Hospitality Sector: Fiscal Support

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Hannah Bardell

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. The hospitality sector is at the sharp end of all market sensitivities and feels every economic challenge acutely. Although it is used to seasonal highs and lows, when covid hit, the sector’s resilience became dependent on intervention. Whether businesses were supplying food, drink or accommodation or operating as a wider part of the tourism sector, the covid and post-covid shocks served their blows on hospitality. There are also the issues of the cost of living—whether that is seen through reduced customer disposable income or increased energy costs—and diversion of shipping in the middle east; each part has a story to tell about the sector.

Indeed, Brexit produced serious challenges in labour supply, and the new visa rules are also creating pressure. Last year, 8,500 visas were provided for the sector, and that is not to mention the dependants who come with health workers and so on, and the students; that also takes its toll. I ask the Government to think again. Although I welcome higher income and a rise in the minimum wage to address the wage disparity in this sector, we must recognise that it needs cushioning and that the sector needs support.

In York, we face the additional challenge of flooding. The floods have an impact. There is usually poor reporting describing York as being like Venice, but I can assure everyone that York is open and functioning. Today, because of the resilience measures that have been put in place, only a small cluster of hospitality outlets are impacted by flooding. However, they have received no business rate suspension—they must receive that, and I ask the Minister to look at that issue—and the Bellwin scheme cannot be triggered for a small area. Those businesses have costs associated with flooding, so that needs to be addressed.

Turning to other fiscal challenges and solutions, we would welcome a reform of business rates. I have long debated in this place how disadvantage and disincentives impact on the sector. Frankly, the Government have demonstrated a sticking-plaster approach during my time here. I am glad that Labour is listening and that it will bring in reform of business rates, but I plead that it puts those reforms in its manifesto so that everyone can be clear about that.

The hospitality sector and other businesses in York have talked about a profit-related tax to make it a fairer system in the long term; I urge the Minister to look at that.

The sector’s turnover in York is worth £1.16 billion annually and is ranked 16th highest in the country. For a relatively small, concentrated area it employs 16,500 people across 1,283 venues to date. However, there is a 5.4% vacancy rate—484 jobs—so we need to consider the impact that is having on the sector’s ability to stay open full time and welcome people into their establishments. I recognise how York has weathered this stormy time and I recognise its resilience. People enjoy coming to the incredible city of York and taking advantage of the offer that we have, but that should not be taken for granted. Ensuring that resilience measures and fiscal reforms are put in place is important for the long term for the hospitality sector in York.

I note that the overseas sponsorship programme has offset some of the vacancy issues, not least for chefs, and we need to ensure that the labour shortages are tackled. I ask the Government to look again at the impact that withdrawing from such schemes will have.

A focus of my work looks at how we can increase the family offer in York. We really need to broaden the base of people wanting to come and use our city for a broader interest. I certainly welcome those interested in talking about the family coming to York because that will also build greater resilience for the longer term.

I know that the Minister understands the sector well, given his previous roles. Indeed, he could come on a whistlestop tour round the city with me. I urge him, as we come up to the next fiscal event, to allow an extension, a quick win, on the covid loans. Businesses could make further investment to grow their businesses if they could pay their loans back over a longer period. That would be a quick and easy win for the Government.

On VAT, I concur with the remarks made earlier. Hospitality Association York has also made the case to me that a drop in VAT would very much assist the sector and provide an economic stimulus. We all want to see that benefit passed on to consumers and customers who use the sector. I want the work that Hospitality Association York is doing in growing the skills and talents in the sector and building for the long term to be recognised and supported.

Finally, as York becomes a world heritage site and York Central is developed for the future, we have great opportunities for investment beyond the walls as well. Up in Acomb we see many independent businesses now providing great opportunities. Right now we are in the heart of the most challenging season for our sector. Despite the ice trail coming up this weekend, the Viking festival over the half-term period and the residents’ festival that we have just had, we need action from the Treasury to ensure that the hospitality sector is sustainable now and in future.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I ask Members to stick to five-minute speeches because I want to try to call everybody and give equality to all.

Future of the National Health Service

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Hannah Bardell

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Ms Bardell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for opening the debate with so many facts that we need to reflect on. From before our first breath, to our very last, since 5 July 1948, the NHS has worked day and night to give us hope.

The principle was that, no matter who we were—duke or dustman, as Bevan said—we knew that, when the hands of the NHS reached out to us, it neither judged nor differentiated. It simply did everything it could to invest in our health. That equality was the way out of health inequality, which is, sadly, so stark today in constituencies like mine, where the most affluent can expect to live for 10 years more than the poorest.

Reading Michael Marmot’s report, there is something fundamentally missing from the NHS. This reorganisation will not address it. We must sew that into housing, air pollution, jobs—the things that really will bring about a fundamental change.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady mid-flow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Before I call the hon. Member for York Central again, I advise Members that the new end time for the debate will be 4.15 pm, and that I would like to call Ministers by 3.45 pm.

[Rachael Maskell]

Unless and until public health is the Government’s first priority, the demands will be ever-growing, but now, unlike before, it is uncertain whether those demands will be met. Just look at covid-19: the countries that put public health first had the lowest sickness and mortality rates, yet over 135,000 lives have been lost here. Whether it is covid or cancer, poverty is the greatest enemy of health, yet as we speak, the surge in poverty that this Government are imposing on our constituents through the changes they are bringing about—whether through national insurance contributions, or by taking away the £20 universal credit uplift and other benefits—is resulting in poorer mental and physical health. After a decade of austerity, poor workforce planning and a continued drive to profit off the sick have taken their toll on our NHS. In 2019-20, according to the King’s Fund, £9.7 billion was spent on private provision, up by £500 million on the previous year. According to the data provider Tussell, £37.9 billion-worth of covid contracts have been let.

The economic and health shock of covid should prompt us to hit the pause button on the NHS. Last Friday, I spent half a day with York Medical Group, with clinicians, managers, GP partners and support staff; I was there to listen. This Friday, I will be at York Hospital, which is also struggling. The GP practice has received 41,000 calls from a population of 44,000 patients on their books in a month; add to that the 5.6 million, rising to a possible 13 million, waiting for treatment in secondary care. The system is imploding, the staff are imploding, and the NHS is imploding. We cannot just keep feeding money into the NHS, and we cannot keep selling it off.

When I read the subject of the debate—“the future of the NHS”—I did not consider the Health and Care Bill to be that, nor did the staff who I met with. In fact, they see the Bill as a massive distraction from dealing with the current crisis that they are having to grapple with, and another assault is just one step too many. Staff are saying that to save their own mental and physical health, they are now having to walk. We therefore have a workforce crisis on top of a health crisis, and the NHS is now in a clinically dangerous place. Government Ministers who completely misunderstand how the NHS works cannot just keep interfering in the system. They need to pause. They misunderstand the professionalism, care, dedication and love of the people who give all that they have—day in, day out—to care for us. As Ministers introduce more complex systems and more private companies into the health service, the NHS itself is falling apart. The Health and Care Bill is not the solution; it cannot be the way forward.

On the integration of the health service and social care, if we do not put the money together, we cannot put the systems together. However, the reforms will create more barriers and more division, rather than solving the challenges before us. The World Health Organisation describes health as

“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

A future NHS must start here. Public health has been so underfunded over the last 10 years, and even under-utilised during the pandemic. It is absolutely vital that it is at the forefront of the future NHS. Regular population screening will start addressing severe health inequalities. Health counselling will ensure that people make the right choices about their future and will divert people who do not access the health service when they need it into early intervention and prevention. If we invest in clinicians in the community to undertake that dialogue and those discussions, and if we invest in social prescribing and other ways of improving people’s lifestyles, we have a real chance to turn this system around.

We cannot delay putting together an integrated public health agenda to drive forward our health service. If we continue as we are, our NHS will not be here. The pressures bearing down now are just indescribable. After listening to staff, all I can say is that the Health and Care Bill is just not the solution.

Oral Health and Dentistry: England

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Hannah Bardell

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Thank you, Ms Bardell, for the opportunity to speak in today’s debate with you in the Chair. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for putting the debate into context. Here I am again debating dental services with the Minister and, yet again, championing the needs of my constituents and the dentists who have worked relentlessly throughout this pandemic in extremely difficult circumstances.

York had a dental crisis before the pandemic. Constituents now tell me that they have to wait at least three years to receive NHS treatment and that those trying to register struggle or simply search for treatment outside the area. We have serious problems in York, as the Minister knows. NHS treatment needs to be available for all and, tragically, it is not. Many are now turning to accident and emergency services to get pain relief or a course of antibiotics. Private care is not an option, nor should it ever be.

Successive Ministers have failed to address this crisis. This month, the Minister was unable to tell me, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) has said, how many NHS dentists there are in my city. The fact that she does not have that basic data gives me little hope that the Government have really got a grip on the scale of this crisis and the needs that must be addressed.

It is perplexing that oral health is seen to be different from other areas of healthcare, and that we have to pay for things that are done to our mouths but not to the rest of our bodies. It did not start that way. When Nye Bevan established the NHS, dentistry was free at the point of need and everyone was entitled to have their check-ups and treatment on the NHS. It was transformative. In 1951, the first assault on our NHS occurred when charges were introduced. That caused Bevan to resign in disgust, and sadly since then the divorcing of oral health from the rest of medical care has failed to serve us well.

Evidence from the BDA—I thank it for the work it does—shows that the pattern of health inequalities in other areas of healthcare is reflected in dentistry and oral healthcare, so it is time for integration, not segregation. Although I understand the point that the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) made, he did not suggest a solution. Of course, we need to ensure that good-quality, healthy food is available for all, particularly those living in deprivation, but it is wrong to blame those individuals for their lack of choice due to their financial circumstances.

This patchwork of failed contracts has courted privatisation and created a dependency on labour from other countries which, simultaneously, this Government are spurning. In the past year, I have been on a journey with many of York’s dentists to learn why, unless we see radical change to the delivery of dental services, the system will collapse. Dentists will burn out or leave—indeed, they are doing so as we speak—and the nation’s oral hygiene will deteriorate further. Even during the pandemic, dentists have been told that they will be penalised if they fail to deliver unrealistic contractual targets while practising in a covid-risk environment.

The NHS dental contract fails to pay. The Minister sets unrealistic targets—units of dental activity—without consideration of the scale of the barriers that dentistry is facing, and without providing mitigation. Ministers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland seem to have understood that, but this Minister has not. In a post-covid world, and against a backlog of more than 20 million appointments—think about the scale of that; we are rightly exercised by the 5 million outstanding secondary-care appointments that we are having to grapple with at the moment—it is baffling that the Government have failed to grip the scale of this deepening crisis and have not instituted an emergency service.

The tightening of the thumbscrews on dentists through their contracts shows no mercy, despite their call for ventilation equipment funding, high-grade PPE and an understanding that requiring treatment rooms to lay fallow before a deep clean can commence due to the aerosol- generating procedures eats into dentists’ ability to deliver their contract obligations. The arbitrary, unevidenced targets require dentists to work round the clock, cancel leave and often their whole lives. They force dentists to focus on high-volume, low-risk work such as check-ups, while patients requiring treatment, not least complex treatment, are made to wait. It is unethical and wrong.

To top it all, the Government’s net spend on dental services, as we have heard, has been cut by more than a third in the past decade. Evidence shows that every pound invested can save over three, as well as teeth. This is the moment to start again, and I am glad the Minister is in listening mode. We have the diagnosis. We know the problems and the scale of the challenge. It is not time to tweak locum contracts or drive our dental staff harder. It is time to get a real, pragmatic solution in place. There is an opportunity to legislate for a national dental service in the forthcoming health and care Bill to solve this problem.

Oral health should be seen as a public health matter. It should attract the planning and preventive approach that any other public health emergency would. Fluoridation, as we have heard, is a no-brainer and brings universal benefits. I urge the Minister to introduce that without delay and end the postcode lottery. A principle needs to be made that everyone should be able to receive free oral health at the point of need—no barriers, and no excuses. Good oral health has to be accessible for all—nationally determined on the what, and locally determined on the how. We need to increase significantly the number of training places for dentists in the UK and ensure that the benefit they gain from training is tied in with their commitment to serve in a national dental service under NHS terms. Training bonds are not unique, and they ensure reciprocity. Therefore, they will bring real benefit to the service. What plans has the Minister executed in order to train more dental staff and ensure that we have sufficient numbers in our dental schools? What discussions are taking place? We would like to know.

Delivery is something that this pandemic has taught us all about. We need a collaborative approach—a place-based system approach—to ensure that we address the scale of the issues. The vaccine programme has settled the debate about emergency provision once and for all, and we are in that space now with dental care. Every child and young person should be able to access dental inspections in school each year, and this should be routine from when children start school. Early prevention would not only save the NHS a lot of money; it would also save children a lot of trauma.

Similar plans could be put in place for care homes. For adults, an accessible check-up service would clear the backlog and enable cases to be triaged, population-wide, into treatment. For some people, light treatment could be provided simultaneously, with more complex cases referred to a booking system.

As we have seen with this pandemic, there are collaborative ways to address health crises. A place-based approach, whereby barriers can be removed, can be enabled to provide the solutions. Rather than struggling to design ever-more challenging contracts and systems to serve a fair model, the Minister could create a national dental service and use this framework to work with local delivery partners. In a matter of months, she could start turning this vital service around for all.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, may I gently and politely remind Members to turn off their phones or put them on silent during the debate?