John, the government’s failure to protect our care homes at the start of the pandemic is a source of national shame. Care homes in my constituency told me they felt forgotten and unprepared for what was to come.

The government was too slow in getting PPE to care homes, too slow to roll out tests, and its guidance encouraging the sending of infected patients, and those untested, into care homes resulted in the spread among those most vulnerable.

I raised the alarm with the Health Secretary about the inadequate and inconsistent government care home guidance back in early April. Despite my warnings and those of countless others, the government failed to act fast enough.

Given all this, it is especially galling that the Prime Minister sought to shift the blame to care homes last week, and in yet another blow to the sector, we learnt this week that our skilled and dedicated care workers will be excluded from the UK's new visa system for health workers. It is clear that this government does not appreciate our care workers who have risked their lives during this crisis.

It has also emerged that warnings over the known risks to social care during a pandemic have been ignored. The government’s own 'Exercise Cygnus' from 2016, which simulated how the UK would handle a pandemic, found that there was little attention paid to the care sector. The Chief Executive of Care England revealed in May that the report’s clear recommendations have not been implemented.

This week saw the government finally publish its 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' report. It makes a number of recommendations to improve the UK's Covid-19 resilience ahead of the winter months, and specifically states that ‘July and August must be a period of intense preparation’. 

Keir Starmer called on the Prime Minister to implement the report's recommendations in PMQs this week. And when pushed on the details, the Prime Minister said he was aware of the report but failed to confirm if he had actually read it, despite it being commissioned by his government. With a second wave of the coronavirus risking 120,000 more deaths, what we need from the Prime Minister is more than mere awareness, we need action.

We have had one the highest death tolls from Covid-19 in the world, millions of children are out of school and we face the worst unemployment crisis in a generation which could hit the West Midlands hardest.

The government should be totally focused on getting on with its job of governing the country and steering us through the huge challenges we face. Instead, the Prime Minister has decided to try and score some cheap headlines with a completely unnecessary large-scale restructure that will see the Department for International Development taken over by the Foreign Office.

This takeover is expected to cost at least £15 million to the British taxpayer, money that could have been better spent during this crisis paying for more than 600 qualified nurses for our region, or 2.5 million Covid-19 antibody tests.

Click below to read my Express & Star article setting out why the Prime Minister's decision to scrap an independent DfID during a global pandemic is irresponsible, counter-productive and wrong.