Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about testing capacity. We are now delivering record numbers of lateral flow tests to pharmacies across England, with almost 8 million tests being made available this week alone. I can reassure the noble Lord and noble Baroness that we are tripling our supply of lateral flow tests in January and February from our pre-omicron plan of 100 million to 300 million a month. Of course, we will continue to review and work with the sector on where we can source tests to ensure we can meet the demand, which they rightly say is unprecedented. But this shows how conscientious the public are being in protecting themselves and their loved ones by testing regularly, and we are very grateful to everyone for everything they are doing to keep each other safe.

The noble Baroness asked about statutory sick pay. We have extended it to those who are self-isolating and made Covid-related SSP payable from day one, meaning that it could be up to 75% more generous for full-time employees who need to self-isolate. Statutory sick pay is £96.35 a week, and that remains the statutory minimum, but more than half of employees receive contractual sick pay from their employer. It should not be looked at in isolation. We have taken other measures through universal credit and employment support allowance, so we have been focused on and cognisant of the need to provide support for people. We have also provided the £500 test and trace support payment, which we have extended until the end of March. We have already committed more than £340 million to ensure that there are no financial barriers for those isolating in England, and we have made nearly 400,000 of those payments.

On the NHS’s preparedness, the noble Lord and noble Baroness will be well aware that we have provided record investment to tackle the backlog, with £2 billion this year and £8 billion over the next three years to deliver an extra 9 million checks, scans and operations. We have provided an extra £5.4 billion for the NHS to respond to Covid up to April, including £2.8 billion for costs including infection control measures, £600 million for day-to-day costs, £478 million for enhanced hospital discharge and £1.5 billion for elective recovery, together with capital funding. I hope that they will agree that we are supporting our NHS with further investment to help it get through this incredibly difficult time.

Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about critical incidents, which, as they will know, are determined and activated locally. Of course it is serious when that happens, but noble Lords will be aware that the NHS also takes this approach during non-Covid winters, because it is a way of ensuring that the local NHS can continue to best serve patients and protect staff, as it is an operational escalation mechanism. Ministers are working very closely with NHS England to get the assurance that proper support is being delivered.

The noble Baroness rightly asked about mental health. Noble Lords will know that at the heart of the NHS long-term plan is an expansion of mental health services. Mental health will receive at least a further £2.3 billion a year of extra investment to support 380,000 more adults and 345,000 more children.

I was grateful to hear the noble Lord mention the changes to the travel rules. The one thing I would say is that there have been no changes for unvaccinated adults: the changes that have been made are for those who have been vaccinated, and we are keeping the definition of fully vaccinated under review. If it changes to include boosters, plenty of time and notice will of course be given to make sure that people understand and are aware of that.

The noble Lord asked about reducing isolation times. Our current assessment is that shortening the period would be counterproductive. In some settings, such as hospitals, it could actually worsen staff shortages if it led to more people being infected.

In relation to your Lordships’ House, as the noble Lord said, legislating, of which I believe voting is a key part, is the central element of what we do. I disagree with him: I believe it should be done in person. We are working to make sure that it is as safe for everyone as possible. I am afraid that I disagree with him on that point.