NHS: Long-term Strategy

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I will choose my words and the hon. Lady can choose hers. I will come to capacity in the conclusion of my remarks—I promise her that.

I will touch on patient flow. Any acute sector that I speak to or visit at the moment is saying clearly that patient flow is hampering everything happening at the front door and the back door. One of the reasons why those in the ambulance service are striking is that they are so heartbroken about not being able to deliver the service that they want to deliver and cannot get out on the road because they are waiting to dispatch their patients.

I said it on Monday and I will say it again now: I welcome the £250 million that the Government have put forward to buy beds. I repeat that two thirds of social care is domiciliary care—care in people’s homes—and we must not forget that, because it is important to getting people through the acute system. The modular work that the Secretary of State talked about—modular units in and around emergency departments—to add extra capacity and meet some of the extra demand coming through the front door, is also very welcome.

I said that we have to separate the now from the long term, so let me address the long term. The elective recovery taskforce is important; the 15 new elective hubs are important. At Prime Minister’s questions today, the Prime Minister talked about eliminating the two-year wait, and that is good—it is not, of course, the extent of his ambition, and to say so is facile. We do not yet have an elective hub in Winchester. The Secretary of State knows that I am on his case about it, but may I just land that point with him again? The Prime Minister’s primary emergency care plan, which we eagerly expect later this month, will be important. It is also part of a long-term strategy and plan, and I think many people in the ambulance service will be pleased with what they see there. I hope that it will be as ambitious as what we hear in some of the rumours.

Some of the things the Select Committee is looking at feed into what the Secretary of State and the Government are doing. Integrated care systems are a creation of this Government. They are about flattening services across the NHS and breaking down those barriers between health and social care. We are in the middle of a big inquiry into integrated care systems, and we are liaising with the Hewitt review, which is a good thing. We were talking to the Care Quality Commission this week, and the Government have not yet laid the regulations on how the CQC will look at ICSs. Will the Minister please look at that?

This morning we talked about the digital transformation of the NHS. There are huge dividends in digital for the NHS, including simple things, such as the amount of money that the NHS spends on sending letters to patients—not least given that they never get there due to Royal Mail strikes. There are clinical dangers to that. Let us pursue our digital transformation, and I know that the Secretary of State is up for that. In terms of the stuff we will be doing this year, we eagerly await the workforce plan.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Steve Brine]

I cannot give way, because I do not have any more time. We eagerly await the workforce plan. When the Minister sums up, will she update us on where we are with the workplace plan and its independent verification, which the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement?

The Select Committee will be looking significantly at prevention this year. I know that the Secretary of State is passionate about some of the upstream prevention measures we will be talking about, and I look forward to him coming before the Select Committee on 31 January to talk to us—many of my fellow Committee members are here—about the work we are doing. I am excited about our work on the future of cancer. We hear all this evidence about there being cancer plans around Europe that lead to better outcomes, so I want to see the new cancer plan.

Finally, we need to be very careful about the language we use and how we talk about the NHS. Are we honest about the reform we need? Do we believe in the independent pay process? Is primary care really fit for purpose as it is? Do the British people want to spend more than the £159 billion that we will spend this year, and how will we pay for it? I think we do need a bigger NHS, and we clearly need more people in the NHS—that is not a point of debate—but we need to be careful about the language we use around the NHS, because otherwise the long-term strategy is nothing more than a moot point of debate in this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

My constituent Lynne O’Sullivan emailed me at 4.30 am last Sunday from the A&E department at Aintree University Hospital. She said:

“Good morning Maria. I email you in a last bid for help. I’ve been sat in Aintree hospital A&E since Friday…with my father who was sent here by his GP. We arrived at 10.30 on Friday with my father, who they think suffered a stroke. They admitted my dad…saying he needs an MRI scan and some other tests. We are still sat in A&E awaiting a bed on hard seats having slept here since Friday…It’s now our 42nd hour sat in A&E. I am at my wits’ end trying to get help. A doctor on Friday evening prescribed high blood pressure medication for my father. He has only received one dose.

I beg for your help. I don’t want to lose my dad due to poor hospital care”.

Well, who would?

Lynne’s father finally got a bed after 54 hours sat on a hard seat in A&E at Aintree hospital. He eventually got an MRI scan 78 hours after he attended the hospital—that was without him needing an ambulance. I am glad to say that Lynne’s father had not had a stroke and that he is in hospital now.

That is not one isolated example; there have been many other examples in Liverpool. On 27 December, the wait at Whiston Hospital A&E was 20 hours; by new year’s eve, it was 30 hours and people were being told not to go unless their condition was life-threatening. At the new Royal Liverpool, staff were having to go around with a big list telling people that there was a 30-hour wait for a bed. Somebody was reported as saying that a three-page list of people waiting for a bed had been touted around by one of the staff.

That is not only appalling for patients; it is terrible for staff. Right hon. and hon. Members may have seen the letter that top doctors at the new Royal Liverpool wrote to their management saying that they were “ashamed” of the “dreadful conditions” in the “chaotic” emergency department—that is in a brand-new hospital. They described the new Royal’s accident and emergency as “overcrowded, chaotic and unpleasant”, with an “unacceptable and unsafe” reliance on corridor care. The letter stated:

“The need to utilise the waiting room and X-ray waiting area chairs to house patients awaiting admission is completely unacceptable.”

They also said that they were

“embarrassed, ashamed and demoralised by the standard of care”

that they were able to provide. Yet what have we heard from the Government?

I am sorry that the Secretary of State is no longer in his place, but I am afraid that today he has come across as complacent, as he did on Monday when he gave a statement to the House. He disappeared over Christmas. There is no point in talking about winter pressures in January—it is too little and too late if one is having to talk about it in January. There needs to be planning well in advance. He has come across as simply seeking to blame anybody else but him and his Government. Everything else is to blame: the pandemic, flu and unexpected pressures.

I am afraid that the Government are complacent. They are in charge of the system. I am appalled by the Secretary of State’s indifference. I actually find it quite shocking, because one cannot fix a problem if one does not accept that it is serious, that it is one’s responsibility to do so and that hard, hard work is necessary to get these things right. I am afraid that what we have from the Government is complete indifference and complacency, and I am very sorry to say that it comes across as a lack of care.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

NHS Winter Pressures

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Hospitals used by my constituents in Liverpool and Knowsley have had queues at A&E of 33 hours, 41 hours and 30-plus hours. They have had dozens of ambulances queuing up outside for entire shifts, unable to transfer even one patient. These problems were predictable and—as the Secretary of State has just said—predicted, yet he disappeared over Christmas and the new year when they were going on, only emerging last week to blame them on flu and covid. When will he acknowledge that leaving it until January to deal with winter pressures is too little, too late? When will he take responsibility and apologise for the lamentable situation in which he has left my constituents and many others across this country? The fear, the pain, the worry—when will he say sorry for it?

[Steve Barclay]

That simply is not accurate. Let me give the hon. Lady some specific examples. Under the auxiliary contract with St John Ambulance, we invested an extra £150 million in the ambulance service, and we invested a further £50 million in additional capacity for call centres. Taxpayers spent £800 million on the new Royal Liverpool Hospital, and during 2018-19 a brand-new hospital was built at Aintree. However, this is not simply about investing in new hospitals; it is also about looking at the integration between health and care, and that was recognised in the autumn statement, which provided an additional £500 million. It is simply inaccurate to say that there were no measures in the summer. The St John Ambulance contract and the community first responders, and the service for frail and elderly people, will help with demand management and prevent people from going to emergency departments in the first place.

Contact in Care Settings

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) on obtaining the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Many Members here know Jenny Morrison and Diane Mayhew, constituents of mine who were co-founders of Rights for Residents. Because of the shortage of time, I will not explain in detail what happened to Jenny’s mother, but it is similar to the experience that the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) set out in respect of some of her constituents. However, I wish to say a bit about the ongoing trauma that the experience causes for those left behind, because this is about not only the distress of seeing one’s relative go through the final illness —and the consequences of dementia can be distressing at the best of times— but the ongoing consequences of the restrictions for those left behind.

Jenny tells me that she has hardly had a restful night’s sleep since the doors closed on her mother’s care home, and that she feels as though her mother was locked away. Even though her mother has now unfortunately died, Jenny says that she is plagued by distressing images and painful emotions that will not go away. They have an ongoing impact on her life because the end of life can often overwhelm the earlier positive memories if it is distressing and difficult. Many thousands of people have had the experience of watching from a distance as their relatives in care homes deteriorate. They are unable to visit them, comfort them and watch them die. They have ongoing trauma, and may have for many years. The bad memories come back instead of the good ones. Many people affected in this way go on to feel like they are being selfish for thinking about their own feelings instead of what happened to the loved-one they lost, but they are not. They are suffering from deep trauma caused in part by what has happened.

Jenny Morrison and Diane Mayhew were co-founders of Rights for Residents. They have sought to turn their terrible experience into something much more positive—into campaigning for these changes, and I commend them enormously for that. The fact that covid is no longer seen as the threat that it was does not mean that the restrictions have gone away. As many hon. Members have said, they are still being used in care settings. In that context, it is tremendously important that a legal right is established.

The Relatives and Residents Association and Rights for Residents surveyed some of their families and discovered that the harm was continuing. One in five outbreaks saw residents confined to their rooms. One in nine outbreaks saw residents not allowed any visitors at all. Care homes were still implementing blanket visiting restrictions, when there was no necessity for any such thing. Quite often they say that it is because of Government guidance or that local authorities have suggested that they should have these restrictions. None of this is accurate or true, but it is still stopping families visiting their relatives in care homes. How much longer is this going to go on? How much longer are the Government going to allow this to go on?

I do not think—something highlighted by the Joint Committee on Human Rights—that changing the guidance 30 times in a short period helps any understanding of what the guidance actually says. That is not helpful. Let us have a law swiftly that says that residents in care homes and those having care and health support have a legal right to be accompanied by a relative—at least one, perhaps sometimes more would be appropriate. That is unequivocal; it is clear. It can be clearly understood by whoever needs to understand it. That is the answer to this. I hope that the Minister will agree and swiftly enact such a change.

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[Helen Whately]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point, which we have heard from others in the Chamber.

Visiting is not just a “nice to have”, as we have just heard—all the stories we have heard today can leave us in no doubt about that. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton spoke very movingly about the experiences of others, but also about his own personal experience with his father, which he very courageously shared with us. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I cannot pronounce her constituency, but Hansard will resolve it—also spoke very powerfully about her mother. I say to both of them that I am sorry for their loss.

Very importantly, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford reminded us that this is not just about older people. Visiting, both into a residential setting and out of it, is also so important for younger people—for instance, those with learning disabilities. However, I am short of time, so I will press on.

On top of the stories, there are the facts. We know there is a body of evidence that supports the argument that not having visitors can be detrimental to the health of people living in residential care, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) mentioned. For instance, there is a connection between social isolation, loneliness and mental health. In fact, back in October 2020, when I was previously the Care Minister, I commissioned research on the benefits of visiting as well as an assessment of the risks at the time and the options for opening up visiting.

I can also say that I do know personally what it feels like not to be allowed to visit a relative. In the summer, my mother was admitted unexpectedly to hospital and I was not allowed to visit her, even though I did not know whether I would ever see her alive again. The same was the case for my father, her husband for 50 years, who was also barred from entry to her ward, and that was even though we were clearly not in the heart of the pandemic by any stretch of the imagination.

I will look at this issue in three parts, at pace: what has happened to get us to this situation; what is really going on; and what can be done.

Sadly, during the pandemic we saw how hugely vulnerable to covid people who lived in care homes were, and the Government priority was to keep people safe, which meant doing everything possible to prevent covid from getting into care homes. It meant reducing the number of people going in and out who might take in covid. It meant requiring the use of personal protective equipment. It meant regular testing for care home residents and staff, and when we got the covid vaccine it meant prioritising vaccinations for care home residents and staff.

However, even back in 2020 we knew that residents in care homes and their families were suffering from the visiting restrictions, although I should mention that not all residents and their families had the same views. While some wanted more visiting, others did not because they were more worried about the risks. Balancing those two things, the Government sought to enable visiting in ways that would be safe, and we also made it clear that end-of-life visiting should always be possible.

In March 2021 we introduced the concept of the essential care visitor who would be able to visit a resident who needed personal care in any circumstances, including during an outbreak, following the same covid testing regime as staff. In June 2021 we expanded that to apply to all residents. At all times we worked with social care providers—with care homes—because they were the ones that had to put the guidance into practice; they were the ones at the frontline, balancing the prevention of covid with the practicalities of supporting visiting. I do not underestimate the demands that put on care homes, which were also carrying out testing, providing PPE and everything else.

Moving on to the situation today, since April 2022 the Government guidance has been that there should not be any restrictions on visiting in residential settings unless there is a covid outbreak, and even if there is an outbreak every resident should be able to have a visitor. Local public health teams may advise other restrictions on visiting if there is a particular local risk, but that should be proportionate and should stop visiting only in extreme circumstances.

Some Members have said today that the guidance is not clear, while others have said that it is not being followed; it has also been said that the problem is that it is guidance. On the content of the guidance, we have heard from many accounts that it is not being followed, and I will do further work on that.

Knowing the concerns during the height of the pandemic about visiting, the Department of Health and Social Care started tracking visiting restrictions; indeed, I started that as Care Minister, to try to get data about what was going on, because one of the challenges is knowing what is going on at the frontline, as the social care system is so diverse and fragmented. Our data told us in September that 98.4% of care homes were allowing visiting, but I recognise that that data is not the whole answer.

The CQC has been referred to in the debate. I spoke with Kate Terroni, chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, many times during the pandemic about visiting and she, too, saw the importance of it. The CQC looks at visiting when inspecting care homes, and a lack of visiting or access is a red flag for it. Families should be reporting visiting concerns to the CQC, which then investigates them. I heard, however, the points made by the hon. Member for St Albans about some families feeling they got a mixed response or who were fearful of reporting to the CQC because of the possible consequences. Again, I will take that away from today’s debate.

Under the existing regulations, the CQC can take action if it believes that safe and proportionate visiting is not being facilitated, but I also took note of the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton about the CQC powers to get live data being limited and its not having powers to require care homes to report changes to visiting restrictions. I will look into that, too.

Although we have the guidance and the CQC is able to take action on care homes, there is clearly still a problem. I have also seen the data from the Rights For Residents survey showing that 45% of responses said that restrictions on visiting had still been in place since April, and in 11% of outbreaks no visitors were allowed at all. Again, I am concerned to see that.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister therefore undertake to implement a legal right for visitors to visit, as Rights For Residents has called for? We are all on tenterhooks.

[Helen Whately]

If the hon. Member will bear with me, I am getting to the third of the three considerations, which is what can be done. On that point, back in April 2021, I was questioned by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights about this very topic. On visiting, I said:

“I want to get to a position where it is as normal as possible. This is something to come back to in the future, particularly if family members and residents feel that the situation is not working as they would want it to.”

Clearly, family and residents do indeed feel that the situation is not working.

I understand that things are not easy for care homes. I understand the staffing pressures caused by the recent increase in covid—and flu, which many residents are vulnerable to. The majority of care homes are allowing normal visiting and, as hon. Members said, many care homes totally recognise the importance of visitors.

NHS Staff Pay

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend; I know that he does tremendous work on the frontline. He makes a really important point: beyond pay, the question of what other support we are giving to the NHS workforce is really important. Through the pandemic, there has been lots of extra support for the workforce, whether that is with practicalities such as hot food and drink—things that make work and long hours more manageable—or mental health support, which is so crucial for those who have had really traumatic experiences. We are absolutely looking at what continued support we can put in place in the months ahead.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab) [V]]

NHS staff feel betrayed by this Government on pay. In July, the Secretary of State—who really ought to be in the Chamber today answering for his responsibilities—said the following:

“We absolutely want to reward NHS staff for what they have done.”

That is what he said, so can the Minister tell me how on earth delivering a real-terms pay cut meets that very clear promise from the Secretary of State?

[Helen Whately]

As I say, this discussion is against the backdrop of many people receiving a pay cut in parts of our economy, people losing their jobs and a wider pay freeze in the public sector. Against that backdrop, we recognise the enormous work that the NHS workforce have done, and that is why they are exempt from the pay freeze and will be getting a pay rise.

Covid-19 Update

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Nobody has stood up for the gyms of this country more than my hon. Friend, and he has made this argument endlessly to me. He stands up for Southport, and I will take that point away. As I said to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), those decisions were taken in agreement with the local area, and we want—as much as possible—to make agreements with local areas so that we can all give out the same public health messages that if everybody follows the rules, we are more likely to get this under control and get the Liverpool city region out of tier 3 altogether.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his kind words about Bill Anderson, the brother of the Mayor of Liverpool, who sadly died of covid. He was my constituent and was a doughty campaigner for the livelihoods and welfare of seafarers, and he will be very sadly missed by many of us.

In Liverpool, the Government’s Test and Trace system is reaching only 59% of contacts and in Knowsley, 57%—both well below the 80% target. The percentage of contacts reached has fallen over the last month by 3.5% in Liverpool and 9% in Knowsley, just as both areas have been placed in the very high tier 3 restrictions. Why are those figures so low, why are they declining and what will the Secretary of State do to improve that performance, because we really need it to be better?

Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The coronavirus situation on Merseyside is such that I accept that something serious needs to be done. Yesterday in Aintree University Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, there were 279 coronavirus-positive patients—the highest number in any English hospital. There is substantial and widespread community transmission, with 600 cases per 100,000, and not only in student areas. There is a worryingly high incidence of spread to vulnerable groups, particularly people over 65 years old, and 31 are in critical care, so something definitely needs to be done.

However, I worry that the way in which the Government have handled the pandemic and its manifestations so far, and the impact that this has had on the situation in the north-west, is not helping. There is a widespread feeling that lockdown was lifted in Liverpool city region before cases had fallen far enough. The failings and increasingly poor performance of the nationally arranged test and trace system are making control of the virus much harder. People are waiting many days to get results. Many contacts of those testing positive are going untraced until it is too late for isolation to make a big difference.

The lack of discussion and candour until recently and even engagement with local leaders, Mayors and MPs means that there is a trust issue. That was worsened by yesterday’s briefing, at which the CMO suggested he was not confident that the tier 3 base measures would stop the epidemic growing, which the Prime Minister told the House they would. We then learned from the SAGE minutes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said, about widespread scientific advice not being followed three weeks ago. We need—I urge the Minister—more transparency and more openness from Government. We do not have enough of that. Let us have the information in real time and let us work on it together.

Most of all, we need proper financial support for the people on Merseyside affected by these serious restrictions. Tier 3 measures are going to devastate some of our lowest-paid workers. We cannot defeat the virus on the cheap and we should not do it on the basis of the living standards of the poorest. The assistance proposed so far is inadequate to the task.

According to the TUC, there are 41,000 people in the city region area who might benefit from the local furlough scheme, but there are many, many thousands more whose businesses will not be forced to close but who will not benefit by one penny from these proposals or from this support. It is not enough. More is going to have to be done to support local people in tier 3 areas and to prevent penury from following the pandemic.

Public Health

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Government, when introducing regulations such as this, should avoid overcomplication. Rules and regulations like this, which entire populations are expected to follow in their everyday lives, should be simple, explicable, understandable and transparent in the sense that they are evidence-based, especially when they lead to curbs on individual liberties and, as a consequence of breaking them, large fines.

The measures take 10 pages to set out, and contain a number of confusions: between a national restriction and a local one, and in areas of local restrictions that can be confusing; or differences between what is law and guidance—what we must do, or be fined, as opposed to what we are advised to do, for our own good. It is not at all clear what people are supposed to do, even if they read these 10 pages of detailed regulations.

Most of all, regulations need to be effective in bringing down infection rates. At present, it seems difficult to argue that the local lockdown rules have been effective. In 19 of the 20 areas where there have been introduced, infection rates have soared. On Merseyside, we have only had the rules for a week, but infection rates are soaring.

The local lockdown has the potential to cause great economic damage, and yet the regulations do not at present contain any provision for compensating those businesses that are now fighting for survival as a consequence of the effect of the measures on their ability to remain viable. That in turn threatens the livelihoods of thousands of people. In Garston and Halewood, unemployment has already doubled this year to 8%, or about 5,000 people, but worse is to come, because I have 15,000 furloughed jobs in my constituency and furlough ends in three weeks.

Some industries are not able to operate normally, or in some cases at all, such as entertainment, events, aviation and others. Now, areas such as hospitality are threatened with severe consequences by the economic impact of local lockdown measures. As for the approximately 77,000 self-employed workers in the Liverpool city region, many cannot work at all and qualify for no support whatever from the Government support schemes—they are simply excluded. There are almost 58,000 jobs in hospitality and the visitor economy in the Liverpool city region. Until coronavirus, it had been booming, with 10 consecutive years of growth. Now, 6,300 businesses and many thousands of jobs are at immediate risk. The Government have not offered any additional economic support under the regulations—just £7 million, across nine local authorities, for outbreak control.

Furlough ends in three weeks. These measures will still be in place, if not more stringent ones, if we believe some of the briefings this evening, and given the infection rates. The Government must implement a local business and job support scheme for where local lockdowns are implemented to prevent the jobs carnage we are about to see. I hope that the Minister will agree with me.

Covid-19 Update

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks with great knowledge, experience and eloquence on this matter. We have to protect livelihoods as much as possible, in the same way that we are trying to protect education as much as possible. That does mean sometimes that we have to take measures on social contact that people would prefer not to see, but unfortunately the measures that the Prime Minister outlined yesterday, and which I set out in my statement, are, in my judgment, absolutely necessary both to keeping the virus under control and to protecting education and the economy as much as possible.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

A significant increase in covid cases has been confirmed in Liverpool over the past week, with widespread community transmission. I have been contacted by constituents with symptoms who are trying to book a test and either cannot, or are told to go to Oldham, Manchester, Powys, or Colwyn Bay, even though there is a testing facility at Liverpool airport just down the road, in the constituency. Will the Secretary of State explain why that is, and say why there is no availability of home test kits, given that there appears to be so much unused testing capacity?

[Matt Hancock]

As I said in my statement, there is record testing capacity, and most people get tested very close to home. We do have a challenge, however, because some people without symptoms who are not eligible for a test have been coming forward. Thus far, I have been reluctant to place a barrier and a strong eligibility check on the front of the testing system, because I want people with symptoms to get that test as fast and easily as possible. However, given the sharp rise in the past couple of weeks of people coming forward for tests when they are not eligible, we are having to look at that. The key message to the hon. Lady’s constituents is that the tests are vital for people who have symptoms, and therefore people who do not have symptoms and have not been told by a clinician or local authority to get a test, should not and must not go and use a test that somebody else who needs it should be using.

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

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 General Committees

[Jo Churchill]

The opening of massage parlours, spas and so on was laid out in subsequent regulations, and they have been allowed since 13 July. Perhaps I can have a conversation with my right hon. Friend on the specifics of the type of treatment to give him a fuller answer on whether they are allowed. It is about the context. As we have seen with beauty parlours, which are reopening, there are still restrictions on facial treatments that require proximity.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I think many of us have received such representations. Does the exchange we have just heard not illustrate that one of the problems with the regulations and the law is that their sheer complexity and swiftly changing nature make it difficult for even the most assiduous of observers to keep up to date with where we are? In that regard, the guidance to which the Minister has just referred is incredibly important. How will she ensure that people can understand the fast-moving current state of the regulations and the law?

[Mr Goodwill]

rose—

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[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I hope that your début is memorable for all the right reasons.

I thank the Minister for her introduction. As we know, this is the fifth iteration of the lockdown restrictions, although it is only the fourth time that we are actually debating them. In that lies a tale, which highlights the far from satisfactory approach to parliamentary scrutiny that has been a feature of the Government’s response to the pandemic.

[Maria Eagle]

Is my hon. Friend content that we are discussing today a set of regulations that have already come into force and that have since been changed? However one describes scrutiny, that is a strange definition.

[Justin Madders]

I will be expanding at length on the unsatisfactory nature of the way these regulations have been dealt with from the start. I think it is fair to say that at the start of the pandemic we understood why it was not possible to debate the regulations straightaway, but there is no longer any reason why regulations cannot now be debated in an orderly fashion, before they are formally made law.

Nearly a fortnight ago we saw the reopening of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers, among other businesses. I am sure that many of us were very pleased to be able to support those businesses in our constituencies, but I am sure that we are all equally concerned at the scenes we now regularly see where social distancing appears to have gone out the window. The chairman of the Police Federation, John Apter, commented that it was “crystal clear” that

“drunk people can’t/won’t socially distance.”

That rather begs the question of what consultation was going on before the regulations came into force. On the face of it, they are creating additional risks.

To be clear, none of the regulations has ever stopped people from being closer than 2 metres. That has never been a law that could be enforced, but it is an important element of the guidance designed to help stop the spread of the virus, so changes to the regulations should always consider whether they make social distancing easier or harder to adhere to.

Unfortunately, the Government do not seem to have learned from their experience, because we know that the police were not consulted on the face mask announcement that was made on Tuesday either. That is just one reason why it is frankly ridiculous that we are not debating the regulations before they are introduced.

The Minister was gracious enough to acknowledge the concerns that we have raised on every occasion about the timing of these debates; when we debate the regulations is getting a little bit closer to the due date—next week we will get even closer—but the fact is that we are debating changes that came into effect nearly two weeks ago, and a new set of regulations have already been introduced. That makes a mockery of the parliamentary process for approving legislation.

That brings me to the previous amendment to the regulations, which we were due to debate last Monday—well after they were first introduced, of course. In the end, we did not actually get to debate them at all, because a few hours before the Committee was due to meet, we were told that the sitting had been cancelled—the reason being, apparently, that the regulations had already been superseded and there was no need to debate them. Well, I respectfully disagree with that analysis.

Parliamentary scrutiny is not something that can be ditched because it is inconvenient or the dates do not match. It is why we are here and why we have parliamentary debates, especially for regulations that have huge ramifications. It is not only right but essential that we debate them in Committee. I believe that we should find the time and make it a priority. These issues are too important not to be debated; they demand timely and full parliamentary scrutiny. I make the plea to the Minister, as I have done on previous occasions, that whoever timetables parliamentary business should be made absolutely aware that the Opposition believe that contempt is being shown towards parliamentary scrutiny.

The fact that we were not able to debate the last set of regulations matters because they included what can only be described as a most remarkable and disorderly U-turn, as they enabled outdoor areas, aquariums, visitor farms, zoos and safari parks, as well as drive-in cinemas, to reopen. Members may well wonder why that is a particularly memorable U-turn, given that we have seen quite a few of them in recent weeks. It is because the last set of these regulations that we debated included laws to close those places down. The debate on those regulations took place on the same day that the next set of regulations came into force to open those places up again. We ended up debating one set of laws that had been expunged by another set of laws that Parliament was not debating. If that is democracy, it is a farce. It was all the more remarkable that at no point during the debate did anyone on the Government Benches point out that that was happening.

Even if the Government are not making it up as they go along, they are doing a very good job of creating the impression that they are. As I have said previously, of course we accept that the initial regulations had to be hurriedly introduced in response to the rising number of infections, but since that time the House has been up and running for more than two months and Members on both sides and in the other place have expressed concern about time not being provided to ensure that future changes are debated before they are made. I see no good reason for the Government to continue in this way.

Paragraph 3.1 of the explanatory memorandum states:

“It is the opinion of the Secretary of State that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make the regulations without a draft being so laid and approved so that public health measures can be taken in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2”.

I think that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say at the start of the crisis, but we are now four months on and it really ought to be possible for there to be a little more formality and order to these things.

The regulations require there to be a review at regular intervals—it was every three weeks, but it is now every four weeks. That is because the Secretary of State has a duty to terminate any regulations that are not necessary or proportionate to control the transmission of the virus. That also means that, from the introduction of the first set of regulations, we have had a clear timetable for when new regulations might be created, and therefore a clear opportunity to factor in parliamentary time for their scrutiny. There is therefore no excuse for us to debate the measures late once again, and neither is it acceptable for us to debate them without the full extent of the information upon which the Government have based their decisions.

Covid-19: R Rate and Lockdown Measures

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I do, absolutely. It is particularly a mistake to look at just one model rather than the overall assessment of R in each part of the country, which is assessed to be below 1 in each area. With the number of new infections coming down, we can take the plan forward, as we ought to, because the education of children matters, as well, of course, as controlling the virus.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The Government have repeatedly said that lockdown will be eased only when the R rate is below 1 and the threat level is coming down. The threat level is still at 4, and as the right hon. Gentleman has said, in the north-west there are some calculations of R that have it above 1. Many of my constituents are really worried about this, yet the Government are accelerating plans to end the lockdown more quickly than they announced they would. Why?

[Matt Hancock]

We are continuing with the plan that we have, which is cautious, takes a safety-first approach and is based on all the information, not just, as the hon. Lady rightly pointed out, just one part of it. We said we would take the next steps when the five tests have been met, and they have been met. R is below 1, and the other four tests have also been met, which is why we are able to proceed. The evidence that we are increasingly seeing of the number of new cases and, thankfully, fatalities coming down is good news that demonstrates that the plan is working.