GOOD AFTERNOON and welcome to my South West Surrey update No.175 where once again the news is dominated by the terrible news coming out of Ukraine. This week has also seen progress on my campaign to sort out NHS workforce pressures and the uncovering of some concerning local river pollution.
WHAT’S GOING ON IN WESTMINSTER
UKRAINE After more than a week of fighting during which the Ukrainian resistance has held them up admirably, the Russian armed forces appear to have taken their first city and are now indiscriminately bombarding cities causing untold misery and committing war crimes in the process. The response from the international community has been much stronger than anyone - friend or foe of Putin - expected. The British government has played a key role stiffening international resolve - on Swift payments - alongside the impressive new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who has overturned 40 years of German defence policy by dramatically increasing defence spend and supplying weapons to Ukraine. What we have done so far includes sanctions on 120 businesses and oligarchs, a full asset freeze on VTB, Russia’s second largest bank, restrictions on Russia companies from borrowing on the UK markets, a ban on the Russian state itself from raising funds in the UK, a stop to Russian banks from accessing Sterling and clearing payments through the UK, and export controls on a range of high-end and critical technical equipment and components in sectors including electronics, telecommunications, and aerospace. In addition, there is the ban on Aeroflot, along with all other Russian airlines. So when the PM described it as our biggest ever package of sanctions it was not, for once, hyperbole.
REFUGEES One area where we definitely need to do more though is on support for refugees. I have written to the Prime Minister with a number of my colleagues urging him to go further than we currently have and provide a more generous system for those fleeing the war. I’m pretty certain we will end up with a better offer than we currently do but surely we should match the EU’s 3 year visa? Reminder: one million Ukrainians have now fled and no one could possibly argue they do not have good cause.
WHAT NEXT? I have been saying on the media we need to face up to the fact that we have to be in this for the long haul. That obviously has horrendous implications for the people of Ukraine as a highly destructive war of attrition looms but it won’t be completely painless for the rest of the world either. You can see me talking to ITV News about this here as well as my question to the Prime Minister urging him to review our defence capabilities here.
BACK TO THE NHS whose problems have not gone away whatever is happening in Ukraine. The biggest single challenge for those on the frontline is workforce shortages so on Tuesday, the Health and Social Care Select Committee held its first evidence session on workforce recruitment, training and retention in the NHS and social care sectors. This account of just how tough it is to be a GP at the moment is well worth a watch (over 90,000 views so far) and echoed what I heard on my visit to Farnham Park Health Group a couple of weeks ago. The long term solution as Chris Hopson from NHS Providers told the Committee is to back an amendment to the Health Bill being debated in the Lords today that would introduce independent projections of how many doctors, nurses, midwives and social care workers we will need over the next 5, 10, and 20 years. The government rejected my attempts to introduce such an amendment in the Commons but there is still time for the sinner to repent and all that…
COVID STATS UPDATE As of 10am the Covid dashboard shows that we have had a total of 19,029,321 positive cases of COVID-19 with 161,704 confirmed deaths in the UK. There have been 34,444 confirmed cases in Waverley and sadly 283 confirmed deaths, with an estimated 645 active cases in Waverley. In the last 7 days cases have dropped by 18.4%, hospitalisations by 6.4% and deaths by 30.8%.
That key number is 0300 200 1008 for anyone with pandemic related difficulties. Also please check out my full list of local groups working to support vulnerable residents.
WHAT’S GOING ON IN SOUTH WEST SURREY
SURGERY STORIES Immigration is top of the agenda in Westminster when it comes to Ukraine but my constituency cases this week started with an Afghan who lives in Farncombe. He is a British citizen and following the fall of Afghanistan his wife and children fled to Dubai where he would now like to get them to Britain, so I am taking the case up with the home office. I also spoke to a lady in Haslemere who has a terrible problem with drains blocked with raw sewage under her flat. I am going to raise the issue with Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association, who have been totally unresponsive since the problem started at the beginning of December. I will contact their CEO because it is totally unacceptable to take this long to sort out the issue.
HELEN ARKELL CENTRE ON THE MOVE I had a catch up with a brilliant Frensham charity last week, the Helen Arkell Centre, which helps around 1000 people each year with dyslexia issues and is moving from Frensham to central Farnham. They now have a dynamic new CEO Andy Cook and are rapidly expanding their bursaries programme to help less well-off families get dyslexia assessments (which ordinarily cost £650-£795). Because a lot of dyslexia expertise is concentrated in private schools, they have also set up a programme to train state school teachers. Children with dyslexia were hit hard during the pandemic (homeschooling not easy) so it was great to hear that they want to double the number of people they help over the next few years. Please donate or support in any way you can via their website.
TACKLING RIVER POLLUTION I had a very important visit to Oxenford Farm to meet Bill Dyke of Peper Harow Flyfishers regarding phosphate levels in the River Wey. Phosphates are part of a much bigger issue of river pollution that I have been campaigning on with my colleague and friend Philip Dunne MP, who chairs the Environment Audit Select Committee. I refused to support the government's initial plans in the Environment Bill which did not place proper obligations on water companies to reduce the amount of sewage going into rivers. As a result of my and Philip’s efforts I am pleased to say that part of the bill was significantly strengthened. But more needs to be done, and phosphate levels alone (which come through sewage treatment plants) have halved the number of trout according to the club. As well as dealing with such chemicals, we need to ban the use of plastic in wet wipes, require all rivers to have clean swimming zones and insist on better monitoring by water companies so that the 'emergency' discharging of sewage really is an emergency rather than a pretty regular occurrence.
ACTION FOR CARERS Good to meet Jamie Gault, CEO at Action for Carers Surrey last week who supports thousands of the 115,000 unpaid carers in Surrey + 2,262 in Waverley, without whom our NHS and care services would literally fall over. We discussed various ways we could strengthen the Health and Care Bill to recognise and help carers more.
FRIMLEY HOSPITAL UPDATE Over the past week, I have also had a couple of very helpful updates on Frimley Park Hospital which remains one of the best run hospitals in the country. First, with Dr Priya Singh who will chair the new NHS board covering the Frimley area (which includes my Farnham residents). Known as the Frimley Integrated Care System, it has been one of the most successful such areas in the NHS since Simon Stevens and I started encouraging more integrated, local care. Like me, Priya has a long standing interest in patient safety but made a very sensible plea for the new systems to be assessed on the basis of outcomes for patients and not simply bureaucratic structures. I have long thought that for all its brilliant work, the NHS is too process driven so I will certainly feed this back. I also caught up with Neil Dardis, CEO of Frimley Health (which includes Frimley Park Hospital). They still have around 50 covid patients and 100 staff absent with Covid. Although pressures are easing, the transmissibility of Omicron means they have to shut off a whole bay when a patient tests positive. Discharging patients also remains a big issue - they have around 70 patients they cannot get home, even though they continue to work closely with local authorities. Neil requests that people wherever possible, please call 111 or visit a local pharmacy before turning up at their A & E.
FARNHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL The inaugural Farnham Literary Festival will shortly be underway with a vibrant programme of events for all. The Festival will showcase the work of leading, emerging and historical local authors, and will welcome international writers and thinkers to our beautiful town. It will present literary events for all ages and will incorporate workshops, performance, poetry, spoken word, comedy, writing competitions and interactive sessions. Some of you may know I too have written a book which will be out in a few months. Next Friday 11th March 6-7pm, I will be in conversation with Richard Hunt (no relation) to discuss the book and all things with a literary angle….tickets available from: https://farnhamliteraryfestival.co.uk/event/in-conversation-with-jeremy-hunt/
AND FINALLY Moving scenes from Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday when the Ukrainian Ambassador received a standing ovation from the whole House. Something very rarely seen and after some of the recent exchanges good to see parliament at its best.
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