The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered covid-19.
Today’s debate comes at a critical moment, as coronavirus continues its deadly march across the globe. Too many lives have been cut short and there has been too much hardship and suffering. Here at home we have seen a sharp rise in the number of cases, and this must concern us all. We know from bitter experience in so many countries that the nature of exponential growth is that, once the virus is spreading, it accelerates, with all the consequences that brings.
It is the first duty of Government—of any Government —to keep people safe. Our duty—that of each of us here in this House—is to seek to represent our constituents to the best of our ability in their interests and in the interests of the nation. In tackling this unprecedented pandemic, we must each of us seek to balance the cherished freedoms on which people thrive with that duty to keep people safe, balancing in each judgment the economic, social, educational and, of course, health needs on which our nation’s future depends.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
If the first duty of Government is to keep people safe, will the Secretary of State remember that the first duty of Parliament is to hold Government to account? I know that he wants to take public opinion with him, but will he therefore reassure us that he is also determined to take Parliament with him? In that respect, may I urge him to meet with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and come to a compromise to ensure that, if there are further national lockdowns, Parliament will be fully involved in the process?
Matt Hancock
I thought this might come up. I was going to develop the argument further before coming to the nub of that particular point, but, since my right hon. Friend gives me the opportunity, I strongly agree with the need for us in this House to have the appropriate level of scrutiny. As the Prime Minister set out last week, we have already put in place further measures. The aim is to provide the House with the opportunity to scrutinise in advance through regular statements and debates, questioning the Government’s scientific advisers more regularly—that has already started—gaining access to local data and having the daily calls with Ministers, including my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General.
We are looking at further ways to ensure that the House can be properly involved in the process—in advance, where possible. I hope to provide the House with further details soon. I will take up the invitation to a further meeting with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), whom I have already met to discuss this matter, to see what further progress can be made. I hope that that, for the time being, satisfies my right hon. Friend.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
If the right hon. Member considers the efficacy of parliamentary scrutiny, has he looked at what the New Zealand Parliament has done? It has set up a special Select Committee, led by the Leader of the Opposition and with an Opposition majority on it, to subject the Government’s performance to more direct and transparent scrutiny. It appears to have worked very well indeed. Perhaps he would consider that this Parliament could behave in that way.
Matt Hancock
The structure of Select Committees is a matter for the House, of course, and far be it from me to impinge on the business of the House and the proper responsibilities of the Leader of the House. I welcome the scrutiny that this House gives. I have answered seven urgent questions, given 12 statements and taken 800 interventions since the start of the pandemic. I am committed to continuing the engagement.
Matt Hancock
That includes some brilliant interventions from my right hon. Friend, who calls for more from a sedentary position. So there is further work to do, and I look forward to engaging with colleagues to ensure that we have the proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
To develop the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), I accept the points about scrutiny that the Secretary of State makes, but it is about not just scrutiny but the laws we are making. The laws that came in at midnight, for example, were 12 pages of laws, with lots of detail, criminal offences and duties not mentioned when they were set out in a statement last week. That includes duties on employers, directors and officers, with serious criminal penalties. We need to scrutinise the detail of the legislation before it comes into force and give our assent, and not, I am afraid, just allow the Secretary of State to put it into force by decree.
Matt Hancock
Of course, sometimes in this pandemic we have to move fast. Sometimes we have had to move fast, and we may need to do so again. The challenge we have in this House is how to ensure proper scrutiny while also being able, when necessary, to move fast in response to the virus. That is the challenge that collectively we all face.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I reassure my right hon. Friend that I am going to praise him later, but the Constitution Unit at University College London tweeted earlier about the regulations mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) that
“this policy was briefed to the media 8 days ago. Was it really not possible to schedule proper, detailed parliamentary debate during that time, given the far-reaching consequences?”
It added:
“Given the current mood, it seems very likely MPs will ask this.”
Well, I am asking. Surely it was possible, in eight days, to have the debate that my right hon. Friend has called for.
Matt Hancock
I am grateful for the tone in which my hon. Friend has engaged in this issue. He is a great supporter of parliamentary rights, and I am a fellow traveller in heart. The challenge is how to do that and also be able to move at pace. I would be very happy to talk with him, along with others, about how to make this happen. I would say, however, in respect of the laws that came into place overnight, that I set them out in a statement—in fact, the Prime Minister set out many of them in a statement last week—so we have been clear about the policy intent. The question is how we can make sure that we deal with this appropriately in the future.
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
I praise my right hon. Friend for what he has done through this pandemic. He has an impossibly difficult job. He has had to take decisions quickly, and he is right to take decisions quickly. But when it comes to new national measures, many of us represent areas where the incidence of the virus remains very low. In the southern part of my constituency—in that district—there were no cases last week. Before we embark on measures that affect everyone, as opposed to firefighting in individual areas, it is really important that this House has the chance to scrutinise, hold to account and challenge. We know my right hon. Friend wants to do the right thing, and we want to help him do the right thing.
Matt Hancock
Help like that is always very welcome. What I can say is that we want to ensure that the House can be properly involved in this process while also allowing the whole nation to move fast where that is necessary. What I would say to my right hon. Friend and others on this point is that I welcome the rightful recognition that sometimes we do have to decide at pace. This is an unprecedented situation and the truth is that the secondary legislation procedures were not designed for a situation like this. The question is how we can have the appropriate level of scrutiny while also making sure that we can move fast where that is necessary.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
On another point—with the leave of the Chair, we may debate these matters around process in a couple of days’ time—may I focus the Secretary of State on the positives? Although there are many challenges, which I will come to if I catch the Speaker’s eye later, we have many things to celebrate in this country about how we have approached the response to this pandemic—not least the brilliant scientific community in this country, which has produced the only known effective treatment for covid-19 and is doing great work on getting us closer to a vaccine. We like to beat ourselves up—or, rather, the media like to beat us up—but is not the truth that we have many things that the rest of the world follows us in?
Matt Hancock
That is right, and in fact my hon. Friend leads me to where I was going to come next. He is right: whether it is producing the only known treatment, dexamethasone, or having a leading vaccine candidate around the world, or the work that our staff in the NHS did to protect the NHS in the peak of the crisis, or building the Nightingale hospitals in nine days—they told us we would never get that done, but we did—or sorting out the huge problems we had in the provision of personal protective equipment. With the PPE strategy that we set out and published today, we have made it clear that, on all but one line of PPE, by the end of this year we are on track for 70% of our PPE to be produced here in this country. When I got this job, it was 1%. These changes are all huge areas of progress that we have made in tackling this virus, and I am very proud of the whole team who have come together to make them happen.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matt Hancock
I will take one more intervention on this point, and then I am going to make some more progress.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
It is nice to be informed, nice to be consulted and nice to be able to scrutinise, but in the end it is about who decides. Can the Secretary of State explain why he is so against Parliament’s making the decision, even if he argues for urgency and immediacy —within two days, for example—to either confirm or revoke those regulations? Why is he against Parliament’s being the one that finally decides on this? It is quite clear that this is not even being decided in Cabinet, but just by one or two Cabinet members. Let Parliament decide.
Matt Hancock
I have said what I have to say on this. This is clearly an area on which I am very happy to engage with the right hon. Gentleman and everybody else, along with the Leader of the House and the parliamentary authorities, to try to find a way forward.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
May I have a progress report on something we have talked about before: infection control? This time round, will there be isolation hospitals so that we can control the infection in the hospital sector better, and will there be good controls to prevent the seepage of people with infection back to care homes?
Matt Hancock
The answer to both those questions is yes. We have learnt a huge amount about those and put in place improved procedures, but I am going to come on to the question of the impact of that on our strategy.
The virus has shown beyond all possible doubt that the health of one of us begets the health of us all. Without a doubt in my mind, the central question about the control of the virus, and one that I ask myself every day, is, “How do we best keep people safe from this virus while protecting liberty and livelihoods and the things that make life worth living?” I believe that in reality there is not a simple trade-off between those things, because the exponential growth of the virus means that there are in reality only two paths: either to control the virus or to let it rip.
There is no middle option, because once the virus is growing, it accelerates. To the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), I am convinced that no matter how effectively we protect the vulnerable, and protect them we must, letting the virus rip would leave a death toll too big to bear. In reality, the only question is how to control the virus and when to put measures in place.
That comes directly to the question that we have been debating about both how to control the virus, and how we must act fast. The best thing we can do for schools, for our economy and for both lives and livelihoods is to act fast, together, to control the virus and to keep the rate of infections down. From that goal flows our strategy, which is to suppress the virus while protecting our economy and education until a vaccine arrives.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Is this not why we need evidence-based interventions? The Secretary of State will have seen clips of what happened in my constituency on Saturday night at 10 o’clock, as the streets filled out with young people enjoying themselves and partying with no social distancing, clearly creating the worst of environments. Will he now review the policy of the 10 o’clock curfew to ensure that our streets and neighbourhoods are safe?
Matt Hancock
We always look at the effects of these policies. We have to take everything in the round, including the level of social distancing that might have been going on, were that to continue all through the night. One reason we brought in the policy is that we have seen it work in other countries, as the hon. Lady knows. None of these interventions on social distancing are ones that we take lightly or want to put in place. The central question is how we keep control of the virus in the best possible way, while reducing the impact on the economy and on education as much as possible.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his indulgence in taking a second intervention. I agree with him: unlike some people, I think we need to take tough measures to deal with the virus, and that we sometimes need to act quickly. The really important question is: will the measures be effective, and do we have the evidence to support that? Therefore, I gently say to the Secretary of State that that is why I think that Ministers coming to Parliament, marshalling the arguments and laying out the evidence, means that we get better decisions that are likely to be more effective in dealing with the virus and protecting our economy. I think that is the general view of many colleagues, on both sides of the House, and I hope he will reflect on that when he meets my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady).
Matt Hancock
It is a view that I very largely share. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the number of times that I have stood at this Dispatch Box and taken into account points made by Members, from either side of the House, is beyond what I can count. Listening to points that have been made has been part of the rhythm of the response. I therefore caution against the idea that there has not been parliamentary scrutiny, and I know that because I have been at this Dispatch Box usually several times a week when Parliament has been sitting. But I understand the concerns—of course I do—and I hope we can find an appropriate way forward.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
The Secretary of State has said that there are essentially two strategies, but there is, of course, a third strategy, based on elimination, which is what New Zealand has pursued. It had succeeded, although there has been a slight resurgence over recent weeks. Is elimination a viable strategy for the UK?
Matt Hancock
I would love it if elimination were a realistic strategy, but everywhere in the world that has tried an elimination strategy has, sadly, seen a resurgence. New Zealand attempted an elimination strategy and saw a resurgence. Scotland attempted an elimination strategy and saw a resurgence. The virulence of this disease and its prevalence globally—we are almost at the point of 1 million deaths around the world—mean that our two realistic options are suppression until a vaccine comes and letting it rip, and I know which of those two I support. The Government’s position is based entirely on the goal of suppressing the virus while working as fast as we can towards a vaccine.
The truth is that many things have gone well. I thank everybody who has been doing the right thing, following the rules, clicking on the QR codes, washing their hands, wearing a face mask and keeping their space. I thank the people who have been involved in the successes, including the Nightingale hospitals, which I have mentioned, and the NHS and care teams. I thank those who built, almost from scratch, the biggest testing capability of all our peers. Today we are on track to process our 20 millionth test, which is more than the number of tests conducted in France and Spain together. I thank everyone who has played their part, just this weekend, in the fastest download of an app in British history, with 22.4 million downloads as of noon today.
We have done those things together. Never has it been more true to say that no man is an island. None of it would have been possible without a huge team effort. The challenges, as we have discussed, have been legion—I have no doubt that this is the biggest crisis in my lifetime—and we know that we can rise to them only if we do so together.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
On testing, is the Secretary of State as appalled as I am that scammers are calling vulnerable people and suggesting that the NHS wishes to charge £50 per test? When the constituent queries them, the scammers insist that they are calling from the track and trace service and that they should give them their bank details. Will the Secretary of State condemn that and raise the issue with the Home Secretary so that these scammers are prosecuted with the full force of the law?
Matt Hancock
Yes, absolutely. I am aware of these sorts of scams, and we have a programme of action to take against them. It is an outrage that people should try to take advantage of a global pandemic in this illegal way.
I want to update the House on the changes that we have brought into force on requiring and mandating self -isolation. From today, we have introduced a £500 support payment for those self-isolating on low incomes. On top of that, I can tell the House that we are providing £15 million so that local authorities can make discretionary payments to people who do not meet the criteria of the scheme but may also face financial hardship if they have to self-isolate and cannot work. We know that self-isolation works, and we know that the vast majority of people want to do the right thing, so we will enhance support for those who do and come down hard on those who flout the rules.
Our second line of defence is testing and contact tracing. The 20 millionth test today means that we will have processed more tests than Italy and Spain combined. We are expanding our testing capacity all the time, on track to 500,000 a day by the end of the month. Of course, testing only provides the information. What matters is that people act on it, so we have built a veritable army of contact tracers at enormous scale, and they are complemented by the app. It is a cross-party app. I am grateful for the huge support that it has received, and I urge everybody, including every single Member of this House, to join the 12.4 million.
We have so much more information about the virus than we had in the first peak, which means that we can take a more targeted and localised approach. Over the past few months, local restrictions have allowed us to home in on areas where cases are high and rising and put targeted measures in place.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State talks about testing being so important in providing data. Does he therefore regret that in recent weeks, we have seen 40% of testing capacity taken out of London? We are now seeing hospitalisations rising, with talk about further restrictions in London, but we cannot base it on reliable testing data because there has not been enough testing done—people in my constituency and across London are still struggling to access tests. Does he agree that that was the wrong move to make?
Matt Hancock
We ensure that testing is prioritised in the areas with the greatest prevalence, and we look at not only the number of positive cases but the surveys and the positivity rate. Those all inform the needs. I understand why the hon. Lady rightly fights for more testing in her constituency, but we have to ensure that testing is used in the places where it is most needed. We know more about this because we now have mass testing, with capacity for over a quarter of a million tests a day, which means that we can take a more targeted and local approach.
Unfortunately, as case rates have gone up, we have needed to introduce more local measures. On Friday, we introduced new restrictions on household mixing for Wigan, Stockport, Blackpool and Leeds, and today, I must announce further measures for the parts of the north-east where we introduced local action a fortnight ago. Unfortunately, the number of cases continues to rise sharply. The incidence rate across the area is now over 100 cases per 100,000. We know that a large number of these infections are taking place in indoor settings outside the home, so, at the request of the local councils, with which we have been working closely, we will introduce legal restrictions on indoor mixing between households in any setting. We do not take these steps lightly, but we must take them now, because we know that swift action is more likely to bring the virus under control. The quicker we can get this virus under control, the quicker we can restore the freedoms that we all enjoy in the north-east and across the country.
All the time that we have been fighting to suppress the virus, so too we have fought to protect people—through the furlough scheme, the bounce back loans and funding for social care, the charities, the arts, as well as unprecedented support for the NHS, so that we could protect it through the peak and now work through the backlog that the peak inevitably caused. Through the huge challenges, we secured the supply lines for vital PPE, and hence we can now launch our PPE winter plan. I would like to pay tribute to Lord Deighton, his team and all the businesses that are stepping up, because their work has put us in such strong stead to protect those who are performing heroics on the frontline.
Finally, the best way to protect us in the long term, for our lives and our livelihoods, is a vaccine. Work progresses as fast as is safely possible. On Friday, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published its interim guidance on how we propose to prioritise access to a vaccine as soon as one becomes available. A huge planning effort is under way, led by the NHS and with the support of the armed forces, to ensure that we are ready for a roll-out as soon as is feasibly possible. Building on years of experience of the annual flu vaccine roll-out, the national effort to come brings hope to us all.
All the way through this pandemic, I have welcomed debate and scrutiny in this House. On Wednesday, we will debate and vote on extending the vital measures in the Coronavirus Act 2020, which provides powers that are critical to the control of the virus. I urge all colleagues to work together to ensure that we come through this in the best possible way, because ultimately, wherever in this Chamber we may sit, we are all on the same side, steadfast in our determination to defeat this deadly virus.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
I start by adding my thanks to those of hon. and right hon. Members from across the House who have thanked frontline NHS staff and social care workers, key workers, businesses and communities from all their constituencies for how they have risen to the unprecedented challenge that has faced us. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for highlighting the good work that our pharmacists have done on the frontline so far, and how they have adapted in this covid-tinged world to keep us safe.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) suggested, this is where we are now, and we have to learn to live with this disease. I am an optimist, but I am also a realist. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the beginning of the debate, the recent steep rise in the number of cases is something that should concern us all. Our first priority is to preserve life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) laid out. We have to adapt, and we have done.
The excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) showed us that we have come a long way, and that was the theme running through the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. We are continuing with our plan to slow the spread of the virus and balance very tough decisions about health, the economy and protecting individual freedoms. I would like to park one suggestion immediately: there are no plans to keep students at university over Christmas. I really do not think that it helps those young people, when they are launching into a new phase of their life, for right hon. and hon. Members to suggest that those things might happen. It is, to quote the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), better to deal with the facts.
Colleagues’ contributions to today’s debate were wide ranging and thoughtful, and they were most welcome. There were too many speakers to highlight each individually, so I shall address some of the key themes that were raised by hon. Members across the House.
On access to this place, what I have heard today is that this House wants to debate the challenges and that Members want to put forward their and their constituents’ views. I know that their words today will have been heard. As the Prime Minister said, the aim is to provide more opportunities to hon. and right hon. Members via statements. The Secretary of State has been here innumerable times—over 800 times answering questions—but we will have more debates, questioning of the Government’s scientific advisers and access to local data. We are looking at further ways to ensure that the House can be involved more fully, and there will be more details soon.
We have, as a Government, supported businesses in an unprecedented way, which many hon. Members mentioned, with furlough, the bounce back scheme and the self-employment income support scheme. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their kind words, but it is tough out there. We know we need to balance the needs of the economy and our health needs. This covid-tinged world is the one we are now trying to live in.
My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) explained the challenges for his constituents, particularly in the wedding sector, and I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) somewhat gleefully suggesting that the delay of two weddings in his household was not the worst thing in the world. I know he did not mean that. As someone with a daughter who has delayed a wedding this year too, I think what came out from everybody’s speeches was that they were personal—about the pain of love and the difficulty of decisions that have had to be made throughout this crisis.
We have had to make choices. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) highlighted positive interventions by the Government, but the most essential point that I took from his comments was why we must keep education going—why we must keep it open and why we must give the next generation that hope.
As I take those themes, I want us to hold in our mind the critical thing that we started with: that we must stop the NHS being overwhelmed. That is still our key objective. Although we know that people’s lives have been disrupted, critical care has continued throughout, and I pay tribute to those in community care, primary care and the acute sector who have enabled that to happen. Our response to create surge capacity of over 2,000 beds through our Nightingale hospitals is the key to forward resilience, as are the more than 30,000 ventilators that are now available.
Many hon. Members spoke about cancer. I would like to mention in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). I reassure them that the NHS’s recovery approach has looked to restore urgent cancer care immediately. The latest figures, from June, show that over 180,000 people have been seen, more than 90% of them in two weeks. We have formed a cancer recovery taskforce, which met on 22 September and will meet every month in this financial year. It involves charities, stakeholders and clinicians. The national recovery plan will be developed over the coming weeks and published.
We must carry on treating. Cancer hubs, where teams work together in covid-free environments, are up and running now. The message is clear: “Come forward still.” We still need to get people to have confidence that we are there and we are open. The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) mentioned the situation in her area. Certain areas, such as gastrointestinal and bowel, are particularly difficult because of the diagnostic pathway, but we are working hard to make sure those patients are seen as quickly as possible.
Many hon. Members raised the curfew. Several countries have, like us, introduced curfews at 10 o’clock at night. The contact tracing data indicating patterns of behaviour shows that our inhibitions reduce as the evening goes on because we have usually drunk a little more. Having a curfew at 10 o’clock balances the need for businesses to operate against people’s ability to enjoy themselves, but we will, of course, keep the situation under review.
One or two Members said that we should have seen better—we should have been able to look into the future—while telling us how good they were at explaining the past to us. If only that were true. Several Members spoke about local challenges in testing, but it is important to remember that, when we started, all we did back in March was 2,000 tests a day. We passed the 20 millionth test today. It should be recognised that we have built the largest diagnostic network in British history. We have one of the best in Europe, and arguably one of the biggest in the world. I pay tribute to those who fought so hard to get us there. We have had mountains to climb, and every time we go up one side there is a dip on the other. None of this is easy. We have never said that we have all the answers, but we keep going because that is what makes us able to deliver for the people of this country. I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston for what the Government are doing.
We have risen to the challenges on each occasion, and every week driving the system to be bigger than the week before. We have five major laboratories, backing up 258 mobile testing sites, 76 regional sites and 122 walk-through sites. In London, we had eight local testing centres in August; we now have 22. Yes, there have been challenges due to unprecedented demand, but the curve of returning tests to people is beginning to go in the right direction. We are seeing huge improvements in data flow, and we are we are making sure the directors of public health, health protection teams, Mayors and local authorities are involved in these conversations. It is right that we are challenged, but it is also right that we recognise what has been done.
Jo Churchill
No, I am terribly sorry. I have only two minutes left.
I say to my hon. Friends the Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and for Wealden (Ms Ghani) that I understand the need to see loved ones, but there is a balance in protecting care homes. As I sat on the Bench, one of my care homes texted me and said, “All is well. I feel in control.” May that long continue. We are getting 100,000 tests out to care homes every week. The strategy for winter is about having national guidance and local systems, and enabling care homes, which know their individual residents, to do their best for them.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden for acknowledging how far we have come. We have delivered more than 3.5 billion items of PPE. The strategy was put out today, and I pay tribute to Lord Deighton for all the work he has done. We are building supplies, and we have resilient supply lines that we did not have before. We started distributing to 226 NHS trusts, and we now send to 58,000 settings. The PPE portal is a blueprint for rapid mobilisation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) highlighted how we are using local factories in this country—in these four nations. That is where new business opportunities have arisen; it is not all doom and gloom. In treatment, we have secured good supplies of dexamethasone, which has helped mortality for the sickest patients. We also have the recovery programme, leading clinical trials, which has been called—not by us—the most impressive on the planet. By 2021, we will know more about the good and bad treatments. Once again, we are showing how the NHS, private business and academia work successfully together. I congratulate everybody involved in those. The global vaccine industry has responded with a speed never seen before. We are at the forefront of the science for finding a vaccine for this novel organism. There is a huge amount of planning going on to ensure we are ready to roll things out. We are walking a tightrope, as many Members have acknowledged. There are no easy decisions and there is no silver bullet, but we know that the thing is: hands, face, space. If even my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) has downloaded the app, I urge everybody to download it. It is the fastest download in British history, and all these small measures will help us get the virus under control.
