Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I know that the hon. Gentleman sees it as his job always to be negative about the Government, although on the vaccination programme he and his colleagues have so far been very co-operative across the House. We should not talk down our world-successful vaccination programme, because we have delivered more than 15 million booster vaccines across the UK to 26% of the population over the age of 12—the most successful booster vaccination programme in the whole of Europe.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that unpaid carers can access support when caring for family members.

[The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)]

We recognise that carers perform a difficult role and often find it challenging to access support. The Care Act 2014 secured important rights for carers, including a responsibility for local authorities to assess and support their specific needs where eligible. We will work with unpaid carers and stakeholders to co-develop further detail in a White Paper for reform later this year.

[Paul Blomfield]

The Minister will know that among those unpaid carers are 800,000 young carers, who play an extraordinary role—some from as young as seven or eight years old—in looking after parents with long-term conditions. Too many are unidentified, and as a consequence struggle without the support that they deserve. Does the Minister agree that integrated care boards could require GPs, who are uniquely placed to do this, to identify young carers and signpost them to support services? Will she also work with ministerial colleagues to require schools to create a young carers lead, as with special educational needs co-ordinators, to co-ordinate the identification of and support for young carers?

[Gillian Keegan]

We will certainly be looking at all those points within guidance. Local authorities have a duty to assess the needs of young carers under the Children and Families Act 2014, and that duty has remained in place throughout the pandemic. Authorities must ensure that young carers are identified and referred to appropriate support if needed, and that the young carer is not taking on excessive or inappropriate care and support responsibilities. We have also announced an additional £1 billion of new recovery premium funding, which schools can use to support young carers’ mental health and wellbeing, alongside their academic recovery.

Support for Carers

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on securing the debate and on his powerful introduction, which included his personal experience.

Like other Members, I will contribute specifically on the issue of young carers. A couple of years ago, when I led a Westminster Hall debate on young carers, I was struck by the number of colleagues from this snapshot of 650 people who came along and shared their personal experience as young carers, including the right hon. Member. It was striking that so many had that experience. I cannot offer that. I simply became involved in the issue after meeting Sheffield Young Carers and being blown away by these extraordinary young people as they juggled all the huge challenges for everybody of their age with responsibilities for caring that would daunt many of us. They include young people such as Holly, who started caring when she was just nine or 10 for her mum and her sister. Her mum had an underactive thyroid and her sister had reflux in her right kidney. Holly said of her life:

“I don’t get much time to be a child or to spend time with friends. I don’t mind but it sometimes gets really frustrating if I can’t sit down for 5 minutes on my own. My life is different to young people who aren’t carers because I struggle a lot with life and have people to care for. They get to be kids and live their life. I still get to live my life but I have to be an adult and be very careful. The highs are that I get to spend lots of time with my mum and sister. The lows are that I have no other family around so it’s just us 3. It’s very painful for me and very emotional to have to watch my sister screaming in agony.”

Holly’s experience is reflected in that of too many young people across the country. Young carers’ average age is just 12 and their family income is at least £5,000 lower than others’; 68% are bullied at school, 26% are bullied and about their caring role, and 45%, unsurprisingly, report mental health problems. They achieve on average nine grades lower at GCSE than their peers, and they are four times more likely to drop out of further and higher education.

With all those challenges, the right support is vital. Clearly, we owe them nothing less. Reaching out to those we know is only one part of the challenge, because so many young carers are hidden from view and are not recognised in the places they can be best supported. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, the 2001 census identified 166,000 or so young carers, but research suggests that there are as many as 800,000 in England alone. The truth is that we do not know how many we are talking about, so the first step in supporting them is to identify them.

Just over three years ago, I secured a Prime Minister’s question and described the experience of some of the inspiring young people I have worked with through Sheffield Young Carers. I asked the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), whether she would meet them. To my surprise, and to her credit, she agreed, so I took eight young people down from Sheffield.

In advance of the meeting, I said to them, “Look, you need to sit down and work out what your priorities are.” What was impressive was that they did not choose issues relating to their immediate circumstances; they landed on the issue of support for others in their position who were not recognised. They put three main points to the Prime Minister: that schools should be required to have a young carers lead, just as for children with special educational needs and looked-after children, with a responsibility to identify and support young carers; that Ofsted should inspect schools on what they are doing to support young carers; and that GPs should be required to play a role in identifying young carers, and the Care Quality Commission should check that they hold a register of young cares in their practices.

We had a great discussion with the Prime Minister. In a press release after the meeting, No. 10 said that

“the Government will be undertaking a review to identify opportunities for improvement in these spaces.”

Arising from that, the Carers Trust published a useful toolkit on identification practice for young carers in England, but we need to go further. I appreciate that there is a responsibility on local authorities under the Children and Families Act 2014 to proactively identify young carers, but it is hard to see how they can comply with that duty without working in partnership with schools and GPs.

It is not just about identification. A designated lead in schools can tell children about the types of support that are available, be somebody to talk to, address the issues of flexibility with homework and lateness, get young carers to talk about shared experiences and ensure school staff can provide a support plan. GPs are also well placed to identify support. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us what progress has been made in giving schools and GPs that role in identifying and supporting young carers in the two years since the Government gave that commitment.

Covid-19 Update

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that he noted my comment that, precisely for the reasons he set out, given the high rate of vaccination, we are taking a fresh look at the app. I have asked for advice—and have just started to receive some of it—about how we can take a more proportionate and balanced approach.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

It is clearly right to take further steps towards unlocking, but it is not the all-or-nothing choice that the Secretary of State has suggested and vaccines are not the only tool available. The wearing of masks in enclosed spaces reduces infection and therefore hospitalisations and deaths. It is supported by health experts and backed by the public. The reasons why the wearing of masks was made mandatory remain the same as when the Government recommended it all those months ago. With hospitalisations up 34% on a week ago, will the Secretary of State not put public health before the pressure from his more vocal Back Benchers and retain mandatory mask wearing for public transport and other enclosed spaces?

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is not all or nothing, which is why the Government have been very clear that as we start opening up other measures will rightfully stay in place—I mentioned earlier the border controls, the test and trace system and the plan for booster vaccines. I hope that he would welcome that.

Covid-19 Update

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend asks an important question and we are still considering what more we can do to give more confidence to the immunosuppressed, and we will be saying more on this shortly.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

Until recently, Ministers were saying that decisions would be based on the link between infection and hospitalisation, but although the link has been weakened, it has not been broken. Hospitalisations are up 20% in the last week, and they have doubled in a month. We all want to unlock the economy, but surely we should maintain barriers to infection where we can. The Secretary of State has said that wearing masks would be a good thing, so will he accept that requiring them on public transport, in essential shops and in similar locations would make sense and would reassure people?

Covid-19 Update

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. This is a such a crucial point and it is one that I referred to earlier. Of course, cases are not unimportant, but because we now have the vaccine, thankfully, and in this country in particular so many people are getting vaccinated—of course, we want to see more and more people coming forward, but the take-up is excellent, especially compared with other countries—it is the vaccine that is going to break the link between case numbers and hospitalisation. As I said, we are absolutely starting to see that. The indications are very, very positive on this, and I hope that is the kind of news that my right hon. Friend will welcome.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Home Office recently updated its visa guidance to say that new international students and those returning to the UK must be here by 27 September or lose their post- study work rights. Around one fifth of our international students are from red list countries. Their arrival risks a surge in demand that will overwhelm the hotel quarantine system. Universities UK, the Confederation of British Industry and others have written to Ministers urging flexibility on visa rules to enable blended learning to continue with phased entry to the UK, so will the Secretary of State urgently meet his successor as Home Secretary to seek this change?

[Sajid Javid]

I was not aware of this issue. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has brought it to my attention, and I will certainly raise it with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Covid-Secure Borders

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

This Government talk a lot about control of our borders, but their actions on covid-19 tell a different story. We would almost certainly be in a better place, looking forward to the planned removal of further lockdown measures next week, if the much more transmissible delta variant had not become dominant so quickly. It did so because the Government did not act swiftly enough to place India on the red list and I think they know that.

A month ago, I asked the Health Secretary whether the decision to delay putting India on the red list—despite Pakistan and Bangladesh being added with lower daily infection rates—was influenced by the Prime Minister’s imminent visit to India and his desire to secure a trade deal. At that time, the Health Secretary told me that it was because more testing was being done in India, so the case rate per 100,000 in Pakistan and Bangladesh was likely to be inaccurate. Yesterday, he changed tack, telling the shadow Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), that it was because the delta variant had not been designated a variant of concern or investigation at the time. Today, the Vaccine Minister added new reasons. Perhaps it would be better if the Government just admit they got it wrong, as Members across the House know. In doing so, let us learn lessons and apply them to some of the issues coming up over the next period.

In that context, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international students, I would like to make a genuinely helpful proposal, which enjoys cross-party support and to which I hope the Minister will respond in winding up. Because of the excellence of UK universities and the success of the Government’s global education strategy, which I am pleased embraces many of the recommendations that the APPG made, we can anticipate substantial numbers of international students arriving in the UK for the new academic year in September.

We cannot know exact numbers at this stage, because places have not yet been confirmed, but in the last academic year more than 500,000 international students were enrolled at UK universities. Of those, more than 100,000 were from what we would now designate as red-list countries. Recruitment is strong for the coming year, so we can anticipate that that there will be many new students coming from those countries in September. There will also be many who are continuing their studies—those who have been learning remotely and want to return to the UK.

On Friday, the Home Office updated guidance for student sponsors, confirming an extension to the date by which international students must be in the UK to qualify for the graduate route and a temporary removal of the 28-day rule for students applying for an additional course. It is now advising both previous and new cohort students to be in the UK by 27 September in order to be eligible for the graduate visa route. This threatens quarantine chaos.

The Government have not confirmed the current capacity for red-list quarantine facilities, but when the list was introduced in February capacity was reported to be about 4,600 rooms across 16 hotels. Even if on a conservative estimate—I think it is conservative—just one in five of the cohort similar to the last academic year arrived this September, we would be looking at more than 20,000 students from red-list countries arriving here and overwhelming quarantine capacity by a ratio of four to one; that is if we are still in the same position in September, although let us hope we are not.

Ministers should be working with universities to build partnerships with local hotels to offer quarantine and extend capacity, but there is also an urgent need to avoid the surge of students coming to the UK at one time in September. This would easily be achieved by further extending the tier 4 visa flexibility; allowing international students, particularly the 2021-22 cohort, to study via distance and blended learning; and offering a further extension to the date required to qualify for the graduate route, preferably until Christmas 2021.

That is all that is needed, but Ministers must make a decision now because universities are already issuing CAS—confirmation of acceptance for studies—numbers for visa sponsorship, and students will be applying for visas, booking flights and arranging accommodation. There is not the space to make decisions in the days before arrival in a way we have seen in the past. Failure to make those decisions now will not only destroy the hopes of students whom we want to welcome to the UK; it will also sabotage covid-19 border security.

I hope that the Minister will recognise the importance of making the decision urgently and respond to the comments that I have made, and that we will see a further update to the guidance as a matter of urgency.

Obesity Strategy 2020

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Government are clearly right to say that this is one of the greatest long-term health challenges that we face, and it starts with our children. One in four enter primary school overweight or obese and, as the Minister pointed out, one in three leave in that position six years later. We have a shocking problem that gets worse during children’s primary years.

Like any disease, there are two ways of tackling it: prevention and treatment. I broadly welcome the measures being proposed by the Government on prevention, although we should look carefully at the evidence and concerns around calorie labelling for those with eating disorders, but prevention is not enough in itself. We need proper treatment services for children, and currently we do not have them.

Imagine for a moment that we were talking about another disease—say, cancer. Would we say, “We’ll invest in prevention, but I’m afraid we’ll not offer any treatment for children with the disease.” Of course we would not, but that is what we are saying for obesity currently. The Health and Social Care Committee highlighted the problem in its 2018 report, noting evidence from Public Health England that only 56% of local authorities

“have a tier 2 weight management service for children”

and that those services

“are not intended to support individuals with complex needs. When looking at tier 3 and 4 services, service provision is bare.”

It went on to recommend:

“The Government must ensure there are robust systems in place not only to identify children who are overweight or obese, but to ensure that these children are offered effective help through a multidisciplinary, family-centric approach.”

However, the Government’s obesity strategy does not acknowledge the issue. I have become aware of it through the work that I have done with Shine Health Academy in my constituency—a great local project providing the sort of tier 3 services that the Committee wanted. They take children on referral from GPs, teachers and social workers, and they have great outcomes, but they are funded mainly by charities, because neither clinical commissioning groups nor local authorities have responsibility for commissioning services.

I know that the Minister recognises the problem because, together with the inspirational leader of Shine Health Academy Kath Sharman, I met her to discuss the issue about 18 months ago. There have been some positive initiatives by NHS England, and I welcome the work to establish complications related to excess weight clinics—CREW clinics—to support children and young people with severe obesity, but it is limited. As I understand it, the aim of such services is to manage the comorbidities associated with obesity rather than tackling the disease itself. There are just seven centres in the plan, each for 100 children. It is useful, but it is a very small step assessed against need, because the Obesity Health Alliance calculates that there are 450,000 children in the UK who, if they were adults, would be eligible for bariatric surgery. That is shocking, but it is the scale of the challenge.

There are also worries about the CREW approach. Such clinics seem to place too much emphasis on the role of hospitals, and risk being about medical management rather than weight management. They definitely have a role to play and are fundamental to the treatment of comorbidities, but they should not be the only model of care. Above all, there is no certainty of future funding. In her summing up, I ask the Minister, who I know cares about this issue, to say whether it will finally be the Government’s intention to establish clear responsibility for commissioning tier 3 services for children as the Health and Social Care Committee recommended, because frankly nothing less will do.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

Mr Deputy Speaker,

“we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all, and with a clear plan we have prepared”.

I am not the first to quote the Prime Minister’s words as he took office and I am sure I will not be the last, and of course I recognise that the Prime Minister has a loose relationship with the truth and a willingness to make commitments with no intention of honouring them, but the Health Secretary has said that the Government will bring forward proposals this year, with the Prime Minister now claiming that he wants cross-party working to develop a plan. I hope he means it, and that there will also be real engagement with those in receipt of care, those who work in care and the hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers.

The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the crisis in social care, but the failure of the system has been clear for a long time. In developing a new approach, we must have real ambition, as our predecessors did in establishing the NHS, with an entirely new model, not just tinkering with payment mechanisms, and viewed in the same way as the NHS, with a comprehensive system of high-standard residential and domiciliary care that ensures no one is denied support because they cannot afford it.

We should take the same approach to those who work in the system, raising the status of carers to that of other healthcare professionals, and training them, supporting them and, crucially, paying them in a way that reflects the critical nature of their work. Of course, it will be expensive, but we need an honest national debate about the costs of reforming the care system and how we pay the price, not branding proposals as a “death tax” or a “dementia tax”, or talking about unaffordability.

We should also recognise that, however good the system, there will always be an important role for unpaid carers, and they must be recognised in the plan too, not cast adrift. According to the Carers Trust, the number providing over 50 hours’ care a week has more than trebled in the past decade, but only one in 10 says they have enough support. They need that support, they need respite and they deserve an adequate carer’s allowance.

We must also do more specifically for the invisible army of young carers—extraordinary children and young adults with huge resilience and strength, facing all the demands imposed on adult carers with the added challenges of schooling and making the most of their young lives. Ministers should act now to require schools and GPs to identify young carers and point them to the support they need, which we must ensure is available in every part of the country.

A Green Paper was newly published in 2017 and in almost every year since. The limited mention of social care in the Queen’s Speech suggests the Government are delaying again. It is not good enough. Millions of people are looking for better. We need a real commitment to act.

Covid-19 Update

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

This is another example of where we work better together as one United Kingdom; we are working to solve this problem precisely. Coming from the borders with Wales, I understand this very clearly. Work is under way to ensure that there is interoperability between the data systems in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This situation was not foreseen when health responsibilities were devolved. I have been working with my counterparts in the three devolved nations on fixing it, and we have agreed to fix it. Getting these data to talk to each other is technically complicated, but that work is under way.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

In their decisions on easing the lockdown, the Government have rightly emphasised the importance of being driven by data, but when Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list, the data showed that daily infection rates were substantially higher in India. Will the Secretary of State admit that the decision not to put India on the red list at that time was influenced by the Prime Minister’s imminent visit to Delhi and the desire to secure a trade deal? Does he now recognise that that was a mistake?

[Matt Hancock]

If I just explain the data to the hon. Gentleman, I am sure that he will understand. The measures of the case rate per 100,000 are influenced by the amount of testing that is done in any country, and there is not nearly as much testing in Pakistan or Bangladesh as there is in India. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the rate of positivity of people coming from Pakistan was three times higher than that of people coming from India, which was at that time quite low. We have to be careful with the raw data, and we have to look at the underlying positivity. One of the advantages of testing everybody at the border is that we now effectively have a global surveillance system to understand the positivity of travellers from any individual country. As I said, the decision was taken on the basis of the fact that the positivity was three times higher from Pakistan than from India.

NHS Staff Pay

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that, in addition to the pay settlement that we will reach through this pay review process, there are many staff who will be eligible for pay progression. About 40% of the staff we are talking about are eligible for pay progression, so many of those will get a pay rise in addition to the figure that we get to through this process.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister was right when she talked about the amazing people who work in the NHS who have, in her words, “gone the extra mile” for the country. Does she understand why they will see this real-terms pay cut as a kick in the teeth? She justified it by reference to the pay freeze for other key workers, but that was a decision of this Government. Should they not recognise that they have got it wrong on both counts, review the pay freeze and give NHS staff the pay rise they deserve?

[Helen Whately]

I must remind the hon. Gentleman of the difficult times that we are living in: many thousands of people have, sadly, lost their jobs through covid and others have had pay cuts. We are in times of great economic uncertainty, and against that backdrop the Government have to make very difficult decisions. They have made the decision that there will be a pay freeze for much of the public sector, exempting those on the lowest pay and the NHS from that pay freeze—so the NHS workforce will get a pay rise.