I must start by thanking those who work on the Coronavirus front-line across our hospitals, care sector, shops and communities to deliver the care and essential services which we are still receiving in Rother and Wealden. You are all truly amazing.
I like to talk optimistically. I do believe that we will get through this and will be proud of our generation as a result. I also like to talk honestly. This is tough, from a health and household financial perspective, and will get tougher. We must stand firm and stand strong.
We live in an area where we have many in the vulnerable category. As a result, we not only rely on our health and care professionals but have a vast charity and voluntary sector who can help. The voluntary community have been hit hard by a lack of fundraising and an increase in demand. Last week, after speaking with our local volunteers, this caused me to join 298 MPs across the political divide to press the Chancellor to inject vast funding to the voluntary sector. He responded with a £750 million package this week. I hope this will help to deliver more community aid. Please sign up as a volunteer to help us deliver the goods.
In the last week, I have held video meetings with the leads of our hospitals, GP practices, ambulance service, police and our County and District Councils. A chief concern has been getting the personal protective equipment (PPE) which our frontline services need. The NHS and police appeared to have supplies but those on the frontline for community care and non-NHS roles were lacking. My job is to intervene directly with Whitehall to make sure these come through to East Sussex. This weekend, a big order was sent down by the military so I hope these are now coming through. It’s not been good enough. I am sorry that it has taken too long. This has caused me many an hour and many a rant.
I am also having twice-weekly calls with the public body in Sussex who organise all of our GP practices. In Rother and Hastings, our surgeries are not deemed large enough to give over one GP-led centre for suspected Coronavirus cases to be isolated. We now have the promise of an temporary centre for this virus if we need it. In other parts of Sussex, GPs have come together to form larger practices which they have adapted for this outbreak. Even in our larger populated areas, GPs in Rother and Hastings have tended to work from smaller surgeries. Once this is over, we may need to decide if we have an appropriate GP model in our local towns.
When I wrote my last article, I talked of the need to help the self-employed. I’d argued that these workers needed to receive the same package of support which those on payroll had been given. This same principle, delivering 80% of income, arrived the day my article arrived. Regrettably, out of 5 million self-employed, 2 million will not benefit. Most of these fall into the category of paying themselves dividends rather than pay. As a result, they paid less tax and we cannot work out if they set up their company to enjoy dividends from a portfolio of shares or to run a business. After this is over we need to level up the tax structure so we can properly tax when due and also help in the times of crisis. There are others in the bracket who will not be protected because their company has not been running for a full year. We don’t know what to base the 80% on. Others earned more than £50,000 profit in the last year. We have local examples where this cliff-edge is unfair and I am trying to help. The same applies to those employees who miss out having switched jobs at the wrong moment.
Unfortunately, having a set of rules means, regrettably, some fall just outside. To give it some context the bill for covering 80% of the wages for the 9 million employees who have been furloughed for these three months is likely to be larger than the amount we spend on schools each year. This is just the funding for those in paid employment. France has just recorded its deepest recession since World War II due to coronavirus. We spent the last decade tightening our belts. This allowed us to spend big amounts money on public services. To go through this belt tightening exercise again is difficult to contemplate but every loan has to be repaid; including those the Government is taking out to help fight this crisis.
All of this is for another day. The current priority is to deliver the correct levels of PPE, testing, emergency intensive care units and ventilators. The message around self-isolating and self-distancing will help us reduce these demands on the NHS. I feel very proud of all in this community who are doing their bit. We will get through this. So please stay safe, support our frontline services, call your loved-ones and be positively British.
