Future of the Post Office
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Gareth Thomas
The right hon. Gentleman is right to bring the House’s attention back to the issue of sub-postmaster pay: there has been no material improvement in sub-postmaster pay for over a decade. If we are to see sub-postmasters genuinely treated better in the future, addressing the issue of pay is fundamental. I welcome the focus on that by the chair of the Post Office, Nigel Railton, in his speech today. I gently re-emphasise to the right hon. Gentleman that we remain committed to the Government requirement to deliver 11,500 branches, to ensure that every community has easy access to the post office branch network. Communities will absolutely need to be involved in any decisions about individual branches.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Acton lost its well used and still much missed post office in 2018, but it is home to the first ever urban Post Office-run banking hub. The trend is to co-locate services, but that seems to have drawn a blank—there are too many onerous parts to it, and businesses do not want it. So could the Minister help me investigate ways to merge the two services? The banking hub is the natural home for post office services, as it is owned by the Post Office, and, as a neighbouring MP, he could visit to cut the ribbon when we finally get postal services back to Acton, where they belong.
Gareth Thomas
My hon. Friend has always been a great champion of her constituency. I have visited the banking hub in Acton in a previous life, before the general election. I would be very happy to revisit the post office. I hear her message about co-location and I assure her I will look at that. I am sure she will continue to press me on the future of banking hubs in Acton.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(11 months ago)
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The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Obviously it is important to secure investment in mining in Cornwall, particularly the mining of lithium, which will be critical for our car batteries. I certainly agree to be interrogated by the APPG, of which my hon. Friend is a powerful leader, and I congratulate her on securing that investment in Cornwall.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Horizon: Compensation and Convictions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her work on behalf of Nichola Arch, whose case is one of the most prominent in this scandal. She is right to say that assessing loss is complicated, which is exactly why I work with officials. I agree with her description of them as excellent; they are just as passionate about delivering compensation as Members of this House. We are working on a daily basis.
My hon. Friend is also right to say that the fixed-sum award for overturned convictions simplified things significantly. A significant number of people have full and final settlements on an overturned conviction—30 people have chosen that route so far. But I hear what my hon. Friend is saying about a simplified process in other areas of compensation. That is certainly something we are working on and looking at wherever we can.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
ITV and the power of drama deserve our praise for galvanising Government action far faster than the questions I have been asking here since 2020. As well as Mr Bates there was Mr Patel, who was forced to give a false confession to avoid prison. He had the humiliation of attending the graduation of his son, my constituent Varchas, while electronically tagged. Despite Mr Patel’s conviction having been quashed in 2020, he has had zilch compensation and suffered huge ill health. Can the Minister sort that, make sure that heads roll and make good on Paula Vennells’s promise to me in 2018, when she pulled the plug on Acton crown post office, that we will get a post office again? We are still waiting.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and work on behalf of Mr Patel. If Mr Patel’s conviction was overturned in 2020, he should have received £163,000 in interim compensation, which was made available to anybody with an overturned conviction. He can also access two routes: either a fixed-sum award of £600,000 or the full assessment route. He can make a decision based on whatever level of compensation he and his advisers think he is due. One route is undoubtedly quicker than the other due to the complex nature of assessing claims. I agree with the hon. Lady about people being held accountable, as I said in my statement and in response to other Members. Picking up her point about Acton post office, Paula Vennells does not have much influence over that any more, but we can ask questions about that on the hon. Lady’s behalf.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Alistair Strathern (Mid Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
In addition to small business rate relief, under which businesses with a rateable value of less than £12,000 pay no business rates whatsoever, in his autumn statement the Chancellor announced a further business rate support package, worth £4.3 billion over the next five years, to support small businesses and the high street.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and welcome him to his place in the House.
Of course, we are very concerned about the high street. The pressures on the high street are largely caused by changing consumer habits, but the Government have stepped in to ease pressures, such as through the £20 billion energy bill support scheme and the £17 billion business rate package.
The hon. Gentleman talks about completely scrapping the current business rate system, which Labour has committed to do, but it is incumbent on Labour to set out how it will replace the £25 billion that business rates currently add to the Exchequer. What is the solution? It is not right for him or others simply to say they will scrap that £25 billion without setting out how they will replace it.
Dr Huq
The vanishing of Debenhams, Wilko and Paperchase has left huge holes in our town centres— I have lost a Wilko in both Ealing and Acton. Analysis shows that the incentivisation of out-of-town retail is the culprit. Labour has a five-point plan to revive our high streets, putting communities first. What are the Government doing about all this?
Kevin Hollinrake
I do not accept that, although out- of-town shopping can put pressure on the high street. Local authorities have to be very careful when they give planning consent for out-of-town shopping centres that could put pressure on the high street. That is clearly an important part of the planning process, but it is not the responsibility of central Government, of course. I would be interested to see that five-point plan, but if it includes the scrapping of business rates, which raise £25 billion, I ask the Labour Front Bench team once again—I have yet to receive an answer—where is that money coming from?
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Sir John Whittingdale)
The Government have made it clear that the licence fee will remain in place for the remainder of this charter period, but my hon. Friend is right that there are challenges going forward. He may be aware that the number of people paying the licence fee has fallen by 1.9 million in the past five years, and it is therefore right that we look at possible alternative sources of funding for the BBC in the longer term. That will be the focus of the funding review.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Lady is right to raise this important area. I am extremely grateful, as we all are in the Department, to Karen Carney for such an in-depth review of women’s football. We are obviously looking at the recommendations she made in that report, and that will be a continuous agenda item in my regular discussions with the FA.
Tackling Loneliness and Connecting Communities
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Whenever anyone goes into a Men’s Shed there is a cup of tea and a biscuit—it might be a Fox’s biscuit or another biscuit; probably more likely to be a Jaffa Cake down where we are, but whatever it may be, it is about the camaraderie—[Interruption.]
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Order. There will be two votes in the House now, so we will suspend for 25 minutes.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
We resume where we left off, so we will unpause Jim Shannon, who is in the middle of a cliff-hanger moment of his speech.
Jim Shannon
I only jest—I would never do that.
I was referring to the importance of Men’s Sheds, and the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) had just intervened on me. It is so important to have that cup of tea, chat and social engagement. Men’s Sheds are springing up all over my constituency, as I mentioned earlier, and the rationale is clear: let men come together and learn to talk freely, to express themselves and to help each other.
Beth Winter
The definition is so important because it is a subjective experience, and we need to be very aware of that.
I will turn to tackling loneliness. At the UK level, the creation of a Minister for loneliness and the strategy on loneliness is welcome. The Welsh Government’s initiative “Connected communities: A strategy for tackling loneliness and isolation and building stronger social connections” is also welcome. It contains four key priorities: increasing opportunities for people to connect; a community infrastructure that supports connected communities; cohesive and supportive communities; and building awareness and promoting positive attitudes. Although the resources attached to those strategies are welcome, they are clearly insufficient and more funding is required.
Crucially, if we are ever going to tackle the underlying causes of this epidemic, as I said, we must accept that it is inextricably linked to other societal developments and changes. One example is the shift from a collectivist to an individualist society, and the resultant loss of a sense of belonging and community cohesion. The neoliberal approach that we live under also exacerbates levels of loneliness and there is a lot of academic research to confirm that. Austerity and the cost of living crisis make it impossible for many people to engage in social activities. There is also the rise of the digital age. I could go on. There are multifaceted indicators and causes of loneliness. If we are ever going to challenge and tackle the scourge of loneliness, we need fundamental, transformative societal change.
The Red Cross supplied us with a number of questions for the Minister, and I want to take the opportunity to pose some of them. What will the Government do to incentivise local authorities and their partners to develop local action plans to tackle loneliness, to invest in community and social infrastructure, to loneliness-proof all transport and housing developments, and to close the digital divide by increasing digital skills and confidence? The Minister may already have those questions to hand; I am interested to hear his response.
I will finish on a positive note. In my constituency of Cynon Valley—which is the best place in the world to live and I welcome anybody to come at any time—we are doing so much to retain and revitalise community connections and our sense of belonging, taking a grassroots, holistic approach. I say “we” because I feel privileged to live there and to go to these brilliant events. They range from the brilliant Men’s Sheds in Hirwaun YMCA to a thriving youth club. I do not know how it has not closed because of austerity, but there is passion and determination in the community, and we have managed to retain that youth club.
In Aberdare, Age Connects has transformed an old people’s day centre into a community hub for all ages, with a whole range of activities. It really is the hub of the community. Down the other end of the valley, Bryncynon Strategy has done a lot of life history work with older people, learning about our heritage and our mining background. It really is a way of befriending and engaging with older people. There has also been a huge revival in choirs in south Wales, so if people are interested in music, they should come to visit us.
I am always optimistic, but I do have hope for a better, inclusive society, filled with care, compassion and kindness, where we respect people and treat them with dignity. Surely we can all agree that is not too much to ask. Diolch yn fawr.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
As a point of information, before I call the last of the Back Benchers, we had a 25-minute suspension because of the two votes, so that goes on to the end of the debate. Our new finish time is 4.25 pm, so do not feel you have to squish everything in before 4 o’clock.
Christian Wakeford
I do not know what to say, other than I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Member says. Far too often we talk about physical health, and we keep on talking about parity with mental health, but we certainly do not talk about social health. It is only when we get all three working that we can truly thrive not only as individuals, but as a nation.
As I was saying, I do not think that we will soon forget how helpless and isolating the pandemic made many of us feel, but we were the lucky ones. We had a job to go to. We often had family around us and processes to distract us. We were grinning and bearing it, but imagine what it must have felt like for those without any of that, who were already isolated and who became increasingly more so because of a global pandemic. They were waiting for the phone to ring, as days or even weeks went by without a knock on the door and with no one to speak to. Even it was a political canvasser who people did not want to see, that might have been their only contact for some time.
Post pandemic, however, I fear that we have missed the moment. I really hope I am wrong on that, because loneliness needs to be at the forefront of decision makers’ minds. As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said, from house building to transport connections, social policy, charity work and sporting elements, we need a truly holistic and wraparound solution to tackle loneliness, and we need to start it now. I do not want to make this issue party political, though, because I think we can all agree that we want to make loneliness a thing of the past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) said, we should all grasp the Government’s strategy for loneliness with both hands, but I would like them to look at providing more money in the area. In the grand scheme of things, the spending costs are not that great a deal, but the social impact really is huge.
I truly welcome today’s debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford for securing it. It is not only timely, but very necessary. By raising this crucial issue today, we can reach out to people in our communities. We can talk again about social prescribing, as we have done in this debate. Fantastic groups in my constituency and across the country, such as Incredible Edible in Radcliffe and Prestwich, are not only doing great work in community growing, but making sure that people have the choice of being able to speak to someone. By working together, we can reduce the stigma surrounding loneliness and, ultimately, tackle it once and for all.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
I call the first of the Front Benchers—for the SNP, Peter Grant.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Thank you very much, Dr Huq. I am pleased to begin summing up this debate.
In 2007, I went very quickly from being a senior auditor in one of Scotland’s smallest local authorities, which is responsible for about five people, to being the leader of Scotland’s third biggest local authority, which is responsible for 20,000 people. About two weeks in, I had to speak to the senior management team to teach them about leadership. I thought I was a bit of a con or a charlatan then. I am now trying to sum up a debate about loneliness among two of the possible three or four people in the land who have done more than most to help us recognise what loneliness is and how it should be addressed, so I pay tribute to them. I know it is traditional, when summing up, to commend the mover of the motion and other speakers, but the contributions of the hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), among others, today and to the wider debate about loneliness should be recognised. The speech by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen was wonderfully upbeat and positive, given the time of year and the subject. I thank her greatly for that.
I always have to check and write down the constituencies represented. I do not know whether anyone has realised that represented here we have Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, and that the English constituencies are scattered all over England. We also have four different political parties, and nobody has disagreed with anybody. That is something positive we can take out a debate about a still major public health crisis in all our nations. It is a social and health crisis, which can lead to tragedies and the loss of human life.
We need regular face-to-face contact as human beings. I would argue we need to have regular physical contact with our fellow human beings. Nobody should under-estimate the healing value of a hug or a wee hold of the hand when somebody really needs it. Loneliness is the way that we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to respond to a lack of contact in our lives. The same way that hunger is the way that we respond to a lack of food, and tiredness is the way we respond to a lack of sleep or rest. Loneliness is not a mental health illness or condition. It is the way that our bodies and minds respond to tell us that something is going wrong. Like hunger and tiredness, if we do not deal with it in the early stages, if we do not help people to deal with it, it can quickly become a significant health problem, very often connected to depression, to a loss of self-worth and all the mental and physical health conditions that can follow from that.
As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, loneliness and isolation are not the same as being alone. We all need time to be alone. One of my favourite quotes is from a adopted Fifer called Hamish Brown: “Solitude can be as sweet as honey, but remember you can’t live on honey for ever.” We all need time to be alone, but in the modern world, that is possibly one of the biggest things that people lack. Being forced to be alone is different, whether that is someone being alone in their own house, because no one will come and talk, or in a crowded room, because everybody is talking to each other, or because everyone is having a party and a barbecue next door and they are not invited. It is possible to be unbearably lonely in a big crowd, just as it is possible to be on one’s own yet not feel lonely. We need to accept those things. We need to accept that different people react to loneliness in different ways, just as they react to hunger, fear or tiredness in different ways.
Among the various reminders we have had that loneliness affects everybody and appears in all sectors of society, making itself known in different ways, one thing we have to recognise is something I encounter far too often in my constituency casework: there are people who use loneliness as a weapon. There are people who will deliberately use loneliness and the isolation of a partner to prevent them from having a life. In some cases, it is sadly a prelude to depriving them of that life. Loneliness does not always happens naturally. Sometimes it is forced on somebody deliberately by a partner as a means of controlling their life.
We have spoken about some of the things that have happened recently that have probably made loneliness worse. We cannot possibly point to one thing and say, “That has made loneliness increase by 2%, 5% or 10%.” The cost of living is making people become more isolated, which makes people lonely. There cannot be any argument about that. I want to suggest to the Minister that some of the things that the Government do, even if they are not intended to make people feel lonely, are having that impact. I suggest that the Government should think about that in future.
It can be very lonely going for a benefits assessment, especially in circumstances where the person is not allowed to bring someone with them, or only an approved person. One person against the system can feel very lonely indeed. Does the way that we treat asylum seekers and refugees help them to feel that they are part of a community? Does current Government policy and practice help to reduce loneliness among asylum seekers who land in a country where they do not know anybody, where they do not speak the language and where very few people speak their language? I do not think that it does.
The financial austerity to which our public services have been exposed and subjected over the years means that local authorities have had to protect the statutory “must have” services and that a lot of the “nice to have” services have been badly and disproportionately affected. They are being so affected that we are beginning to realise that they are not just nice to have; they are a must have. It is possible for communities to survive without a library, post office, community centre or primary school, but take all those things out of a community and it starts to die, and those who are left in the community are likely to become lonely and more isolated.
The facilities I am talking about, not all of which are the Government’s responsibility, are libraries, community centres, bowls clubs—I declare an interest as a 31-year member of Leslie Bowling Club; I have not swung a decent bowl yet, but I keep on trying—small independent cafés and pubs. They were once, and in some cases still are, vitally important social centres for communities. What happens in a community when those facilities are lost? All those places appear to be there for one purpose or another, but in fact their importance is that they are places for people to go and meet people. For a lot of people in a lot of communities, the library, café or community centre is the only place that they can meet other people.
That has to be recognised when a council considers whether to withdraw funding from a community centre or close down a library, or when the Government or a local authority considers changes that will lead to small businesses, cafés and pubs closing. Do any Government or council factor in the impact on loneliness before they take any of those decisions? I very much doubt it. I suggest to the Minister that if the Government are serious about this, any assessment of any decision should include its impact on loneliness and general community wellbeing as an essential part. I have no doubt that we will get good, well-meaning words from the Minister and that he will agree with what everyone else has said, because people tend to agree on the issue. We can all agree about what needs to be done, but somebody needs to do it. We can all agree about what the bad impacts are, but sometimes decisions may unintentionally make those impacts even worse.
We have heard a lot about the impact of covid. In some ways, it pulled communities together, but it left a lot of people feeling isolated. Those of us lucky enough to live close to countryside could go out for a walk quite happily and, although we were not allowed to arrange to meet people, could meet people. For those living in the middle of a big city, it was not nearly such an attractive proposition. The increased use of remote working, remote shopping and remote everything else has a lot of benefits, but we need to recognise the downsides as well. We need to encourage people who isolated for a long time during covid and who were so scared of covid that they have not quite come out of their shell yet. There are too many people unnecessarily isolating themselves when the risk of covid has now been greatly overtaken by the risk of loneliness and all the problems that that can bring.
Let me finish by looking at some success stories. We were encouraged earlier to name drop all the great things in our constituencies. That would take me until past 4.25 pm, never mind leaving time to let the other Front-Bench spokespeople speak, so I cannot drop any names, but I will mention some of the brilliant local cafés in my constituency, which I support the best I can. The Men’s Sheds have already been mentioned. They do a fantastic job, and there are a number in my constituency. Glenrothes Men’s Shed, by the way, is a men’s and women’s shed—at least that is where my wife says she is going every Monday morning, so I presume that they allow women. It is open to everybody, and I have never known anyone to go to the Men’s Shed and not come out feeling a better person.
A lot of community cafés, pantries and so on grew up during the covid crisis. I cannot pick out any individual facilities, but I need to mention one person, Rose Duncan, who was an absolute giant of the community effort, particularly in north Glenrothes, during covid. She very sadly passed away a few weeks ago. She gave a lifetime of service to the community in Glenrothes and previously to the community in Methil and Levenmouth, which are also in my constituency. Rose will be greatly missed, and my thoughts are with her family and friends at this time.
Social prescribing was mentioned. Why is it that we have never questioned whether it is a good idea to prescribe antidepressants, which if taken for too long become seriously addictive, but we have not argued about whether it is a good idea to prescribe a season ticket to a local swimming pool or a week’s admission to an exercise class? Bus passes are a great thing. Fife was one of the first places in the United Kingdom—I think one of the first places in Europe—to have free bus passes for elderly people. I was surprised when I discovered that I am now an elderly person. The Scottish Government have taken that scheme over, and we now have free bus travel anywhere in Scotland. It is a benefit to me and also benefits this place to the tune of £20 every time I come down here, because the Scottish Government are subsidising this place by that amount—this place is very welcome. I am quite happy to keep subsidising it because I know it could not survive if it was independent.
There are benefits of initiatives such as bus passes and making sure there are buses that people can get. As one example, I mentioned my membership of Leslie Bowling Club a wee while ago. There were three ladies there, one of whom is sadly no longer with us, who were in their 70s. They were not able to walk very far and were not fit to drive. Every week they would meet at the bus stop in Leslie and, with their bus passes, go to the bus station at the Kingdom centre in Glenrothes. They would take it in turns to pick which bus they went on and go off for an afternoon out and a coffee somewhere and then come back. It made a huge difference to the rest of their week. It made them much more active, vibrant and positive people.
Because those ladies and other people were doing that, the bus services remained viable and were able to continue, even in the early morning when people were going to work, most of whom did not have a bus pass. The whole service was made more sustainable and more viable, helping to keep essential services together. It costs public money, but the public benefits are almost impossible to measure.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Order. The hon. Gentleman did say he was concluding. I am being told by the official that he is over the standard time, so if he could conclude we would be grateful.
Peter Grant
I certainly will, Dr Huq. I am sorry that I have taken so long.
The most important thing about loneliness over the last few years is that we are now talking about it, and that is because of the great efforts of some of the hon. Members here, and we are talking about it because of Jo Cox. Jo has a fantastic number of legacies in this place. I did not know her well, but I knew her well enough to know that she was the kind of MP we do not see often enough. It was a desperate loss for all of us when she was taken so young. Thank you, Jo, from all of us.
Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to some of the cross-Government work, but we need to join up that messaging right across society.
I decided that, during Loneliness Awareness Week, I could not stand here and talk about breaking down the barriers and the stigma of loneliness if I did not admit that I have been lonely myself. That is why I did interviews in some national papers. I have been overwhelmed by the response, not just from the UK, but from around the world. Despite the fact that awareness was raised during the pandemic, it is still unusual to see people in public life, and people more broadly, talking about their loneliness.
We want to drive a lasting shift. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford was the first Minister for loneliness. It is great to follow in her footsteps—there is not a lot of pressure on me there! We have invested over £80 million in projects up and down the country, including song-writing workshops in Devon, dance classes in Bedfordshire, health and wellbeing projects such as online chat services in Durham, and projects supporting education, climate and the environment, such as nature walks in Lambeth. Taking that national action is really important. We have also expanded social prescribing, which really does help loneliness, but also improves public health. My hon. Friend is a big advocate of that. I am really keen that we look at how we can expand these measures even further and add them to other strategies that we are developing in Government.
In 2021, we launched the tackling loneliness hub, an online forum that brings together people who are working in this area. It allows members to develop relationships with others around the country, learn from each other and upskill themselves through events and workshops, and, crucially, share that latest research. Organisations represented include the English Football League Trust, the Co-op Foundation and the British Red Cross. I thank them all for their contributions. It is great that we now have a membership of more than 500, including from the private and public sectors, academia and charities. It just goes to show that we need a joint approach.
Building the evidence base is key, and it is important that we continue that work and share best practice. I know that hon. Members have been flying around the world and speaking to others, and the Department has received requests for meetings with representatives of the Governments of Japan, Sweden, Finland and the US. That is fantastic, because they want to develop their national strategies and build their evidence base. That work will include publishing our own research. We are convening an evidence group to bring together academic experts so they can collect population-level data, in particular.
Our evidence has grown significantly thanks to the work that has been done since 2018. We have much stronger evidence that proves the bi-directional relationship between mental health, loneliness and physical health, which my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) mentioned. We are also looking for greater insights into the risk factors for people becoming lonely, and into the affected groups, including young people, people with disabilities and other special educational needs, people from the LGBT community and those living in deprived areas. It is important that we continue to do that work, but there is still much that we do not know, which is why we are investing in programmes to better understand what works.
This year, we announced the first of the know your neighbourhood fund projects, which will create volunteering opportunities in 27 of the most deprived and disadvantaged areas. I was pleased to visit Hull to see the great work that one of those groups is doing, particularly in the care setting. It really is fantastic. The projects also include museums, libraries—which the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) mentioned—social enterprises and community centres. The know your neighbourhood fund will create thousands of opportunities to bring people together to develop their skills and build relationships, and it will properly connect some of those communities. I look forward to getting the most out of that.
There is a lot for us to learn—not just the funders and delivery organisations, but the Government, local authorities and charities—so that we know what interventions are effective and boost social connections. A number of Members mentioned the cost of living. The Department was keen to lobby the Treasury, and we were successful in securing an extra £100 million for charities. We have also allocated more than £70 million from dormant assets to focus particularly on cost of living issues.
I see volunteering, which is another part of my portfolio, as one of the solutions to tackling loneliness. That is why we are a key partner in Vision for Volunteering, and are looking at a 10-year strategy. I see the sports strategy as another way of increasing the number of people who take up volunteering.
I have the support of my colleagues; this is collective work across Government. I cannot do it alone. I have been really pleased with the engagement with Ministers in other Departments, including the Minister for mental health, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield); the Minister for children, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho); the Minister for Veterans, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), and the Minister for local government, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley).
We have made good progress, but I am keen that we do not lose momentum. We need to go even further. That is why we published the fourth annual report of the cross-Government tackling loneliness strategy with 60 additional actions for the next two years. They include providing targeted support for care leavers, unpaid carers and veterans; improving and building on the success in social prescribing across the country; supporting community infrastructure and community action to tackle loneliness in rural areas; publishing the new suicide prevention strategy, and opening school facilities out of school hours to make the benefits of physical activity more accessible and inclusive. A key focus of those commitments is sharing learning and best practice, and we will continue to do that right across Government.
There is a lot that I could say, but I sense that I am running out of time. The Government and I, as the Minister for loneliness, are keen to keep the collaboration going. It is working incredibly well, and I can sense that people want to play their part. There is a lot that we still need to do, but compared with where we were just a few years ago, where we are now is incredible. I pay tribute to every single person who has been key in developing the strategy.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
To respond to all that, I call the pioneering first ever Minister for loneliness, Tracey Crouch.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that. I will see whether I can get a meeting with him, but, if not, I will make sure that one of my officials is able to look into this issue specifically for him.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that issue. As I said earlier in reply to a question about energy support for small businesses, we do know that businesses are facing high energy costs. The Government are currently paying about half of everyone’s energy bills. I talked about the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme. We are doing everything we can to support businesses in the hospitality sector, but if there is something that is specific outside that, I ask her to please write to us and we will see whether there is any further support that can be offered.
Abuse and Sexual Assaults in the NHS: Investigations
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
I will call Daisy Cooper to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as this is a 30-minute debate.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the adequacy of investigations into abuse and sexual assaults in the NHS.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. Today’s topic is one that I never in a million years thought I would have to table for debate, but because of two brave constituents and two investigative journalists, I am here to share their stories and shine a light on the shocking scale of the problem.
It should go without saying that hospitals should be places where all patients, visitors and staff should feel safe and be safe. Vulnerable patients entrust themselves and their care to strangers in an unfamiliar environment. Overworked nurses and other NHS staff work long shifts in understaffed buildings, often arriving or leaving their place of work in the hours of darkness. Patients, visitors and staff can find themselves isolated in cupboards, clinics or car parks out of public sight, and it is seemingly in those places that thousands of instances of sexual assault, misconduct and rape are perpetrated every year.
A brave constituent of mine—let us call her Joan, which is not her real name—told me that she was a survivor of sexual misconduct by a medical professional during her treatment. Soon after it happened, Joan disclosed it to her GP, who raised a complaint to the specific NHS trust. The complaint was treated by the NHS trust’s human resources team as an employer-employee dispute. What was Joan’s status in this? Not a victim, not a complainant. She was relegated to being nothing more than a third-party witness: a third-party witness who not only was treated appallingly by the medical professional’s council, but was not even entitled to know the outcome of the case—the case in which she was the victim.
Joan did not know whether any other complaint mechanisms were available to her or what the scope or limitations of each one might be, and she was not medically fit enough to find out. She trusted that the NHS trust would do the right thing. Thanks to her GP, Joan was then contacted by the General Medical Council, which wanted to investigate the professional concerned, but Joan was not mentally or medically in a position to progress the case. She tried to progress it about seven years later, but she was prevented from doing so by the GMC’s five-year rule, which prevents the GMC from investigating a professional’s fitness to practice if the case is older than five years. The GMC can, of course, still investigate where there are exceptional circumstances in the public interest, but the GMC told me that Joan’s case did not meet the threshold. It would not tell me how it defined “exceptional circumstances” and refused to disclose the legal advice that it had received about the definition.
Joan attempted to raise the case with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. The PHSO replied that its remit is more procedural and administrative, and that it would not be the appropriate organisation. It redirected Joan to other organisations that were better suited to investigate—the GMC and the trust’s own disciplinary process, both of which she had used and both of which had failed her. The Professional Standards Authority oversees the GMC and other health regulators, but it too said that it could not investigate the case itself. Separately, Joan had a personal injury case against the hospital and secured a significant payment as a result, but we believe that the medical professional concerned is still practising.
Since 2020, I have sent 14 letters to different organisations, including three to the Government, and have tabled a number of written parliamentary questions to work out how this could have gone so badly wrong. What we have uncovered is shocking. First, there is no tailored support available for patients reporting incidents of a sexual nature. Patients are unclear about which organisations they can complain to, with NHS trusts, the GMC and the PHSO sometimes suggesting that each of the others is better placed to investigate. The GMC’s five-year rule continues to be a major barrier for investigating the fitness to practise of medical professionals perpetrating sexual misconduct on patients or other medical professionals.
Secondly, there has been no discernible progress on implementing the recommendations of three inquiries and reports from the Professional Standards Authority. Thirdly, no clear or systemic collection of data of reports of sexual abuse and misconduct within the health service is available for public or parliamentary scrutiny. Fourthly, the recent revelations by investigative journalists, which were published in Byline Times, of thousands of rapes and sexual assaults across the NHS mean that immediate action is needed to make our hospitals safe from sexual predators.
On the first issue—the staggering lack of support for survivors and the opaque reporting process—the NHS directs all patients to the patients advice and liaison service for complaints in the first instance. However, the route to escalate a complaint of sexual misconduct is not straightforward. A search online fails to direct individuals to NHS or Government resources that are instantly and clearly available. The options that do exist to address sexual abuse and misconduct often have limitations that patients are unaware of when embarking on a complaint, meaning that they discover them only in the course of trying to make such a complaint.
I have already explained through Joan’s case how the NHS’s disciplinary hearings, and the processes of the PHSO and the GMC all have shortcomings. We urgently need a simple and clearly signposted process that is designed for complaints of a sexual nature. We also need the five-year rule to be scrapped. Any case of sexual misconduct in the NHS should meet the tests of being both exceptional and in the public interest to investigate, but that is clearly not how the rule has been interpreted.
Two years ago, in 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care held a consultation on proposed regulatory reform of the GMC that would include the removal of the five-year rule. That would rightly reduce barriers to the investigation of serious cases of sexual misconduct where patients may not have felt in a position to report them at the time or where they were simply unaware that they could do so. The GMC itself is in favour of scrapping the five-year rule but, two years later, the Government refuse to say when they will respond and scrap the five-year rule, which I hope they will do. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us in this debate.
The second major problem that I identified was the repeated failure to follow up on three inquiries and the Government’s own report. Each inquiry found systemic failures in the NHS’s handling of reports of sexual misconduct. One called on the Government
“to develop and publish specific accessible information for patients on what they should and should not expect in consultations and who they can speak to for advice and assistance in relation to disclosures of alleged abuse.”
But to the very best of my knowledge and research, there has been no subsequent publication or announcement by the Government or any other responsible agency that seeks to act on the recommendations of those three inquiries.
The third problem on which urgent intervention from Government is needed is the shocking lack of data that prevents anyone from identifying the real scale of the abuse in health services. I tabled a series of parliamentary written questions over the past two years about the recording and monitoring of sexual abuse in the NHS. The Minister may remember the responses she gave on 9 November 2021 and 17 February 2022. She advised that
“all National Health Service organisations must prepare an annual report covering the number of complaints the organisation received”.
She later confirmed:
“While there is no specific requirement in legislation to categorise complaints by allegations of sexual abuse, NHS organisations are required to record the subject matter of complaints. NHS organisations must ensure that their complaints annual reports are available to any person on request.”
However, when I asked NHS England about accessing that data, it said that
“there is not a specific code for complaints of a sexual nature. Therefore in order to extract this data would require us to review every complaint received. In each year we receive between 6,000-8,000 complaints. If this information was requested under the Freedom of Information Act, this would most likely be exempt as it would exceed the threshold for time taken to provide a response.”
That is gravely concerning, first and most obviously because the Government are currently unable to gauge the scale of the problem, and, secondly, because local organisations tasked with commissioning much-needed advocacy support services simply are not able to do so. Will the Government mandate NHS England to create a specific code for complaints of a sexual nature?
Tenacious investigative journalists have uncovered some data. Sian Norris and Sascha Lavin have revealed that more than 4,000 patients, visitors and NHS staff were raped or sexually assaulted in hospitals in England and Wales during the past four years. However, this data could not be collected from the NHS trusts themselves. Instead, it had to be gleaned from police force records, because—incredibly—the NHS does not collate this information.
I am sure the Minister will be aware of a survey for Nursing Times in 2021 that found that three in every five nurses had been sexually harassed at work, with barely a quarter of these incidents being reported to employers, because nurses just do not believe it will get them anywhere. I mentioned at the beginning a second constituent who is a medical professional. She raised a complaint with her managers, only to come to the same conclusion—namely, that her complaint just would not go anywhere.
Although all of this is incredibly shocking, none of it should be news to the Minister here today. She will know that I put all of this detail to the former Secretary of State more than a year ago, on 13 May 2022. I did not receive a response for several months, but when I did I am afraid to say that it simply regurgitated all of the routes that I had complained about in my original correspondence. In further letters to and fro, the replies told my constituents and me nothing that we did not already know, and a promised ministerial meeting, which was rearranged four times, never came to pass. Although my constituents are not physically in attendance, they are following this debate closely on parliamentlive.tv. I have no doubt that many more survivors of these abhorrent crimes will be listening, too. They all want to know what the Government will do.
I have a series of questions for the Minister. First, will the Government finally respond to the GMC consultation and scrap the GMC’s five-year rule, which allows perpetrators of sexual misconduct to evade investigation after five years and continue working in the NHS? Secondly, will the Government create a specific and clearly signposted complaints system for complaints of a sexual nature, so that patients, visitors and staff can report allegations within health services and are able to identify which organisations they should approach in order to do so?
Thirdly, will the Minister make a statement about the handling of sexual abuse cases in the NHS and say whether any recommendations from the previous three inquiries and the PSA reports will be incorporated into the existing systems? Fourthly, will the Government mandate the NHS to create a specific NHS complaint code to register, collate and monitor data on sexual abuse and misconduct within health services, which can be made readily available for public and parliamentary scrutiny, and for local bodies that commission advocacy services for victims?
Finally, but most urgently, will the Minister set out what action she has taken or will take to make our hospitals a safe place for patients, visitors and staff, free from the sexual assaults, misconduct and rapes that are seemingly happening in our NHS every single day?
Oral Answers to Questions
Rupa Huq Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Steve Barclay
It is. As my hon. Friend will know from another of my visits, which was with him to Kettering, the enabling works are progressing. That is in no small part a tribute to the work that he and neighbouring MPs have done to strongly make the case for Kettering. I know that he will continue to do so, and I look forward to working with him on that.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
We announced in January that we will publish a major conditions strategy, which will apply a geographical lens to each condition to address disparities in health outcomes. We have doubled the duty on cigarettes since 2010 and now have the lowest smoking rate on record. We are investing an extra £900 million through the drugs strategy, increasing funding by 40%, and to fight obesity we have introduced the sugar tax and measures such as the extra £330 million for school sport.
Dr Huq
The daily dump of WhatsApp messages in the papers reminds us of covid and the disproportionate deaths suffered by black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. What with that and the figures showing a 20-year gap between life expectancies in our nation’s most affluent and poorest wards, why is it that the Government scrapped a proposed White Paper on health inequalities?
Neil O’Brien
As I just said, we are driving forward all that work through the major conditions paper. In addition, we have the Start for Life programme, with another £300 million to improve young people’s start in life. We are absolutely committed to tackling health disparities and driving forward work on all fronts.