Covid-19:International Travel

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing this important and timely debate.

I will stick to my five minutes by merely supporting what hon. Members have said already, in particular what was said by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and by the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). I support many of their points.

There is no doubt that the Government have lots of difficult decisions to make about how we reopen our travel sector as we come out of the pandemic, which we all hope we are now doing thanks to the huge success of the vaccine roll-out. Many of my constituents are employed in or own businesses across the travel and tourism sectors. I hear from them huge frustration at the lack of clarity surrounding the overall strategy for allowing international travel and reopening the sector. Above all, we need a great deal more clarity on how decisions are being made, in particular with reference to which countries are on the green, amber and red lists.

I share the dismay of the Chair of the Transport Committee at the small number of countries that are on the green list; not knowing the criteria for the lists is causing a great deal of confusion. In recent weeks, we have heard a great deal about India, for example, not being on the red list despite its circumstances being more severe than those in other countries that were on the red list. It is important that we have clarity about why countries are on the red or amber lists.

What is most important for the travel industry is being able to plan and to predict, and to look at conditions prevailing in certain countries and think, “Are they on the way out? Have they got a vaccine programme that they are rolling out? What is the likelihood that we will be able to travel freely to that country in July, August or September?” If we had more clarity about why decisions are being made and when we might be allowed to travel to certain countries freely again, that would make a huge difference.

As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said, it is not just about the travel industry. We need clarity in order to provide certainty for many sectors that depend on travel. He highlighted in-bound tourism, which is a big issue for people in my constituency and the wider area. My former employer was Hampton Court Palace, and I know how much it depends on visitors from America and Europe, so it is suffering at the moment. It is about our broader economy, as travellers from our business and cultural sectors want to be able to plan for greater reopening in the autumn. Without much better understanding of how the Government are approaching the opening up, it is very difficult.

I want to highlight the issue with testing when people arrive in the country from an amber list country and need to test on day two and day eight. I was appalled to hear from a constituent about the cost of these tests. I had naively assumed that they would be free, as they are for every resident here who needs a test. I cannot understand why we are charging travellers up to £150 for each test. For a family of four who are travelling here and have to do tests on day two and day eight, that is an extra cost of £600.

This petition is about the needs of those who have family, friends and partners abroad. My heart goes out to people who have dying relatives in other countries, which is a situation in which far too many families find themselves. I have many constituents with family and friends in European countries—we have a lot of European nationals in Richmond Park—who are already finding it difficult to travel to those countries, but need to travel at this time because their families are struggling. To have the additional cost of the tests is inconceivable.

If we have a wider strategy to make international travel possible and safe again, it beggars belief that we are charging that extraordinary amount for those tests. I urge the Government to have another look at that. It is not just a barrier for people who are travelling for whatever reason they want to travel now, but it will continue to be a barrier. If it is going to be part of our strategy for opening up, it will be barrier to business, trade and tourism, and we must address that. As such, I urge the Government to look at providing greater clarity about how travel can be made possible, and particularly about the cost of tests.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. I think that through the pandemic we have seen an improvement in our ability to see what is happening in the NHS right across the UK, and that helps us all work together better to deliver for patients. One example of that is the vaccine programme. That is a UK-wide programme with UK-wide metrics but it is delivered, of course, by the local NHS wherever people are in the UK. There are lessons we can learn from that.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I am hearing increasingly difficult stories from constituents across my constituency whose children are suffering severe mental health problems and are regularly having to wait up to a year for a first appointment. In that year, their condition gets progressively worse, so by the time their appointment comes around, they already need a much greater level of treatment than they would have needed had they been seen earlier. That also has a disruptive impact on their education, on top of the disruption that they have all experienced over the last year. The situation is getting worse; we are seeing more and more young people needing mental health care in my constituency. What is the Secretary of State doing to increase resources in this very important area of child and adolescent mental health?

[Matt Hancock]

We are putting record resources in. Of the increase in the NHS budget, the fastest increase in the long-term plan settlement is for mental health services, and within that, for children’s mental health services. We have also increased support through the pandemic. There is an awful lot that we continue to need to do, and there is a very significant plan, as part of the long-term plan, for improving access to these vital services.

Maternal Mental Health

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered maternal mental health.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and indeed to have Members participating virtually in this afternoon’s debate. Maternal mental health should be among our principal concerns. Pregnancy and birth can be the trigger for poor mental health among those who did not previously suffer from mental health problems, and they are a major factor in the escalation of existing ones. The first two years of a child’s life are vital in their development, and the right support and guidance for families at this time can make a big difference to their long-term outcomes.

For many women, becoming a mother presents psychological challenges. They might have experienced conflict or abuse in their own childhoods, which resurface when they contemplate the reality of becoming a parent themselves. They might be used to setting high standards for themselves and derive their sense of worth from their ability to meet them, but find that their baby does not comply with their drive to meet their parenting targets. They might simply be overwhelmed by the awesome responsibility of having another human being entirely dependent upon them, and fear that they do not have what it takes to be able to be an effective parent.

Because everybody has had a mother at some point in their lives, we all, knowingly and unknowingly, have formed a picture of what a mother is and what a mother should do. These assumptions about motherhood crowd around every new mother, complicating her own feelings about her new baby and her new role. New motherhood can be extremely lonely, especially in the dark, still hours of the early-morning feeds, and that loneliness creates a fertile space for doubts and anxieties.

Lockdown has exacerbated so many of these issues. I asked for today’s debate so that we can talk about the impact of covid on the mental health of new mothers, and to urge the Government to prioritise this as we come out of lockdown. Loneliness has been a major issue for almost all of us during the past year, but the lack of contact has been particularly acute for those who have had babies during this time. I am enormously grateful to the parliamentary digital engagement team for organising a survey in advance of this debate to ask members of the public for their experiences. We had more than 11,000 responses, with some extremely moving testimony among them. I thank everybody who took the time to share their experiences, but especially those whose experiences were difficult and painful.

The overwhelming theme of the responses was how difficult isolation had made the experience of giving birth and caring for a newborn. I was particularly struck by the experience of Zilia from the south-east when she told us:

“All appointments attended alone and in sterile conditions. Childbirth alone, no visitors in hospital, no family able to meet your newborn and help you out thereafter. Just the most isolating and lonely experience I have been through.”

Reflecting on my own experiences, I overcame the early challenges of motherhood with a combination of a supportive partner present at the birth, a delighted family who rallied round with practical help, professional health support delivered through home visits, and a peer group of other new mothers in the neighbourhood. To have been denied any one of those would have made the job of adjusting to motherhood considerably harder. We now have thousands of mothers battling through the early months of motherhood without having had any of those essential forms of support, and this has taken its toll on their mental health.

This is how Emily from Scotland describes the impact on her:

“My mental health is awful. I have never felt so lonely or isolated. I shielded from March until June last year and saw nobody for my second trimester other than my husband. My husband’s family are yet to meet our baby, who is our first, and he is coming up to six months old. I have developed post-natal OCD, which is horrendous, and I am still waiting for professional help to cope with this.”

Other covid-19 factors that have worsened the experience for new mothers in lockdown are financial uncertainty, lack of access to childcare, and bereavement. The industries worst hit by the lockdown employ a large proportion of females. Some 20% of mothers have lost their jobs during the pandemic, compared with 13% of fathers. The closure of schools has left many mothers trying to juggle home schooling for older children with looking after a newborn, and many families are dealing with the trauma of losing family members to covid.

The impact of the pandemic has changed the way that we all access healthcare, as resources are prioritised towards emergency admissions and efforts are made to reduce contact. In some parts of our healthcare system, it has led to an increase in digital and telephone consultations. In many parts of the country, this has included perinatal care. Many of the respondents to the survey reported receiving follow-up care in this way, including Jennifer in the west midlands, who reported:

“Very limited midwifery care. I didn’t see a midwife at all until I was 28 weeks. No health visitor service whatsoever. Apart from one very brief phone call, I have had no contact from a health visitor. My baby has not been weighed since 10 days old, and they are now almost six months. Overall, my pregnancy experience has been unnecessarily stressful and left me feeling constantly anxious and unsupported.”

In my conversations with new mothers in my constituency, many of them brought up how difficult they found the lack of professional support. They were unable to access guidance about breastfeeding or sleeping, and unable to ask questions or seek reassurance. Many of them found that they experienced much greater anxiety about their babies as a result. I have at least one case in my constituency where the lack of a physical examination led to a major genetic condition being missed—one in which, tragically, early intervention can make a significant difference to the quality of life.

The survey we conducted found that, of those mothers who had received an online consultation, 60% said they were not affected, compared with only 3% who said they were affected. I have spoken to the Institute of Health Visiting and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and they have confirmed to me how vital such face-to-face support is for new mothers in the first weeks. The value of the home visit is that the mother does not need to identify the need for help and then go out and seek it for herself; someone comes to her and asks her how she is. A trained and experienced health visitor can observe mother and baby and identify whether additional support is needed. That kind of support cannot be replicated on Zoom or over the phone. Furthermore, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists has highlighted to me, it is much harder to identify whether there are issues of domestic violence or coercive control between a mother and her partner when contact is one-dimensional.

The impact of perinatal mental illness can have long-lasting impacts on families. Stephanie from the east midlands told our survey:

“I have previously not had any mental health issues, but I have really struggled with my mental health since having my baby. I have severe anxiety and now perinatal OCD. I have intense fear and stress about leaving my child, and I am not receiving anywhere near enough support.”

The long-term societal cost of perinatal mental ill health is estimated at £8.1 billion annually for each one-year cohort of births, and about three quarters of that is the cost of the impact on children. The financial value of early interventions to support struggling families is clear, and there is also the very human value of building loving and supportive families.

We already have the structures and mechanisms to provide support through the health visiting service. I should declare an interest here: my mother was a health visitor for many years, so I have learned at first hand from her about the times when a friendly knock on the door made all the difference to an overwhelmed new mother. However, it is a service that was already chronically underfunded and understaffed before the pandemic took hold. There has been a 31% decrease in the health visiting workforce since 2015, and many local authorities target their scarce resources at those deemed most at risk.

I believe that only a universal health visiting service can properly identify and support mothers who are suffering from poor perinatal mental health, and that the Government should allocate sufficient resources to enable this to happen. We need better mental health support for all ages and stages, and better training throughout our health service to identify and support those who are struggling, but providing support to new mothers should be a priority, because of the long-term impacts that their poor mental health can have on the development of their children and on the rest of their family.

The first step is to address the shortage of health visitors. There cannot be quality service provision when 65% of health visitors have case loads of more than 500 children each. We also need to urgently address the staffing shortage among midwives, who have a critical role to play in supporting women’s emotional wellbeing during pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. The Royal College of Midwives has found that there is currently a shortage of 3,000 midwives. Alongside that, we need to increase training and specialist mental health support for midwives, so they are well equipped to deliver the necessary support.

The pandemic has forced us to use digital tools in every area of our lives. We may find that we continue to use some of them even after face-to-face contact is possible again. If I could make one plea to the Minister, however, it would be that we should not allow digital and telephone perinatal check-ups to become the new accepted standard. The Government should fund and resource home visits by health visitors to all new mothers so that we can properly address the issue of maternal mental health.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney]

This has been a really fantastic debate, and I am so grateful for the contributions from Members, both in the room and on Zoom. I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and all the work that he has done, particularly as the chair of the APPG for the first 1,001 days. He has highlighted the work of the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), and I am very much looking forward to reading her review, which will be really interesting. He also highlighted the importance of fathers, and I am really grateful to him for raising that important aspect of the debate.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for mentioning grandparents. Some of the most distressing correspondence I have had during this pandemic has been from grandparents who have been unable to see and hold their new grandchildren, so I thank him for raising that issue. I congratulate the Minister on her impending grandmotherhood and hope that all goes well.

I am particularly grateful to Members who have shared their own experiences throughout the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), whose experience highlights what I was saying about the inadequacy of telephone and digital follow-up appointments. She spoke of her experience of post-natal depression, and I am really grateful to her for sharing that. If I could stretch out a virtual hand, I would like to say to her that we share the experience of baby loss, and I know what that is like.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for highlighting another really important aspect: babies who are born with additional needs, the particular needs of their families and how they have been affected during this pandemic. I really hope that their needs can be prioritised going forward. I also want to mention the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). It feels as if a mother’s financial experience is almost an additional thing, but she is absolutely right in saying it is central to mothers’ mental health to know that they have economic stability. I thank her for raising that.

I want to pick up on the Minister’s comments. I am really pleased to hear about the call for evidence. As I say, I am looking forward to the early years review. I want to push her on the point about not allowing digital and telephone consultations to become the norm in perinatal mental health, because those face-to-face visits are so important to mothers everywhere, and I really hope that can be embedded. I thank everyone for their time this afternoon, and thank you, Sir Edward, for your chairing.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Speaking as a grandfather, it has been a very interesting debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered maternal mental health.

Covid-19

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I appreciate this opportunity to pay tribute to some of my constituents who have had such a tough time during this pandemic and during the lockdowns and restrictions. The businesses in Richmond Park have had a really difficult time, but I have been so impressed by how they have responded to the challenge, made themselves covid-secure and continued to deliver for my local constituents in whatever sector they are in. I pay tribute to those who have gone above and beyond and made a difference to the community. I am thinking of my favourite pizza restaurant in north Kingston, Peppe, which has been providing pizzas to NHS staff every time someone has bought a pizza from it.

Our cultural organisations, which we value so highly in Richmond Park, have had a really tough time. They were all opening up again and having record demand for tickets during October. Then, of course, we had the current lockdown, and we are hoping against hope that they can still open in December. I am particularly looking forward to going to see “Rapunzel” at the OSO Arts Centre in Barnes in December. It is billing it as “The Original Isolation Story”, so I think that is something we are all looking forward to.

I want to take this opportunity to draw attention to people who have been without financial support during the lockdown. I welcome all the Government’s efforts on furlough, and there is absolutely no doubt that that has been critical to the survival of many businesses not just in my constituency but elsewhere. However, I want to highlight the lack of support for those on contracts and the self-employed, which we raised in the Public Accounts Committee hearing with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on Monday. That is a big issue in my constituency. We have lots of people who are employed by the live events sector, which of course has been really badly hit during the lockdown, and it struggled to come back before the second lockdown. I just do not understand why we cannot do more for this particular group of people who have been paying taxes for years. All the records are at HMRC, and there is absolutely no reason why more could not have been done for them.

The children in my constituency have suffered huge disruption throughout the summer. I am so pleased to see them all back in school. I was speaking to year 6 at the Vineyard School in Richmond just this morning, and it was wonderful to see them all there. I very much look forward to being able to visit them in person soon. I would also ask the Government for some clarity on what will happen with exams next summer. That is what headteachers are asking for, and they need a decision now. Are exams going to be cancelled, as they have been in Wales by the Lib Dem Minister for Education there, or will there be a different source of assessment? Something needs to be done, and teachers ideally need to know before Christmas, so that they have time to prepare.

I was speaking to the management team at my local hospital, Kingston Hospital, last week, and that reminded me why we are doing this lockdown. They have had a big increase in hospitalisations, which, at the end of the day, are what we need to be careful of. I want to reiterate what the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) said earlier, and it is the message from my local hospital too: “Please, please, please continue to attend”. I have heard some distressing tales of cancer sufferers whose conditions have worsened through not being able to access health services during the first lockdown, and I really do not want to hear any more.

I pay tribute to all the voluntary organisations in Richmond Park. I was speaking to FiSH, which looks after the elderly residents of Barnes. Its particular issue has been isolation, and I am so pleased about all the work that it and all the other excellent neighbourhood charities in Richmond Park have done, with befriending calls and so on.

Finally, it is such welcome news about the vaccine. We are all very excited about that, but there is an urgent need for clarity about how we get from here to where we have all been vaccinated and can operate safely again. I urge the Government to bring forward announcements on that as soon as they possibly can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is quite right to highlight the amazing work that our NHS and social care workforce have done throughout this pandemic, as they do every year, and I pay tribute to them for that. As he will know, the NHS agrees with its staff multi-year pay deals set by independent recommendations, and we continue with that process.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

If he will allocate additional funding to local authorities to support the roll-out of lateral flow covid-19 testing.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

In addition to giving local directors of public health access to tests, NHS Test and Trace will provide access to training, clinical, operational and service design guidance, and communication and engagement support. In addition, all local authorities have funding available up to £8 per head of population to support the roll-out.

[Sarah Olney]

I welcome the allocation of lateral flow tests to both Kingston and Richmond in my constituency to allow for mass testing. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether, in addition to the support he has just outlined for the testing, there will be additional resources to support local tracing efforts and to support those who are found to need to isolate?

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely, the funding to support people who need to isolate is in addition to the funding I just outlined, which supports both the roll-out of mass testing and local contact tracing, and we always keep these things under review.

Covid-19 Response

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is right to ask that question in the sensitive manner in which he does. Of course, I have had discussions with my colleague the Secretary of State for Education, and both of us have taken clinical advice on the decisions around schools. I would not support the changes and the reopening of schools if I did not think they were safe. One of the reasons to bring in three years in the first instance in primary school is to ensure that there is the physical space that my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) spoke about earlier. We have got to be careful, cautious and sensitive, especially to the needs of those who might be disproportionately affected, and we have got to do the research to get to the bottom of why.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

A great deal of work has been done by local policing teams in Richmond and Kingston to inform my elderly constituents about the risk of scams both online and over the telephone. What shall I tell my constituents to look for, if they are contacted by a contact tracer, before disclosing personal data?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that. It appals me that people would try to raise a scam in response to this mission-critical national project of NHS Test and Trace. NHS contact tracers will never ask for your personal financial information. They will never ask you to pay for anything, and they will never disclose your personal medical information. If any of those things start to happen on a call, it is not a call from NHS Test and Trace. We have worked closely with the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure that we get the scripts right and that we protect against these risks, and she is right to raise it.

Covid-19 Response

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is right, and my hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. The number of children who have died is sadly more than none, but very, very low compared to adults, and it is absolutely right that getting test and trace up and running is important. I am delighted that today we have recruited 21,000 contact tracers, ahead of the goal I set that by today we would recruit 18,000—7,500 of them medical professionals—to make sure that we can deliver safely on the opening of schools, which is so important to so many.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

On the subject of those 21,000 contact tracers, what is being done to support, supervise and train them in what will be an incredibly sensitive job, dealing with not only the individuals affected but their data and other privileged information?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and that training is under way.

Covid-19

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to be beaming into the Chamber this afternoon. Like every other MP, I want to pay tribute to my community in Richmond Park and the way that they have stepped up to the challenge of coronavirus. On International Nurses Day, I want to talk in particular about the nurses at Kingston Hospital and those nurses and midwives who are taking time out from their training at the hospital to serve on the frontline. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything that you are doing.

I also want to take this opportunity to highlight our transport sector and, in particular, the extraordinary contribution that our transport workers have made throughout this crisis. They have kept our buses and trains moving to get our frontline workers to their places of work, and they have had to face the same dangers. I pay tribute to the 29 Transport for London workers who have died during this crisis, including 23 bus drivers, and I know that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to Belly Mujinga, a ticket checker at Victoria station who died after contracting coronavirus from a traveller who spat at her.

We are asking a huge amount of our transport workers. We are now asking them to keep us safe as we return to work. We can all appreciate how enormously difficult it will be to maintain social distancing on public transport, and I acknowledge the efforts of all those who will be charged with keeping us safe. With the support of MPs from across the House, I wrote to both the Secretary of State for Transport and the Mayor of London last week to call for PPE for transport workers to protect them as they go about their essential work. When we think of the families of those who have already died, we know that this is the very least we can do.

The Government need to think now about the future of our transport network. We have the opportunity that we have been waiting for to drive through real change to achieve a greener transport network and to meet the challenge of climate change. The massive drop of cars on our roads has led to massively increased air quality, and I know that this is a benefit that my constituents and those elsewhere will want to maintain. It was extremely encouraging to hear from the Secretary of State for Transport about his support and game-changing investment in cycling and walking solutions, not just for our cities, but for communities elsewhere. It is beyond time that the Government threw their support behind active travel for all the environmental, financial, mental, social and physical benefits that it offers to every traveller. It will be not just a crucial part of getting people back to work, but part of a long-term solution for our cities and towns as we adjust to the challenge of the climate emergency, because as long as we understand that we need to avoid public transport, our bus and train companies will continue to see a catastrophic loss of revenue. The Government need to start thinking now about how public transport networks can be maintained so that they are ready to support our workforce as they make a full return to work, as we all hope one day to do.

We also need to think long term about essential economic infrastructure and how we move freight around our country and internationally. Hauliers and the aviation industry are also facing disaster. They make an essential contribution to our critical supply lines, such as food and medicine, and we need to think long term about how we support those supply lines. I have been calling on the Government to address this; if they feel that it is necessary to support those industries with a Government bail-out, this is the opportunity we have been waiting for to force the pace on meeting the challenge of climate change and to ask those industries to really start embedding greener forms of fuel and movement into their industries.

NHS Shared Business Services

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is absolutely the point. What people will be wondering is, when we were faced with this issue, which was indeed serious, did we react as quickly as we could to keep patients safe? I believe the answer is yes. Did that happen under the last Labour Government? I will leave the House to draw its own conclusions.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

The Secretary of State just stated with great authority that no patient data were lost. I would be interested to know how he can be so certain, given that all these data were missing for a long time without anybody noticing. What controls are in place now that were not in place then that mean he can make that statement with such confidence?

[Mr Hunt]

I welcome the hon. Lady to the House. I do not know whether she has done a Health question with me before, but let me say to her that we are assured that the data were not lost: they were kept in a secure setting, which means they were safe, they were not breached and they were not accessed by anyone else. What should have happened, but did not, was passing on the data to the right GP surgery, and that is why we have taken all the steps we have to try to make sure patients are kept safe.