The question of whether schools should re-open as early as June 1 is one of the biggest issues at the moment.
Headteachers and parents are trying to figure out how sure they can be that everything is going to be safe in less than two weeks time.
Ministers have reportedly been insisting that they would only be calling on schools in England to re-open in June if the scientific advice said it was safe to do so, according to the BBC.
We asked Gloucester’s MP Richard Graham on what he thought needed to happen for children to return to school in June, and he explained how “no one is sure”.
Mr Graham also gave the Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic so far a 7-8 out of 10, and said the Government’s u-turn on NHS fees for overseas and health staff was “a good decision”.
‘Decisions will have to be made quite soon’
Mr Graham said: “I don’t think any of us is sure of what will happen yet on June 1. I am doing a conference call next week with primary heads to see where they’re going on. They’ll need a few days notice, and decisions will have to be made quite soon.
“One primary head emailed me saying ‘how sure can we really be that everything is going to be safe?’ For me there are three components.
“Firstly I think the Government has to share with them the best medical and scientific advice and the five tests, but also share with them what data they’ve got on people who have been at schools or nurseries for the last few weeks and what the statistics are from Europe. That should give some an objective basis for thinking about the risk.
“Then the second one is the local risk. The rates, infections, hospital cases and deaths going up or down in an area that might cause someone to be more concerned.
“The third bit of risk management is about the school itself, the head having a plan and its governors signing off on it. But I don’t think when dealing with a virus like this there is any situation in which anyone whatever job they’re doing is going to be able to say ‘there is no risk, therefore I can now do it’. I don’t think that conditionally exists.
“Everyone’s got to make their own decisions and where there are children involved, it will be very difficult parents for who are concerned.
“Some of my relatives are teachers and most of them want to get on with teaching. That’s what they’re there to do, they’re there to serve the children by helping to educate them.
“If that is the mindset then it’s all about looking at the three different types of risk and needing the reassurance on each one of them in order to go ahead.”
‘There were a lot of MPs who were very uncomfortable with it’
Yesterday (May 21), the Government announced that NHS staff and care workers from overseas will no longer have to pay an extra charge towards the health service.
The move came a day after Boris Johnson told the House of Commons the Government would not exempt the health and social care workers from the surcharge increase.
The health immigration surcharge on non-EU migrants is £400 per year and set to rise to £624 in October.
Mr Graham said change was a “good decision”.
He said: “The difficulty is there are so many good causes out there and if the Government said ‘yes’ to all of them, it would go down the line of where we were in 2008 and 2009 - it would run out of money.
“The difficulty is how to decide which causes to support and which ones to regretfully decline. On this one there were two things involved, and for me the most important one was really the one of ‘does it feel fair?’.
“I haven’t seen any surveys but I think for most people in this country, I feel instinctively that if you ask them ‘do you think it’s right that an NHS nurse who has come over from the Philippines to work in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital should have to pay £400 per year to access the NHS and it will go up to £624 later this year?’. I think most people would feel that wasn’t really quite fair.
“I think the prime minister could see on our Whatsapp groups there were a lot of Conservative MPs who were very uncomfortable with it. I think it’s a good decision and I’m glad he’s made it ahead of time.”
‘There will be some big lessons to be learnt’
Mr Graham continued: “There will be some big lessons to be learnt, particularly around how health and social care work together. I think the Government is very keen on being more self-sufficient with PPE.
“But I think a lot of people will recognise that the Government has been working unbelievably hard to try and get this resolved at a time when the Prime Minister was very nearly killed himself.
“It hasn’t been easy but I would probably give them 7-8 out of 10 for how they’ve handled things.
“But does that mean everything was perfect and Public Health England might not need to be looked at? There are definitely lessons but they will come later.”
