Covid-19: Test and Trace App

Lord Bates Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the PNQ refers to the lessons learned. One key one—[Inaudible]—launch of a system that was not ready and serious IT—

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

Order. We are having some technical difficulties hearing the noble Baroness’s question, so we will go to the next question, from the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank, and come back to her if there is time.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have listened to my noble friend and feel that confidence in the Government has been shaken by this approach. I have one question: how do we anticipate this approach now being rolled out across the four nations of the United Kingdom and how will they interface, one with another?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness is entirely right that local councils are pivotal to our response to Covid-19. I pay tribute to Tom Riordan, CEO of Leeds City Council, for the important work he is doing to stitch together the alliance of councils which is working closely with the joint biosecurity centre to organise that response. However, I do not agree with the noble Baroness on the role of the tracing teams—it has been incredibly important. There has not been the capacity in the decentralised PHE teams to provide the response necessary to this national epidemic. A central team was necessary and is proving to be effective. We have put PHE expertise at the heart of that programme.

[The Deputy Speaker]

My Lords there are no more supplementary questions.

Social Distancing: Two-metre Rule

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the British public, who have remained sensible and thoughtful to others, have largely borne the cost of social distancing and have abided by the rules of the lockdown. I express gratitude to all members of the public who have gone along with this incredibly impactful regime—a regime that continues to have a huge amount of support among the broader general public.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the time allowed for questions on this Urgent Question has now elapsed. I call on the Whip to move that the House be adjourned until 1.30 pm for the Committee stage of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill.

Covid-19: Mental Health

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Lord is entirely right to focus on the impact of the pandemic on young people. It is not yet clear how that mental health impact will take effect. The natural concern is that it will be long standing. One thinks back to the major economic shocks of the past, which often led to long-term mental health issues for those who found economic insecurity. The struggle to find jobs left them with damaged confidence and concerns about the future. With that in mind, we are very much focused on addressing young people’s mental health and the impact of the epidemic.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the time allowed for that Question has now elapsed. That also concludes the hybrid proceedings on Oral Questions.

Coronavirus Bill

Lord Bates Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Bethell for the way he has stepped in to a difficult brief at a difficult time. He is stepping up to the challenge. The way that he is keeping us informed is very much appreciated by us all. I also appreciated the opening remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, particularly his statement that this is a collective battle, which we fight together as one nation.

As someone with a little experience of legislation, I also think it is appropriate that, as legislators, we should pay tribute to those who prepared the legislation before us—321 pages, 87 clauses and 27 schedules. I have known such legislation to take more than a year, and certainly many months, but it has actually been produced for us within a few weeks. I thank the civil servants, the parliamentary draftsmen and the clerks who have been party to that effort.

In any crisis, no matter how bleak, there are opportunities for us to reflect on who we are, how we work, what values we cherish and how we can improve ourselves, so that once we emerge from the crisis—as we shall—we do so in better shape than we entered it. Looking for those opportunities and making changes empowers us at a time when we can feel powerless, and it gives us hope when things can seem hopeless.

I will focus on just one area—volunteering—referred to in Schedule 6 to the Bill. As a nation, we often seem at our best when we are giving, be it of our time or our money, in pursuit of some great cause. Your Lordships can see this in events such as the Great North Run and the Children in Need telethon, or the efforts at times of crisis of the British Red Cross, St John’s Ambulance and the Salvation Army. Who can forget the 70,000 Games makers who made the spirit of 2012 something which raised our national morale? The British people are indeed a generous people, in both time and money. This is relevant because if we are going to get through this crisis together and emerge stronger, it will require a herculean collective effort—everyone pulling together and lending a hand.

It is estimated that each year some 20 million people volunteer their time in Britain. It is part of our national social capital. We are already seeing this beginning to happen organically, with thousands of local groups of volunteers forming up and down the country, wishing to help their neighbours with shopping, collecting prescriptions or post, or just a friendly telephone call. I declare an interest as a member of my local Covid-19 mutual aid team. I know that many of the volunteers in my local group would be very grateful for guidance as to how the new restrictions announced by the Prime Minister last night will impact on their volunteering activities.

I know also that the DCMS is doing incredible work with major charity organisations like the British Red Cross, the NCVO and others, supported by General Sir Nick Parker. But my concern is that what we are now witnessing is a mass grass-roots surge of altruism not through the traditional channels but across social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, and apps like Nextdoor. This surge of good will needs to be harnessed, informed and trained; it does not need to be frustrated or discouraged by an overly bureaucratic process. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and that applies to those wanting to help too. The mass outpouring of altruism towards each other that we are witnessing in our country can help not only to get us through this crisis but to bind some of the wounds of our recent past, so that we can emerge stronger and more resilient as a society than we entered it. This precious resource flow must not be wasted, but it must be directed.

NHS: Targets

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for securing this debate and look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox.

My proposition is that, all things considered, the performance of the NHS in delivering free-at-the-point-of-need healthcare to the people of the United Kingdom is utterly outstanding, and that the credit for that should go to the 1.5 million people who give of their all every day to make it so. Each year in England, 300 million GP appointments, 23 million attendances at A&E and over 10 million operations take place. The NHS in England treats 1 million patients every 36 hours, yet, according to the 2018-19 NHS England annual report, of these hundreds of millions of engagements, just 6,395 complaints and 7,967 concerns were raised by the public through the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Most find their treatment to be good or outstanding.

Opinion surveys agree. The NHS comes top of Mintel’s list of things about Britain that make us most proud. In 2018, a YouGov poll found that 87% of people were very or fairly proud of the NHS. And it is not just at home: the Commonwealth Fund’s latest survey ranked the UK as the best healthcare system in the world for the second successive time, with Sweden ranked sixth and France 10th.

The NHS has come a long way since its formation in 1948. At that time, total government spending on health was £11.4 billion in today’s prices; today the budget stands at £134 billion—12 times higher in real terms. Staffing in 1948 was 144,000; today it is over 1.5 million, a figure which does not include 369,00 GPs, dentists, opticians and temporary staff. The demands on NHS services have changed too, with breakthrough surgical procedures and new drugs. Life expectancy has risen from 68 in 1948 to 80 now. Age is a principal driver of demand for the NHS. Those over 65 require, on average, 2.5 times the NHS resource needed for the average 30 year-old, and those over 85 an average of five times more. The over-85 age group is the fastest-growing age group in the UK and is set to double in size over the next 25 years, hopefully with my help.

All things considered, the NHS is performing extraordinary well, with its productivity growth running at three times that of the rest of the economy, which means that staff are working harder and smarter. Cancer detection and survival rates are increasing while deaths from heart disease are falling, but we cannot expect them to take all the strain. This, after all, is our NHS and we need to work together to ensure that it can meet the challenges of the future. I will make three quick suggestions as to how it can.

First, the NHS should not be used as a political football. The NHS is currently under the stewardship of the Conservatives in England, Labour in Wales, the SNP in Scotland and the power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland. It has prospered and struggled under Governments of all political parties. Every healthcare system in the world is struggling with advancing science and advancing ages. It would be true political leadership if we could work together to find solutions, rather than blaming each other for mistakes.

Secondly, we need to treat staff in the NHS much better. They are not a vending machine delivering care packages but human beings putting their heart and soul into it. That makes all the difference. Yet clinical negligence claims have increased by 200% over the past 10 years, reaching £2.4 billion of claims in 2018—enough to train 10,000 doctors. Most worryingly, the number of attacks on NHS staff is increasing at an alarming rate, as pointed out by Unison and the Nursing Times. They have estimated that the number of violent incidents could be as high as 75,000, or 200 per day.

Thirdly, we all need to take greater personal responsibility for our own health and our use of precious NHS services. Fifteen million GP appointments are missed each year, while hospital admissions for obesity have doubled in just five years. Our NHS is our shared responsibility. If politicians and the public can all play their part to the same standard as our NHS staff demonstrate every single day, our beloved NHS can not only survive but thrive in the future.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, over the past three years, our national self-confidence and self-belief have taken one heck of a beating. We have been pummelled by a daily dosage of doom, doubt, division and despair. I believe that this time is, mercifully, drawing to a close, so the question before us now is: how do we rebuild and reunite? Some will argue for legislation, but I want to make the case for realising a much more powerful motivator of human endeavour: optimism and belief.

Here I must declare an interest. I am an incurable optimist. I always have been; even my blood group is B positive. This is a genetic trait which is shared by all who happen to follow Newcastle United Football Club; it is pretty essential. Great turnarounds, be they in businesses, schools or sports teams, are more often than not the result of leadership; reinstilling self-belief, self-confidence, an ambition or a vision, or giving new purpose. Those qualities are the need of the hour. The hugely successful GREAT campaign, launched in 2012 at the great Olympics and Paralympics, tells people in 140 countries around the world how great Britain truly is. It is time that we brought that campaign home and reminded ourselves what a great country we are privileged to live in and that our best days lie ahead of us, not behind us.

When Forbes does its annual survey, it ranks Britain as the number one place in the world to do business. The World Bank ranks Britain second only to the United States in the G7 for ease of doing business. For these reasons and more, the UK is the number one location in Europe for attracting foreign direct investment. It is third in the world, after the United States and China. The UK is home to two of the top-three universities in the world. One of those universities, Cambridge, has produced more Nobel Prize winners than the entire nation of France. The Royal College of Art and Design was the number one college for art and design in the world in 2019. In December last year, the UK overtook the United States as the top destination for overseas students in the world. English is the number one spoken language in the world. It is the language of international trade. London is a world-leading international financial centre. In 2017, an international survey ranked the NHS as the best healthcare system, with Sweden and Switzerland coming sixth. London is ranked second only to Tokyo as the most innovative city in the world. When it comes to technology, the UK has produced as many billion-dollar technology companies—or “unicorns”—as Germany, France, Israel and Sweden combined.

The Premier League is the most watched football league in the world, Edinburgh the largest arts festival, Glastonbury the largest outdoor festival. “Game of Thrones” is filmed in Belfast, “Doctor Who” is made in Cardiff, “Downton Abbey” is made in Hampshire and 007 is made in secret, of course. Of the 10 teams that compete in Formula 1 motor racing, seven of them are based in the UK. At the Rio Olympics, Team GB ranked second in the medals table, behind the United States. In the Rio Paralympic Games—founded at Stoke Mandeville, Team GB ranked second, behind China. Both teams can both go one better in Tokyo later this year.

Internationally and politically, the UK is a significant player. It is a P5 member of the UN Security Council, a G7 country, a member of the Commonwealth—a unique family of 53 nations and 2 billion people—and the only country that meets both its 2% military NATO commitment and its 0.7% development aid commitment. It was the first to enshrine the net-zero commitment in law, while reducing its carbon emissions by 42% since 1990, which is more than any other industrialised country.

No other country can present such a list of credentials. Britain is indeed a great country, with its best days ahead of us, not behind us. Overseas investors, businesses and students believe in Britain, and we should believe in ourselves. We should unfetter the voices of hope, optimism and ambition, to inspire us to even greater heights, powered by the boundless renewable energy, resolve and creativity of all its great British people.

Suicide

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who are contributing to this short debate. It is a tough subject and deserves our attention and support. I begin by paying tribute to the work of the Samaritans which is, this year, celebrating 60 years of amazing support for people from all walks of life who are trying to cope through a critical period in their lives.

I am privileged to be chairman of the Samaritans Advisory Board and have learnt at first hand so much of the extraordinary achievements all began with one man, Chad Varah, and one phone in one room in a church in the City of London. Chad Varah recognised that suicide is not inevitable, and the ability for someone to be able to share their thoughts with another, on a confidential basis, through the power of communication, could prevent unnecessary deaths.

Since that time 60 years ago, when this was a totally taboo subject, more than 127,000 volunteers have answered over 115 million calls for help—that is, twice the population of the United Kingdom—all without one penny of taxpayer subsidy but through charitable giving.

Samaritans volunteers are ordinary people providing callers with a safe place to talk, without judgment. Today 20,665 volunteers answer 5 million calls across the UK 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That means a contact every six seconds by phone, text, e-mail and letter and face to face.

Confidentiality and anonymity are hallmarks of the charity. I now realise that I have some wonderful friends whom I have known for years without knowing that they are Samaritans. I pay tribute to them all.

Even with the support of Samaritans, more than 6,500 lives are lost each year across the UK to suicide, and it is on the increase—by over 8% in the past year alone. Totally indiscriminate, suicide can affect anyone, no matter what their age, gender or background. Last year Samaritans answered more than 650,000 calls for help from people experiencing suicidal feelings. For every suicide, approximately 20 attempts are made. In 2011, more than 130,000 suicide attempts were made. One little-known fact is that men are three times more likely to die by suicide than women. Men in their 30s to 50s in lower socioeconomic groups are at the highest risk, and we do not know enough about why this group is so vulnerable to suicide.

What, in addition to the wonderful support of Samaritans and other related charities, such as Combat Stress, can be done?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates)]

A Division having been called, the Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.