https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2024-09-03b.1083.0
Covid-19 Inquiry - Motion to Take Note
– in the
House of Lords at 4:50 pm on 3 September 2024.
Baroness
Coussins Crossbench 7:16. 3 September 2024
My Lords, I
welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and will highlight some
important language-related issues, which arguably are implicit in the report’s
conclusions on the way in which communications and public health messaging
contribute to preparedness and resilience, but which in my view need to be
explicit, spelled out and acted on if future emergencies are not to leave some
groups in society still disproportionately vulnerable.
I declare
my interests as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages and
vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. The APPG made a
detailed submission to the inquiry chaired by the noble and learned Baroness,
Lady Hallett, on a number of issues. I am disappointed that none has been
explicitly referred to, especially as they all seem to me to go to the very
heart of the report’s overarching recommendations on the importance of the
response to whole-system civil emergencies and for the need better to target
vulnerable people. Will the Minister agree to look closely at the APPG’s recommendations,
and ensure that they are explicitly woven into the Government’s response to and
implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations?
Past and
current experience in both the health service and the justice system has
demonstrated all too starkly that, unless the needs of people who require
translation or interpreting services are explicitly acknowledged and provided
for, they will all too often instead be on the receiving end of casual,
inadequate, unqualified or non-existent language services, to the obvious
detriment of their health or human rights. I will flag up some headings of our
key concerns and recommendations, as the detail can be found in our submission
to the inquiry, which is already in the public domain.
First, as
the report acknowledges—and as has been flagged up already today by the right
reverend Prelate the Bishop of London—people from some ethnic minority groups
had a significantly higher risk of being infected by Covid-19 and dying from
it. There is evidence to show that the absence or delay of provision of public
health messaging in languages other than English may have been a contributory
factor to this. The 2023 report by the Race Equality Foundation, UCL and
Doctors of the World stated that black and minority ethnic groups after two
years were still three to five times more likely than white British adults to
be unvaccinated and that the lack of targeted outreach and promotion
contributed to this unequal take-up.
Back in
October 2020, the Government’s own quarterly report on Covid inequalities
talked of improving public health communication for the so-called hard-to-reach
groups, including people from ethnic minority backgrounds, but, strangely, also
included a footnote that said:
“Translation
into foreign languages is discouraged except in extraordinary circumstances
because it conflicts with the government’s approach to integration”.
There was
also a significant disparity between the Government’s response to, and
preparedness for, the needs of British Sign Language users, as compared with
the needs of people who speak little or no English. The former are covered by
the AIS, the accessible information standard, but the latter are not. The APPG
agreed with Healthwatch England that the AIS should be amended as part of
better preparedness and inclusiveness in future emergency responses.
The second
health issue concerns the test and trace scheme, which operated primarily as an
English-only service. The National Audit Office reported that test and trace
had stated that its call centres offered a language interpreter service. The
claim was repeated by Ministers in Parliament, but an investigation by Sky News
reported that DHSC claims that translations existed in up to 130 languages were
“brazen” and “bizarre”. Local government appeared to be no more consistent,
publishing advice in English that non-English speakers should dial 119 or use
the Covid app if they needed to contact test and trace in another language.
Now, given that the function of test and trace was meant to be contacting
people proactively, putting the onus on them to contact the service for
information in a language they did not even speak was never likely to be
effective.
The third
health issue concerns public service interpreters working in the NHS. Most are
freelance and many complained that no one was taking responsibility for
providing them with PPE. The Government funded the provision of a quarter of a
million clear face masks for British Sign Language interpreters, but no
equivalent provision was made for spoken word interpreters. In answers to Oral
and Written Questions I tabled, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, the Minister
responsible at the time, helpfully clarified in July 2020 that individual
hospitals were responsible for providing the interpreters with PPE and in
December he said that GP practices had a similar obligation. Nevertheless, many
public service interpreters found that in practice they were expected to turn
up having procured their own PPE. The all-party group believes that, if the
provision of language services were included in the accessible information
standard that I mentioned earlier, this kind of support and equipment would in
future be more easily identified and forthcoming and would be one clear way in
which overall preparedness could be improved.
This
inquiry report focuses on the health aspects of the pandemic, but there were
other parts of the public sector where language-related issues arose, notably
in the justice system, because lockdown measures prompted a large shift towards
remote court hearings, which required the use of public service interpreters in
virtual proceedings. A series of major reports found significant concerns about
the suitability of remote interpreting, including misunderstandings, delays,
poorly performing technology and missed verbal and non-verbal cues. The APPG
recommends that the MoJ should caution against any systematic trend towards
more wide- spread use of this practice until and unless the right lessons have
been learned from the Covid experience. The same concerns and caution also
apply, of course, to the suitability of remote interpreting in healthcare
settings.
Education
also suffered in various ways and the impact of Covid on pupils and students
was more marked in the case of disadvantaged families and communities. One
example is the children of asylum seekers living in asylum facilities and
refugee centres who faced especially acute deprivation, often with no provision
of laptops for access to basic education.
I look
forward to the Minister’s response on the issues I have raised and hope that in
future the Government will be more attuned than in the past to the need to be
explicit about language issues, cultural sensitivities and translation and
interpreting services in the context of any future pandemic or other emergency
situation.
