Covid-19: International Response

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, it is clear that in tackling a global pandemic, we need a global response. However, I want to raise a different international issue that is a little nearer to home and a little narrower, because nowhere do we see the international dimension more clearly than in our own National Health Service. Some 28% of our medical staff and 13% of all NHS workers come from other countries. Many of them are from black and minority ethnic groups, so they are particularly vulnerable, more so than many others. Yet they do such a wonderful job that every Thursday evening we come out and clap for them. Given that, it might be thought that we treat them well, but I fear that that is not entirely the case.

The Royal College of Physicians tells us that not only do people from abroad have to pay the punitive costs of visas, which might be expected, they also have to pay a £400 a year immigration health surcharge for each family member to help pay towards the costs of the National Health Service. They are being asked to pay for the healthcare that they themselves are providing for us, and that health surcharge is shortly to rise to £624 a year. This is a ludicrous situation where up to a quarter of our doctors are being asked to pay for the care that they are giving to the rest of us. I ask the Minister to press her colleagues in the Department for Health and Social Care to rescind this tax which these incredibly valuable staff are being asked to pay.