Covid-19

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab) [V]]

It is all very well to bask in the success of the vaccination programme, but being in charge also means taking responsibility for things that go wrong and the response so far to the ruling of Justice Chamberlain does not suggest that the Government are ready to seize all their responsibilities. He pointed out:

“The secretary of state spent vast quantities of public money…The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on, and how the…contracts were awarded.”

Why ever not?

I will focus on three areas. I look forward to hearing more about catch-up. I welcome plans for children to return to school but wonder if a rotation and phased approach might have been safer, given what happened last time. I am pleased Sir Kevan Collins has said that all ideas are on the table and I welcome his comments about sport, music and drama. I hope that catch-up will not simply mean cramming and further stress. I hope there will be space for the needs of groups such as those with speech and language difficulties, who have lost out on so much. Perhaps some thought might still be given to whether it is possible to cancel this academic year and allow catch-up without extra pressures.

As the economy reopens, the Chancellor must provide support for businesses that remain closed and address the pressures that small businesses and the hospitality sector face over rents and will face over cash flow. I hope somebody will speak to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and urge her to reconsider the minimum income floor. It was suspended because it was an impediment to claiming universal credit. Reimposing it when people have no idea how much of their work might return means simply depriving people of money they need. Too many of the self-employed have already had a raw deal. Do not make things worse.

Finally, I want to mention the dental profession. We need a focus on preventive treatment and allowing time for dentists to use their skills in picking up issues such as early signs of cancer, promoting children’s dental health—our pre-pandemic record on that was pretty grim—and taking action to preserve dental laboratories. A crude focus on units of dental activity will not achieve this, and the Government must work with the profession. Ministers sometimes say they want to build back better. That means accepting responsibility for things that have gone wrong and need putting right, as well as claiming credit for success.