Covid-19

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). I, too, want to thank all our frontline key workers.

This has no doubt been a very difficult job for Ministers, especially those in the Department of Health and Social Care. They have done tremendous work to try to understand this new virus and manage the spread of covid. I want to put on record my gratitude to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). She has taken my phone calls in the evening, at weekends and during the day. Sometimes my requests on behalf of my constituents have not even fallen in her portfolio, but she has always tried to track down the right response, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

We have had some successes. We have had successes on testing—we are testing more than the rest of Europe—but we now need to get the tracing element right. I had huge concerns about PPE early on. There is now a PPE strategy, and 70% of PPE will now be produced here in the UK compared with 1% earlier on. And who can forget the huge efforts to get the Nightingale hospitals up and running?

However, I have huge concerns about how the Government want to progress with the extension of covid laws. I do not feel it is appropriate that Members of Parliament read about new restrictions in the press—restrictions that cover criminal offences, duties and penalties that can reach up to £10,000—and I am hugely concerned about the role of covid marshals. I am sent to the House of Commons to represent my constituents in Wealden, and I cannot do that if parliamentary democracy is suspended. That is why I will support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and share the concerns of many Government Members about the lack of scrutiny.

I do not doubt that Ministers want their arguments to be tested, so that they can be assured that these laws will have minimal side effects. We need to understand more of the evidence, and we need more diverse scientific evidence put in front of us. I do not feel that I am in any position to tell my constituents that they cannot see their kids for Christmas—I do not understand how we can even implement that. I do not feel comfortable telling my constituents that they cannot visit their loved ones in care homes whose mental health is deteriorating fast because we do not have the track and trace or testing in place.

I want to touch on three themes that we should be focusing on. We need to get back to basics and focus on what we can get right. I had an email recently from Peter Appleton, who oversees a care home and said that once again, the issue of getting testing results back in time has reared its ugly head. If care home staff do not get their test results back in time, they cannot provide a service to the residents, who are already struggling without the support of their families.

I turn to the impact on our young people, who have not had access to formal education for many months, and now we are making decisions that mean they will not get any sort of educational activity outside school. In my constituency of Wealden, we have two outdoor centres: Bowles Rocks and Hindleap Warren. They enable youngsters who may not even have access to a garden to experience a bit of outdoors, whether it is climbing or doing a bit of mentoring or leadership training. They could do that within bubbles, and they have all the covid-safe protections in place, but once again, broadbrush restrictions based on covid are undermining not only businesses but young people’s experiences outside the classroom.



I will conclude with an issue that the Minister will be familiar with, which is Public Health England. As the Minister will know, I have put on the record my belief that Public Health England lacks transparency, accountability and leadership. We have had three times more deaths among the BAME community, and higher deaths among BAME medical practitioners. At one point Public Health England claimed that it did not have the data. One can hope only that it has the data now, but I have yet to see what changes it has made to ensure that vulnerable groups within the BAME community are kept safe. As we introduce new restrictive laws, I am concerned that we are not applying the laws we already have in place.

Last Wednesday I was at a funeral in my village of Nutley—of course, only 30 people were present. A member of the family gave a very moving speech, but nobody was allowed to hug her. That is the state we are in. The Government need Back-Bench support from across the House, and we need parliamentary scrutiny for that. I hope the Government will understand why we would support such an amendment.

Covid-19 Update

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to Kirklees and colleagues who represent the seats within it, who have worked across party lines with national and local government. We have put more resources in, and they will continue for the time being when they are needed. We are, of course, driven by the data, so in a way, it would be good news if they were not needed, because that would mean that the number of cases had come down. The hon. Lady represents exactly the sort of approach that we should be taking. We are all on the same side against this virus. It is far better to be constructive and work together in a team effort. That is what the public want and expect. They do not want sniping from the sidelines, like we have seen from the Labour Front Bench.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to mass testing. In rural constituencies like mine, mobile testing units such as the one in Uckfield are key, but there seems to be a glitch in the system. A constituent called Colin, who lives in the village of Fletching, was directed miles away when he could have been directed to the local mobile unit. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the glitch is fixed?

[Matt Hancock]

With pleasure.

Coronavirus Response

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have been building the test and trace system and improving the data that flows from it and underpins it all the way through this crisis, and I am glad that the hon. Lady is pleased by the continued progress that we are making. That is the way to look at this. We have been building this extraordinary service at extraordinary pace, and I am really glad we are able to get more.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome the Health Secretary’s statement and share his concerns that we do not know how the virus will react when we enter our cold weather season. Wealden constituents are already concerned about winter flu. When he has the data on cold weather and the virus, will he ensure that it is shared with East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, East Sussex County Council and Wealden District Council so that we can prepare and be resourced to deal with both covid and winter flu?

[Matt Hancock]

I will do better than that: when we get scientific evidence on the impact of cold weather on this virus, we will publish it.

Covid-19 Update

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am absolutely determined to address the questions and the impact of covid on those who live with disabilities. The hon. Lady’s point is important and this will form part of our work on inequalities and the response to covid. The Minister for Equalities is taking that work forward.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend share what factors lie behind the infection rate being so high in Leicester? Will those factors be shared with local resilience forums, such as mine in the south-east, so that they can also prepare? Secondly, he said that children in Leicester were particularly vulnerable. That is not the norm for covid, so is this a separate strand of covid or can he say why the youngsters in Leicester are so vulnerable?

[Matt Hancock]

To be clear, children have a very low risk of suffering from covid, but we have been looking at the proportion of children who have tested positive and therefore may be transmitting the disease. Thankfully, the disease poses a very low risk to any individual child in terms of their becoming ill or worse, but the challenge is that it still transmits through children. That is why we have taken the decision that we have on schools in Leicester. Of course, there are many reasons and potential reasons why the outbreak has occurred in the way it has in Leicester. We are still getting to the bottom of those, but I undertake to ensure that directors of public health in other areas understand those reasons. For instance, we are doing work specifically on food processing factories, which seem to have a higher rate of infection around the world, including in America, Germany and also in north Wales. Of course, there is a challenge in the community to ensure that we understand properly the origins and the spread of the outbreak in Leicester and then look at similar cities where the case rate is thankfully much lower, but ensure that we learn the lessons for similar cities, precisely as the shadow Secretary of State said.

Covid-19: BAME Communities

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the passionate speech of the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). I first want to thank all NHS workers, who have done a tremendous job during this covid period. My speech will not be so friendly, so I want to start by thanking the Minister, who has been tremendous in supporting me in Wealden, where we have a particularly large care home system—I have a lot of older constituents. Regardless of the day of the week and the time of day, she has been incredibly responsive. Unfortunately, the rest of my speech will not be so flattering, so I will just crack on.

Like so many people in this country, I have lost loved ones to covid. I also have loved ones working on the frontline dealing with covid. We had the experience and network to highlight quite early on that we saw a pattern forming, but we were met with, “We don’t have the data”—it is 2020, and we do not have the data. I understand the argument that this is an unusual situation, and that we did not have the statistics to deal with this particular pandemic, but we do have data about how viruses spread. We also understand the long-standing institutional biases of NHS England and Public Health England, which have failed in their leadership, are unaccountable, and hide behind the catch-all, “We just don’t have the data.” It is shameful.

[Caroline Nokes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we did not actually need data, given that we could open up the pages of any newspaper and see the photographs?

[Ms Ghani]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. That goes back to my earlier point: Public Health England needs far more functioning leadership.

Public Health England’s report says:

“It is clear from discussions with stakeholders the pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding inequalities affecting BAME communities in the UK.”

That is nothing new. Moreover, it confirms to me the wilful blindness of Public Health England and NHS England in addressing racial inequalities and their inability to put in place measures to address workplace risk and make sure that so many BAME staff were not exposed. In the time it took for Public Health England to review the disproportionate number of BAME deaths, another 17 doctors passed away. Sixteen of those were BAME.

What else do we know? We know that there is a significantly higher proportion of BAME healthcare workers in England across our health system; without BAME workers, there would not be a health system. We know that BAME workers are in lower-paid jobs and that they cannot work remotely. We know that BAME workers tend to work in high-risk areas, and that the families they go home to are high-risk individuals. It was a high-risk strategy, yet Public Health England and NHS England continued to expose high-risk staff to high-risk shifts.

We know that 94% of doctors who died were of a BAME background. In the biggest survey of its kind, ITV News asked the UK’s BAME healthcare community why they thought more of their BAME colleagues were dying than their white counterparts, and 50% felt that discriminatory behaviour played a role in the high death toll. One respondent described the treatment as “very unfair”, adding that “all BAME nurses” have been

“allocated to red wards and my white colleagues”

are “constantly in green wards.” Perhaps more worryingly, ITV found that 53% of BAME respondents said that they felt they could not comfortably raise concerns about deployment, so they risked their health as against their employment.

To me, that suggests that the problem is related not to covid but to long-standing institutional inequalities. I want to hear from the Minister a resolute commitment to hold Public Health England and NHS England to account, and to ensure that the recommendations are acted on, reviewed and assessed by the real workers on the frontline who are most at risk—by that I mean BAME workers—and that all the data, good and bad, is shared in good time. I hope that the Minister understands that I have very little confidence in particular in Public Health England.

As we champion our frontline key workers, we also need to give them confidence that we have their backs. Like all public workers, they want to do their jobs, but many are concerned that if there is a second wave of covid they will be risking their lives or their families’. The BAME community has already been severely hit. I am not sure that it could take a second wave. For BAME health workers to die at such a rate frankly amounts to negligence on the part of NHS England and Public Health England, but perhaps it is not that surprising. Their leadership boasts 46 individuals; yet only four of them are from BAME backgrounds.

The country was united in tackling covid, but Public Health England and NHS England let down BAME health workers. They have time to put the record straight. Either we are in this together or we are not. I hope that the Minister can confirm that the Department is committed to ensuring that Public Health England and NHS England will treat, manage and support all their staff equally, so that we do not see a second wave of disproportionate BAME health worker deaths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

We have introduced something similar. In areas where it has been difficult to recruit GP trainees for three years or more, we have provided a £20,000 salary supplement to attract people to those areas. It has been very successful, and we have extended it to 200 places this year.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

High Weald Lewes Havens clinical commissioning group has undertaken a consultation on closing Rotherfield surgery, which is in my constituency, against the wishes of the community and local councillors. Does my right hon. Friend agree that CCGs have responsibilities and liabilities when it comes to supporting rural practices, and that they should do all that they can to recruit GPs in rural areas?

[Mr Hunt]

I do agree. I also know that, although areas such as Wealden are beautiful places in which to live, it is sometimes very difficult to recruit people to become, in particular, new partners in general practices in such areas. We are concerned about that. Nationally, we have a plan to recruit 5,000 more GPs by 2020-21, but we need to ensure that they go to rural areas such as that represented by my hon. Friend.

Valproate and Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I absolutely agree. I hope to pull that issue together as I go on with my remarks. It is really important that we raise the case of sodium valproate, which, as we have heard, is still in use. All of these issues need to be looked at.

Common to this debate—and in all such cases, including Primodos—are the hidden, missing and lost documents, along with a delay in education and information. That was raised again today by the right hon. Member for North Norfolk. I pay tribute to Sky News for its exposés on valproate and Primodos, because this really matters to the families affected.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raises a valid point about media coverage. I congratulate right hon. and hon. Members on raising the issue in the Chamber today, but I am concerned that it might make some women nervous about taking medication if they are pregnant, or are considering whether they would like to become pregnant and are on medication. Surely one of the messages we want to send out today is, “Please consult your doctor and do not respond to everything you read in the press if you are taking epilepsy medication.”

[Mims Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Many of us have constituents, friends or family who are affected by epilepsy, which, in itself, is very serious, or by bipolar disorder. Appropriate use remains very important. For the vast majority of patients, treatment can be effective and useful if it is done right—if managed, if educated and if understood. The argument, therefore, should not be about ceasing use, but about telling the truth and looking at appropriate use during pregnancy. Men use the drug too, so we need to take a balanced approach and reflect all situations.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

The fact that we have some really ambitious targets is to be applauded, and I welcome the Minister’s update on the Government’s position on those targets. Even if we achieve a target of about 50%, however, that would mean that between 2,500 and 3,000 babies will still die every year. We must ensure that the parents, grandparents and wider family members have a support network. That is why the all-party group was established very much on the basis of bereavement care, and our focus very much remains on bereavement care.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned support networks, and I want to draw attention to the Crowborough birthing unit in my constituency of Wealden. It does fantastic work with mums and dads, and siblings, to make sure everyone can go through the process either of having a healthy baby or, if they have such a tragedy, of losing a child.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend gives a great constituency example. Maternity units up and down this country have the most incredible provision and offer the most incredible compassion and care. In fact, we have some of the best provision in the world. Tragically, however, that is not replicated all across the country, and there is regional variation. I will come on to what we need to do to address that a little later.

To return to bereavement, the very first debate, which I led in this House back in November 2015, was about bereavement care. It specifically looked at bereavement suites in maternity units, and that was very much the focus. I am pleased to say that the theme of this Baby Loss Awareness Week is bereavement.

This week, we have seen something incredible, something truly groundbreaking—the result of over a year of work —which is the establishment of the national bereavement care pathway. The pathway has been developed by a number of charities and professional organisations, with the support of the Department of Health and the all-party group on baby loss. It has primarily been developed to improve the quality of bereavement care experienced by parents and families at all stages of pregnancy and, indeed, baby loss up to 12 months. The objective of the pathway is to ensure that all bereaved parents are offered equal, high-quality, individualised care that is safe and sensitive.

The national bereavement care pathway was launched yesterday in 11 pilot sites, and the plan is to roll it out nationwide over the next year. This has been an incredible exercise in collaborative working. I want to pay tribute to Sands, all the baby loss charities and organisations that have made an input, NHS trusts, the Department of Health and all the parents who have fed in their experiences. It is not easy for them to talk about their loss, and the evidence of all the parents who have talked about their tragic experience will improve care for very many others up and down the country. I also pay tribute to a former colleague, Ben Gummer, who, when he was the Minister with responsibility for care quality, pushed so hard for this and worked so hard to make it happen.

Yes, it is important that we push the Government to address the UK’s high stillbirth and neonatal death rate, but the support that we give bereaved parents is just as important, if not more so. We need to make sure that they have the support that enables them to have the time and the space in which to grieve. We know that going through this most traumatic of experiences can often lead to mental health issues—such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, about which there is growing evidence—whether they appear weeks, months or sometimes even years later. The number of couples that separate after losing a child is still very high, and that comes with huge social costs. Putting in place the right level of high-quality, consistent bereavement care is not just the right thing to do for parents; it should be part of our push to improve mental health care nationwide.

Adult Social Care Funding

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I confirm that there will be the widest possible engagement across the House and across the sector, including with the Select Committee that the hon. Gentleman may or may not be in charge of in the next few weeks.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I have visited many nursing and care homes in my constituency of Wealden and have met committed and caring care staff. Does the Minister agree it is the inspection system introduced by this Government that is finally shining a light on poor care and driving up standards?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I think I can call her that; we have worked closely together in the past. I am new to my ministerial post, but I have been through the plan, and it is I who has to stand up and defend it. I want to be sure that it is right and that I am as happy with it as everyone else in the Government. My intention is that it will be published before the summer recess.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Within East Sussex, Wealden has the highest number of smoking-related deaths. I welcome the update on the tobacco control plan, but how will my hon. Friend raise awareness and provide equal access for rural communities?

[Steve Brine]

Rural communities are as important as any other. It is up to East Sussex County Council to come forward with a local tobacco control plan, and I know my hon. Friend will be taking a close interest in that, as she does in all matters when representing her constituents.