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  • Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on Standards in Public Life

    Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on Standards in Public Life

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 7 June 2022.

    Over the last few days, I am afraid to say that I have heard far too many people seeking to excuse the inexcusable and defend the indefensible from the Prime Minister on the basis that he got the big calls right, or that he is an election winner. Well, I would certainly take issue with the former, and on the latter I simply say that past performance is no guarantee of future success. I do not want to talk about the merits or otherwise of this Government or this Prime Minister, because that misses the point of today’s debate, and misses an important part of our function here. Those factors should never be used to excuse rule-breaking anyway. We are not here just to deliver x or y policy for our constituents; we also have a wider responsibility on the way that politics is done. That is why tolerating the chipping away of our standards because the ends justify the means should never be an acceptable response from the Government. We are custodians of democracy. How we act, what we say and where we set the limits of adherence to the rules all matter. because they form the baseline for the next generation to work from. If we are not careful, bit by bit, the standards and behaviours that we take for granted will be lost.

    Our liberal democracy is fragile, and it cannot be taken for granted. It has to be cherished, nurtured and supported by us as its guardians every single day. Every watering down of the rules, every reduction in transparency, every snub to accountability has to be challenged, because many Governments want to maximise control and minimise risk. Many Governments also have a respect for the rules and understand their place in history, but when we have a Government with a track record like this one, it really is up to us to push back. Be it by shutting down Parliament, green-lighting breaking the law in a specific and limited way, trying to wriggle out of treaties they have just signed, changing the way standards rules operate retrospectively or excusing breaches of the ministerial code, this Government have a wretched track record of ignoring the rules when it suits them. But rules matter, and how our politics is conducted should be bigger than any individual Government. This place should be a force for good, for change and for the benefit of all. When the rules are bent, ignored or changed to suit a short-term political agenda, we all pay a long-term price.

    This is all about the tone set from the top. It is about leadership. When the Government are led, as they are, by a Prime Minister who behaves as though the rules never apply to him, and who has used every trick in the book to wriggle out of responsibility, we risk slipping into an authoritarian style of Government that we will not easily shake off. Our electoral system and unwritten constitution mean that it is quite possible to have a Government, as we do, who can push through whatever they want and a Prime Minister who believes that he can get away with whatever he wishes to.

    Our parliamentary system has relied on people behaving with honour and respecting conventions. However, when people do not live up to those ideals, and are at best agnostic on, or at worst hostile to, standards, the weaknesses in our system become all too apparent. Democracy is then damaged, and it dies not with a bang, but with a whimper over a period of years, with a tweaking of the rules here and a ditching of a convention there. We have a Government who have become arrogant because of the size of their majority and contemptuous about the need for probity.

    If people see continual abuse of the rules and ever-shifting sands of accountability, they end up saying that we are all as bad as one another, that no politicians can be trusted, and that evasiveness and avarice are baked into the body politic, and if they vote at all, they do so holding their nose. There is no shortage of people out there who are only too willing to believe that that is true of every one of us here. They are only too willing to call us out for being motivated solely by personal gain, and for lacking any kind of responsibility for what we do in office. We do not need to give them any fuel for the fire. We need to show them that it is possible to govern selflessly in the public interest, that standards in public life matter, and that, when it comes to protecting democracy, we can lead, not just follow.

    We have heard how the new code will, in effect, make the Prime Minister judge and jury of whatever process or complaint is put before him. That really grates for a lot of my constituents, who would question whether they have ever had that degree of discretion or latitude in their dealings with Departments, and whether they have had the opportunity to appeal decisions made against on benefit overpayment, child maintenance and the loan charge. People feel that the rules have not been applied fairly to them, and they then see the Government changing the rules as they see fit.

    Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)

    My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about rules. St Thomas More—a former occupant of your Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker—said that this land is planted with rules, and that those rules, like trees, are there to protect us when the wind turns. This issue is about not just this Administration or this Parliament, but Administrations and Parliaments to come. That is why this debate is so important.

    Justin Madders

    I totally agree, which is why what we are arguing for today is so important. These rules will change over time, but it is up to us to ensure that the principles of democracy and accountability stand the test of time. I am afraid that they are under severe attack.

    When I was a local councillor, a long time ago, we had something called the standards board, which was independent, well respected and robust. There was never any question about whether councillors could go on that and determine their fate or decide whether matters would be investigated. The system upheld the seven Nolan principles and was firm but fair. The Prime Minister does not believe that those kinds of principles can apply to how he judges complaints, but how is it possible that when I was a local councillor, we had a far more robust system? That simply does not stack up.

    At the end of the day, the rules should be followed by everyone and should not be changed or watered down in the short term for political convenience. If the Government can avoid the rules whenever they have an inconvenient outcome, how can we tell the public that they have to follow the rules that the Government set? If another lockdown was needed, the incumbent of Downing Street would find it difficult to tell people authoritatively to obey the rules, given what they now know.

    Standards should not be seen as something to be avoided or ignored when the going gets tough. Those values have to be central to how we conduct our business. The ministerial code should not be routinely ignored, as it is, nor should it be altered to suit the Prime Minister of the day. We have to be better than that. We have to be an exemplar—a beacon of excellence. We should remember that what we say and do here matters, not just now, but for the future, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) said, because democracy is only as strong as those who are prepared to defend it. Having seen the empty Government Benches, I do not think that there are enough Government Members who are prepared to do that.

  • Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on Ambulance Services

    Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on Ambulance Services

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 10 February 2022.

    I am pleased to see the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), in his place. He and I have debated many issues on health and social care over the last couple of years, and ambulance services have perhaps not had the attention that we would have liked. I know the Minister has had an extremely busy week, possibly because of the new trend for Ministers having multiple jobs, so I am grateful that he is here to deal with the points that will be raised.

    It is an important and timely debate. We are regularly seeing images of long delays, with ambulances stacking up outside hospitals for long periods of time. Those images demonstrate wider difficulties throughout the whole system, but on an individual level they mean that patients are not getting the care they need as quickly as they should. The blame for that does not lie with the staff—the paramedics, the first responders and the call handlers—all of whom do a magnificent job in very demanding circumstances. We say thank you for their service, not just in the last couple of years but throughout their time in the NHS.

    Despite their efforts, we are in a crisis. Last week ambulance waiting figures outside hospitals reached their highest level in five years. The latest NHS figures show that record numbers of patients in England—over 150,000 of them—have waited in the back of an ambulance for at least half an hour so far this winter, because emergency departments are too busy to admit them. That is the equivalent of one in every five patients—that is the scale of the challenge that we are facing. Those figures sound extraordinary because they are. They are 14% higher than the previous highest total for the number of patients forced to wait during the same period, with the previous high being in the winter of 2019-20.

    As awful as those headline figures sound, the figures for the number of ambulances waiting more than 60 minutes are even worse: they are up 82% compared with the last two winters. These are exceptional and concerning statistics.

    In my constituency, the British Heart Foundation has told me that it is concerned about reports from the North West Ambulance Service that patient flow in and out of emergency departments is currently very slow, with ambulances being held for long periods, which has the knock-on effect, of course, of causing higher category 1 and category 2 stacks. Worryingly, we have heard reports of delays of up to four hours in these queues.

    I am sure these figures, as shocking as they are, will not surprise hon. Members who, like me, have probably had many emails of concern and complaint from worried constituents. Behind these statistics are tens of thousands of seriously unwell people in dire need of help. As the chief executive of the Patients Association said:

    “Going to A&E can be frightening. To then be stuck in an ambulance unable to get immediate medical help once you get there must add to the trauma of an emergency visit.”

    I think we can all understand where they are coming from. The Royal College of Nursing’s director for England also points out:

    “Having to wait outside in an ambulance because A&E is already dangerously overcrowded is distressing, not just for patients but also for staff, who can’t provide proper care.”

    It must be so frustrating for those staff, knowing there are other urgent calls they could be going to, that they cannot leave their current patient because the hospital is already at capacity.

    I agree with those comments. Not only does having an ambulance stuck outside A&E as it waits to offload a patient mean that it is unable to answer 999 calls, which leads to slower response times, but it means we lose ambulance hours. We lost 8,133 ambulance hours in the last week of January due to crews having to wait outside busy A&Es. That is an incredible statistic.

    As NHS Providers points out:

    “safety risk is being borne increasingly by ambulance services.”

    We know that people are dying in the back of ambulances or soon after their admission to hospital because of these long waits. We heard from ambulance chiefs in November that 160,000 patients come to harm each year because ambulances are backed up outside hospitals.

    The shocking report from the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, which is based on NHS figures, did not report how many patients die each year because of ambulances stuck outside hospitals, but it did say:

    “We know that some patients have sadly died whilst waiting outside ED”—

    emergency departments—

    “or shortly after eventual admission to ED following a wait. Others have died while waiting for an ambulance response in the community.”

    The report acknowledges that, whether or not those deaths were inevitable

    “this is not the level of care or experience we would wish for anyone in their last moments.”

    The report also highlights that around 12,000 patients suffered serious harm because of delays, sometimes with a risk of permanent disability. In the same month, more than 40,000 people in England who called 999 with a category 2 condition such as a stroke or heart attack waited more than one hour and 40 minutes for an ambulance. Of course, the NHS target is to reach them within 18 minutes.

    Just last week, NHS figures revealed that thousands of people are dying because ambulances are taking too long to answer emergency calls. The official statistics show that only three of England’s 32 ambulance services are reaching a majority of immediately life threatening call-outs within eight minutes. In fact, the latest available NHS England data for December 2021 shows that the average ambulance response time for category 2 emergencies —suspected heart attack and stroke patients—is 53 minutes and 21 seconds: three times the 18-minute target. Those are incredibly worrying figures.

    The British Heart Foundation also reports that there were 5,800 excess deaths from heart and circulatory diseases in England during the first year of the pandemic alone. Although it acknowledges that these excess deaths were driven by a multitude of factors across the entire patient pathway, it also says it is very plausible that some of the deaths could have been prevented if these people had been able to access urgent and emergency care in a timely manner. If we are to avoid more preventable deaths and disability from heart conditions, it is vital that the most critically ill patients can access the care that they need when they need it.

    Perhaps the Minister will be able to say what action has been taken to address the dangerous impact on emergency heart attack and stroke care and the victims whose lives are being put at risk, what conclusions the Department has reached as to why so many trusts are failing to reach the targets that have been set for them, and what steps are being taken to reduce waiting times for responses to 999 call-outs and ambulance waits. We know that these delays matter. If 90% of 999 calls were answered in time, 3,000 more heart attack victims could be saved each year.

    I have reeled off a lot of statistics. Now I want to give a couple of constituency examples to show what this means for people who have experienced long waits. Thankfully neither case ended in tragedy, but these were clearly difficult and distressing times for those involved.

    One constituent told me that she had waited more than 10 hours for an ambulance, having first called 111 at about 10.15 am, when she was advised to call 999. When she called 999, it took a few minutes for the call to be answered. The call handler confirmed that an ambulance would be coming, before asking if it was OK for her to hang up and go on to the next call. About an hour later, having seen no sign of the ambulance, my constituent called 111 again and was told to call 999, but was then told that the ambulance waiting time was about eight hours. At 2.30 pm she was forced to call 999 again, as her husband’s condition was becoming noticeably worse. By that stage he could not move or talk because he was in so much pain. The call handler took the details again, but advised my constituent only to call if the condition worsened further.

    Another three hours passed, with my constituent’s husband in absolute agony. When she decided to call again at 5.30 pm, she waited more than five minutes for the call to be answered. The call handler asked if the patient was breathing, and said that an ambulance could only be sent if a patient was not breathing, as it was a busy day, although he did also confirm that the request for an ambulance had been prioritised after her call at 2.30 pm—which, by that stage, was three hours earlier.

    The ambulance eventually arrived at 8.45 pm, 10 and a half hours after the initial call. Unsurprisingly, my constituent told me that the paramedics were lovely and could see immediately that her husband needed to go to hospital. When he arrived there, he was scanned and treated, and operated on within 24 hours. It was clear that he needed urgent medical treatment; in fact, he probably needed more treatment than he would have needed had he been seen at the right time. However, in the long run, no serious harm has come to him.

    That is just one example of a person who waited longer than they should have. It was not an isolated incident; we know that this is happening week in, week out throughout the country. Another constituent told me that he called an ambulance after his wife collapsed at home. They are both pensioners. My constituent called 999 at 11.45 am, and was told that an ambulance would not be able to attend for at least nine hours. He cancelled the call.

    The Minister will no doubt be aware of the tragic case of Bina Patel, which has received considerable media coverage, and has been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). Anyone who has heard the calls that were made requesting an ambulance, and the clearly urgent nature of those calls, cannot fail to be concerned about what is happening in our ambulance services. As I have tried to emphasise, these are not one-off incidents; they are part of a wider pattern, and symptomatic of a system unable to cope with the demands placed on it.

    Targets are not being met and people are being put at risk or worse, but NHS England’s response is a proposed new standard contract which contains a “watering down” of several waiting-time targets, with standards lower than those that were in place before the pandemic. The proposals include scrapping the “zero tolerance” 30-minute standard for delays in handover from ambulance to A&E and setting it at 60 minutes, and introducing the additional targets that 95% of handovers must take place within 30 minutes and 65% within 15 minutes. I do wonder how performance can be improved if targets are loosened. The pandemic should not be used as a cover for this, as performance across the system was getting worse before the pandemic. Indeed, it is nearly seven years since the normal targets were met. By scrapping standards for delays in handover, the Government are trying to normalise those longer waiting times. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) asked the Secretary of State earlier this month whether he really thought it should take an hour just to be transferred from an ambulance into a hospital. It should not take that long. Does anyone really think it is acceptable for people ringing 999 to be told they must make their own way to hospital?

    I am sure the Minister is aware of reports in the Health Service Journal last month that several trusts, most notably the North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, advised people calling 999 with symptoms of a heart attack or stroke to take a taxi or a lift with family or friends rather than waiting for an ambulance. I am sure the Minister will want to comment that that is not what we want to be hearing from our ambulance services.

    The British Heart Foundation told me that it recently reviewed two calls to its heart helpline that highlighted instances where patients with suspected heart attacks called 999 and paramedics did attend, but then asked both to have their family drive them to hospital for further tests because the ambulance services in their area were under so much pressure. Neither person actually went to A&E, which is most unfortunate: one did not want to bother their family and the other thought that, if the ambulance was not taking them, their situation must not be urgent enough, which of course was not the case.

    In short, those two patients did not access the care they needed because of the message being sent out about the burden they were placing on the system. That is completely wrong and certainly not the message we should be giving people who are clearly in urgent need of treatment.

    A recovery plan has been announced this week, which, if we are honest, does not really address the issues of the wider NHS and social care pressures. It does not have any real plan for this particular area. The recovery plan, such as it is, is one part of the much wider system overhaul that is needed.

    The Secretary of State said this week that approximately 10 million people represent missing referrals who did not come forward for treatment during the pandemic. I am afraid they may well end up becoming urgent referrals because they have not been through treatment and been spotted and helped at an earlier stage. I do not know whether the Government have given any thought to whether those 10 million missing referrals will lead to increased pressure on emergency services and A&E attendances.

    What about those people whose care was not managed to target? The British Heart Foundation estimates that up to 1,865,000 people with high blood pressure were not managed to target last year, which could mean more than 11,000 additional heart attacks and more than 16,000 additional strokes across England over the next three years if those patients do not get support. Of course, that will again increase pressure on urgent and emergency care services in the longer term.

    I appreciate there is quite a lot of ground to cover here, but when the Minister responds I would be interested to hear his analysis of the situation, whether he believes the examples I have given are part of a wider pattern of concern or isolated incidents, and what he believes must be done to put the ambulance service on a sustainable, safe footing for the long term. Are those images that we have seen of ambulances queuing up outside hospitals a temporary feature of a very difficult winter, problems with the ambulance service in particular, or symptoms of a wider health and social care system that is under incredible pressure?

  • Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    Justin Madders – 2022 Speech on New Homes and Management Companies

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 5 January 2022.

    It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. Happy new year to everyone who is here today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) on securing the debate, on his useful introduction and on the interesting points he made. This may be the first debate of 2022 and it may be a new year, but, as we have heard, many of the issues we are debating are not new and, aside from the leasehold scandal, have had insufficient attention from this place.

    We absolutely need more places for people to live; I doubt there is a Member in this place who disagrees with that. While the Government set some general targets about how many homes should be built, the detail is rightly left, in the main, to local councils. In reality, they and the communities they represent have limited say over what sort of homes are built, where they are built and, as the hon. Member for Wantage mentioned, how the infrastructure that goes with them is delivered. That is the nub of the problem, because we are often told that the wrong type of home is being built in the wrong type of place. That can be argued ad infinitum, and it often is. The bottom line is that we are continually falling short in achieving enough decent affordable housing.

    Decent housing is critical to the national infrastructure. It is the bedrock of people’s lives, yet it is too often left to the market to resolve, and the market is clearly failing. In my experience, developers all too often show contempt for local communities by riding roughshod over the development conditions imposed on them: working longer hours, making more noise, and building higher and closer than they should to existing properties. That creates more work for the beleaguered planning department and puts more demands on councils that, after a decade of austerity, simply do not have the powers and resources to keep up.

    By the time the council manages to catch up with a complaint, quite often the house is already built and the drains put in. It is a massive financial, logistical and legal battle to get developers to stick to plans when they have got that far down the road. Many councils simply do not have the capacity to get into such fights, especially when the case is about a couple of metres. It might not look much on a plan, but for someone living next door, a couple of metres makes a huge difference.

    What about roads being brought up to an acceptable standard, so that they can be adopted by the local authority? People are waiting years for roads to be adopted. I do not blame the local authority, which sets out what needs to be done but does not have the resources or time to continually chase developers who have sold the homes and moved on. Where is the incentive for developers to come back and finish the job they started?

    I want to say a few words about the massive expansion of estate management companies. It seems that the idea of the developer paying the local authority a commuted sum to cut the grass and maintain common parts has had its day. This reduces developers’ costs, although it does not seem to lead to cheaper house prices. It costs the homeowner far more in the long run because they are, in effect, paying twice for the maintenance of open spaces: once through a management fee and once through their council tax. Once again, though, it is the council that gets lumbered with all the grief and blame.

    With developers looking to replace their lost funding streams, with what I hope will be the end of leasehold, I am concerned that estate management companies will become the new payment protection insurance of the house building industry. There is little regulation or transparency and, if we are honest, little need for estate management companies in most settings, so why do we have them? House builders build houses—that is their core business; they are not interested in managing estates. Indeed, they cannot wait to get rid of them to a company that specialises in such things.

    Developers creating an estate management company is nothing more than a calculation on the balance sheet. They have zero interest in keeping the verges neat and tidy after they have gone. If they can make the bottom line look more attractive by getting in a management company, they will. They keep getting away with it because we let them. Why can we not start from the basic principle that the local council should be doing those jobs and that estate management companies are an unnecessary tax on homeowners? How many people are told of the implications of an estate management company or how much it costs?

    What developers say to new buyers in the showroom and what is in the final contract are often very different. By the time the paperwork arrives, it is too late. People may have spent thousands on the move, never mind the psychological commitment they have made. What is said in the showroom often does not appear in any documentation. There is a classic example in my constituency where residents now look out on a 30-feet-high warehouse, which the developers conveniently forgot to mention already had planning permission when they sold buyers their homes. They are still waiting for the KFC that they were told was going to be there. Because that is just sales patter, there is no legal accountability for the lies that are told.

    This is the biggest single purchase people will ever make. There needs to be far greater accountability for what developers say and what they build. At the moment, they seem to have a free pass. Developers with household names work across the country, moving from one project to the next, sometimes leaving behind problems that take years to resolve. Another development in my constituency has ended up in court, with one group of residents pitted against another and maintenance bills racking up in their thousands, because the developers did not do the paperwork or the job properly in the first place. I know that they are causing havoc elsewhere, because other hon. Members have told me. What can councils do? They have no grounds to refuse planning permission on the basis that the developer has been a poor performer elsewhere. How about a fit and proper person test for the directors of those companies?

    In conclusion, I would like much greater political direction and oversight of the house building industry. After all, it will build the homes that we need, but at the moment it quite understandably organises affairs to maximise profits. Housing is a critical part of our infrastructure—having a roof over one’s head is fundamental—but it has been shown time and again that we cannot rely on the market alone to deliver that. Four and a half years on from Grenfell, we still have not really had a decision on who is liable for the defects that were created there, and there is clearly a reluctance in Government to grasp the nettle and take some ownership of the industry.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    Justin Madders – 2021 Speech on Covid-19 Restrictions

    The speech made by Justin Madders, the Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, in the House of Commons on 14 December 2021.

    Having had the dubious pleasure of spending an inordinate amount of time in various Committee Rooms over the past 18 months to scrutinise regulations introduced by the Government as part of their response to the pandemic, I must confess that I have had withdrawal symptoms following the reshuffle, so I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on these regulations today.

    I am sorry to say that, on too many occasions, regulations were debated well after they came into force, so it is positive that at last we seem to be getting into the habit of having debates and votes before regulations become law. I would not want that to be seen as a ringing endorsement of the Government’s approach to parliamentary scrutiny, as two of these sets of regulations were published only at 3 pm yesterday, less than 24 hours before this debate began. I know things move quickly, but some of these regulations have been the subject of consultation for many months. There is no excuse for their being dropped in at the last minute.

    The decision to reveal the precise detail of these regulations at the last minute has probably generated more opposition than is warranted. I have had many representations from constituents about the entry to venues regulations on the basis that they represent a compulsory vaccine passport. Let us be clear that they do not. A negative test taken in the 48 hours before entry can be used as an alternative, which addresses many of the legitimate concerns that have been raised with me about civil liberties and discrimination. I am pleased that my party’s persistence in pushing for a negative test as an alternative has been accepted, because it gives me enough confidence to support these regulations.

    Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)

    Across the House, many of us have been calling for greater transparency from the Government. The more we hear from the chief medical officer, the more concerning it is. If the Government had been more transparent up front, I am sure there would be greater support across the House.

    Justin Madders

    Indeed. If we look at what has happened in Wales, there has been a similar system for some time, which seems to be working reasonably well. People have been required to produce tests when travelling abroad and several venues in England have been doing that on a voluntary basis. It is not the slide into dystopia that some people fear, but the situation has not been aided by the Government not being as up front as they should about what the regulations mean. Many people already routinely take lateral flow tests before they go out.

    However, there are some outstanding questions and concerns. There is no doubt that some constituents feel that the regulations are the start of a slippery slope and that we will soon have to show vaccination papers to get in anywhere. I will be clear: I do not support such a move. Given that the Government cannot even bring themselves to mandate wearing face coverings in pubs, I would be surprised if they moved in that direction, but I want confirmation when the Minister winds up that the Government are not planning any extensions to where the regulations will operate. We also need a clearer explanation of where the line is drawn and to which venues the regulations apply. Do places such as this, which fall into the definition of a public hall indoors with 500 or more people who stand up and move around, come within the ambit of the regulations? My reading suggests that they do. If we want to gain the public’s confidence, we should show that the rules apply to us equally.

    Another concern that has rightly been raised is whether a charge will be introduced at some point to obtain lateral flow tests. That would obviously undermine tests as an alternative to showing vaccine status. Charging people to obtain tests would be an absolute disaster from a public health perspective. That goes way beyond the remit of the regulations, but I hope we can get confirmation from the Minister that there are no plans to charge for tests.

    The Government need to do rather better at setting out what they consider the cost of the regulations to be to businesses. Again, I note there has been no impact assessment for the entry regulations. Who will pick up the cost of enforcing them? There is nothing I can see about supporting businesses to check people, let alone providing resources to local authorities, which are meant to enforce the regulations.

    What will be the position if there is a national shortage of tests? We are told that there are tens of millions of them but, as we know, there are challenges in getting them out to the people who need them. In those circumstances, will the regulations be suspended, or will people be pushed down the vaccination route?

    That said, the evidential burden for a negative test seems particularly broad. I think that will assist in reducing the burden on businesses, but it also increases the risk of fraudulent tests doing the rounds. That would undermine the whole point of the regulations. We do not want the worst of all worlds: an expensive bureaucratic system that does not actually help reduce transmission because it is not properly enforced.

    Regarding the vaccination of NHS staff, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a small but significant proportion of covid admissions is the result of people acquiring the infection in hospital. I have seen figures to suggest that it has been as high as 15% to 20% of all covid admissions, although once staff started to receive the vaccination, the figure dropped dramatically. There is therefore evidence to show that the regulations will have an impact on covid admissions and the wider pressure on the NHS. I know it is difficult, but on balance, the regulations should be supported.

    However, that should not be the end of the story. We have had a workforce crisis for years. Covid has accelerated cases of burnout and only a few weeks ago, the Government passed up the opportunity to grasp the nettle by refusing to implement a long-term workforce strategy. That is why we need an awful lot more work on the regulations.

    The Government have an uphill struggle to earn people’s trust and explain why they consider the proposals necessary, to convince the public that what is before us will be the limit of restrictions and that we will not be talking about extensions or changes at some point in the future. Judging by the comments of many Conservative Members, the Government have failed to persuade a number of their Back Benchers, so it is little wonder that we are all being bombarded by emails from our constituents expressing concern. That exposes the wider truth that the Government have vacated the space where leadership should be. They are compromised by their own failure to follow the rules, riddled with internal disagreements about the route ahead and unable to provide the authority to persuade a sceptical public that the measures are needed.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Number of Closed Testing Centres

    Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Number of Closed Testing Centres

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 29 July 2021.

    Hundreds of testing centres opening weeks after they’re needed typifies the Government’s shambolic approach to the pandemic.

    A proper plan is needed to prevent the chaos of last autumn when people struggled to access tests. Ministers must fix this now.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Dominic Cummings Interview

    Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Dominic Cummings Interview

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 20 July 2021.

    NHS staff who have gone above and beyond in the pandemic to keep us safe, patients who have seen their treatment delayed and the many families who have lost loved ones to Covid will find these remarks shocking and difficult to hear.

    The revelations are further evidence that the Prime Minister has made the wrong calls time and again at the expense of public health. The chaos, delay and incompetence at the heart of government is costing lives and harming the economy. Boris Johnson is reckless, unfit to govern and a public inquiry cannot be delayed.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Reducing Sensitivity of Track and Trace App

    Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Reducing Sensitivity of Track and Trace App

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 9 July 2021.

    It is hard to square this plan with the more transmissible Delta variant, now is not the time to be taking the batteries out of the smoke alarm.

    We need clear messages from Ministers about how contact tracing will work once more people are vaccinated – not mixed messages that suggest they just want more people to avoid being traced.

    With predictions of 100,000 cases a day an effective contact tracing system will be crucial to stop cases spiralling out of control. Without one, Ministers are gambling with summer.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Potential NHS Staff Exodus

    Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on Potential NHS Staff Exodus

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 24 March 2021.

    These figures should be ringing alarm bells loud and clear that Ministers need to change course and start listening to and valuing the NHS workforce.

    Years of pay freezes, record vacancies and relentless pressure are having their effect with hard pressed staff voting with their feet.

    The last year has seen NHS workers perform heroically but for many the offer of a real terms pay cut will be the last straw so Government need to urgently reconsider their approach otherwise the exodus we have seen in recent years will become a flood.

  • Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on the Royal College of Physicians

    Justin Madders – 2021 Comments on the Royal College of Physicians

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 19 February 2021.

    This is the latest confirmation that our NHS workforce have gone above and beyond the call of duty for over a year now and at some point they are going to need to take a proper break.

    The NHS came into the pandemic with a record 100,000 vacancies and a workforce already stretched to the limit.

    It’s time Government listened to these warnings put in place a strategy to protect the people that make the NHS what it is.

  • Justin Madders – 2020 Comments on the Ockenden Review

    Justin Madders – 2020 Comments on the Ockenden Review

    The comments made by Justin Madders, the Shadow Health Minister, on 10 December 2020.

    This is a heart-breaking report that lays bare the tragic consequences of a catalogue of failures in maternity care.

    Strong leadership, challenging poor workplace culture, safe staffing and access to training are all key to improving safety and we must work to ensure this is in place right across the NHS.

    Patient safety must a priority for both health professionals and Ministers, and the tragedies outlined in this review must be learned from and acted upon swiftly by all maternity services so that all women and children receive the best possible care.