Covid-19 Update
Emma Hardy Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise that. The booster jabs will be hugely important in maintaining protection. The GP networks and the NHS vaccination centres have all been part of our planning for this. Given that these are booster jabs, I think we can move much more quickly than we did with the original doses.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Parents will quite rightly have questions and concerns, but can the Secretary of State confirm that those questions and concerns should not be directed to school staff or headteachers, even if the vaccination happens to take place in a school building, and that all questions related to the vaccine should instead be directed to the appropriate medical team?
Covid Vaccine Passports
Emma Hardy Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Minister cannot underestimate how much freedom has been limited for those with medical exemptions. I have heard from some of my constituents that they feared even leaving the house. The idea that they will see those freedoms limited again is abhorrent, so how can the Minister ensure that the medically exempt will not have further restrictions on their freedoms because of his vaccine passport plan?
Nadhim Zahawi
We have spent a lot of time, energy and resource on ensuring that those with medical exemptions, who have underlying medical conditions, were prioritised in both category 4 and 6 of phase 1 of the vaccination programme, as the hon. Member will recall. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has gone further for the immunosuppressed. As I said earlier, there will be exemptions from this particular set of rules for people who, for whatever reason, cannot be vaccinated or cannot have a test for medical conditions.
Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review
Emma Hardy Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the publication of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First Do No Harm; further notes the Government’s failure to respond to the recommendations of that review in full; notes the significant discrepancy between the incidence of complication following mesh surgery in the Hospital Episode Statistics and the British Society of Urogynaecology databases, as highlighted in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Project Report, entitled Hospital Episode Statistics as a Source of Information on Safety and Quality in Gynaecology to Support Revalidation; notes that the Government’s plan to publish a retrospective audit to investigate the links between patient-level data to explore outcomes has not been fulfilled; notes that the moratorium on mesh implant procedures should not be lifted until that audit has been undertaken and the true scale of suffering established; notes Ministers’ failure to acknowledge recommendations relating to victims of Primodos; and calls on the Government to fully implement the recommendations for victims of mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos without further delay.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. Today is the one-year anniversary of the publication of the report of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review, entitled “First Do No Harm”. It is that report, and the Government’s response to its nine recommendations, that this debate is intended to address. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Baroness Cumberlege, who chaired the review, and her dedicated team. I am delighted that she is able to be here to listen to the debate.
The publication of the report gave hope to so many women who had felt ignored and belittled for years. Since it was published, Baroness Cumberlege has continued to campaign in the other place for the thousands and thousands of women impacted, and I am proud to be supporting her. I pay tribute to the women personally affected by the medical interventions under investigation and their bravery in sharing their stories. In the words of the report,
“They told their stories with dignity and eloquence, but also with sadness and anger, to highlight common and compelling themes.”
The review examined the hormone pregnancy test Primodos, which was thought to be associated with birth defects and miscarriages; sodium valproate, an effective anti-epileptic drug, which caused physical malformations, autism and developmental delay; and pelvic mesh implants, which have been linked to crippling, life-changing complications. The report had a damning conclusion:
“the system is not safe enough for those taking medications in pregnancy or being treated using new devices and techniques”.
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I do not intend to speak, but I am here today because a constituent has written to me. She has suffered horribly from appalling damage as a result of these procedures. I want to thank the hon. Lady sincerely for bringing this to the Floor of the House and allowing us all to be educated—well, those who need educating, like me.
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for his comments, and I am very pleased that he is able to join the debate.
The report showed that patients were exposed to the risk of harm when they did not need to be. They were affected adversely by poor or indifferent care. They suffered at the hands of clinicians who did not listen or chose not to do so. They were abandoned by a system that failed to recognise its mistakes and correct them at the earliest opportunity.
The systematic silencing of women’s voices, the indifference to their stories and the outright denial of their pain and suffering was a central theme in the findings of the report. That theme has been repeated time and time again when it comes to women’s health. Enough is enough. Today’s motion calls on the Government to implement all nine of the recommendations in the report, and I hope Members across the House will support it.
I am joint chair of the all-party parliamentary group on surgical mesh implants, and my comments will obviously focus predominantly on that, but I want to very quickly mention the Epilepsy Society’s campaign “Safe Mum, Safe Baby”, which calls on the Government to fund research into safer epilepsy medication so that babies are not born with preventable diseases.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady is right to bring this issue to the fore, and I commend her for that. The Minister will recall that I had a debate on how the mesh is affecting men. I had 400 people in Northern Ireland contact me saying that their problems were the same: it is hard to remove and causes extreme pain, depression, relationship problems, marriage breakdowns and, for some people, unfortunately suicide. Does the hon. Lady agree that, whether the mesh is for women or men, it is detrimental and has harmed many people?
Emma Hardy
Absolutely. One of the points that I will come to later is that people who have had rectopexy and hernia mesh implants have also been badly affected.
The recommendation that I want to focus on is the one that requires immediate action from the Secretary of State to set up an implementation taskforce to oversee the progress of the other eight recommendations, and to offer a timeline for the actions. Unfortunately, the Government declined the recommendation and instead offered the creation of a patient reference group to
“ensure that patients voices are heard”.
With respect, patients’ voices have been heard in the Cumberlege report. We already know that women are not listened to in the healthcare system. We need action to change that, rather than another review kicking the can down the road. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to ensure that women’s voices are placed at the centre of their treatment when the patient reference group publishes its report.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Like others, I thank the hon. Lady for securing this vital debate. Does she agree with me that we need to encourage women to speak up and to support them to deal with their own health issues, but that comments made by some in Government recently that it is down to women individually to speak up can be unhelpful? We have to see this through the lens of the institutional challenges that women have faced for decades. Although we need to celebrate our clinicians, we really need to do more to educate them and give them resources and support to ensure women are not treated in the way the hon. Lady is describing.
Emma Hardy
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I agree with her absolutely, which brings me on to the point about the redress agency, which is one of the recommendations in the report that has been rejected. Instead, the Government have said:
“The government and industry have previously established redress schemes without the need for an additional agency.”
That goes to the point that she made, because this puts the burden of redress in entirely the wrong place: on the victims, not on those responsible. Seeking redress requires enormous effort on the part of those who are already suffering, not just financially but emotionally, as was set out in Baroness Cumberlege’s report. It recommends that without waiting for the establishment of a redress agency:
“Separate schemes should be set up for each intervention…to meet the cost of providing additional care and support to those who have experienced avoidable harm”.
Sadly, no such moves have been made, so I would be interested if the Minister gave an indication of the progress on such schemes.
The report also recommends transparency on payments to clinicians, with a UK-style Physician Payments Sunshine Act 2010 to require the mandatory reporting of all payments made to doctors, teaching hospitals, research institutions and charities. The Government’s interim response said that they would “consider” this recommendation, in discussion with other parties, including the General Medical Council. I understand that there are suggestions that this could be done by expanding the voluntary system of reporting, but, as we have seen, voluntary systems simply do not work.
By way of a quick example, a high-profile academic recently admitted that he had failed to declare £100,000 from the manufacturer of one of the types of vaginal mesh implants that he was assessing. He has now published a correction, but this is almost seven years after he first did his report and it came only after a complaint was made about him. A section 60 order in the Health and Care Bill would allow for legislation to cover this, because transparency is vital to patient safety. There should be no opportunities for payments made by industry to introduce bias into prescribing or the scientific literature that is used to inform our National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. This report recommended creating a database to record which device was used when, in which person, and what the outcomes were in terms of safety and patient feedback.
The roll-out of the medical device information system has begun, but questions are arising as to what data is being collected. This is really important. To give an indication of that, let me raise the case of Kath, an extremely fit and healthy woman who used to be interested in skydiving. She had mesh implants and afterwards was in such pain that she was unable to move or get out of bad. This completely changed her life forever. However, her procedure was recorded as a success because she no longer had incontinence and that was the measure being looked at. We need to be looking at all patient outcomes when we are recording that data in those data sets.
That brings me on to my next point, which relates to the current moratorium on using mesh, as recommended in the report. Kath has said that there is no way she would ever have had this procedure had she had any indication of the risk of harm. I understand that there is pressure from some of the surgeons to reintroduce mesh, but I do not believe we can do that without fully informed consent, and we can have that only if patients are fully aware of all the risks. They can be fully aware of all the risks only if all the data is collected and recorded accurately. Until that is done, we cannot have informed consent and we should not consider lifting the moratorium on the use of mesh implants.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for joining me to help to secure this debate. I will be speaking later, but I wanted to touch on this specific point about the pressure we are coming under. Does she agree that nothing has changed from a clinical point of view in the past 18 months, yet the clinician pressure is to stop the suspension? Does that not represent the pressure we are under coming from the clinician side of this argument?
Emma Hardy
I completely agree and thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate forward and championing it from the other side of the House. He correctly says that we need to have all that evidence so that people can give that informed consent.
Finally, the report recommends establishing specialist treatment centres
“to provide comprehensive treatment, care and advice”.
Some of these care centres are being established, which is good news, but again there are concerns about the data collection on patient outcomes after mesh removal and not all women are having all their mesh removed—some of this is only a partial removal. Again, what questions are being asked and what data is being collected? I have submitted numerous written parliamentary questions to the Department but have yet to receive a clear answer on exactly what data will be collected.
There are also important questions to be answered on the competence of surgeons to undertake removals. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) has a very difficult story on this issue. The Department says that it is for individual trusts to decide which surgeons to use for removals, but I do not share that view. How can it be fair to ask a woman to return to the same surgeon who put the mesh in, causing her all that harm, in order to have it removed? I really think we need to look at this issue again.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The situation is even worse than the hon. Lady suggests, because in some cases these surgeons, who have now been appointed as lead figures in the mesh centres, are the people who not only put the mesh in but then persisted in denying that the mesh was the cause of any of the terrible problems their victims had suffered.
Emma Hardy
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and completely agree with his point.
We are now one year on from publication of the Cumberlege review. Of course I accept that there has been a pandemic, but there is nothing to stop the Government accepting the recommendations. We would all be quite realistic and understand that the Government can accept the recommendations but that there would have to be a delay in implementing them, because of the pandemic. That would be fine, but they have not. They have implemented only two recommendations, on an apology and on the appointment of a patient safety commissioner.
Given the lack of progress and the concerns that I have outlined, to which I know colleagues here will add further, I urge the Government to reconsider the implementation taskforce. The problems identified by the review are systemic and of long standing and, if unaddressed, will condemn more to a lifetime of suffering. It is essential that they are brought to an end, and to do so the review’s recommendations must all be implemented in full.
Ms Dorries
I apologise, but I cannot answer the question.
Moving on, I want to address sodium valproate, in general terms now and later in more detail. I have heard the speeches today and some pertinent points were raised, and I would like to make an overall point on valproate again before going into the recommendations: valproate is a drug that saves the lives of women who can receive no other treatment for their epilepsy. Some women suffer life-threatening epileptic fits of such severity that only sodium valproate can save them; their lives would be lost if they did not take sodium valproate. Therefore it is not possible to ban the use of sodium valproate, because those women’s lives would be compromised.
A number of changes have taken place, too. A letter was sent out to women taking sodium valproate to make sure they were aware, and other measures have been put in place, which I will discuss in a moment, including ensuring that prescriptions for sodium valproate go into one box rather than being partial prescriptions, and the boxes have very clear and significant warnings on them. I could go into further detail, but the inquiry covers—
Ms Dorries
No, because the hon. Lady will be able to respond at the end of the debate and, without going into a huge amount of detail, I want to address a number of overall points that I feel can be made clear.
First, I thank Baroness Cumberlege for her report, of course. She is sitting in the Public Gallery—watching over me, as she does every day. I am delighted and not surprised that she is here, and we are all grateful to her. The report was commissioned by the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), in response to public concern. It examined how the healthcare system in England responded to reports about harmful side-effects from the three specific subjects discussed today. Baroness Cumberlege was asked to chair the review. It is just not possible to do the review justice. It took two years, it was incredibly thorough, and it listened to so many voices on so many complex issues. It is not possible to do this overnight. No review undertaken by any Government on issues as serious as these has been implemented rapidly. They take a lot of discussion, time, evaluation and implementation by the NHS.
The review was published on 8 July 2020 and contains nine strategic recommendations that have wide-ranging implications for the healthcare system. That is why it is not possible to implement them rapidly. I pay tribute to the women and families who bravely shared their experiences and brought these issues to light.
Recommendation 1 was an apology. A year ago, I made that apology, and I will make it again. Having met the patient reference group members, spoken to those who have been harmed and read the report, which makes very harrowing reading, I want to make that apology again. I am desperately sorry. I have heard the stories of harm, which are harrowing. I am desperately sorry for those women who have been harmed. Of course, we all want to ensure that this ends and never happens again. The Government absolutely recognise the need for effective patient engagement to begin to rebuild trust and to ensure that we get the implementation right. That is why we established the patient reference group to work with the Department to develop this response. My officials and I have met the group regularly to gather their insights and to ensure that patient voices are heard as we progress towards a full response, which will be given in this place at the Dispatch Box before the end of this year.
Some Members said that none of the recommendations have been implemented or that we have not paid attention to them. That is simply not true. Recommendation 2 was on the establishment of a patient safety commissioner. I happen to know from discussions with Baroness Cumberlege that it was a prime concern for her that we established that role. As part of the written ministerial statement that I published in January, I announced that the Government had tabled an amendment to the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill before the Christmas recess to establish the role of an independent patient safety commissioner in line with recommendation 2. That is now in law under the Act. The commissioner will promote the safety of patients who use medicines and medical devices by ensuring that the views of the wider public about them are heard. There would be absolutely no point in having a patient safety commissioner if the role was not fully independent. That is what we are working on putting in place now. A public consultation is currently open and running until 5 August. I urge all Members who have spoken today and have constituents who have been affected to respond to that consultation to make sure that their views are known.
Recommendation 5 was on specialist centres, which are in place. There are eight specialist centres, and another will be opening in the south-west of England very shortly. Recommendation 6 was on reform of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. I have announced that the MHRA has begun a substantial programme of work to improve how it involves patients in all aspects of its work to reform the system. Recommendation 7 was on establishing a medical device information system, again through the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021. In line with Baroness Cumberlege’s recommendation, this will mean that the NHS can track patients’ outcomes and spot issues. Work is under way to build, test and cost options on how a medical device information system could be embedded into the UK healthcare system.
Turning to the recommendations that we do not accept, I was honest when I stood here and said how desperately sorry I was and how harrowing those stories were, and I am not going to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that we are reviewing all the recommendations, which is what has happened in the past. I will be honest: we are not going to accept the redress agency in recommendation 3, or the taskforce. No Government have ever asked someone to chair or undertake a review and then asked those who conducted the review to implement the recommendations on behalf of the Government. That has never happened before. It is the responsibility of the Opposition to hold me to account and it is our responsibility as Ministers to implement the recommendations that the Government see fit to implement.
The Cumberlege report is a document that vividly shows the importance of patient safety and of listening to women. It is incredibly important that we listen to women. I am delighted that many people today have highlighted the adverse situations that many women experience, suffer and have to endure because they are women. It is absolutely right to say that many women are not listened to, and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) also made that point. This was the substance of the report by Baroness Cumberlege. Women are not listened to, and they have not been listened to. The women’s health strategy was not a recommendation but it was seriously influenced by Baroness Cumberlege’s review. That is why I established the women’s health strategy, and 112,000 women responded. It was not one of the recommendations, but we implemented it because women’s voices have to be heard.
Emma Hardy
I thank everybody who has taken part in this debate, and particular thanks again go to Baroness Cumberlege. May she continue to look over and down upon the Department of Health in ensuring that these recommendations are, hopefully, at some point enacted.
I would like to make a point about valproate. The Cumberlege review looked at the expert working group report and said it was flawed. On that point again, Epilepsy Action is looking into a campaign called “Safe Mum, Safe Baby” for alternative medications for women to use, and one of the campaigns is to ask the Government for money to help to fund some of that research. I hope that, in the light of the comments the Minister has made regarding valproate, that is something that the Government will look kindly upon.
A comment made by the former Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), has stayed with me. He said that this was not just about the lack of justice but about the risk of a repeat. That is why these recommendations matter, not only for justice for the women harmed but because of the risk of repeating this. I look forward to not having to hold this debate again on next year’s anniversary, but I am sure, if necessary, we will all be here—same time, same place—next year. Hopefully we will see a few more of the recommendations enacted. Thank you, everyone.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the publication of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, First Do No Harm; further notes the Government’s failure to respond to the recommendations of that review in full; notes the significant discrepancy between the incidence of complication following mesh surgery in the Hospital Episode Statistics and the British Society of Urogynaecology databases, as highlighted in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Project Report, entitled Hospital Episode Statistics as a Source of Information on Safety and Quality in Gynaecology to Support Revalidation; notes that the Government’s plan to publish a retrospective audit to investigate the links between patient-level data to explore outcomes has not been fulfilled; notes that the moratorium on mesh implant procedures should not be lifted until that audit has been undertaken and the true scale of suffering established; notes Ministers’ failure to acknowledge recommendations relating to victims of Primodos; and calls on the Government to fully implement the recommendations for victims of mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos without further delay.
Covid-19 Update
Emma Hardy Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I think we have just heard the skies opening above us. I am grateful we can now eat inside restaurants.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Hull Royal Infirmary is a tower block and the geography of the building has resulted in a higher number of covid transmissions in hospital, despite the excellent work being done by all NHS staff. I fear that covid cases caught in hospital will only increase with a more transmissible strain of the virus. Will the Secretary of State look urgently at providing Hull Royal Infirmary with the funding it needs to improve its building as we all learn to live with the virus?
Matt Hancock
As the hon. Lady knows, we are building 48 new hospitals over this decade. Forty of those have been set out, but there are a further eight slots, so she may want to work with Hull Royal Infirmary to bring forward a proposal. Of course, tackling infection within hospital is incredibly important work and always has been since the time of Florence Nightingale. It is even more important right now and I think it will be a higher priority over the years ahead. I am always very happy to look at all proposals.
Public Health
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
I want to highlight quickly how our poorly drawn-up covid self-isolation and quarantine regulations are causing difficulties for UK businesses in competition with EU companies that are following different regulations. That is putting UK businesses at a disadvantage.
I was contacted by David Fletcher from GEV Group, which has its headquarters in my constituency. It is a market leader in critical field repair services to the wind energy industry, specialising in wind turbine blade repair, and it exports its services all over Europe, the US and the far east. Of course, it has had to reorganise and reprioritise services due to the pandemic, but in some cases, as hon. Members can imagine, where wind turbine blades have suffered significant damage, that cannot wait.
The company of course understands the need for covid security and taking precautions, but it finds itself at a significant disadvantage to its European competitors, which are operating under a different approach to travel for frontier workers. Essentially, the EU guidelines provide specific instructions for posted and frontier workers, noting that health screening must be carried out under the same conditions as for nationals exercising the same occupation.
GEV informs me that the UK guidelines have a much looser definition of frontier workers and do not appear to have considered all the likely circumstances they will face. The key issue for GEV is the line in the UK guidance that states that travel must be on a weekly basis. Its technicians typically travel on a fortnightly rotation, as they are stationed offshore on a vessel for that duration. That means that, upon return, they have to observe the eight-day quarantine period, which has led to most of the company’s workforce not wanting to travel. As a consequence, it is losing work to its European counterparts.
I urge the Minister to look at realigning the rules with the EU so that GEV and other UK companies that export services can remain competitive. I am more than happy to write to her on this matter, and I really hope that this simple issue can be resolved very quickly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Jo Churchill
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I am delighted to join her in congratulating Emma, who I know is using her experience of having had covid to launch such an innovative fundraising idea. I already have a Dallas-style hairdo, because I have not been to the hairdressers for some months. I just need some shoulder pads. I thank her and all volunteers and fundraisers for their marvellous job in coming up with some really great ideas to support research.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)
Throughout the pandemic, we have had to strike a balance between protecting people from this cruel virus and social contact. Nowhere has this been harder than in care homes. That is why I am so pleased that, from 8 March, we will be enabling care homes to open up carefully to more visiting. Our guidance will set out how residents can have a named person for repeat visits, with testing and PPE so that those visits can be indoors. We look forward to enabling more visiting as soon as it is safe to do so.
Emma Hardy [V]
I welcome the new guidance on care home visits, but I am concerned about this phrase:
“With the agreement of the care home.”
Does the Minister share my concern that that may allow some care homes to disagree with the guidance, therefore decide that the risk is too high and prevent the physical contact that residents in care homes are so desperate to have with their loved ones?
Helen Whately
The hon. Member makes an important point. We have been clear that we want to see care homes enabling visiting. We recognise that care homes are having to strike a balance between giving residents access to visitors and making sure that those residents are safe. Our guidance will provide further support to care homes on how they can make sure that those visits happen.
Covid-19
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
As I begin, I give my thanks to everybody who has been part of the new vaccination centre at the City Hall in Hull. I went to visit it the other day and it is a tremendous success. I want to put on record my thanks to everybody for the part that they have played in making it such a huge, transformative event and place—I confess that I was quite emotional when I went to visit.
I add my voice to the call for the reprioritisation of people and adults with learning difficulties to be looked at in terms of the vaccine. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) what a difficult time they have been facing in the pandemic.
Unfortunately today, we had bad news in Hull: the proportion of young unemployed people is now around 25%. This deeply concerns me because, when the Government talk about building back, I do not want to build back; I do not want to build back to the inequality and the system that we had previously. I want to build forward to something better.
I would like for a moment to talk about something positive that has come out of coronavirus: the revolutionary change in the way that we work. So many people in their jobs up and down the country have shown that it is productive and possible to work from home. Of course this is not for everybody, and not everybody would want to do this by choice, but I do think it provides an opportunity for areas like Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle to make accessible jobs that, because of geography, were not previously available for people living in our area. I hope the Government seize on this, because, as the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said in his speech the other day, people should not have to leave home to find a good job, and the changes to the way we work just might be a bit of hope that comes out of this pandemic.
One of the disappointments in the Government’s strategy around education is the lack of focus on place. It seems to talk just about a national strategy, and I hope, again, that they will talk to the universities, particularly the civic universities, about the role they can play in job creation.
We have in Hull almost a good luck charm in the guise of the shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). Back in 2008, when he was involved in some work in Hull, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Siemens that led to Siemens creating the wind turbine factory in Hull, which has just now doubled in size, giving our city great news. I am hoping that he can be our same token of good luck when he comes to talk to the Zero Carbon Humber project about the work we want to do in job generation.
I just want the Government to clearly understand that we are never asking for handouts. We are merely asking for fairness: help us to help ourselves, and support these avenues of job creation for the city and area we love so much.
Covid-19
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Covid and its mismanagement are hurting my city of Hull and the East Riding, and without fair and adequate support from Government, I fear for the future of jobs, particularly in the hospitality and entertainment sector. I have already raised the incredible work on marine conservation being done by the Deep, and its incredibly challenging financial situation. All the animals still need caring for, feeding and looking after, but the Deep’s doors remain shut and its income remains at zero.
Hull Trains, an open-access rail operator, has again stopped its direct rail service through to London and faces an uncertain future. It is unfathomable that other cities would see their only direct route to the capital cancelled, yet the Government are content to allow this to happen to Hull. I hope that they have not also forgotten about our other businesses, or about the impact on our cinemas, bowling alleys, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull New Theatre, Hull FC rugby club and Hull City football club. When large businesses such as those suffer, our city suffers—and not just our economy but our morale too. I have submitted many written questions to the Government about this, because it is an issue of fairness. I will not allow the Government to choke off our chances of recovery and cut us off from opportunity.
The impact of the covid-19 pandemic on pubs and breweries has been nothing short of catastrophic. They have been messed about during the pandemic, and they do not know if they are coming or going. At one point the Prime Minister was encouraging people, saying that it was their patriotic duty to go to the pub and that they should eat out to help out. Pubs then spent a fortune making their premises covid-secure, only to be told, “Oh, you’re unsafe. You must close.” The uncertainty throughout the pandemic is having a damaging impact on people’s mental health. The Government must start planning beyond next week and take a serious long-term look at all the problems facing industry. Pubs and breweries need a road map that sets out a path that combines the necessary immediate support with the continuing economic stimulus needed throughout 2021.
Finally, I want to highlight two pubs in my constituency. The Hop and Vine basement bar in Hull has contacted me to ask if it can be allowed to do off-sales again. This made a difference previously, and the bar is at a loss as to why it is not allowed now. My constituent Pete Wilkinson, the tenant landlord of the New Griffin on Anlaby Road, has told me a story of the incompetence of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs when he requested something as simple as the required tax code to get his payroll up and running, and I hope the Minister will put me in touch with the relevant person so we can get this resolved. I have never asked for special treatment for Hull West and Hessle. We just want to be treated fairly so that we can save jobs and businesses and ensure that we come out of the pandemic fighting and ready to bring on the rest of this year.
Public Health
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
I want to start by giving my thanks to key workers and the NHS for everything they have been doing across Christmas. I know many of them are feeling utterly and completely exhausted, and that many are feeling frightened when they think about how they are going to cope and what is going to happen in the weeks and months ahead. I just want to put on record my gratitude to them for everything they have done.
I fear that I will be repeating myself, because this is the third debate I have spoken in on this subject and I am nothing if not persistent. I may be overly optimistic that, at some point, the Government will listen and give me the things I am asking for. My questions include: where are the Nightingale hospitals? I have raised this question many times and I tried to raise it earlier in a call with the Minister, but I still have not been given a clear answer. Are they going to be opened and are they going to be used again? Where is the surge capacity that the Government promised us? I am in danger of thinking that the opening of these hospitals was in fact just a publicity stunt, but surely I must be wrong.
I recognise the need for the additional covid restrictions to help save lives, especially with the new variant being transmitted at a much higher rate. However, I fear that the Government will lose support for these restrictions and their tiering system if people continue to see their livelihoods go and their life’s work destroyed. Whenever they announce tiers and restrictions, surely at the same time the Government should be putting out an economic statement telling people how jobs must be saved.
I make no apology for again raising the plight of the coach industry. This is the fifth time I have raised this problem, and I had hoped after I had a personal meeting with a Treasury Minister, along with representatives from the industry, that the Government had finally listened. However, I was deeply disappointed with the response to some of our asks, especially since—believe it or not, Madam Deputy Speaker—I had managed to make requests that were cost-neutral to the Government. They just required will and a little bit of effort. In a letter back from the Minister, they stated that
“it will not be possible to preserve every job or business indefinitely, nor stand in the way of the economy adapting and people finding new jobs or starting new businesses.”
This completely failed to recognise that the coach industry is a viable industry. The only reason this industry is suffering is the covid restrictions—there are no other reasons—and it will be successful again.
When I raised concerns about the coronavirus business interruption loans and that only 20% of the industry was successful in applying for them, the response again from the Government was:
“We believe these measures to be sufficient.”
That is in complete contrast to the reality these businesses face. They also said in the letter that
“it would not be appropriate to contact lenders on a sector by sector basis.”
I really urge the Government to think again about that, because that is exactly what this industry needs. Finally, to make it worse, in the letter this Government wash their hands of any further support for the industry, stating that
“options to refinance existing facilities…is at the discretion of the lender”.
Basically, they are saying, “It’s nothing to do with us.” It is no wonder that people are rebelling against the restrictions the Government are imposing when they are not being given the support they need. The Government could decide to support this industry, and they are actively making a choice not to.
In the remaining time I have, I would like to mention, also again, the young people excluded from support, who are facing a desperate Christmas. I want to quote from a letter from Charles Cracknell regarding the young entrepreneurs in Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, because this makes the point for me. He said:
“I am particularly concerned for those that came off benefits to establish a business or who were working and/or studying to run a business and now find themselves on benefits which means it’s more difficult for them to invest in their businesses or had just started out and who had struggled even before the current situation but were showing great determination to make a contribution to the local economy. Less than a third of the young entrepreneurs that we have supported…are in a position to trade at the moment and even with gradual reduction in lockdown arrangements find themselves in difficulties and it would be inappropriate for them to take out a loan and to be honest why should they at this early stage of development as a business.”
These young people have received nothing from Government and face seeing the businesses they have worked so hard to develop being destroyed, with a return to the life on benefits that they have only just escaped. Because of the restrictions, their businesses cannot open, so more must be done to help them.
In my last 20 seconds, I want to mention the hospitality industry again. Why are there rules to shut down yoga studios? Why the lack of additional support for Hull? If the Government want support for tiers to continue and if they want my support for these restrictions, they must begin to give Hull West and Hessle the financial support that we need.
Covid-19
Emma Hardy Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I want to start by giving my thanks to all those people working in the NHS and all the key workers for the incredible job they have done throughout the pandemic.
The Government are facing quite a dangerous situation where many see their tier system as neither effective nor fair. Conspiracy groups are popping up across the country, spreading lies and misinformation through social media. In fact, as quickly as social media giants stop them, they seem to find a new way to spread their misinformation. In my previous speech, I called for transparency on how decisions are made and said that transparency is the only way to defeat conspiracy theories, but the Government are still failing to provide it. I am going to quote from an answer to a written question I asked about how tiers are decided. I asked the Secretary of State for Health when he planned to publish the scientific evidence used to determine which areas are under tier 3 covid restrictions. The response I had was that decisions on tiers are based on
“the case detection rate…in particular, among those over 60 years old; how quickly case rates are rising or falling; positivity in the general population; pressure on the National Health Service”,
and so on. The important line that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention, which is feeding some of the disquiet that I sense in my constituency, is:
“As decisions are informed by a range of factors, it is possible for variation between individual factors when comparing areas.”
That fuels the sense that somehow the rules that many of us are experiencing up in the north are different from what people are experiencing down in the south. Why is there a possible variation between individual factors? Surely the Government have criteria that apply to everybody, regardless of their postcode or the place they live. That is how we have fairness, transparency and trust in Government, which is currently lacking.
People in Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle have been working hard to get the virus rate down. The East Riding seven-day rate is now 125, and Hull’s is 195. That is 75% lower than the peak on 16 November, and that dramatic drop is because of the hard work of people from across the constituency, despite the harm that having to follow all these rules is causing the local economy.
We are a face-to-face economy. When looking at the reasons why we had that sudden, huge growth, we have to look at the jobs in which people are employed. Many people’s jobs in Hull require them to go to work. They are not jobs that can be done remotely or at home. There is more need for self-isolation—again, I made that point to the Minister in my previous speech. If we want people to do the right thing, they should not suffer financial consequences for doing it. We need to look at the isolation payments of £500 that are reaching so few people.
I really hope that our declining rate is looked upon favourably when a decision is made about which tier to move us into. A 75% drop in a few weeks shows how determined we are to move out of tier 3 and into tier 2, but we need clarity. What are the criteria? What is the goal? Tell us what we need to do to move out of tier 3, and we can focus on making sure we do it.
The Government cannot leave us in tier 3 over the Christmas period without extra support. It has been an uphill battle to get any support for our area. I have said to the Minister many times before that we will not be the forgotten city, which is how many people in my constituency feel right now. Although furlough is protecting jobs, which is good news, it is not protecting businesses. Businesses tell me that furlough is going to continue after their business has failed. If the businesses have gone, what is the point in continuing the furlough until March?
Pub landlords are furious, and they have every right to be. There are 334 pubs in Hull, and landlords are seeing their life’s work destroyed and their industry go under. Many pubs will not open, but they are a vital part of our communities. Landlords spent months adapting to the Government guidance, ensuring they are covid-safe, closing at 10 pm and spending an awful lot of money, and their reward has been inadequate financial support. They see people crammed down Oxford Street in London, pushing past each other and not wearing masks, and all the time they are told, “You are not safe enough to open.” They are angry. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) mentioned, they see the Government wasting money on PPE contracts, and they are told that there is nothing extra to give them. That fuels the sense of injustice and unfairness.
The £20 a head business support grant is a one-off payment, and no account has been taken of the amount of time that restrictions may be in place in an area. That is putting an indescribable amount of pressure on business owners, who have no idea when they will be allowed to open. That is creating a gulf in support across the city. How is it right that businesses in tier 1 areas have received the same package of support for a 28-day national lockdown as businesses in tier 3? We have already spent weeks under the tightest restrictions, and there is a feeling of unfairness. Surely we need to look again at the discretionary support that is being provided for businesses in tier 3.
This pandemic is not an equaliser. We did not start from the same position, and it has not impacted everybody equally. We started from a weaker position because we had a decade of cuts and underfunding. Hull is one of the most deprived areas in the country. Our claimant count is now over 11%. I have mentioned this before, but between 2009 and 2019, on this Conservative Government’s watch, real wages grew by 1%. The Government can repeat their mantra, “Oh, we’re levelling up” as many times as they want, but we need deeds not words. When are we actually going to see some action? Six years ago, we were promised a direct rail route from Hull all the way to Liverpool—six years ago, but we are yet to see it anywhere.
I like to be an optimist, however, so I say to the Minister that I am still hoping for a positive reply to the Hull and Humber NHS trust request for new mental health facilities in the city. I hope that when she looks at the relative areas of need in Hull, she will look favourably on that request, because our hospitals have been hard hit.
I have mentioned the 334 pubs, but there are 131 restaurants unable to open and 109 cafés. Some 574 businesses in total are potentially going bankrupt, with people’s life’s work destroyed. We have mentioned the excluded, and I draw the Minister’s attention again to Charles Cracknell and the young entrepreneurs who have missed out on any funding throughout this pandemic.
I have a few other businesses to highlight. Hotham’s Gin School and Distillery is suffering terribly. It is a place where—when it is open again, everyone is very welcome to come—people can make their own gin, sample it, taste it and take it home at the end. It won a silver award for having the second best customer experience in the country under VisitEngland, but it is unable to open and facing huge costs without the support needed from Government to cover it. Events Made with Love, another events company, organises and supports weddings. It ordered everything for an event before the second lockdown was announced and everything had to be refunded to the customer. That is another business.
There is Lion Heart Hot Yoga studio—I made the request directly to the Government, “Why were yoga studios excluded from being able to open and yet other areas able to do so?” Again, it does not seem to make sense to me. Where is the logic in that? Fancy dress companies are not seeing any business through Christmas and did not see any business through Halloween, missing out on their busiest time. These are all small and medium-sized enterprises. They are not multinational companies with big pockets so they can pay their way out of this. These are small, family-run companies seeing their businesses destroyed.
I wrote to the Chancellor on 7 December asking him to look again at the discretionary support grant applied to Hull. I have had no reply yet. We are not asking for special treatment; we are asking for fair treatment: compensate us for the length of time that we are spending in tier 3; apply the same judgment to our data as the Government are applying to other areas of the country when deciding which tier we should be in; compensate us for the weaker position that we were put in by this Government at the beginning of the pandemic; give our businesses the support they need to survive; stop people who are trying to do the right thing facing financial penalties; look at that self-isolation payment; give us the support we need to roll out the vaccination. People in Hull West and Hessle are resilient and determined. All we are asking for is our fair share of support so that we can build our own recovery.
Helen Whately
It will probably be helpful if we pursue the specific case outside the Chamber. I just wanted to reiterate the importance of care agency staff being tested in care homes. Tests are being distributed to care homes for that purpose.
Whenever the Government have to take difficult decisions, such as the ones we have taken today, the impact of those decisions on people across the country is always at the front of our mind. With a 14% rise in average daily cases last week and a 13% rise in daily hospital admissions, we had no option but to act today, even ahead of the formal review point on Wednesday. As the Secretary of State reminded us earlier, Germany had to introduce tougher restrictions over the weekend, and Sweden is seeing real pressures on intensive care beds. As we set out in our winter plan, our strategy has always been to suppress the virus and prevent our NHS from becoming overwhelmed until the vaccine can make us safe.
I know that hon. Members will share my sense of optimism that, just as many other parts of the country have done so magnificently, the areas now facing rising rates can turn this around. They are getting the support they need to do that, right where it is needed most, including through the provision of community testing, with millions of newly invented tests targeted at the areas that need that support. I know that the Members representing those areas will want to play their part in this effort, so I can say that today we published a guide for Members so that colleagues can promote, support and champion local community testing and contact tracing in their areas.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), who spoke about how he had seen people become more careful in his area as they saw rates rise locally. He saw their behaviour change through the increased wearing of face masks, for instance, as people took the extra steps to keep themselves and others safe. That is a reminder that ultimately, all our efforts must be underpinned by a sense of personal responsibility. Our national effort begins with every one of us.
We all know what a difficult year it has been, yet that does not make those important public health messages any less true. As several hon. Members have reminded us this evening, we must continue to wash our hands, cover our face and make space. We must continue to self-isolate when we are asked to, for the 10 days now required. Perhaps even more challenging than that, though, we must be unafraid to ask ourselves difficult questions about who we are meeting, their vulnerability and whether that is a risk worth taking. Time and again, the common sense of the British people has prevailed, and it must continue to do so.
Finally, our vaccine deployment continues apace, because we know that vaccines represent our best route out of these difficult times. It is such a relief to be able to say about vaccination not if, but when. Tens of thousands of people have already been vaccinated, and GP roll-out started today in hundreds of parts of the country, so many more will be vaccinated this week, like the relatives my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) and for South Thanet mentioned.
Emma Hardy
The Minister will be aware that one of the issues raised during her call with the areas going into tier 3 was the need for boots on the ground—for people to help to administer the vaccine. The health force in Hull and areas like it is diminished because many are self-isolating, others are suffering from covid and it is an exhausted workforce. Will additional personnel resources be made available to help deliver the vaccine?
Helen Whately
I know that a huge amount of work is going on to ensure that we have the boots on the ground needed to vaccinate people. Indeed, that is one of the things that those who have volunteered—particularly those with healthcare experience who are returning to the NHS—are stepping forward to help with.
We will vaccinate in care homes by Christmas, and that process has already begun in Scotland. Most of us who are eligible can expect to receive our vaccine in the next few months, which is truly heartening, but we must all stay on our guard through Christmas and into the new year. This is not the time to ease up—quite the opposite, in fact, because this is the busiest time of year for our NHS and for the doctors, nurses and other health and social care workers who have already done so much for us in this pandemic. Along with many colleagues today, I thank our health and social care workers.
This is a moment to stand firm against this deadly virus and to redouble our efforts to keep one another safe. This is one of the toughest things we have ever had to do as a country and one of the toughest things that anyone has had to endure personally, but the end is in sight. We must steel ourselves and do the right thing, if not for our own sake then for others’, and we will get through this together.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered covid-19.