Public Health

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Tim Loughton

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I have just come from a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus. We were given a shocking set of presentations, about which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) will say more shortly.

I want to bring three key messages from that meeting of scientists and NHS professionals. The NHS is already beyond full stretch, and some said that it was at breaking point. They pointed out that we are not South Africa, which started its omicron wave from a low level of cases. We are starting it on top of a rising number of delta cases, so we have to get transmission rates down now. The focus on vaccinations alone, although they are vital, will not be enough. We have to focus on a range of other measures such as ventilation in schools, as other hon. Members have mentioned, and the big issue of limiting social contact.

We need to be honest and to have consistent and clear messaging about the need to reduce social contact. There is a direct relationship between the number of contacts that we have and the spread of infection. Giving guidance to work from home while still giving the green light to Christmas parties is, as the professor of primary care in Oxford suggests, akin to giving people advice to wash their hands after a meal but not after going to the toilet. We are all dreading the prospect of not seeing loved ones again at Christmas, but that is exactly the direction in which we are heading unless the Government show some leadership and tell us the unwelcome truth that we might not like to hear.

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

The hon. Lady and I share a hospital trust. She will know that that hospital is being overwhelmed at the moment not by covid cases or covid pressure but by cases of non-covid illness that have been neglected during lockdown and by the inability to release people who are medically fit for discharge. Is it not correct that, as it stands, those are the real pressures on the health service, not a torrent of covid cases coming in?

[Caroline Lucas]

That may well be the case now, but I do not see why that is an argument against needing to get coronavirus cases down. If transmission rates go up on the trajectory that we are being told they will, we can be sure that there will be massive pressure on our hospitals and NHS trusts. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is not a criticism of my argument. It is precisely because of the multiple pressures on our hospital system that we need to get transmission rates of omicron and delta down. That is why I want the Government to get rid of the disincentives that are built into the system and that stop people being able to self-isolate when they need to. Why do we still not have better sick pay for self-isolation? Why do we not have better support for our businesses? If there is going to be reduced social contact, as there needs to be, we know that has an impact, particularly on the hospitality sector.

We need VAT reductions to be extended beyond April, when they are due to end. We need businesses to be offered grants to help them through the next difficult weeks and to be given flexibility on paying back covid loans. My constituency is already feeling the impact of omicron, and the hospitality sector is extremely worried. Why can we not tell it, for example, that there will be extended and expanded business relief, with the Government ensuring that local councils do not lose even more funding? There should also be a proper support scheme for the self-employed who, as we know, play such a key part in our economy but were utterly left out of previous support mechanisms.

I regret that the Government have given MPs less than 24 hours to analyse the statutory instruments before us. Frankly, they have not advanced the scientific case for them. A Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry earlier this year concluded that the Government had not made a robust case for vaccine passports, and I have not heard anything today that has persuaded me otherwise.

Although I recognise the civil liberty arguments on the measures, with which I have sympathy, my bigger concern comes from the strong body of evidence on the impact of vaccine passports on vaccination rates. That evidence makes it clear that, although they can accelerate take-up rates among those inclined towards vaccination, they also entrench opposition among those who are hesitant.

As Professor Stephen Reicher has said, people not getting vaccinated is not a cognitive problem—it is not that they do not understand the issues—but a social problem. People are not getting vaccinated because of a lack of trust, and trying to force them into it, either through vaccine passports or through mandatory vaccinations in some settings, compounds that mistrust, as does berating them or “othering” them. If we want more people to be vaccinated—and believe me, I absolutely do—that is the bottom line, but we have to build the sense that vaccination is being done for the community, not to it. It is for the common good. Behavioural science clearly indicates that coercion undermines the relationships we need to build and the respect we must show one another in order to increase vaccination rates, and we do everyone a massive disservice by ignoring that science.

I want to end by saying a few words about the wider global situation that we face. It is supremely reckless to have so catastrophically neglected vaccination in poorer countries, and it is extremely reckless of our Government to refuse to support the waiver on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organisation. As Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, has said,

“Omicron is with us because we have failed to vaccinate the world.”

The Government should absolutely be changing their position on that TRIPS waiver: they should not be blocking it. The virus will be with us for years and years to come, and it will mutate into other viruses and variants unless we treat this as a global crisis, not just a crisis here at home. I beg the Government to look at the evidence, to look at what works, and to move forward on that basis.

Environment Bill

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Tim Loughton

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I wanted to speak on interim targets in the first group of amendments, but given the time constraints, I have saved myself for sewage. I rise to support the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, which is the most important amendment we are faced with this evening.

I acknowledge that this is a landmark piece of legislation. I congratulate the Minister on the way that she has listened and on the length that she has gone to on the sewage issue. Frankly, however, when it comes to sewage discharge, my constituents do not want another taskforce, an aspirational target, or a discretionary duty of care. They do not even want more consultation. They just want a legally enforceable obligation on our water companies to stop them routinely discharging raw sewage into our rivers and seas. That is the bottom line.

The Bill, as it is framed, does not go far enough. Without that legal obligation, water companies can still cause harm by their sewage discharges and there is no guarantee of any immediate action to tackle sewage pollution. I shall be supporting the Duke of Wellington’s amendment because my constituency has a coastline with some of the best kitesurfing in the country at Lancing, because I support Surfers Against Sewage, and because I am a coastal MP for a constituency where we have had many instances of discharge.

I am afraid that we are served by Southern Water, which is the worst offender. Although the new management have made great progress from all the illegal cases of discharge that went on, for which they have been handsomely and quite rightly fined, it is still happening too much on a routine basis. I support the private Member’s Bill brought in by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), as did the Minister, so why are its provisions not in the Bill if the Government are serious about this?

Storm discharges are happening far too often. I understand the implications of extreme weather conditions and that, if we do not do something about it, we will have sewage popping up from under manhole covers and into people’s homes and gardens, but we should be doing more about increasing capacity to deal with those events, and I am afraid it is just not happening. We are talking not just about raw sewage, but about primary treated sewage, which is still doing a lot of harm when it gets out. This can only get worse with the huge house building pressures that we have in the south-east in particular. The pressure is going to get greater, but I am afraid that the capacity to deal with it is not increasing at a commensurate rate. The requirements on sewage companies to do a clear-up when there have been discharges are not nearly tough enough.

People have had enough of this. We are weary of excuses about learning lessons, and about how a certain company is going to do better in the future and has no greater priority. The amendment needs to send out a strong message to put water companies on no uncertain notice that enough is enough and that there will now be a legally enforceable obligation to do far more, taking all reasonable steps to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows and proactively demonstrating that they have done so. They must show that they have improved the sewerage system, with the Government and their agencies bringing all their forces to bear to make sure that they abide by that, and that when they do not, they are properly punished. That is the minimum our constituents should expect. I hope that is what the Duke of Wellington’s amendment actually achieves. It is what my right hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill would have brought in, and I urge the Government to think again about that.

[Caroline Lucas]

I will be brief, but I will simply continue this theme about Lords amendment 45, which, as many hon. Members have said, simply does not go far enough. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for all his work on this and for his chairing of the Environmental Audit Committee, where this has been such a key issue for us.

One of the reasons why I want to speak about this follows on from the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), because I too have Southern Water in my constituency and, frankly, its record has been abysmal. In July, it was ordered to pay a record £90 million fine after an investigation by the Environment Agency found that it had caused almost 7,000 illegal sewage discharges between 2010 and 2015, which lasted a total of 61,000 hours—the equivalent of over seven years. What is shocking about that is that these discharges were happening not by accident, but because Southern Water knew that the penalties were not serious enough to deter it from doing it. That is the real concern. That followed its being fined £3 million in 2019 and ordered to pay back £123 million to customers to compensate for serious failings in the sewage treatment works and deliberately misreporting.

There is a major issue here. It has affected my constituency, where back in 2019, over 50 discharge notifications were issued in Brighton and Hove, whereas in 2020 absolutely none was issued at all. Essentially, the system is not working properly. We need to have the legal duty that was in the Duke of Wellington’s amendment. Without that, there is essentially nothing to compel water companies to take immediate action to tackle sewage and pollution. That legal duty is in line with the Government’s stated ambition, and I do not understand why they will not put it in the Bill.

Briefly, I also support Lords amendment 43. Others, including the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), have made a really powerful case for why that matters so much. I simply want to put on the record as well that I was disappointed that Lords did not uphold their previous support for protecting rural residents on the issue of the impact of pesticides on human health, because that is a big exposure problem too.