Prioritising Early Childhood: Academy of Medical Sciences Report
Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Markham (Con)
I agree with the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lady Cumberlege about the importance of continuity of care in the maternity space. We are investing resources as part of the long-term workforce plan to increase the number of people trained in maternity and in this area generally. To give another example, we are investing in family nurses by increasing the number of training places by 74%, because it is understood that we need the workforce to provide all these services in an ever more complex world.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, is not one of the problems that children today do not get anything like the exercise we used to do in the old days?
Lord Markham (Con)
Wearing the tie I was awarded for being man of the match in the rugby against the Irish parliament this weekend, which we won, I totally agree about the importance of exercise in all walks of life. Social prescribing is vital. We are expanding the number of PE services available for children, because exercise is vital.
Polio
Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Kamall (Con)
As it happens, I was at an event yesterday at which a GP from east London was present; we were talking about the whole range of issues, not just this specific issue. Let us be clear: no one has got polio and no cases have been identified. We have found it in the sewage, and it probably came from someone who had the oral vaccine overseas, came to the UK and excreted it into the system. there are no cases of polio at the moment—we should be absolutely clear about that—but we are saying that this is a warning that people should ensure that they get vaccinated and check their records.
The noble Baroness makes a really important point about health disparities and there are lots of issues we must tackle. I have said many times that we must see how we can work on a community-led solution, rather than having someone in Westminster or Whitehall who thinks they have all the answers. To be honest, we have to show due humility and say that people sitting in this House can sometimes be out of touch with those communities.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, as my noble friend has said, the polio disease still exists in other parts of the world. When immigrants come from different parts of the world—not just from Europe—are they examined, checked and given polio injections immediately, or does it take time?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I am not sure of the exact details on when they are informed but let me go back to the department and ask. What I do know is that, when immigrants come to this country and register with their local GP, there is a health check and, quite often, a questionnaire to raise awareness about what vaccines or treatments they may have had and to ensure that they are as up to date with their vaccinations as the existing populations.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 6) Regulations 2021
Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, I suggest that, if it were not for omicron, we would not be sitting here today. It is only because of omicron that we are all debating this. I have to say this. Could the messages have been better? Yes. Could the NHS have been better prepared? Possibly. But that does not matter. I completely support what my dear noble friend Lord Fowler said.
Decisions have to be made and I will finish on this point. The sooner we are able to be free—truly free—I want the opportunity for us all to get everybody back to creating wealth in this country, because that will be the real challenge before us. Unless we manage to do it, the rest, sadly, will become unnecessary.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I commend the 126 MPs in the other place who voted on their principles and conscience, despite heavy whipping, in yesterday’s rebellion. They formed an ad hoc Official Opposition while the formal Official Opposition did their—what did Keir Starmer call it?—“patriotic duty” in not opposing but endorsing every single one of the Government’s proposals.
Despite having previously opposed vaccine passports, now renamed by Ministers—as though that were convincing—and despite all the talk of preventing the NHS toppling over and lauding NHS workers as heroes, Labour voted for discriminatory employment practices and the brute force of job losses to coerce NHS staff into complying with a medical intervention or getting sacked.
In every wing of the Conservative Party there was a significant minority of MPs who, despite personal appeals from the Prime Minister, defied the Whip—and that means something important that this House might note.
This legislation has already been passed, so detailed scrutiny of each aspect of it is largely formal, with little meaning, but there are broader issues worth raising. One is trust. I am concerned that the Government’s response to omicron is eating away at trust in political institutions, and objective statistics and data have been misused recently, with examples of regular contradictions and different figures coming from Ministers with quick contradictions afterwards. We worry about misinformation on the web, but there has been a fair amount of it from official sources.
Also, can we remind ourselves that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, declared an “irreversible” road map out of lockdown? But that irreversible moment has now screeched to a halt and is reversing at rapid speed. Then we get shrill warnings that the UK is facing a “tidal wave” of omicron. Is that a bit like “one minute to midnight”? I am worried that there is overhype and too much hyperbole.
This is all in the real context that 95% of the population have antibodies. There has been a phenomenally successful vaccine take-up and, in the real-world international evidence—not speculative modelling—we are thankfully shown that, while this variant is highly transmissible, it is not as yet seen as a widespread, lethal threat by medics and scientists. And hyping up the potential threat can do real damage in other ways. If everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency, and there is always a danger in crying wolf.
The speed of omicron is not the only danger. More worrying is the dangerous speed with which the Government immediately have recourse to invasive restrictions. This is no longer a last resort. It is almost the first policy idea at which they grab. It is not based on weighing up the broad social pros and cons. We are not presented with a detailed cost-benefit analysis; it is deployed just in case there is a worst-case scenario. There is always a hint of worse to come. It might be vaccine passports now, but in the new year there will be three-dose vaccine passports.
The Prime Minister offered a rare opportunity for a national debate. I was quite excited. A national debate is sorely needed on the whole question of the balance of risk and the priorities which society wants to take. But, no, the Prime Minister’s offer of a national debate was to discuss mandatory vaccination, of all things.
This Government have made national sovereignty a byword and sovereignty something which people understand. I remind them that this direction of travel is in danger of trashing the Enlightenment ideals of individual sovereignty and bodily autonomy. John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration says,
“no man can be forced to be … healthful”
Vaccine passes are not inconvenient or a bother. I have one in my bag in the unlikely event that I might go to a nightclub. What does it mean? Most people will say, “I do not know what the fuss is about”, but there are far greater implications. Everyone’s freedom is limited if the state determines that it is contingent on accepting a medical treatment or providing medical information, or on a submission to public health priorities above all else. It is limited if we need a licence to go about our lives freely.
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, has asked us to put our political philosophies to one side, as though noble Lords are raising matters of principle as if we are in some sort of sixth-form debating chamber. I understand that this is a caricatured view. If society is to be completely reorganised around public health, and dangerous, illiberal principles are to be set, debate should at least be encouraged. I should have thought that liberals and democrats—as in Liberal Democrats—might be quite keen on that kind of a debate.
I quote from a new document which the Government has brought forward in the last few days. It is a modern Bill of Rights. In the foreword, we are told,
“The United Kingdom has a long, proud, and diverse history of freedom. This stretches from Magna Carta in 1215”.
It then details all the proud freedom movements. It continues,
“Our proposals, which form the basis of this consultation, reflect the Government’s enduring commitment to liberty under the rule of law.”
What is the point of having documents declaring a commitment to liberty under the rule of law if liberty can be so easily dispensed with in the name of public health?
State power works. Of course it does. You can scare and threaten people into changing their behaviour, but is that what we want in our society? Many of my extended family have disagreed with my more liberal views on this question, throughout this pandemic, and have been enthusiastic adherents of lockdown. At the moment, they are not so much scared of the virus as of the next government press conference. They have become cynical about a lot of what they are being told. They are fearful that their way of life is being disrupted, rather than being immediately frightened of death.
In a recent pamphlet, Toxic Sociality: Reflections on a Pandemic, Josie Appleton makes the point that every pandemic has a social dynamic, as well as an epidemiological cause which structures the way the disease is seen and responded to. In many ways, my extended family has noticed that there is more to life than epidemiology. There has been a period when they have been able to meet publicly and socially to discuss what kind of priorities they want. It is important not to dismiss that social side. It seems to me that one clear and present danger is that social cohesion is now threatened by the kind of messaging that we are getting around the virus. Human interaction is presented as a contagion. All the unregulated examples of free conviviality and spontaneous social gatherings, such as going to a nightclub without showing a pass, are presented as toxic. Free association is being replaced by state-authorised association.
We are encouraged to view the unvaccinated as “the other”, as lesser, to be excluded from aspects of society and employment and discriminated against—not there to be encouraged or persuaded into the vaccine, but threatened. This is not making a positive case for the wonders of the vaccine and it promises to backfire.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, made a point about what he considered to be the role of this House. I thought that its role was to scrutinise and be critical. I hope that in the new year this House gives a lead, not just by going along with whatever we are told but by asking questions and potentially prioritising the importance of a free society, without having to apologise for it.
Health: Learning Disability and Autism Training
Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, my involvement in autism over a number of years has been on two fronts. One is through Motability, where we are getting ever more people with an autistic background coming to us for mobility. Then, of course, as some noble Lords are aware, my grandson is on the spectrum but, pleasurably for me and all of us, at a low level. I can only emphasise what I have said so many times. I asked myself: is there anything new about what we want to do? Frankly, there is not.
I was very pleased indeed that the manifestos of all political parties—I am not getting partisan at all—all agreed that greater support for the disadvantaged and disabled are critical for everybody. I also want to say, from our experience and from my own experience, that the earlier you can identify autism, the better. That is the key. We were very fortunate that our little lad was identified at the age of three. Why? Because in the school he was at, the headteacher had actually studied and been trained and she identified it.
I deliberately thought, “I am not going to look at the old speeches I have made before. They are all there.” What I want to say specifically is that I have discussed many times with a lady many of you know, Professor Vivian Hill, the fact that, sadly, until we have many more educational psychologists who are in a position to make it quite clear and agree that somebody is on the spectrum, diagnosis will take too long.
Many of us here have chatted, individually, separately and together. People say, “Let us do some more analysis—let us wait another five years to see what we can understand”. We know what needs to be done. I have seen it myself in action. Fortunately, in the state school in West Sussex where he is at now, the headteacher has had training, and that makes a huge difference to how a school is run. It is a marvellous school, one of the finest state schools in the country, and they are so conscious of the training.
In practice, when you think about the identification of what we are talking about, a young teacher of 21 who might be in her first job, if she has had some training, it could well be that she can actually identify certain things. She can make a note and then ask the headteacher whether it should be looked at, so that autism is identified at a much earlier age. The opportunities then are immense. When people are trained and given the support they need, the children stand a much greater chance of going into mainstream schools and then, in due course, being able to get on in general life and society.
Having said that, I am afraid that people say that, somehow or other, those who are autistic should be made normal, like the rest of us. It is we who have to change. I have seen the autism figures and in actual fact, as they get older, only 16% of those on the spectrum have been able to have jobs. That is a problem of the employers. I have seen it myself in business. In practice, people are nervous handling somebody who they are told is autistic. We are the ones who have got to change.
On the need for training, I feel quite strongly about that—including for the public at large. My daughter’s little boy had a meltdown in a major store. It was terrible. He ran off and she ran after him. She got him to the floor and people surrounded them. She is quite strong, but she was so embarrassed that she picked him up to get him out, because she also had her little girl with her, and was thinking about what would happen to her if she ran away and left her. Did anybody come to support her at all?
The following day she had two policemen at her door saying, “We understand that you’ve abused your child”, and so she went on to the list. That is a shocking outcome. People did not volunteer to help. It is not just about educating teachers, which should be mandatory—no one should become a headmaster or headmistress until they are educated on this—but we should also find ways and means to educate the public, so that if they see something, they help and it registers with them that this person needs some support: “I’ll look after the little girl while you look after him”, et cetera.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, so much for introducing this debate. I should have thanked her at the start. I have very strong feelings on it.
Anxiety is a key factor in mental health. People are starting to understand, but it should become law that every headmaster and headmistress in the country, and anyone in a teaching role, should have compulsory education on this, so that they have the opportunity of picking up one or two points which can give a kid a chance early on.
Noble Lords probably know better than I do that the available support money in these areas is quite uneven in different parts of the country. In some, it is very high; in some, it is very low. Some do not have any support for people at all, or any understanding of what it is about. That must be addressed.
Now that we have got all of last year out of the way, I would like to think that, going forward, all political parties agree on this; it is totally non-partisan. I hope the Minister recognises that it would be a pleasure for all of us if things happened sooner. We do not need more analysis; we know what is needed and we need to get on with it.