Giving Every Baby the Best Start in Life

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and the other colleagues who secured the debate. It is great to be having a debate about early years again; we are having a few of them these days. It never happened when I first became a Member of the House and has not for much of my 24 years here. It is really fantastic that such a relevant and important subject to so many of our constituents is now commonplace in the Chamber and that there is real, concerted action. We may disagree over the extent or detail of that, or the amount of money that is going into it, but I think we all agree about the direction and emphasis.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), and I agree with much of what she said. It is also a great pleasure—but a great challenge—to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), who is such a guru on this subject that anything the rest of us say subsequently will pale into relative irrelevance, but I will give it a bash anyway.

I want to recount an episode that happened when I was Children’s Minister 11 years ago. I used to spend a week of the summer recess going out on the frontline with some of the workforce, without any fuss and without any cameras, just to see what their job involved at first hand. I remember my first time: I spent a week in Stockport going out with social workers, knocking on doors, seeing cases at first hand, manning the overnight emergency helplines, sitting in on morning meetings and liaising with police and others. It was a fascinating experience, which I recommend to any other Member. I think it should be compulsory for all Ministers and their officials to spend time with the professionals over whose regulations that Department has responsibility. That is where we find out the most. I used to find out most of my information from sitting down with groups of children in care, as the Minister responsible for children in care; that is where we find out what is really going on.

A really good social worker took me to my first case, and I think that she deliberately chose the most challenging case in the most run-down, depressing part of the town. We went into a house that was a complete mess. There was a young mum with three young boys. There were no carpets on the floor. There was virtually no furniture, other than what had been dumped in the garden. There was no food in the house—the fridge was bare—other than what the kids literally were eating off the floor. There were bare mattresses for beds and piles of dirty clothing.

One of the kids had had a really dire toothache for some weeks, and the social worker had gone on at the mum about getting the child some treatment for it. On the day that we visited, the mum had had a toothache problem. On the previous day, she had gone down to the emergency dentist and had her tooth fixed, but she did not have the presence of mind to take her son who was suffering from toothache along with her.

What does someone do with a family like that? Plenty of professionals had been going in and out of that house to offer different bits of help, but that mum required some serious support. She had been abused as a child, as is so often the case. The father was not on the scene and she had been subject to domestic abuse, as is so often the case. We all know, extraordinarily, that about a third of domestic violence starts during pregnancy. So there she was, highly vulnerable and desperately in need of support, but her life was not improving and the life chances of her children were certainly not. So what does someone do?

Those children could have been taken into care. They probably would have been split up, going to different families across the area and perhaps beyond. The mum would have been completely distraught at that prospect. Inadequate though she was, for whatever reason, in the care that she provided, she absolutely doted on those kids and they doted on her, so what was the solution? That is the sort of judgment of Solomon that our social workers have to make day in, day out when dealing with those really complex, challenging cases.

That case, which I will remember for the rest of the time that I am involved in these areas, encapsulates all the challenges that we face in children’s social care and all the challenges relating to the whole issue of the best start in life and the project that the Government have undertaken, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. That is why it is so important. One of the answers is to have a joined-up approach locally, with all the different professionals working together as a team to encapsulate mum and family. It is about having somebody who can literally take her by the arm and march her down to a children’s centre to get family support and advice or march her down to the dentist with little Johnny to make sure that he gets dental treatment—somebody to take control of people’s lives and get them on the straight and narrow until they can fend for themselves and their family again. We need local professionals working as one, with a lead person who has responsibility, who has all the joined-up knowledge about what needs to happen, and who has the force and confidence to make it happen.

We also need the Government to be joined up at the centre. I remember that when we were trying to get the early intervention grant sorted, we were getting the run- around from officials because the fund would affect various Departments. We were told, “Oh, we can book you an appointment with the Minister in that Department in a few weeks’ time, and then perhaps you can have another meeting with that Minister.” In the end, the only way my co-Minister Sarah Teather and I got the problem sorted was by ringing up all the Housing, Health, Home Office and other Ministers responsible. We all had pizza in the Adjournment, agreed what the strategy should be, went back to our Departments the following morning and told our civil servants, “This is what we want to happen.” All the civil servants said, “That’s not the way we do things here, Minister,” to which we all said, “Tough. Do it.”

The problem is that government does not work in a joined-up way, which is why the approach that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire has taken is really pioneering. I pay tribute to her for the way she has brought things together, forcing Departments to sit down, work together and have a strategy that works as one. That is the only way we will sort the problem sustainably for the future, which is key to the whole approach.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park has set out the problems: the £8.1 billion that perinatal mental illness costs each year; the £15 billion that we spend each year in this country on child neglect, particularly in relation to younger children; the £6 billion that childhood obesity costs each year, which is likely to rise to £9 billion within the next few years. As well as the cost of domestic abuse and safeguarding, we are spending £20 billion to £30 billion-plus each year as the cost of getting it wrong for some of the most vulnerable children and their families. Spending a fraction of that on solutions to get it right will be absolutely transformational.

Let us look at some research from the Institute of Health Visiting. I will always speak up for health visitors; in my view, frankly, they are one of our emergency services. They have been diverted too often during the pandemic to other parts of the health service, and their absence has been greatly felt. There is a shortage of several thousand: the institute says that we need at least 3,000 additional health visitors over the next three years, and I completely agree. One of the great achievements of the Cameron Government was building up the health visitor workforce, which has since diminished, alas. A survey of health visitors shows that 81% have seen an increase in perinatal mental illness, 80% have seen an increase in domestic abuse, 80% have seen an increase in child behaviour problems, 72% have seen an increase in poverty affecting families and 71% have seen an increase in child safeguarding.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North is right, too. Research from Action for Children shows that

“only 57% of children from poorer backgrounds were ready for school at age five, compared to 74% of their better-off peers…82% of parents of 0-5s in England struggled, or were unable, to access vital non-childcare early years services…78% of parents who were unable to access a service were worried about potential impacts on themselves or their children. The most common concerns were children’s development, and parents’ own mental health and wellbeing.”

That is the cost of failure, and that is why it is so important to have a co-ordinated, joined-up approach. One statistic that has always stayed in my mind is that if a 15 or 16-year-old at school suffers from depression or some form of mental illness, there is a 99% likelihood that their mum suffered from some form of perinatal mental illness or depression—the link is that close. We should be spending so much more time and resources on looking at the pre-school period, particularly from conception to age two, because that is where it all goes pear-shaped. We see the consequences throughout childhood, and they so often carry on into adulthood and stay with the person for the rest of their life. So of course we should be doing more about this, and I am glad that at last the Government have recognised that that is where all the action—or a lot more of the action —needs to be focused.

On health visitors, I agree with the Local Government Association, which has said it is important for the Government to work

“on a children’s workforce strategy to support the development of a well-qualified, well-resourced workforce with the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to work in a preventative way. This needs to be an integrated strategy between local authorities, health, education and community and voluntary sector partners, which links effectively with established programmes, such as Supporting Families, Sure Start and Family Hubs and puts the child’s journey at the centre.”

That strategy, it adds, needs to be properly resourced. Well, we are having a lot of extra resource. We could all argue that it is not enough, and the more Opposition Members argue that it is not enough the more I will welcome that, because we could always do with more money; but I think this has been a good start.

Let us look briefly at some of the action areas. One of them is the provision of seamless support for families. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire has said, we need to have a lead person who knows all the facts and history of the family involved, and who has the power to say, “This is what needs to happen for that family”, and make sure that it happens. Then there is the welcoming hub for families. I can answer the earlier question from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North by saying that 75 family hubs have been identified, in about half the number of local authority areas. I hope very much that the other 75 will follow very quickly, so that there is at least one per authority.

Can we get away from the idea that these hubs are a challenge to, or in place of, children’s centres? They are building on the experience of children’s centres and are complementary to them, but they are not just about bricks and mortar; they are about services. I think that in the past we have been too hung up about the amount of bricks and mortar that we have rather than the quality of the services provided, whether as outreach or within children’s centres, and, most important, the outcomes that they are creating for the children for whom they exist and their families.

It is important to ensure that families have the right information at the time when they need it. When people are reluctant to cross the threshold of a children’s centre or a family hub, as my family in Stockport were, they need to have other ways of obtaining that information. It may be a night-time call line, or it may be online, on the internet. It may mean having another professional to call on, or even volunteers—even members of another family who are looking out for vulnerable families. What those people need is a trusted source of information that they can access, rely on and then act on to their benefit.

I think we have all learnt in the past that a top- down approach, with all the geeks in the civil service coming up with whizzy new schemes and trying to impose the same scheme in Newcastle as in a village in South Northamptonshire or a coastal town like Worthing, rarely works. We need national frameworks and national quality thresholds, and we need local design and local implementation. We need to hold people’s feet to the fire. Every local authority needs to come up with a best start in life plan. That local plan needs to meet the thresholds for children’s outcomes, and then the centre needs to ensure that authorities go ahead with those plans and achieve those outcomes. In that way we can have local ownership, local design and local flexibility that are in the best interests of children and their families.

I welcome the “best start in life” programme, and I congratulate all who have made it possible. This has been a huge joint effort. It has been a false economy not to look at those initial few pre-school years, because that is when we can have the biggest impact on the nurturing value of parents and the attachment that is so essential between a parent or parents and their children, when a child’s brain is growing exponentially—and will be impacted on for the rest of his or her life. At last we have a programme that realises that. Let us ensure that we make it a success for our future generations.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the next speaker, I must tell the House that we have another debate following this one in which 11 Members have put in to speak so far, so we must be conscious that there are slight time pressures.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Sarah Olney for a very brief wind-up.

Health Incentives Scheme

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Friday 22nd October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

As the Prime Minister pointed out at the Conservative party conference, life expectancy in Blackpool is 15 years lower than it is in some areas just a few miles away. This scheme will help to reduce those disparities. Does the Minister agree that Blackpool would be the ideal location for this pilot scheme?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Just say yes.

[Maggie Throup]

I am not going to give a one-word answer on this occasion, but obviously the location will be chosen carefully and will be announced in due course.

[Maggie Throup]

Obviously we will be looking at ways in which we can engage people, and ensure that they are fully aware of the pilot and have ready access to it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for her statement. We now return to the debate on the Bill.

Covid-19: Government Response

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I reassure him that a lot of investment is being put into the health service, as I am sure he is aware, to ensure that we can tackle the backlog that has been created because of the pandemic.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I gather there may be a point of order. Did somebody wish to raise a point of order? We need to move on. There should be a statement from the Secretary of State.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Ah—a point of order!

[Emily Thornberry]

Can you advise me how best to deal with the stress levels created by this morning’s timetable? I do not mean to complain—I am a big girl—but, quite frankly, I had departmental questions this morning, we heard on the grapevine that there was going to be a statement on the Trade and Agriculture Commission, for which we have been waiting for more than six months, and we also heard last night that there was going to be a deal with New Zealand.

I got a copy of the Government statement on the deal with New Zealand at six minutes past 10 this morning, when I was obviously on my feet dealing with departmental questions here. I do not complain about where my office is, as I have a wonderful office, but it does take quite a long time to get to it. I need to get to it, pick up the statement that has been given to me by the Government, read it, write what I am going to say, make sure that it is only half the length of the statement and then come back.

I also want to make reference, of course, to the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which the Government have said is a really important part of any future deal that they negotiate, because of the grave concerns that farmers have about their future business, to which the TAC is supposed to be part of the remedy. We got a written ministerial statement, which I received 20 minutes ago while running back from my office. [Laughter.] I got a ministerial statement at six minutes past 10. We have to put all those things together. Although in many ways it is funny, if I was a frontline farmer I would not find this funny at all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that point of order. I very much suspect that the Secretary of State should also thank the right hon. Lady for that point of order. We have had some examples this morning of the way in which not to do business in this House. It is vital that Secretaries of State ensure that they are here in good time for their statements. I think that expresses the opinion of all in this House. Stress levels have been raised by this, so the best thing now is to move on as quickly as possible. I am sure that the International Trade Secretary will want to apologise—I call her to make her statement.

Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3)

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

There is a limited amount of time for this debate, which needs to finish at 4.31 pm, and I want to give the Minister 10 minutes to respond. There are more people standing than indicated to the Speaker’s Office that they wanted to speak, which means there is even more pressure on time. I ask hon. and right hon. Members to confine their speeches to five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

In order to be helpful, I will impose a five-minute limit. If colleagues take less than that, we will definitely get everybody in.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

We are in a profoundly different place from where we were 19 months ago when we entered the pandemic and went through a series of lockdowns. The medicines that doctors use and prescribe and the procedures that are in place are all profoundly improved. The vaccination programme has been a revelation thanks to the quality, the range and the roll-out of the vaccines. We must recognise that, today, we are in a profoundly different situation from where we were right at the beginning. We just have to look at the third wave that we are going through at the moment and at the connection between infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Those rates are fundamentally different from those in the first and second waves, so we should be taking a profoundly different approach to dealing with this virus.

All variants of concern are defeated by our vaccines at the moment, and we have every expectation that that will continue to be the case into the future. By maintaining the Coronavirus Act 2020, but with perhaps a limited number of provisions, we maintain the fundamental approach to dealing with this virus. Society as a whole and the civil service more narrowly are still looking at this challenge in the same way, and there is not, in that sense, a change of mindset.

We are approaching what will be a tough winter. No matter what happens, we will have a very difficult winter. That may be due to the coronavirus itself or to influenza, but it will also be due to the very significant build-up in waiting lists and in conditions that should have been investigated 18 months ago. We know that these cases are building up and that it will create a huge amount of pressure on the national health service.

I want to focus today on the care sector. Some 18 or 19 months ago, we would have had cross-party consensus on the fact that the care sector needed fundamental reform. That is far more true today than it was back then. It is clear that the care sector needs far more resources today than it needed then. There is a shortfall of about 100,000 carers. With the compulsory vaccination approach that has been taken in the care sector, the Government are expecting another 40,000 carers to leave. That will create huge problems not only for the carers, but for the residents themselves.

In my constituency, the care sector is already under tremendous pressure. Some people are leaving because of the pressure that they are under, and some because they choose not to be vaccinated. Some of them are finding employment in the national health service. They are leaving the care sector and going into the national health service to provide care there, but at some point we may be imposing vaccinations in the national health service as well. We do not know how many will leave the NHS at that stage, but if vaccinations in the NHS stand at about 90%, we could be looking at a loss of more than 100,000 people.

We have concerns about people being transferred out of care in the national health service and into the care sector. We know that the situation is going to get substantially worse as we go through the winter and more carers leave the care sector, but we do not yet know when the same approach will be imposed on the national health service. I therefore ask the Minister: what is the Department’s thinking at the moment? When will we impose compulsory vaccination on the NHS, just as has been imposed on the care sector, and what impact will that have?

We need a fundamental reset in our approach to dealing with the coronavirus. The circumstances are fundamentally different now, because of medical advances and so many other things. We have the opportunity to reverse the decision on the care sector. We want to keep carers caring where they want to be caring. We ought not to be imposing this decision now, because in a couple of weeks it is going to be too late. I am concerned about plan B and the possibility of ID cards or covid passes—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need to move on.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Today really feels like groundhog day. The Government are again pushing through the Coronavirus Act with no scrutiny from Parliament. I do not know what it is about this authoritarian Act that the Government love to push through. Some 18 months ago, the Bill was nodded through—understandably, in a way, but it was never, ever proportionate. As the Secretary of State said, it was fast-tracked legislation. It contained really draconian powers, including the powers to postpone elections, close borders, detain people not suspected of a crime, ban gatherings and remove safeguards for disabled people. This is the mother of all Parliaments and we should always have the opportunity to scrutinise Government legislation. That is what we are elected to do. This all-or-nothing approach does not wash; it is wrong.

As a parliamentarian, I want to get my control back. I want to get back my powers to scrutinise the Government. The Government should not be the sole decider of legislation. We live in a democracy, not an autocracy. The Government should not be making all the rules themselves. That said, I am pleased that some of the most draconian parts of the Act have now been expired. I had a meeting with the Minister and am pleased that she listened to my concerns. Section 51 and schedule 21 —the powers relating to potentially infectious persons—have now been removed. As has been said, every single charge under schedule 21 was wrongful. Those 292 charges were incorrect, and that meant 292 distressed people who were already distressed during the pandemic.

We have to make sure that the Bill is fit for purpose, and ultimately it is not. It therefore needs to be scrapped and there needs to be a new Bill. I am already the sponsor of a Bill that has been presented to the House: the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill. If we were to vote down this Act today, we would have 21 days to bring forward a new Bill. There is already one that is ready—oven-ready, some might say. [Interruption.] You liked that, did you? My Bill is properly ready to go.

This Government have proved time and again that they cannot be trusted. It is one rule for them and one for us. The latest person that we found had broken the rules was the Prime Minister himself, as his wife’s best friend went around to theirs for Christmas dinner, while other people dined alone throughout Christmas. As I have said, if we voted down this Act, we would have 21 days to bring a new Bill to the Floor of the House. We can do that and we can do it quickly.

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his new role and I appeal to him to consider one more vital change. I urge the Government to review every fixed-penalty notice issued under the coronavirus and public health regulations, and to establish an appeals mechanism, because people cannot appeal at the moment. Between March 2020 and June 2021, the police processed 117,213 fines. Let us not forget that we had no chance to scrutinise provisions when the Government raised fines from £960 to £10,000. The Guardian revealed that people of colour were 54% more likely to be fined than white people. I say to colleagues in all parts of the House that we should never be forced into an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to legislation. That is not our job. We are parliamentarians and we need to scrutinise legislation. Twenty-one days is enough time to consider better legislation. As we have the Coronavirus (No. 2) Bill, based on Liberty’s “Protect Everyone Bill”, I say to every single Member of this House that we can do that.

I am clear that we need to repeal and replace the Coronavirus Act not just because it is dangerous with regard to our rights and our liberties, or because it served the purpose that it was meant to 18 months ago, but because we must do better. We must learn the lessons. I am part of the Science and Technology Committee and there is a joint report that says that this Government have failed on so many occasions. This is an opportunity where we can do better and where this Government can do better. Let us do better, not just for us but for the country.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am going to reduce the limit to four minutes but it should stay at four minutes if I do it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maggie Throup]

I will take the hon. Lady’s comments on board. The progress that has been made with regard to unlawful convictions has been really helpful.

We have come so far in our fight, but we still have a long way to go. This pandemic is not yet over, and the steps we are proposing will give us the support we need to continue our fight against the virus while restoring yet more of our precious freedoms and the important experiences that we really love.

I commend the motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The question is Motion No. 4 as on the Order Paper. As many as are of that opinion, say Aye. [Hon. Members: “Aye.”] Of the contrary, No. [Interruption.] Could I have the Noes again?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

No!

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am afraid I fear the mood of the House is not to have a vote. The right hon. Gentleman would have to rustle up a few more people to really get the sense that we required a vote—

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

The just shall live by faith.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am sure they will. The Ayes have it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 should not yet expire.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

If the hon. Lady wants to take a break, we can take another speaker and come back to her if that is what she would like.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your words and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for intervening.

Today, I wish to extend my sincere condolences to anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby. To anyone to whom this has happened, despite what they may see, I say that the sun will shine again. It does not feel like it now, but one day it just does. For me, the dark clouds of shock, anger, guilt and dreadful, dreadful sadness do eventually dissipate—

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Pages 23 and 24 of the autumn and winter plan specify that, as part of plan B, the Government will introduce vaccine passports for all nightclubs, for indoor settings of 500 people or more, which presumably would include this Chamber of 650 Members, for outdoor settings of 4,000 or more, and for anywhere—that is a very big place—where there are 10,000 people. How does the Secretary of State square that with his assertion in reply to the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), that the evidence on the usefulness of vaccine passports is just not there? If the evidence is not there, why are they part of plan B? The Government’s document also says that plan B could be brought into force at very short notice, so can the Secretary of State give the House some assurance that that will not happen without a vote?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We need short questions and short answers.

[Sajid Javid]

We have made huge progress as a country in fighting this virus, and that is why we do not need certification; we do not need the plan B measures that the right hon. Gentleman has just set out. As I made in clear in my statement, while we can keep other measures in reserve, what matters is what we are actually doing, and if we keep making progress against this virus in the way that we are, we will not need any of the things he talked about.

Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s important question. We have received interim advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which we have published, and it has now received the Cov-Boost data. The interim advice was about vaccinating the most vulnerable with a booster for covid and for flu. It is advising a two-stage process, and stage one is to offer the booster vaccines to those in the old 1 to 4 cohorts plus the immunocompromised, and then to groups 5 to 9. That is the right way to proceed. We have not yet received its final advice.[Official Report, 14 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 8MC.] It could be different to the interim advice, but boosting preparations are well under way. Clearly that final advice is predicated on which vaccine delivers the highest level of protection and durability.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Sammy Wilson.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My right hon. Friend raises a really important question. Of course, it was the CMOs who led the further work that took place and who made the announcement today. Health is devolved, as he knows, so the chief medical officer for Scotland will take that on in ensuring that the system—whether it is primary care or other parts of the system—understands the advice in full. The school-age vaccination programme is the major element of this particular part of the vaccination programme. It is very well versed in working with parents and teachers, and of course with young people to make sure that they have all the information they need to be able to take it back to their parents, get the consent and get their vaccination on time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Sammy Wilson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The best way for parents and families to make that decision is through the tried and tested process of the school age vaccination programme, and through schools sharing information and having a consent form that parents have to sign and return before the vaccination programme is scheduled.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for his statement.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. This is a statement, so the hon. Gentleman can bob up later if he needs to.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As ever, whatever the clinical decision from the JCVI, the NHS will be ready. We will proceed with the same sense of urgency we have had at every point in this campaign.

Vaccines remain our most important line of defence, yet they are not our only line of defence. Regular testing continues to play a crucial part in returning this country to something that feels a bit more like normal. PCR tests remain freely and easily available, and anybody with symptoms should make sure to get tested. Children are returning to classrooms across these islands. I am sure all hon. Members welcome that, as did the Secretary of State for Education at questions this afternoon. They return to an immeasurably better set up: no more home schooling, no more bubbles, teachers vaccinated, and all 16 and 17-year-olds offered a first dose before returning. That matters because we know that face-to-face education is the best place for children and young people.

Rapid testing can uncover hidden cases of the virus at the start of term. Whether it is our constituents or our children, we must encourage people to do it. On their return to school and colleges, students should take two rapid tests on site three to five days apart. They should then continue to test twice weekly at home. To university students, I would also say this: make every effort to get fully vaccinated before going back. It has never been easier to drop in and get a vaccine and the necessary testing. These are straightforward steps, but they are essential in stopping the spread.

Finally, I am sure the whole House will join me in welcoming the additional £5.4 billion cash injection we are putting into the NHS. This investment will go straight to the frontline, supporting our covid-19 response over the next six months. The funds include £1 billion to help to deliver routine surgery and treatments for patients, and tackle our backlog. The funds take the Government’s total support for health services in response to covid-19 to over £34 billion this year alone.

We are widening and deepening our wall of defence. We are getting jabs to more people and getting some people more jabs. We are getting the NHS what it needs. The ask of our NHS colleagues continues to be complex and challenging, yet they rise to it day in, day out. I pay tribute to everyone involved in these lifesaving efforts. We must keep going, and I commend this statement to the House.

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[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I would like to thank my hon. Friend for the incredible vaccine roll-out; many lives have been saved by it. My question is about domestic vaccine passports, and I have to apologise because I get a bit confused by the nomenclature of what is being proposed. On the one hand, we have what I understand to be vaccine-only passports, which say simply that someone has been vaccinated and that that is all that counts. Then we have covid status certification, which can also include negative testing and proof of recent infection. Crucially, this is not just about whether someone has been vaccinated, because as I understand it, a lateral flow test negative result is the best evidence that someone is no longer infectious. Is my understanding correct that the proposal for the end of September is for vaccine-only domestic vaccine passports? If that is the case, why has that moved from covid status certification?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just before the Minister answers, I must point out that we need to finish this statement fairly shortly. Colleagues should keep their questions very short, and the answers should be correspondingly short.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend for his question. I guess the reason for the shift by the end of September, when all 18-year-olds will have had the opportunity to get two jabs, is that testing provides a limited protective assurance and allows for the potential for self-testing fraud. The effectiveness of testing-based certification can also be undermined by a single incursion into a setting. Transmission, serious illness and hospitalisation are reduced using vaccination-based certification, even with incursions, so that is the thinking behind this. I reiterate that nobody does this lightly. We do not curtail people’s freedoms lightly; this is purely so that we can keep industries and sectors open and not have to close them down again if there is a super-spreader event.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

Second Reading

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been selected.

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[Jim Shannon]

It is just, Secretary of State, because you mentioned the issue I wanted to bring up about people getting older. I spoke to your colleague, the Minister for Health, yesterday and I am appreciative of that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member really must not refer directly to the Secretary of State; it is through the Chair.

[Jim Shannon]

Recent statistics show that over 40,000 people under 65 in the UK have dementia, and many more have not been diagnosed as of yet. It would seem that these figures are not addressed in the Health and Care Bill, so can I ask the Secretary of State what more will be done to offer support to those suffering with dementia and Alzheimer’s in the UK through this social services care Bill?

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[Sajid Javid]

If it is on this issue, yes I will.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a reminder that interventions need to be short and to the point, because there is a lot of pressure on time in this debate.

[Tim Farron]

My point is about boundaries. Lancashire and south Cumbria have a perfectly reasonable boundary, but does the Secretary of State agree that there is concern that, because most rural communities are attached to bigger, more populated urban ones, that can lead to an imbalance in decisions? One of the proposals that our community faces is that the Preston and Lancaster hospitals could be replaced by a single super-hospital somewhere in the middle. HIP2—the health infrastructure plan 2—is a good thing, but that would be very bad thing, because it would mean that people in south Cumbria could have a two-hour round trip just to get to A&E. Will he intervene and ensure that any proposals under HIP2 that undermine access to healthcare in rural communities are taken off the table?

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[Sajid Javid]

The Labour party said it not just 10 years ago but in 2015, 2017 and 2019—in all those manifestos—so I am sure that its members agree with this direction. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. If Members want to intervene, let me say to them that the Secretary of State has been very generous in giving way, but just shouting at him is not working.

[Sajid Javid]

They are excited, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I understand that. Let me excite them much more.

The third theme of the Bill is greater accountability. We have never seen so clearly as we have in the past 16 months how critical the health of our constituents is for the House. The Government of the day always work hand in hand with the NHS to deliver that priority. That is what people would expect from a responsible Government. People also rightly expect there to be clear lines of accountability for how this priority is delivered. Accountability is the foundation of our democracy, and on that I hope we all agree.

On the nation’s greatest priority, our health, this Bill sets out clear lines of accountability to the people we all serve. The Bill simplifies what has been a complex structure, bringing the three different bodies that oversee the NHS into just one, as NHS England. NHS England will continue to have clinical day-to-day operational independence, but it is right that the NHS must be accountable to Ministers, and Ministers must be accountable to Parliament, where we are all accountable to the people we serve.

Naturally, that accountability will extend to these integrated care systems. The right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) is on the record, in an interview with the Health Service Journal in December 2019, as saying that he agrees with the principle of the legislative changes that had been put forward by the NHS for “democratically accountable” ICSs. He cannot have any objection to this point. We will see what he has to say from the Dispatch Box.

I hope we can all agree that this is a sensible and pragmatic step. Let me quote once more:

“We will reinstate the powers of the Secretary of State for Health to have overall responsibility for the NHS.”

Those are not my words but the words of the 2017 Labour manifesto. I look forward to working with the shadow Health Secretary on this and other aspects of the Bill, and I urge him to set aside petty party politics and point scoring and do what the NHS wants him to do, which is to back this Bill.

Before I finish my opening remarks, I turn to the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and other Opposition Members. What is claimed by the reasoned amendment is entirely wrong. This is exactly the right time for these reforms. The response to covid-19 has quickened the pace of collaboration across health and social care, showing what we can do when we all work together, when we adopt new technology and when we set aside bureaucratic rules. The pandemic has also brought home the importance of preventing ill health in the first place. The Bill lays the framework to achieve all that.

More than that, this Bill is what the NHS has been asking for. It builds on the NHS’s long-term plan and the work the NHS has already started to do voluntarily. We have invested record sums in the NHS, both before and, of course, during this pandemic, and we will continue to do so.

The systems are telling us that they are ready, that they want us to go ahead with this Bill. They do not want to see any delay, which is why this is important work for all of us. Hopefully Parliament can deliver what the NHS is asking for.

The unprecedented challenges of the pandemic have only deepened our affection for the NHS, and it has reinforced the noble idea that the NHS is there for all of us when we need it. I started learning about the NHS from a very early age when I used to go to check-ups with my mum and translate for her. It was there for her, it has been there for me, it has been there for my family, it has been there for my children and it has been there for all of us and our constituents.

Even in this fast-changing world, with the new and evolving threats to our health, the founding principles of the NHS are as true today as they ever were. It is our responsibility to build on this incredible inheritance. Our NHS is the envy of the world, so it is right that this Government should work across health and care to shape a system that is truly fit for the future. Our colleagues in health and social care have achieved extraordinary things in the most extraordinary times, and we in this place must give them the firm foundations they need to build back better in the years that lie ahead.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I bring in the shadow Secretary of State, I remind hon. Members that there will be an immediate three-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions. There is a countdown clock for those in the Chamber, and for those participating virtually, there will be a clock on the screens.

National Health Service

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Jenkinson]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your advice on whether the vaccination figures cited by the Minister, which are more than a month out of date, might have inadvertently misled the House. Her earlier figures on the vaccination status of care home staff and residents suggest it simply is not possible for the figures both to have reached the SAGE threshold and to be as low as the House was informed.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. Obviously, I cannot comment on figures the Minister may or may not have used. I am sure she will have heard what he said and, if there is anything that needs correcting, will do so in her summing up.

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[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am going to make progress, please.

The UK Government should learn from the fantastic work of the Labour-led Welsh Government, who are running the fastest vaccine programme in the world and have vaccinated a far greater proportion of their staff than England; yesterday’s figures showed that almost 95% of care home residents and 88% of care home staff are double vaccinated. Wales has rejected compulsory vaccinations and instead chosen to work closely with the care sector to drive take-up, as well as valuing the workforce with a proper pay rise. That is the sort of leadership that is needed here.

A failure of leadership here will place the care sector in an even more precarious situation, with even fewer staff than at present. There are serious warnings from the care sector that the Government’s plan could lead to staff shortages in already understaffed care homes. That would have disastrous consequences on the quality of care. More than 100,000 posts in the care sector are currently unfilled, with recruitment and retention already extremely difficult due to low wage levels for difficult and demanding jobs. Not only could this plan have a disastrous impact on those relying on care, but the stress and trauma placed on their relatives will affect so many across the country. We already have a social care crisis. Let us not deepen it.

These proposals are at odds with the Government’s decision to throw caution to the wind by making social distancing and mask wearing optional and up to individuals to decide on. It makes no sense. Surely forcing workers to receive a vaccine is at odds with the individualism that the Government seek to promote at every opportunity. It seems odd that care workers are being singled out. Why is there a different rule for them? Are the Government hoping that the public will simply forget about their failure to protect care homes over the past year? Is that what is going on here?

Forcing carers to choose between losing their job and taking a vaccine that they are afraid of is inhumane. These are people who often work for less than the minimum wage. They are incredibly vulnerable people and their voices must be heard. Many of these people have lost multiple family members during the pandemic. They are being asked to put their faith in a vaccine that they are afraid of. The Government need to be doing more to tackle misinformation, promote the positive benefits of taking up the vaccine and support care home staff to do so. They have not been doing enough to support care workers who have done so much during the crisis. They should be focused on driving up standards and staff retention by treating care workers as the professionals they are, with improved pay, terms and conditions and training.

We have a moral imperative not to force people to take a vaccine that they are afraid of, so I urge the Government to listen to our care workforce. Surely they deserve at least that after the last year.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

This debate finishes at 7.19 pm and I need to bring the Minister in at the end. That means that if colleagues speak for between four and five minutes, everybody will get in. If colleagues do not speak for between four and five minutes, everybody will not get in.