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Tag: Greg Smith

  • Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    The speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2021.

    It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell). He was absolutely right in the way he concluded his speech: boosters are the answer to this. Boosters, and the vaccine programme at large, give us hope and a path out of covid and back to normal life.

    I congratulate the Government on stepping up the booster programme and aiming to get those jabs into people’s arms by the end of the year. Making that happen will require a lot of focus and attention, and planning of the detail and the logistics. On the basis of my experience yesterday of trying to bring forward my own booster, which is booked for 31 December—I jumped from 7,000 in the queue to 3,000, then curiously to 10,000, before eventually being offered a date in mid-January—there is clearly a lot of work to be done to ensure that we can get those boosters into people’s arms.

    I also welcome the Government’s move to get rid of the 10-day isolation period for anyone who happens to have come near someone who has tested positive for omicron, and to replace that with daily testing. That is a sensible measure. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), I feel vindicated in having voted against the 10-day isolation measure two weeks ago.

    However, let me set out why I will not be voting for the extended mask mandate, for covid passes or for mandatory vaccination in the national health service. I very much agree with my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), that this is a slippery slope. This is going to change the way we operate as a country, not just in December 2021 but whenever another variant—perhaps not of covid but of another virus—emerges. It is a fundamental change in the relationship between citizen and state, and one to be resisted.

    I have argued throughout this pandemic—at times I have then reluctantly voted with the Government, as I did last Christmas, and at other times, such as a couple of weeks ago, I have voted against extending measures—that all restrictions are not without harm in themselves. Even on masks, it may be an easy thing for many of us to do to put one on, but as others have mentioned, to the dementia patient petrified at the masked figure approaching them, to the child with autism, or to the person who is hard of hearing or deaf and cannot read our lips, it has consequences; it does bring harm. Likewise, I have been scared by reports in my constituency of the rise in mental health challenges, particularly among young people—there has been a rise in self-harm in secondary schools. We cannot stand idly by and just ignore that.

    Of course, there is also the damage to our economy. We may not have shut hospitality down, or propose to do so, but I am already hearing from pubs right across my constituency that are losing 20%, 30% or 40%—in some cases 50%—of their Christmas bookings. People are now too scared to go out, and I am afraid that correlates directly with what the Government are saying and how they portray this virus. I took a lot of heart from the news coming out of South Africa this morning that people there were finding it to be a more mild variant and that the vaccines do work. I therefore come back to where I started: let us focus on the boosters and, otherwise, give people back their freedom to choose.

  • Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    Greg Smith – 2021 Speech on the Obesity Strategy

    The speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 27 May 2021.

    Obesity is clearly a huge challenge facing our country, and one that absolutely should not be ignored, but I do fear that the state is significantly overreaching in some of the proposals that have come forward as part of the obesity strategy. The approach to foods high in fat, sugar and salt encompasses a perversely broad range of products, including butter, granola, porridge oats, muesli and protein bars, none of which have any particular appeal to or indeed are marketed to children, yet all of which are treated as junk food.

    Breakfast cereals were previously heralded for high fibre but are now demonised. No distinction is made for naturally occurring sugars and fats from the dried fruits and nuts that are so often present in those products. If the state is really saying that breakfast cereals are bad, where does that naturally push people? A bacon sandwich? A full English? A pain au chocolat? All are things that I am particularly partial to but that I do not think the public health establishment will be keen to endorse. Perhaps people could have toast? But then we see that butter is on the HFSS naughty list.

    Many breakfast cereal producers pay farmers, including in my constituency, a premium for buying their oats, thereby paying for the environmental and wildlife schemes that I am sure we all value. Let us be in no doubt that any policy that reduces cereal-makers’ ability to sell wholegrain cereals will adversely impact on great British farmers.

    Mr Harper

    I was intrigued to listen to my hon. Friend’s list of products. Is not the issue that there is a focus on individual products when, actually, the important thing in getting to a healthy weight is not individual products but a person’s diet as a whole and the balance between individual products across their diet? To demonise individual products is not the way to go.

    Greg Smith

    I absolutely endorse and agree with everything that my right hon. Friend says. It must be about the promotion of a balanced, healthy diet. Some of the things that we all know are not particularly good for us can be part of that balanced, healthy diet, so I absolutely agree.

    The restrictions also undermine some alternatives to high-sugar sacks. For example, protein bars are used by many adults who lead highly active lifestyles. Surely the restriction contradicts the ultimate goal of the Government’s strategy: healthier living.

    Let me move on briefly to the question of TV advertising. Broadcasters and creative industries throughout the United Kingdom are estimated to be in line to lose some £200 million because of the proposals. With children spending far more time watching online content than traditional TV channels, it is essential, not least for our public service broadcasters, that there is an absolutely clear level playing field between TV broadcast and online. Anything less would be to let down our broadcasters, particularly, as I say, our public service broadcasters.

    I would also argue that the 9 pm watershed is equally destined to fail, as research shows that it will lower the calorie intake among children by just 1.7 calories a day, which is simply inconsequential. We need a more proportionate, less interventionist solution that ensures fairness for all. Obesity is a complex problem, but the solution cannot be nannying, ineffective policies.

    I certainly did not get into politics to tell people what they should and should not eat, because when people are free to make an informed choice about the way they live, without coercion or state interference, they are much more likely to keep those changes long term, to the benefit of the health of the nation. I urge the Government to rethink the proposals and strip out the nonsensical inclusion of products such as cereals and protein bars. Let us look once more to freedom, choice and personal responsibility.

  • Greg Smith – 2020 Speech on Mental Health Support for Police Officers

    Greg Smith – 2020 Speech on Mental Health Support for Police Officers

    The speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 25 November 2020.

    Policing and supporting our police officers are both enormously important to me. I have worked with police officers throughout my political career, especially during my 12 years in local government, and every single police officer who serves has my absolute and total respect and thanks for all that they do to keep us safe, often putting themselves in dangerous situations to do so.

    I also speak as someone who grew up with policing. My father served for 31 years. As I reflected on the subject of tonight’s debate, it struck me how policing changed so much throughout his career and continues to do so to this day. When he joined the Birmingham City police in 1970, he was issued with the usual tunic and a truncheon and sent out on patrol. By the time he retired from the Metropolitan police in 2001, stab vests had already become the norm and ASPs had replaced truncheons. As I joined officers in Aylesbury Vale a few Fridays ago to see first hand their day-to-day operations, it struck me how it had become necessary for so many to carry a taser.

    The inspiration for this Adjournment debate came from my constituent Sam Smith—for the record, he is not a relative—who came to my surgery with a number of very well researched points about mental health support in policing, which I shall put to the House and my hon. Friend the Minister in the hope that they will be addressed.

    To set the scene, my constituent is an ex-police officer who served for three years on the frontline. Unfortunately he had to leave service a year ago because of struggles with his mental health caused by the trauma experienced in policing. He reports that throughout his short policing career very little support was offered for his mental health and he points to a strong stigma around mental wellbeing in general. It came as a surprise to him when he found out from a survey of nearly 17,000 serving officers and operational staff last autumn—conducted by the University of Cambridge and funded by the charity Police Care UK, and entitled “The Job & The Life”—that 90% of police workers had been exposed to trauma, and almost one in five suffers with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder or complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Those who work in law enforcement are almost five times more likely to develop PTSD than the general UK population.

    To give a flavour of what our police officers face on a daily basis, the British Transport police were in touch with me this week. The nature of BTP’s work means that their officers regularly deal with the most traumatic of incidents. For example, tragically about 300 people take their own lives on the railway each year and British Transport police officers attend and manage all of those incidents. Some 40% of BTP staff are impacted by one of these incidents every year and over 1,000 staff are impacted by two or more.

    Going back to the survey, among the 80% without clinical levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, half reported overall fatigue, anxiety and trouble sleeping. It is concerning that this information is not regularly provided to officers during their initial training, so that they can be aware of the dangers of the job for their mental health. If someone tried to join the police while suffering from PTSD it is unlikely they would be considered medically fit, so it is worrying that we are allowing so many officers to struggle with their mental health and go through trauma while being responsible for the safety of members of the public. Another sad statistic from the Office for National Statistics data is that approximately one officer every two weeks is taking their own life. The true number and risk is hard to quantify, as not all police forces in the UK are separately recording this data.

    After experiencing the inadequate support currently available for officer mental health, my constituent decided to start a campaign for change. Through his experiences he felt that there was a lack of prevention and support for resilience to help avoid mental health issues and he believes that his force at the time concentrated on aftercare, which he informs me is poorly advertised and rarely used. Officers’ experiences are unique to the force they are serving in, so the level of care that officers receive comes down to individual forces. That position is backed up by Gill Scott-Moore, the chief executive of Police Care UK, who said:

    “There is no comprehensive strategy to tackle the issue of mental health in policing, and that has to change.”

    Indeed, there is no Government mandate or minimum standard for forces’ management of trauma exposure or mental health, and no requirement for anything to improve. This has led to a mix of positive and negative experiences for officers struggling with mental health.

    Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)

    I apologise for missing the start of this very important debate. As a former police officer myself, I am aware of this issue and the additional burden that police officers face in supporting people who also have their own mental health challenges. One constituent contacted me to say that they had tried to take their own life but had been stopped by police officers. The officers said that they wished they could do more, but that they were not trained in mental health. Indeed, today Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr, at a Scottish Police Authority board meeting, said that the

    “level of demand has outstripped capacity”

    and Police Scotland’s

    “professional ability to deal with”

    those with mental health issues. The hon. Gentleman is talking so compassionately about the experience of police officers. Does he agree that we need to make sure that police officers have mental health support to give to other people?

    Greg Smith

    I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I agree with her, particularly on her point about training. I will come on to that later on in my speech.

    My constituent found in his research that, although it is a near costless process, not all forces are recording tragic police suicides separately, so they cannot feed in to the work we must do to prevent those suicides taking place. The research by the charity Police Care UK and the University of Cambridge into police trauma and mental health made headline news in May last year. The research highlights areas in which police officers are not given adequate opportunity to look after their own mental health or that of others. For example, 93% of officers who reported a psychological issue as a result of work said that they would still go to work as usual, and 73% of those with possible or probable PTSD have not been diagnosed and may not even know that they have it. This represents a huge human cost to police officers’ wellbeing, and the implications for performance and public safety do not bear thinking about. With figures like these, I put it to my hon. Friend the Minister that change is required.

    For a long time now, mental health has come second to physical health. The statistics show that mental illness is as dangerous to a police officer’s health as physical injury, and we therefore need to give mental health the same attention that physical health has received for so many years. The College of Policing is working on creating a national curriculum for police safety training. This is the training that focuses on the physical side of policing. Police safety training was reviewed after the tragic death of PC Harper last year, and it was unanimously agreed by all chief constables that the training should be consistent across forces, as there were major discrepancies in the quality of training across the board. I put it to the House that mental health and trauma resilience should feature as a key component to that officer safety training.

    By creating a new, pragmatic, national approach, the Home Office could guarantee that every force would meet the agreed and expected standard to best protect our officers. Initiatives such as the national wellbeing service are very welcome. However, Police Care UK’s research with the University of Cambridge illustrates that there is an over-reliance on generic NHS services. As long as police officers and staff are on NHS waiting lists, the existing national approach can hope to have only limited success. Challenges such as these have already been recognised by the NHS, which has set up its own specialist service to support the mental health of its doctors through practitioner health programmes. There needs to be an equivalent for our police.

    My constituent’s campaign therefore proposes that the same is needed for mental health in the police force, and that a 360° approach to mental health needs to be adopted. This would include prevention through education, maintained resiliency and aftercare, so that no matter what stage someone was at in their policing career, they would be better protected from the overwhelmingly high chances of being a victim. In particular, mental health prevention and education on officers’ personal welfare are widely missed, and training currently focuses only on dealing with mental health in the community. The fully encompassing approach should also increase awareness of the existing aftercare support that is currently being underused.

    This consistent and fair approach would also help to break the long-standing stigma around mental health in policing. The benefits of this would go far beyond protecting those who serve; it would mean that police officers were able to carry out their duty more safely and be at less risk from finding themselves in situations where they were being investigated, for example, for misconduct. It would reduce long-term sickness and better retain experienced police officers who would otherwise have their careers cut short. While this is not about money, the long-term financial savings would outweigh the short-term spending required to implement the new approach.

    The fear is that, without Government intervention and guidance, the 43 individual forces will continue to go off in different directions, and someone’s mental wellbeing should not be put down to the luck of which police force they are located in. We are showing a lack of equality not only in the way we view mental health but across the wider policing family. The police covenant offers the perfect opportunity for my hon. Friend the Minister to listen to these concerns and to instigate simple, specific and vital changes to managing police mental health across the UK, such as monitoring PTSD prevalence and suicide rates. Providing the police with a full support network for both physical and mental health is the very least we can do.

    It is clear that no force would send an officer to a stabbing without a stab-proof vest, so why do we as a country continue to send them into repeated trauma without the knowledge of how to safely manage their own mental health? Unlike physical health, mental health is too often invisible, but it is there and we cannot ignore it. Mental illness affects not just the person suffering; it can destroy entire families and cause great heartache for years to come. The question for my hon. Friend is this: will she support and help implement a change nationally to provide equal standards of mental health welfare, training, support and access to therapy for every officer that serves for Queen and country no matter what force they are in?

    Crucially, any initiatives introduced need to make provision for addressing the backlog of cases that need support. Police Care UK has seen a fivefold increase in demand for therapy over the past 12 months alone. Will my hon. Friend the Minister back this campaign? Will she make it mandatory that all police forces in the United Kingdom show consistency and record those PTSD prevalence rates and those sad tragic suicides? As Dr Jessica Miller of the University of Cambridge says:

    “A stiff upper lip attitude will not work in contemporary policing. Without decent interventions and monitoring for trauma impact and a national conversation involving the Home Office and the Department of Health, the alarming levels of PTSD our study has uncovered will stay the same.”

    Every single day, police officers across the country face risks—dangerous risks—defending our communities. I was proud to stand on a manifesto that committed to backing our police by equipping officers with the powers and tools that they need to protect us, including Tasers and body cameras. It is now time that we increased steps to look after their mental health, too.

  • Greg Smith – 2020 Speech on Covid-19

    Greg Smith – 2020 Speech on Covid-19

    Below is the text of the speech made by Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, in the House of Commons on 12 May 2020.

    In addition to placing on record my gratitude to everyone in the NHS and on the frontline, I would like to pay tribute to the many of my constituents who have gone above and beyond. From the community hub set up by Buckinghamshire Council, the support network on Facebook for the town of Buckingham, St Laurence’s church in Winslow delivering meals to the most vulnerable, and the Haddenham Scrub Hub sewing garments for the NHS and care staff, every corner of my constituency is playing a part.

    In particular, I would like to highlight two schemes: the incredible Risborough Basket, set up by Councillor Matt Walsh and the team at Princes Risborough Town Council, which delivers orders from local shops and has its own fruit and veg service for isolating households; and Bernie the Bus, set up by Councillors Paul Irwin and Ashley Waite, which collects food bank donations from people’s driveways. It blasts out music, bringing a note of cheer as it passes through the villages, and on the days I volunteered with it in Quainton, Ashendon, Wescott, Marsh Gibbon, Grendon Underwood, Oakley and Brill, I was blown away by the generosity that so many people showed through their donations. Once we are through this crisis, I hope we can capture the very best of the great British spirit shown by these community heroes, and ensure that we can strengthen our country’s strong record of voluntary service for the long term.

    I have also been proud of the many businesses that have adapted, including farm shops doing deliveries and pubs doing takeaways, and even the drive-through beer service at the Chiltern Brewery. So many businesses have done their very best, and I encourage everyone to shop local to support them. One business, sadly, has completely failed to follow the guidance. HS2 Ltd’s contractors have worked throughout the crisis, not social distancing and causing great alarm in villages such as Steeple Claydon. Contractors have been refusing to follow the rules on staying on site, instead using local shops and making residents fearful of the virus being spread. The chief executive of HS2 Ltd gave me many ​assurances on this at the Transport Select Committee, but the gap between promises and reality continues to be wide. I am hopeful that the HS2 Minister can use the evidence I am sending him to hold HS2 Ltd fully to account.

    On business support, the speed with which the Government put in place financial support and security for people’s jobs, including today’s extension of the job retention scheme, has been incredible. That was no small or easy task. With an economy as diverse and dynamic as ours, however, it was inevitable that not every eventuality would be covered, and I am grateful to the Government for listening and adding support throughout the crisis. An example is the additional £10,000 grants announced for the hardest-hit dairy farmers, which I and other colleagues argued for.

    However, a couple of pieces of the jigsaw need to be put in place if we are to complete the picture. Many owner-directors of small businesses—the backbone of our economy—who perfectly legitimately pay themselves through dividends are becoming increasingly desperate. They are facing uncertain futures. I accept that there is no easy solution, but for those who continue to be unable to trade, support needs to be made available. Secondly, many suppliers to the events and hospitality sector do not have the support that the companies they serve have received, despite their inability to trade being the same. I am hopeful that councils will use their new discretionary grants to support them, along with other firms that have contacted me, such as coach companies, kennels and hauliers. With those two calls heard, I commend the Government for their continuing strong response to this crisis.