Integration White Paper

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend knows, by virtue of the outcome, the persuasive and compelling case made by him and other right hon. and hon. Members from both sides of the Chamber in respect of Frimley ICS and its boundaries. As so often in this place, my view is, “If you ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and his ICS is doing a fantastic job and other ICSs can learn from its success. Mechanisms and organisations through which chairs of ICSs get together and share best practice already exist, but we will continue to examine whether that could be better systematised, so that best practice can be disseminated more widely.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

We have heard already how budgets can be pulled, how place leaders can be appointed and, importantly, how shared outcomes can be set between health and care through our health and wellbeing boards with local authorities. Will the Minister assure me that accountability of the single accountable person will come through democratic structures, such as health and wellbeing boards or local authorities, to ensure that that if the public are unhappy, they can change things by voting them out?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady will know from the debates on the Health and Care Bill that we are moving forward with opportunities for local authorities to be engaged not just at partnership level, as some are already, but more directly with the NHS at the ICB level. Health and wellbeing boards will continue to be a hugely important part of that.

Children’s Mental Health

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Children’s mental health has been ignored by the Government for far too long, way before the covid pandemic, although over the past two years, sustained periods of isolation, academic stress and uncertainty have taken a further toll on our young people. It is shocking that a third of children in need of support find themselves turned away from mental health services, despite a referral from a professional. For others, the waiting times can be agonising.

Across England in 2020-21, three quarters of children were not seen within four weeks of being referred to children’s mental health services. In my area, covered by BLMK ICS—the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes integrated care system—60% of children referred to children’s mental health services are not seen within four weeks. We expect, and our young people deserve, better.

Early intervention and preventive services are vital to giving every child a healthy start in life and support for their future emotional wellbeing and good mental health. Yet during the last 11 years, in response to huge Conservative Government cuts to our local public services, charities and the voluntary sector have had to step up to ensure that our children have access to support services.

Across Luton and Bedfordshire, the charity Chums provides mental health and emotional wellbeing services to children and young people, and their families. Active Luton has delivered a range of holiday schemes for children up to 16 who are on income-related free school meals, encouraging them to play sports, and engage in arts and crafts, and other enriching activities, as well as ensuring that they receive a nutritious meal. On Monday, I was pleased to visit the KidsOut charity in my Luton South constituency to hear how it supports children who have escaped domestic violence. The charity works with domestic abuse charities such as Women’s Aid to provide toys and games to children who may be living in a refuge or safe house.

While the work of local charities makes a huge contribution to our children’s mental health and wellbeing, they, too, are overstretched and underfunded. Parents and guardians rightly expect their Government to deliver the support their children need, when they need it and on an equitable basis. Mental health and wellbeing are key parental priorities for children’s education and schooling. Parentkind’s annual parent survey in 2021 found that children from less advantaged backgrounds or with additional needs or disabilities are much more vulnerable to mental health issues. Also, the most serious mental health issues in children are more likely to be reported by parents of black, Asian or minority ethnicities, compared with those of white ethnicities. That is shocking and demonstrates how the Government are neglecting inequalities that drive mental health issues in towns such as Luton, which are super-diverse and have pockets of deprivation.

Finally, in this Children’s Mental Health Week, I fully support Labour’s plans to ensure guaranteed mental health treatment within a month, the recruitment of 8,500 new staff, an open-access mental health hub in every community and the provision of specialist mental health support in every school. Labour is ambitious for every child. Through our recovery plan and long-term support for children’s mental health and wellbeing, every young person could receive the support that they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the impact of yet another of Labour’s disastrous PFIs on the funding available to our NHS, and indeed to social care. We continue to work hard to deliver our manifesto commitment to improve on those disastrous PFI schemes. I am very happy to meet him to discuss the matter.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Just last month, Luton lost an outstanding champion in the other place with the sad passing of Lord Bill McKenzie of Luton. Just 21 months previously, he had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis.

Last week I met the chair of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust, one of my constituents in Luton South, who told me that there is no current cure for the disease and that for most people there is no known cause. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps his Department is taking to support research into a cure and to improve diagnosis, support and care for people living with pulmonary fibrosis?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the matter in the House. Pulmonary fibrosis is a very serious condition. Far too many people suffer from it, and there needs to be more research globally—not just here in the UK, but working with our international partners. I will bring the matter to the attention of my officials and see what more we can do.

Dignity in Dying

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her intervention. It must be the case, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) will agree, that all Members of Parliament will be following what happens in Scotland with the greatest possible care. It is an issue that, wherever we stand on the debate, greatly exercises Members of the House of Commons.

I wish to draw colleagues’ attention to the process envisaged by the Scottish Parliament for a debate on this issue. A proposal has been lodged in the Parliament and the initial consultation will close in two weeks’ time. In the new year there will be an analysis of the responses to the consultation, which will feed into the drafting of the Bill. Once drafted, the Bill will be examined in detail by Select Committees, calling for evidence from stakeholders across society. Only once that pre-legislative scrutiny has been completed will the legislation be debated on the floor of their Parliament.

Here in this House we lack anything like such a comprehensive system. Our system for considering private Members’ legislation is entirely inadequate when debating such an important issue. The Government have rightly determined that it should be neutral on the principle of assisted dying, but I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to recognise that neutrality on the legislative process, rather than on the principle, has the effect of siding with the status quo. A refusal to facilitate the debate is a de facto opposition to law change.

Finally, I will ask the Minister some questions about specifics of how the laws in neighbouring jurisdictions would work together. As she will no doubt be aware, the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and other healthcare regulators operate on a UK-wide basis. Can she confirm that if either Jersey or Scotland were to legalise assisted dying, any health and care professional who participated in and followed the requirements of that law would not face prosecution?

The Minister may also be aware that the issue of conscientious objection has previously been treated as a reserved matter by the Scottish Parliament. It should be common ground that, whatever our view on assisted dying, health and care professionals should not have to actively participate in the practice if they believe it contravenes their conscience and beliefs. I understand that the Government’s position is that conscientious objection is in fact already within the competence of the Scottish Parliament: can she confirm to the House that that is the case, and to what extent any legislation on conscientious objection in the Scottish Parliament would contravene the devolution settlement or require the approval of the UK Government?

Finally, I ask the Minister to update the House on the work commissioned by the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), to be undertaken by the Office of National Statistics on the number of terminally ill people who end their own lives by suicide. All of us in this House wish to tackle and reduce the number of suicides, attempted suicides and incidents of self-harm, but in order to do that, it is imperative to understand why many people take that most desperate decision.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. As a fellow member of the all-party parliamentary group on choice at the end of life, is this not fundamentally about enabling everyone to have a good death—be it through palliative care, if that is their wish, or the choice of an assisted death? It is a matter of choice at the end of life. Does he agree?

[Mr Mitchell]

I very much agree with what the hon. Lady says. She has thought about this very carefully. We all want to see choice extended wherever possible in our daily lives, and she is right in what she says.

Many colleagues and former colleagues, including Lord Field of Birkenhead, have changed their mind on assisted dying, whether informed by their constituents or by their personal experience. This House is in a very different place from when this issue was last voted on, more than six years ago. I am afraid that we as a House will continue to find ourselves running to catch up with the public view on this unless a serious process for consideration of this issue is put in place.

Covid-19 Update

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

May I say to my hon. Friend, as I said to one of my right hon. Friends earlier, that even if the symptoms turn out to be less impactful than delta, if we see the growth we are seeing and we get to the kind of numbers that I mentioned earlier, it would be a smaller percentage in terms of severity, but of a much larger number? I ask my hon. Friend to take that into account and the impact that might have on her constituents. I also hope she accepts that by taking these proportionate and balanced measures now, we are in a much better place to avoid any further measures in the future.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State spoke about communications being a key part of his statement. We know that good communications are not just about what someone says, but what they do. Does he accept that the Government have lost the moral authority to ask our constituents and the people of this country to follow all the rules, given that the Government having parties last Christmas in No. 10 blatantly showed disregard for the rules?

Menopause (Support and Services) Bill

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

This debate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) has brought forward, is so important, and leadership starts here, so I declare an interest as a perimenopausal woman.

I just remembered to say that, though, because the brain fog was good this morning when I woke up. We have talked about how many times we want the word “menopause” to be mentioned in this Chamber. I will try to say it a number of times to help my hon. Friend to up the count, but I also want to say the word “spatula”, because I could not remember what it was called, and that is when I first started to google “memory loss” and “dementia”. When I started forgetting words for things—I knew what they were, but I could not remember—I thought there was something wrong and I might be getting early onset dementia. We sort of chuckle, but when I started mentioning it to other female friends, they just said, “Oh, that’s just brain fog. You know it’s linked to the menopause?”

I wanted to raise a number of points that have already been raised about misdiagnosis—we have heard that 41% of medical schools offer no mandatory menopause training. I also wanted to talk about workplaces, which have no legal requirement to have menopause policies or to protect employees experiencing menopausal symptoms. However, when I mentioned this debate in my WhatsApp group on my 40-minute train journey into Parliament this morning, I got more lived experience in those 40 minutes. So I am going to put down my speech and read out some of the responses I received:

“Please talk about the fear of dementia. I am so struggling with brain fog now and know now that I need to go on HRT but so many women struggle with postcode lottery with HRT.”

“Great to see such an important topic being discussed with such importance. Ironically I’ve got my call with the doctor today about HRT.”

“One symptom I didn’t think I mentioned—paranoia. I convinced myself that my husband was having an affair for about seven months.”

“Feeling inadequate at work when I have been doing this for decades. I have days where I can’t seem to find clarity or lift my mood.”

“If my GP tried to put me on antidepressants, I would list all the life experiences I have had without them and insist on a second opinion. I feel strongly that we need to treat the cause, not the symptoms.”

“I have had three years of worrying myself sick that I have cancer. Numerous unpleasant, stressful and invasive tests, and only now, when I ask, ‘Could all these symptoms be menopause’ do they think. Numerous GPs, a urologist and a gynaecologist. FFS.”

“I might mention how I’ve knackered my Achilles tendon. That’s a likely consequence of the menopause because tendons are affected due to lack of oestrogen.”

And we have heard about osteoporosis.

In one of her final comments, a friend says:

“My long-term strategy is education for the medical professionals and society. We are literally provided with sex ed, but it stops at that. Too many women feel lucky if their doctor knows their stuff on this. The amount of women who leave employment because they aren’t coping with symptoms. We are financially, physically and emotionally demonised because of a hormone deficit. I am seriously considering leaving work.”

Another friend says:

“I know at times of stress I often think about leaving work, but so many women are taking early retirement or reducing their hours, not because they want to but because they think they’ve lost it. Menopause needs a myriad of support beyond HRT.”

The final comment:

“My workplace is more likely to put a cabbage wrestling on our meeting schedule rather than some open, frank discussions surrounding this.”

I just want to say, for Trish, Sarah, Caz, Liz and Helena, and for women around our country: viva the menopause revolution.

Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs Report

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on securing today’s debate. His campaigning on the issue has been excellent, and I am pleased to support the points he has raised. I refer to my entry in the register of interests, as I speak as a vice president of the Local Government Association.

We know that drug misuse has had a devastating impact on UK society, costing over £19 billion per year. Drug-related deaths have risen by 80% since 2012, and we are still seeing worrying rises in young people reporting early onset addiction. The latest LGA estimates suggest that around 200,000 people are receiving help for substance misuse, and another 100,000 are not receiving support. Addiction must be seen as a chronic health condition. Like other conditions, it requires long-term follow up. Trauma and mental ill health are identified as key drivers and an accompaniment to much addiction. They are comorbidities, rather than separate problems.

Tackling the problem requires a holistic multi-agency approach, with Government Departments working together to invest in and improve treatment, employment, housing support, and the way people with addictions are treated in the criminal justice system. However, access to addiction treatment and recovery is now a postcode lottery. More than half of state-funded residential addiction rehabilitation centres in the UK have closed in the last eight years, and the capacity of prison recovery programmes has reduced by over 60% in the same period. In some local authorities, funding for addiction services has been cut by more than 40%.

Since 2014-15, the Government have presided over a real-terms cut of £700 million to local councils’ public health funding, and single-year settlements and the late allocation of budgets have created unnecessary uncertainty. The LGA has long argued that reductions to councils’ public health grant, which is used to fund drug and alcohol prevention and treatment services, are a false economy that will only compound acute pressures for criminal justice and NHS services further down the line.

The Government are also failing to facilitate early intervention to divert young people away from drugs and crime, which is an issue raised by many of my constituents. Under the Tories, spending on young people’s services has been cut by 73%. Some 900 youth centres have been closed, and 4,500 youth worker jobs have been cut. Although today’s Budget announcements are welcome, it is obvious that the Government have reflected that much of this was a mistake.

For every £1 spent on addiction treatment, the Exchequer saves at least £3 in crime, health and benefit expenditure, and for every £1 spend on family intervention services, the Exchequer can generate £2.76 in savings. The public provision for prevention, treatment and recovery needs urgent repair, with the impact of the pandemic meaning that the problem will almost certainly get worse and act as a major barrier to levelling up.

To build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton has already said, I hope the Government will commit to take steps to adopt Dame Carol Black’s recommendations to properly fund and resource addiction recovery services and, importantly, cross-Departmental liaison. I hope the Minister understands why last week I asked when she had spoken to the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health to discuss covid, addiction and other important issues, because they are so cross-cutting. I look forward to her response.

Covid-19: Government Response

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am wearing my face covering today out of choice and because I believe it is the right thing to do.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

We know that the success of any public health roll-out comes through working closely with local councils and local government, so will the Minister let the House know when she last spoke to the Association of Directors of Public Health or the Local Government Association about the potential plan B and how it would be successful?

[Maggie Throup]

I have spoken to numerous stakeholders with regard to my portfolio. I reassure the hon. Lady that we address the issues as and when we need to.

Covid-19

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

When the Prime Minister set up the vaccines taskforce he gave it two priorities: first, to discover the vaccines that would work, in order to contract for them or to manufacture them in the UK; and secondly, to work out how to help the rest of the world, which is why we were the first country to put £548 million into COVAX and very much establish COVAX, which now has more than 450 million doses, the bulk of which are Oxford-AstraZeneca, which is our gift to the world. Some 98% of the COVAX jabs that have been delivered and have protected people have come from Oxford-AstraZeneca. Pfizer has also been doing the same thing: from day one its chief executive, Albert Bourla, spoke about vaccine equality, and Pfizer is offering vaccines at cost to low and middle-income countries.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is simply unacceptable that my constituents in Luton South found out about the changed advice on travel to Bedford through the back door, via the media last night. They need thorough clarity and formal information to be provided through our local authorities.

On local authorities, what steps are the Government taking for the prioritisation of turbocharged vaccinations, not just for areas with the new variant but for areas with enduring transmission?

Coronavirus

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

I am pleased that some provisions are being removed from the Coronavirus Act. It is important to note that, although no amendments were selected for debate, the Opposition rightly pointed out that the Government’s handling of the pandemic has resulted in one of the highest death tolls in the world and the worst economic crisis of any major economy, and they have allowed the pandemic to exacerbate the inequalities in our society and to impact black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and disabled people disproportionately.

The public health restrictions have been essential to protect our most vulnerable, but the Government have damaged public trust by failing to publish and communicate effectively the data behind key decisions. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, concluded in our recent report that the Government’s communication

“has not always been transparent enough.”

It said that the lack of transparency in relation to the local lockdown and tiering decisions led to “confusion and mistrust”.

I have heard at first hand from businesses in Luton South, especially from the hospitality sector, the frustration that they felt at not being able to access the information and data that the Government used to inform the decisions that stopped or interrupted their operations. The failure to communicate the 10 pm curfew and the restrictions on wet-led pubs caused particular distress and anger. Businesses could not understand why the Government did not work with them. Publicans told me that they already ran licensed, controlled premises and had already introduced additional coronavirus health and safety measures to keep staff and customers safe.

Businesses need to be able to plan effectively. While the Government are giving confirmation that certain restrictions will be relaxed no earlier than a specific date, that is not sufficient assurance for businesses without having sight of underlying information, and any trends and thresholds to be met. Hospitality businesses need this information to help plan for full reopening, which can take around two or three weeks, if not more, if they need to order supplies and fresh stock and to ensure that they have sufficient staff.

Building trust with the hospitality sector is vital and the Government must improve on the approach taken over the past year. As the PACAC report put it:

“Transparency builds trust, and trust aids compliance with rules.”

Alongside the new road map regulations, I press the Secretary of State to learn from past mistakes and urgently to publish detailed information and data that underpin each step in the relaxation of restrictions.