Oral Answers to Questions
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sajid Javid
I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that, now that we have begun the process of opening up, more work is being done between my Department and the Department for Transport on international travel. The announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary last week will certainly help and be welcomed by the sector and travellers. On GP access, now that we have started to open up, working together with GPs we can see better direct access, and especially face-to-face access.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
We are committed to the five-year community pharmacy contract and to enabling community pharmacy to deliver more clinical services as well as being the first port of call for minor illnesses. Pharmacists are highly skilled members of the primary care team. We are making good progress with referrals from NHS 111 and general practice, with discharge medicines services from hospitals, and with 96% of pharmacies providing lateral flow tests as well as delivering vaccines. We know that community pharmacies are keen to deliver more, and we should be thinking pharmacy first.
Taiwo Owatemi
I am sure the Minister agrees that pharmacies have gone above and beyond to deliver vital medicines and health advice to patients in their communities during the covid-19 pandemic and that their response underlines the huge potential to grow their already massive contribution to our nation’s health. Pharmacies have proven themselves to be a valuable member of the NHS family, so will she prioritise looking at the potential for pharmacies to provide even better primary care? Will she bring forward a plan to unleash their potential post pandemic?
Jo Churchill
I know that the hon. Lady speaks from experience, having been a clinical pharmacist before she came to this place. That potential needs unleashing. We are working across the profession to make sure that pharmacies are enabled to play a fuller part in the primary care family. We should think pharmacy first when we have minor ailments, and pharmacies should be enabled to do everything they can.
Sajid Javid
I think we would all agree in this House that GP practices have done a magnificent job in responding to the pandemic, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all GPs and their staff for the work that they have done and that they continue to do. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of face-to-face access. We can all understand why it changed during the pandemic, but as we open up, we can start to provide more of this, particularly for older people. Over the coming weeks and months, that will be a priority for my Department.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
As I said in response to an earlier question, this is a huge priority for the Government and, again, I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised the issue. It is an issue for her constituents and for constituents throughout the country. She referred to the research by Cancer Research UK. I am afraid that it is right: there are thousands of people who did not come forward. We can understand why, so let me say this again as it is so important: for anyone concerned, please do come forward. We have provided additional funding—more than £1 billion—for more diagnostics and we will continue to provide additional support.
Coronavirus
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
May I start by associating myself with the many Members who have paid tribute to Jo Cox? As we have heard from the tributes, she transcended intake and party in bringing people together, and my thoughts are with her family at this time.
There have been many excellent speeches from both sides of the Chamber. People who will be voting different ways often made many similar points. I believe that shows the disappointment that we all feel that we are here once again, grappling with many overlapping and multiple considerations.
There were some particularly thought-provoking Opposition speeches, by my hon. Friends the Members for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), for Luton North (Sarah Owen), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). I particularly enjoyed the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North and her repeated use of the word hopeless—a word that I am sure is on many people’s lips at the moment. She was right that we have been here before—at Christmas, with the Prime Minister dangling the carrot of freedom before pulling it away at the last minute. It is the hallmark of a Prime Minister who struggles to deliver bad news to the public.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East made the similar point that there is a pattern here of the Government making the same mistakes over and over again. He also rightly highlighted the continuing failure to provide adequate financial support for those who self-isolate—a point that was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport and is particularly apposite today, when a Government report has reached the news which states that the current self-isolation policy has “low to medium” effectiveness and that there are “barriers” to self-isolation. That is a point that we have been making since the start of the pandemic, so it is about time the Government listened to us and to their own advisers and fixed it.
It would be remiss of me not to highlight the fantastic contribution from my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, who drew attention to how the announcement came out, once again, via the media. He also raised an important point about the enhanced measures that a number of areas, including our own county of Cheshire, have been put into this week. Unfortunately, we have seen a surge in cases, but there is apparently no prospect of our getting a rise in vaccines.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
When I spoke to my fellow healthcare professionals in my local hospital vaccination centre weeks ago, many expressed their concerns about the delta variant and its possible impact on the local NHS and on delaying lockdown. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to do more to prevent workplace burnout by providing more workplace support to our fellow healthcare professionals, who have spent the past 18 months supporting the Government through their incompetency?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We owe a great debt to those in the NHS and to those who have worked on the frontline during the past 18 months. Last week, the Health and Social Care Committee released a very important report on burnout; I really hope that the Government address it, because without the workforce, the NHS is nothing.
To return to the issues in Cheshire, we have not had the increase in vaccines that the surge in cases requires and that the Government’s own scientific advisers say is the best way to deal with such an outbreak. Our constituents are being sent far and wide to get their first jabs. We have fantastic volunteers and NHS workers ready, willing and able to deliver those jabs, but we need the Government to match that ambition by increasing supply. That will be where we can make the most difference.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester also made a very important point about how we are now in the worst of all worlds with the new guidance that was issued at the same time that the regulations came into force. We are now advised not to meet indoors: again, that diverts people away from the hospitality sector, which was just opening up again, but without a penny more in financial support for it. As he mentioned, other sectors have also been affected by the regulations and are still not getting any additional financial support in recognition of the change in policy.
On the issue of guidance and law, I hope that the Minister will look at last week’s report by the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, which stated that the use of guidance had
“in some instances undermined legal certainty by laying claim to legal requirements that do not exist. The Government does not have, and must not assume, authority to mandate public behaviour other than as required by law. The consequence has been a lack of clarity on which rules are legally enforceable, posing challenges for the police and local government…and potentially undermining public compliance and confidence.”
If living with covid means living with guidance rather than laws, I really do urge the Government to read that report before they proceed down that road.
Will the Minister clarify whether the Government are still making decisions based on data rather than dates? As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), pointed out, the Prime Minister was pretty clear that the 19 July was the “terminus date” for restrictions, yet paragraph 7.4 of the explanatory memorandum accompanying the regulations states that the delay is
“to gather more evidence that the…tests can be met”
under the road map in the light of the delta variant. There would be little point in gathering that data if it were not used to inform future decisions, so that rather implies that 19 July might not be the end date after all.
As the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) pointed out, there is no mention in the explanatory memorandum or the regulations of the two-week point at which things will be reconsidered. Of course, we all hope that 19 July is the end date, but we have been down the road of false promises many times in the past 18 months, and I do not think it unreasonable to be a little sceptical about what the Prime Minister says and what actually materialises, given his record to date. Any clarity that the Minister can shed on the precise reason for the delay would be much appreciated.
Of course, it did not have to be this way. The delays to our unlocking that we are debating were not inevitable; in fact, they were totally avoidable. The British public have been magnificent throughout the crisis—they have followed the rules and played their part. Yet when they see world leaders ignoring social distancing at a barbecue but are told that the rules cannot yet be relaxed for them, and when they see thousands of people attending football matches but are told that they cannot attend their own children’s school sports day, they grow frustrated at what they see as a lack of consistency from those who make the rules. That frustration grows into anger when they see a Prime Minister who has thrown it all away by keeping the borders open and letting the delta variant run wild through the country. As a result, the delta variant now makes up 96% of new infections. That did not happen by accident, and, as the chief medical officer said on Monday, we would be lifting restrictions now if it were not for the delta variant. All that good work and all the benefits of the vaccine have been blown because the Prime Minister was once again too slow, just as he was too slow with the first lockdown, the second lockdown and the third.
I know that the Government will say that they acted as soon as they could on the information that they had, but the explanation for why they did not act sooner on the delta variant has changed in the last few days. We were initially told on multiple occasions that the data did not support putting India on the red list earlier because the positivity rates of the new variant were three times higher for Pakistan, but now we are told that India was not put on earlier because the variant had not been identified as one of interest or concern.
Neither explanation stands up to scrutiny. The only published data on the Indian variant does not show a positivity rate three times as high for Pakistan, and the idea that action was taken shortly before it was designated as a variant of concern does not explain why Pakistan and Bangladesh were red listed weeks earlier. The only credible explanation I can therefore find for treating India differently is that the Prime Minister did not want to scupper his trade visit and photo opportunity with the Indian Prime Minister.
Instead of excuses, we should be getting an apology. It is beyond doubt that the Prime Minister’s incompetence, dithering and vanity have cost this country dear, and that is the only reason why the full unlocking of this country is not going ahead next week. Having heard today via WhatsApp from Dominic Cummings what the Prime Minister thinks of the Health Secretary, I wonder whether the Health Secretary has at any point in the last few weeks had similar feelings towards the Prime Minister. If he has, at least that is something we can both agree on.
A Plan for the NHS and Social Care
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) [V]
I start by thanking the NHS and all the staff at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire for all the incredible hard work that they have done over the past year.
I would like to highlight one of my constituents’ most pressing topics of concern, which is the need to rebuild our NHS and reform social care. Everyone in Britain has the right to be kept in good health and cared for from cradle to grave. It saddens me, therefore, that far too little is being done to fulfil that promise and that our NHS staff are paying the price for the failures of those in government. With children’s mental health referrals increasing by a third last year alone, over 1 million patients waiting more than six months to start treatment, and 370,000 suspected cancer cases that have gone unseen by specialists, now is the time for an NHS rescue plan.
The pandemic has exposed the issues that 10 years of austerity created for the NHS. Unable to paper over the cracks any longer, we can now see how badly the Government prepared our health system for this crisis. The NHS is not failing; it is just being failed. Even before the pandemic struck, we were short of 40,000 nurses and 7,000 doctors in all settings, and the number of community nurses, health visitors and mental healthcare specialists had all been cut between 2010 and 2020—a conscious choice made by this Government to run down the services that we all rely on. That is why we need bolder remedies than the weak response proposed by the Government. Embarrassed by the crisis that their cuts caused, they are short on ideas and even shorter on answers.
Nowhere is this clearer than in social care. Each and every year, we have been promised far-reaching reforms, and every year this Government have proved to be an abject disappointment. One and a half million people have unmet care needs in Britain today. We cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care too, yet the Government have so far been woefully unable to fill the over 110,000 vacancies open in the sector. The care system’s problems run from top to bottom. Carers are paid low wages on zero-hours contracts that rarely provide them with the time or resources to offer the comprehensive, high-quality care that they themselves want to give.
Funding, too, is in a state of acute crisis. The Government’s cowardly choice to pass the brunt of austerity on to local councils has stripped £8 billion from care budgets over the last decade. Millions of older people now fear that they will lose everything they own—everything they have worked for their entire lives—simply to afford the most basic care in their last years.
With 2,000 people with learning disabilities trapped in unsuitable care settings and a lack of beds accounted for by fully one third of patients stuck in hospitals waiting to be discharged, now is the time for wholesale reform. We have a duty to make the “new normal” better than what came before. The NHS needs its funding restored and its vacancies filled. The backlog of operations, referrals and appointments must be cleared. Our care system, left in the lurch for so long, must finally be reformed to meet the standards we expect, with better paid, better trained staff, who have the time to care for those in their charge.
In closing, I will say this. The Government are eager to claim the NHS’s successes as their own, but we should thank instead the thousands of healthcare workers who have done more than ever before to keep the system going. They gave us their all. Who are we to do any less in return?
NHS Pay
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this important debate. As a former NHS worker and a current member of the Select Committee on Health and Social Care, it is undeniable that I feel passionately about this issue. I know that my constituents in Coventry North West share my strength of feeling towards this subject, as expressed by the hundreds of emails I have received and the thousands of rainbows still dotted in the windows of homes across Coventry.
The last year as been the toughest year in the NHS’s 72-year history. NHS workers have been pushed to the limit and stretched beyond our wildest imagination. They have worked 1 million hours of unpaid overtime and sacrificed more than should ever have been asked of them. They have done this to keep us, the public, safe. In the last year, at least 230 NHS workers have tragically paid the ultimate sacrifice and lost their lives to covid while serving others. My thoughts are with their families, their communities and the colleagues they have left behind.
After a year of intense sacrifices and unprecedented pressures, it is clear that NHS workers deserve better than the real-terms pay cut proposed. Indeed, our NHS heroes deserve a pay rise. The nation, including members of this Government, clapped on their doorsteps every Thursday to applaud the work of our NHS covid frontline workers. As has been touched on today, however, claps will not pay NHS workers’ rent or bills and cannot be exchanged for weekly food shops.
It must also be emphasised that the ramifications of this pay cut are not just confined to the household finances of our NHS workers. It will exert further pressures on our local high streets at an already precarious time for our local and regional economies. A proper pay rise for the staff of University Hospital Coventry would feed directly into the shops and businesses in my constituency. I have heard at first hand from small business owners that high streets such as Jardine Crescent, Holbrook Lane and Wolseley Avenue would warmly welcome the rise in local spending power to ameliorate the conditions of the last year.
In addition to the impact on our local high streets, I feel compelled to touch on the staff vacancies crisis that our NHS faces. It is alarming but unsurprising that the mental and physical toll of being overworked and underpaid is driving too many NHS workers out of the profession. The extent of this crisis is vast, with an estimated 100,000 staff vacancies, and it is clear that we must act quickly to retain current NHS workers and recruit many more to reduce the significant over-reliance on expensive bank and agency workers. No clearer message can be sent to current and prospective NHS workers about their value than fair remuneration.
Finally, I want to highlight the inequalities that this pay cut will exacerbate. The effect of the pay cut will be heavily skewed against women. Some 76% of workers—nearly 1 million NHS staff—affected by this Government pay cut are women. Surely this is not the message we want to send about the worth that our society places on the work of women. A pay rise will not begin to cover the personal sacrifices made by NHS workers while caring for strangers at a time of need. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that NHS key workers are paid fairly.
Covid-19: Community Pharmacies
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for securing this crucial debate. As a qualified pharmacist, I know the important role that community pharmacists play at the heart of communities, going above and beyond for their patients on a daily basis. I thank those in my constituency such as Allesley pharmacy and Rotherham Road pharmacy for their ongoing hard work. Since the start of the pandemic, much of our high street has shut up shop, faced with the unique threats that covid presents. Community pharmacies, on the other hand, have opened their doors to all those who need them. They quickly adapted their services to be covid secure, and offered face-to-face advice and healthcare on a walk-in basis when communities needed it most. They have been a shining light in the dark times for our high street and taken the strain off other sections of our health system.
We should celebrate the innovation shown by community pharmacists. Pandemic delivery services ensured that patients shielding at home were able to access their prescriptions without putting themselves at risk, and pharmacists reviewed the medication for those discharged from hospital, helping patients manage their medicines properly, reducing confusion and improving patient safety. They have used their expertise to support the national covid-19 vaccination programme, making it easier for many to receive the vaccination at their own convenience, from a familiar trusted face.
However, these changes have come at a huge cost, both financially and emotionally. Pharmacies have been left to fund the increased staffing costs, PPE, cleaning and social distancing measures that came with the effects of covid. Coupled with a reduction in over-the-counter sales and services, many are now facing serious financial challenges. Yet pharmacies have received no targeted funding for their efforts. Instead, this Government have taken advantage of the good will. From the ongoing effects of the devastating cuts of 2016, to the unforeseen cuts of the last year, pharmacies have been left in the lurch, forced to fend for themselves.
The systemic underfunding has put community pharmacies in dire straits and many owners have been left having to use their own money to keep these vital parts of our community afloat. A third of pharmacies and businesses in England are now in deficit and many have closed for good. It is counterintuitive that pharmacies are being forced to close in the midst of the pandemic. If we do not act now to stop the loss of community pharmacies, our high streets will be hit hard and many of the most desperate and deprived will lose their main link to NHS services. Only by picking up the extra costs faced by pharmacists and writing off the £370 million in emergency loans—that most will struggle to ever repay—can the Government ever hope to fulfil their promise to do whatever it takes.
Looking ahead, we need to understand the value and work that our community pharmacists do every day. Not only do they provide a key link between individuals and a wider NHS but they are a vital part of our plan to address the health inequalities that many in my constituency and across the country, are seeing grow more and more. Our pharmacists have a fantastic set of skills, and a broad knowledge and expertise that can take some of the burden from the overstretched primary care network. I hope the Minister will listen to what has been said, because now we need active steps to give community pharmacists guaranteed support grants and to fully fund the enhanced community and public healthcare and covid-19 booster vaccinations. The Minister and his colleagues in the Treasury should remember that the success of pharmacies does not simply keep our communities healthy. They also inject life into our high street—which themselves have been ravaged by the pandemic. An investment in pharmacists is an investment in public health, local economies and preventing future pandemics having the startling impact that we have seen in the past year. This is an investment that will pay for itself many times over.
Covid-19 Update
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Hancock
I have looked into this in great detail, as my hon. Friend will imagine, as she is experienced in these areas. The result of what I have looked at is that there is no trade-off. If covid gets out of hand, that increases non-covid ill health and non-covid deaths too. When it comes to mental health, I was talking only yesterday to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who are clear that a second peak getting out of hand is bad for mental health, not least because of the mental health impacts of long covid for people who survive covid but for whom the condition lasts for months and months, which is an issue very close to my heart. A proposition has been put forward that there is some trade-off between covid health and non-covid health, but I have looked into it in great detail and it is false. The best way to improve the non-covid health of the nation is to ensure that covid says under control.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
During our coronavirus briefing for Members on Monday, the deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said of the pandemic that it was very easy to lose control and harder still to gain it. Only yesterday, the Department of Health and Social Care released figures stating that 19,724 people had tested positive for the virus. With positive cases of hospital admissions increasing across the country, death rates are sadly rising, and on the admission of the Secretary of State’s own scientific advisers, there are many more to come, so does he believe that more can be done to regain control and stop the spread of this deadly disease? Does he also believe that proper financial support is in place for people in need in these high-risk and very high-risk areas?
Matt Hancock
Yes, I do think more action is needed, and that is why we are taking it today.
Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Just yesterday the Prime Minister and the Government unleashed a new package of restrictions and tiers in order to tackle the transmission of the coronavirus. Yesterday afternoon, in a meeting with west midlands MPs, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care told the MPs present that all bar two areas—Dudley and Coventry—will be placed on tier 2 restrictions. When I asked him whether he could let me know the scientific basis for Coventry and Dudley being on tier 1 restrictions, and what could trigger a move to tier 2, my question was ignored and unanswered. When I asked how soon after a governmental decision has been made to move a constituency from one tier to another Members and community leaders would be alerted, I received no answer.
This is utterly unacceptable. My constituents in Coventry North West deserve better. They are doing everything they can to hold up their end of the bargain to ensure that transmission is low and stays that way. They deserve more clarity on the evidence behind the Government’s decisions. Clarity ensures adherence. Without it we are flailing in the wind, and people are suffering. Right now, the Government risk losing confidence in their ability to see us through this crisis. They have wasted months of precious time and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, and are still not getting it right. Will the Minister let us know just how much notice each local area will be given if a change in its restriction level occurs, and how local communities and local leaders will be told of these decisions?
To borrow a phrase that we are all too familiar with, winter is coming. It is imperative for the Government to be better prepared to tackle the virus, and equip our hospitals and care sectors with the resources they need to handle the second wave. I fear that the Government have not learnt lessons from spring, and that our care sector will be under-protected. I fear that our hospitals will be ill prepared to cope, and that non-covid patients will once again be relegated to the back burner, because the right precautions and planning are not in place to deal with what may come.
Will the Minister let the House know what the Government are doing to prepare for the pressures on our NHS that winter will bring, in particular for cancer patients? What plans will be in place clearly to address sprawling waiting lists for cancer services, and what additional support have the Government given to the many thousands of people who have had their cancer treatment disrupted over the course of the pandemic? These are pertinent question that we have asked the Government time and again, but yet again they are providing us with little clarity and no answer—on the back foot, as usual.
This is an opportunity for the Government to do better, and, in the interests of the country, I really hope they do.
Human Tissue
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab) [V]
I would first like to pay tribute to my predecessor, the former Member for Coventry North West, Geoffrey Robinson, whose life-saving private Member’s Bill will lead to significant changes in the way we approach organ donation. Geoffrey has said that it was one of his proudest achievements, and I am sure that Members across the House will join me in wishing him well in his retirement.
Through the hard work and determination of campaigners and Members from across the House and the support of the Government, the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act is now law. I commend the Daily Mirror for its awareness campaign and for raising support for Max Johnson, a young boy who desperately needed a new heart, whose story touched so many of us. Keira and Max’s story showed the many human sides of the campaign to bring about the change in the law.
The NHS estimates that 3,544 people are awaiting a transplant in the UK today, and in the last month, 186 have received a transplant. Too many lives have been tragically cut short because donors were not available, or the transplant was not received in time. However, we are lucky that science has allowed organ transplantation to overcome technical limitations and become the life-saving success it is today.
From tomorrow, the new opt-out system in England will provide a lifeline for hundreds of people desperately in need of a transplant. Indeed, with this change, more people will receive a vital organ to reunite them with their loved ones and allow them, in most cases, to lead an ordinary life. Of course, there are legitimate concerns about the timing of this change, patient safety and whether we should allow an opt-out in the midst of an epidemic. It is fair to say that no one saw this coming, at least not to this extent. But for many patients who have been on the waiting lists for a kidney or another vital organ, the change could not come any sooner.
As the Minister said, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) emphasised, patient safety must come first. Those with symptoms of coronavirus or any other life-threatening impediment will need to be sifted out. I seek further reassurances from the Minister that extra precautions are in place to reassure my constituents that any organ transplant conducted during this time will be appropriately screened. If confidence is lost in this new system, vital donors from a wide range of groups may be lost because they do not feel safe.
We must understand that some communities are apprehensive about the donation of their organs, which can be due to cultural and religious sensitivities around the displacement of organs from the body. There is also a low uptake among ethnic minorities with particular blood types. The NHS estimates that over 1,800 black, Asian and ethnic minorities are currently on the waiting list for a transplant. Last year, 900 ethnic minorities received a donation from a deceased donor, and only 114 ethnic minorities donated their organs after they had passed away. The sad truth is that ethnic minorities tend to wait significantly longer for a successful match than other patients. In the light of tomorrow’s change in the law, more awareness building needs to be done, to emphasise the importance of organ donation within ethnic minority communities. Although those numbers will naturally rise, it is important that the Government do more to encourage vital donors to stay on the list.
Tomorrow’s change in the law is a welcome and long- overdue step. It was a hard-fought campaign and an example of the House coming together, and I will continue to champion this issue, like my predecessor. Overall, this is for the hundreds of people awaiting transplants across England who will receive a life-changing and life-saving transplant that will allow them to live their lives.
Health Inequalities
Taiwo Owatemi Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate about health inequalities in our country. My constituents gave me the privilege to serve Coventry North West, and it is an immense honour to be here. I owe my amazing team of activists—and, most importantly, my constituents —a great deal.
I follow in the footsteps of a much loved member of this House, Geoffrey Robinson, who has been a fixture of the city and this Chamber for 43 years—long before I was even born. Geoffrey’s unwavering support for our local motoring industry was nationally applauded. During his final term, he was instrumental in changing the law on organ donations, which is something that I will continue to champion. I thank him for his service to our constituency, and wish him and his family the very best.
Coventry is a proud English city of culture, and my part of the city boasts incredible diversity. Our vibrant Irish and Sikh communities helped to grow Coventry’s booming industries after the second world war. Coventry was a major site for the UK’s car manufacturing. We hosted the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot and the General Electric Company—for hon. Members whose memories can stretch that far. Indeed, we were a city that produced things, but that industrial base was almost wiped out overnight by Thatcher and her Government. The city has seen a lot of changes since the closure of these companies, but Coventry has always been an inclusive city—from university lecturers to students; from public sector workers to manual labourers. Even today, so many have made my part of Coventry their home.
My constituency is also diverse in the lay of its land—from the sprawling green country fields of Bablake approaching the villages of Keresley and Allesley to the west, to the cityscape further to the east—but at its heart is its community spirit. Across our six wards, residents are supported by numerous community centres and voluntary organisations with a common goal: to enrich and empower the community. As the first female MP for Coventry North West, I hope to follow in the footsteps of Lady Godiva and champion fairness. I am also the first MP of Nigerian heritage—specifically Yoruba —to represent a west midlands seat, and that is an honour that I carry with immense pride.
Many people would not have guessed this, but I am actually a twin. As a piece of trivia for hon. and right hon. Members, I can tell the House that in the Yoruba culture, every twin is named Taiwo or Kehinde, with Taiwo being the name of the first-born twin. My brother, mum and uncle are watching from the Gallery this afternoon, and I like to imagine that my dad and older brother Ayobola are looking down proudly from even higher up, in heaven, right now, too. I thank my family for all their unwavering support and encouragement.
My two fellow Coventry Labour MPs and I reflect the diversity, tenacity and strong values of Coventry. I look forward to working with them to advance Coventry’s cause during this Parliament, and to welcome the world as we celebrate becoming city of culture in 2021.
I am a churchgoing Christian, and my values—of community, family, inclusion, and never walking by when we see hardship—are grounded in my faith. I know that those values are shared by the people of Coventry, as Coventry is the city of peace and reconciliation. Those values are also Labour values. Indeed, I believe that everyone should have the opportunities they need to live a long, healthy and happy life.
The topic of this debate—health provision—is very close to my heart. Having lost my father when I was aged just seven, I became passionate about healthcare, and about supporting the dedicated professionals who sacrifice so much for us for so little thanks. But as a senior cancer pharmacist, every day I have seen our health service and adult social care system fail under continuous strain, without the resources they need. I was astounded to find out that the poorest in Coventry can live 18 years less than the richest in Westminster. We in Coventry deserve a better standard of care across the board, and I will be working with my colleagues in Coventry to fight for an urgent care centre so that we can have that better standard—I will always fight for that. Now that we have left the European Union, the Government can finally put their money where their bus is and properly fund the national health service, giving places such as Coventry the funding they need to provide good-quality healthcare.
Homelessness is becoming an increasing concern in our community, and Coventry has the largest food bank in the country. Although that reflects the good will of the people of Coventry, it also highlights the Government’s failures to help to cover the cost of living, and to invest properly in local emergency support for vulnerable people in crisis. Our housing is in crisis, too. At the core of every housing project should be genuinely affordable social housing, and legislation should require proper social infrastructure to be built alongside these projects. And, yes, we must also protect our green spaces.
Social mobility is a passion of mine. I believe that education provides a path to success. It astounds me that since 2013, pupils in my constituency have faced an 8.7% real-terms cut in funding. We are well below England’s average for educational attainment, and pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are often left behind, with inadequate provision to meet their needs. For too many young people growing up in my constituency, violence at home or on the streets is a reality, while West Midlands police and community services have faced severe cuts. This, too, can hold young people back. How can this Government claim to be the party of aspiration and opportunity when they stunt the growth and true potential of my constituents?
Coventry deserves the chance to thrive. It is in the nation’s interest that Coventry forms a central part of the midlands engine. Our history of technological and industrial innovation has created a natural home for world-class industrialists, researchers and academics—which, as I am sure the Government will agree, makes Coventry the obvious location for the environmentally sustainable Gigafactory. The midlands engine cannot run without the motor of a place like Coventry, and I will make sure that my city is never left behind.
As the MP for Coventry North West, I will ensure that every decision I make in this place is relevant to the lives of the people who put me here. I do not want to be known for extraordinary words in Hansard, but rather for the tangible difference my words make. I will be the MP who listens to her constituents about their concerns and aspirations. I will be the MP who protects our jobs and our beautiful green spaces, who stands up for good-quality homes and high-quality education, who sticks up for our NHS and protects the most vulnerable, and who fights for more police on our streets and opportunities for the next generation. I will spend my time in this House standing up for my constituents, for my patients and for the public services on which we all depend. My community in Coventry expects no less, and that is how I will serve it.