Covid-19: Community Response

Luke Hall Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, I think for the first time.

I extend the thanks of everybody here today to the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) for securing this hugely important debate. This afternoon, we have seen the best of this House and heard about the best of Britain. We are all grateful to her for the chance to put on the record our thanks to so many remarkable people right across the country. Today’s debate has given us the chance to talk about community champions and the incredible work they have done during their remarkable response to covid-19. I am very proud, and I am sure all Members have been proud, to stand here today and thank them, recognise their work and put it on the record that they were the backbone of our response to covid-19.

Even in the most difficult times for our country and the globe, we have seen the best in people and the best in our communities. Even in the midst of great loss, suffering and hardship, communities have come together to support each other with great bravery, spirit and love. Whether it was as part of community groups, charities or faith groups, or as individuals reaching out to each other and their neighbours, it is the strength of character of the people in our towns, villages and cities that has got us through this incredible period.

We have heard so many inspirational stories this afternoon, and there are so many unsung heroes, as the hon. Lady said. I will mention a few of them, starting by thanking the Blackwood and Kirkmuirhill Resilience Group, and Lesley, who has clearly done so much work to deliver flowers, to order in those fish teas, which I am extremely jealous about, and to organise the online bingo—that sounds absolutely incredible. We are equally grateful to the East Kilbride litter pickers and Alice. It is fantastic to hear about the passion and pride that they have shown for keeping the community clean over the last year and a half. I cannot begin to say how grateful we all are.

We have heard some incredible stories about how groups have utilised online technology to support people with their mental health, including the incredible work done by Trust Links over the last year. We heard about the work by those in the Nantwich Buddies support group and what they do collecting medicines and providing support, and it is incredible to hear that they are starting the poppy trail and a scarecrow trail. I cannot wait to visit and see that. It sounds absolutely incredible, and I thank them for the work that they are doing.

We have heard that Peterborough is the caring city. I have heard that said many times before, but today we really saw that through the examples, including Food for Nought and the Norfolk community fridge. A really important point was made about those who volunteer to give up their time for childcare to ensure that key workers can still get to work and support the health service and our key services. We have heard the same about Manchester, Gorton, where community groups run online virtual drop-ins to support mental health, and my huge thanks go to them, too.

We have heard about the Insch resilience group in Scotland and the excellent work that it does. I thought that the story we heard about the community in Huntly, who had a gas outage on 2 February and another a month later, and were experiencing temperatures of minus 5° but all came together to support each other and vulnerable people through local food groups and share information online, was really fantastic.

We have heard about the spirit and determination in York to ensure that nobody is ever left behind, about the focus on community, and about the work done by Age UK to reach out so many of the constituents of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I am pleased to hear about the volunteer centre and how beneficial it will be.

We have heard how in Durham, the rotary club has been supporting people with PPE, and we have heard about the work of Cheesy Waffles to support young people. My thanks go to them.

We have heard about Clare Allington-Dixon and her team in Coventry North East. They have been teaching cooking skills to people during the pandemic. What a fantastic way to support the community, by encouraging people to make better use of their food through such a difficult time. We have heard about the Summer of Sunflowers and the work that Matt is doing spreading literal growth right across the community and the country.

The SNP Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), spoke passionately. She was nervous that she would sound like a community DJ taking requests, but she did not, I can assure her. She sounded like a passionate representative of her community and her country, talking about the types of community groups that have contributed so much, including housing officers, youth workers, the volunteers who were giving back so much that they almost became full-time workers, Margaret and what she was doing, the Brunswick youth centre and the parish church in Springburn. We are really grateful to them for everything that they have done.

I also want to say something about rough sleeping. We have heard so much about the incredible work in Southend to support people in the Everybody In scheme, the street homeless charity in Ealing that has done such incredible work, and the Garden House in Peterborough, which has contributed so much. Looking at the Government’s response to the pandemic, we see that one of the most important pieces of work carried out was to support rough sleepers, and the work that has not been praised enough as part of that is the volunteers’ response. Volunteers were out there, night after night, day after day, supporting rough sleepers who, in some cases, had for years been nervous about engaging with the council or with volunteers. The volunteers really stepped up and supported people during that time, meaning that by May 2020, 15,000 people had been supported into accommodation and were receiving help and support, often for the first time in years. That was, of course, an important part of the national Government response, but I think it shows the alignment with volunteers and how that can really deliver the best for our society.

We saw the same with shielding, as we have heard. Volunteers helped shielding individuals by delivering food, providing support and just phoning them up to make sure that they were okay. Although the Government work is hugely important, the most remarkable response to the pandemic was surely on the ground, as we have heard. It was the willingness of individuals to step up and go the extra mile, be it for friends, neighbours or simply anybody in need, regardless of whether they had met before. It was truly heart-warming, and the scale of the volunteer response was unprecedented. As we have heard, more than 12 million people across the UK delivered support during this pandemic, which is incredible to behold.

We also saw how almost 2 million people delivered support and services as NHS volunteer responders, completing millions of tasks and supporting 171,000 people at risk from covid. My thanks go to them as well. In addition to the volunteer response through the formal channels that we and communities have helped to organise, we saw a huge growth in informal volunteering—people stepping up to help others when they saw need, whether through collecting shopping, walking dogs, gardening or checking in on neighbours. You name it, someone in this country volunteered and did it over the past year and a half.

Throughout our country, we saw communities rapidly mobilising to help local people, especially those who were particularly at risk or who were hit the hardest by isolation. That shone through, certainly in my experience as a constituency Member of Parliament. We saw more than 2.5 million people volunteer with 4,000 mutual aid groups. That is a unique grassroots movement, the likes of which we have never seen before.

We have seen communities in all corners of our country demonstrate their resourcefulness and adaptability by working on their individually unique strengths. Despite the daily challenges and difficulties for so many people during such an incredibly difficult part of our country’s history, many people took their first steps into volunteering. Many new volunteers got involved for the first time—over 4.5 million people.

Although many millions of people were mobilised and joined volunteering for the first time, we should take a moment to recognise the people who normally volunteer and do so much but who were constrained because they were shielding during the pandemic. Many such people found new and innovative ways to support others throughout the last year, be it through getting to grips with technology or just phoning up people and keeping in contact in ways that they had not done before. I can imagine how it felt for people not to be able to be involved or offer support in the way that they wanted, but that adaptability has shown real resilience. The national effort saw volunteers spring up from less traditional places in some respects, and I pay tribute to everybody who did so much.

We have the chance to thank communities, organisations and individuals for what they have done, and to thank people who have volunteered in any way over the past 18 months. I want to put on the record and promote the Prime Minister’s Points of Light awards, which recognise all the work that has been done by those at the forefront of the response to the pandemic. The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) talked about Captain Sir Tom Moore. Who can forget the incredible and inspirational example that he set the rest of us in this country?

We have heard a lot about faith groups. I extend my thanks to our faith communities for what they have done during this pandemic, including Moncrieff parish church, Colston parish church and the others that we have heard about. Faith groups have risen to the challenge by providing services in a way they have not done before and offering solace, comfort, advice and support through a multitude of different support services. We have seen examples of groups from all faiths delivering food and supporting people who were shielding. I really believe that faith communities have been a linchpin for many people by providing pastoral care and support networks, especially for older and more vulnerable people, and even continuing some forms of informal education for people who did not have access to the same external services during the last year or so. Yes, faith communities were already undertaking much of that work, but it increased in scale, passion and determination. We all put our thanks to them on the record.

The hon. Member for Bradford West talked about the role of volunteers in the vaccination programme. I join her in thanking all volunteers for the work that they are doing, and I ask for their kindness and forgiveness to just keep going. They are helping us—our whole country—to light the way towards the better days that are now within our grasp. We need everyone’s support to signpost communities to verified sources of important information about the vaccines, and we must continue to reinforce positive messages.

I also put on the record my thanks to civil society. The Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership, made up of over 200 community organisations, has supported the covid response, helping to map unmet need and improve emergency response through new data platforms. The response really has been incredible. We have provided clear support with £750 million for charities, social enterprises and the voluntary sector, ensuring that civil organisations, including those at risk of financial hardship, continue the incredible work they did before and throughout the pandemic. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has provided £23 million of funding to 60 councils and the voluntary sector to expand their work and to support those most at risk from covid.

I want to leave the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow some time to wind up the debate, so I thank all hon. Members here today and, on the Government’s behalf, everyone who has done so much in every corner of our country. Volunteering is a vital part of our national identity, and that has only increased over the past year. I agree with the hon. Lady who said that when we start to build back better we will be holding the sacrifice that others have made over the past year and a half at the forefront of our minds.