The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered covid-19.
Yesterday, there was an increase of 19,609 cases of coronavirus in the UK, and sadly we recorded 529 deaths. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say that our sympathies and prayers are with each and every family. It is a stark reminder, if we needed one, that we still have a long way to go in beating this disease and seeing our country thrive again.
I know that Members across the House will join me in wishing those who are currently unwell a speedy recovery and thanking all the staff across health and social care and key workers for all they do, but I would also like to mention one or two who do not always get a mention: those working in community health, including our health visitors and our pharmacists, and many of the volunteers who keep many of the shows on the road.
As the Office for National Statistics report on loneliness earlier today showed, these changes are taking a toll on our lives. They are taking a toll on individuals, families and businesses, so the news this week of further successful vaccine trials with Moderna and today’s update from Pfizer have given rise to the very real prospect of an effective vaccine in the near future. While I share that sense of hope with many, we still have some way to go, and we must never lose sight of the challenges that we face at the moment. A vaccine still has to go through a regulatory process, but it is right that the planning of the huge logistical exercise of a vaccine roll-out led by the NHS is now very much under way. Throughout this pandemic we have had to learn, and each week brings further understanding.
As more information continues to emerge on the risks of long covid, for example, we are reminded how this virus can remain a threat. I am sure hon. and right hon. Members will be pleased to hear that the NHS will have a network of 40 long covid clinics in place before the end of this month, bringing together doctors, nurses, therapists and other NHS staff to help those patients suffering from the lasting effects of this virus. That is an example of how our response to the virus has to continue to evolve and strengthen to protect staff, patients and the public, moving with the science as we learn more.
It is hard to overstate how little was known about the virus at the start of the year. We have done many things for the first time, and the learning curve has definitely been a steep one, but looking back, we have come a long way through this difficult year. We have always sought to base decisions on evidence, data and scientific advice, and we have been willing to reflect and adapt as we go. From repatriating individuals from Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic, we have constantly faced and met enormous challenges. In the words of General Sir Nick Carter back in April, distributing personal protective equipment, for example, was
“the single greatest logistical challenge”
in his 40 years of service. However, with others helping, such as the Army, we built those supply chains and responded to demand. In some areas, demand went up by 17,000% for eye protection, for example, and by approximately 4,700% for masks. So far, we have distributed more than 4.9 billion items of personal protective equipment to the frontline, and today we have a four-month stockpile in hand across all nine key lines, with a further 32 billion items of PPE on order. We have regularly delivered to more than 58,000 health and care organisations. I would like to pay tribute to Lord Deighton and his team for their extraordinary efforts in building resilience into the supply chain, to enable us to be as confident as we are today.
I am clear that none of this would have been possible without the incredible collaboration we have seen between industry, social care providers, our NHS, the armed forces and others. Industry and individual businesses stepped up to meet the challenge. At the start of the pandemic, only 1% of PPE was manufactured here in the United Kingdom. By the end of the year, we will be manufacturing 70% of the amount of PPE we expect to use from December to March in all key areas bar gloves. This enormous national effort has put our country on a strong footing today and for years to come. Following the launch of the PPE strategy in September, we are looking at sustainability and initiating a UK production site for gloves.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I accept that it was an extraordinary time and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken, but as we have heard from the National Audit Office today, tried and tested processes and procedures were not used. Will the Minister say something about that report and why that was the case, why we had 11 ministerial directions by May and whether those lessons have been learnt by her Department and others that fell foul of the procurement procedures?
Jo Churchill
The NAO report to which the hon. Member refers highlights that we were acting with “extreme urgency” in a global market where demand exceeded supply. The report states that the situation in responding to the covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented, but that we
“secured unprecedented volumes of essential supplies necessary to protect front-line workers.”
Jo Churchill
If the hon. Member will bear with me, I will continue.
The NAO report examined potential conflicts of interests involving Ministers and the awarding of contracts and found none. It states:
“we found that the ministers had properly declared their interests, and we found no evidence of their involvement in procurement decisions or contract management.”
The report recognises that there are robust processes in place for spending public money, to ensure that critical equipment got to where it needed to go as rapidly as possible while ensuring value for money. I welcome the report, because we can all learn.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I want to make a very different point, which is about how well prepared we were for this year and how prepared we would be if all this were to happen again. The truth is that we tend to run the NHS at 90% to 95% capacity, and it takes the requirement of only a tiny smidgen of increased capacity for the whole thing to fall over. I am particularly conscious of that in relation to intensive care. We have had to cancel elective surgery just to keep intensive care going. If we had the same number of beds per head of population as France or Germany, we would not have had to do that. Another affected area is neuro-rehabilitation after brain injuries, which was already struggling and will even more so because covid clearly leads to some neuro-degenerative conditions.
Jo Churchill
The hon. Member is an incredible campaigner in the area of neural injuries. When elective procedures are stood down, those are clinical decisions. We have ensured that many can keep going in the second wave, but this must be done on a local level. There is surge capacity in the Nightingale hospitals, with an additional 2,000 beds, and we have the ventilator capacity that was built up during the first wave of the pandemic. I recognise what he says, but I do feel that these decisions have to be made locally by the clinicians who are involved in delivering the care.
Chris Bryant
I am not having a go at the Minister; I am simply trying to ask a question for the country, in a way. For the future, we will have to have much more capacity in the NHS, won’t we? We will have to nearly double the amount of capacity we have in some areas, particularly in intensive care, in neuro-rehabilitation and, for that matter, in radiotherapy.
Jo Churchill
I will come on to the area of cancer, in particular. Strides have been made in different ways of treating virtually, so that fewer people go into the hospital setting, and so on. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about capacity, but that is why the Government have committed to building 40 new hospitals—because there is a need to ensure that sufficient capacity is available across the country for people.
Jo Churchill
I am going to push on a little bit and then I will give way again.
This enormous national effort has put our country on a strong footing for today and years to come. We are using the best of British ingenuity to help us to deliver in this area. Progress has also been seen in other areas. As the pandemic unfolded, the UK could not call on a major diagnostic industry. From a standing start of about 2,000 tests a day in March, our capacity is now over half a million tests per day. This matters, because it has often been said in this place that in order to beat the virus we need to draw on different parts of our armoury to help to get us through. Testing works. It helps to deny the virus the connections it needs to spread. Mass testing therefore offers us a chance to achieve that on a much bigger scale. We are making progress in city-wide testing in Liverpool. I thank Joe Anderson for his leadership in helping to deliver not only in testing but in other areas too. We are also rolling out a further localised approach to other areas with the help of directors of public health, among others, who know their local areas. Some 83 local authorities have now signed up to receive regular batches of lateral flow tests, which allow for a result to be seen in 15 minutes.
Further, I know that hon. Members will celebrate Monday’s announcement of two mega-labs coming on stream early next year—very high-throughput laboratories, one in the midlands and one in Scotland, adding a further capacity of some 600,000 tests per day. These are massive gains that we are achieving by embracing cutting-edge technology such as automation and robotics and harnessing the best of British industry and academia, meaning that we will not only be able to process more tests but that they can be processed quicker and at a lower cost. The mega-labs will be another powerful weapon in our defence against this deadly virus in order to get back to a more normal way of life, but more than that, they will form a permanent part of the country’s new diagnostic industry. They can help us to respond in the future and build further resilience.
I am excited at the potential for a new diagnostic industry to help to care and deliver across other disease types, not least cancer. Hon. Members will know that, informed in large part by my own experience, I was an advocate of improved cancer outcomes long before I came to this place or took on this role. Early diagnosis is the key to beating the disease, and with bold steps forward in diagnostics, I would like it to make it my mission—I am sure with many others across the House—that we seize new opportunities in cancer services so that covid-19 is not a derailer but an opportunity for a new phase in smarter, faster diagnostics.
Jo Churchill
I would be happy to hear from the hon. Member, who champions radiotherapy.
Tim Farron
I very much appreciate the Minister’s work in this area. She will have seen that leading clinicians think it will take five years for us to catch up with the cancer backlog. Indeed, Cancer Research UK has recognised that there have been 35,000 avoidable deaths from cancer over this period. Only very recently, there was an awful figure in an article in The BMJ saying that there have been 60,000 lost life years as a consequence of cancer during this period. I absolutely acknowledge that progress is being made when it comes to diagnostics; I am less convinced that progress is being made when it comes to treatment. Will she confirm whether her Department is making an urgent bid for spending review funding for smart radiotherapy, for delivery at satellite sites and for digital technology, to ensure that we clear the backlog, save lives and catch up with cancer?
Jo Churchill
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As he will know, the comprehensive spending review will deliver forth, and bids have been put in across the piece. I am sure he will understand that it is not my place to answer, as those decisions are still being made.
We know that some of these figures relate to specific challenges. For example, endoscopy is still a particular challenge because of the aerosol-generating procedure. That is why I was really pleased that Cally Palmer, Professor Peter Johnson and other stakeholders, including charities, have formed the cancer recovery taskforce. They will be laying out a national plan for how we beat this, and also how we optimise the use of new treatment paths. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are using fewer radiotherapy treatments, or fractions, so that people do not have to attend so much. There is also oral chemotherapy and many other advances that need building in, to ensure that patients get timely and quick treatment.
As the first wave subsided, the NHS rose to the challenge of restoring cancer services: it kept focus and did some amazing reconfiguration work around cancer hubs and rapid diagnostic centres. I recognise that, as the hon. Gentleman says, there is a way to go, but I am aware of how much each day spent waiting for a diagnosis, for treatment or for an answer suspends time and feels like a year for the individual. We will continue to ensure that cancer services are prioritised and we thank those who work in the cancer workforce for everything they are doing.
In September, slightly over 86% saw a cancer specialist within two weeks of a referral from a GP, and 94.5% had treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. I would really urge people who are worried about cancer or any other major issue, “Please, don’t leave it. Help us to help you.” It is always challenging, and many people have said to me that they do not want to overload the system, but doctors are keen to help.
A vaccine will perhaps be our most potent weapon, once we know that it is safe and effective. However, we do not yet have a vaccine. I must be very clear on that point. We are not quite there yet—we must ensure that we stick to hands, face, space and ventilate our environments by opening windows for short bursts—but progress on this front is encouraging. Last week, we heard about phase 3 trials from Pfizer and BioNTech, stating that their vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing covid. Today, further data indicates that the vaccine is now thought to be around 94% efficacious for those who are 65-plus, with good data on many other groups. As I say, we are constantly learning. Earlier this week, preliminary trial data from Moderna suggested that its vaccine had an effectiveness of 94.5%. Additionally, we have had the start of Janssen’s phase 3 trials in the UK this week, and we will hopefully have more phase 3 trials reported in the next few weeks.
This is all very positive, but of course, our regulator will not approve any vaccine until it is proven to be clinically safe and effective, and the way to get there is via trials. On that note, I would like to give a shout-out to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who is taking part in the trial, and my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who is also doing so. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) have registered, although I do not know whether they are part of it. I am sure several other Members across the House have also stepped up.
We have already struck commercial deals to secure access 355 million doses of seven vaccines, and the Department is working at pace with the NHS to ensure that we will be ready to roll out any that are proven safe and effective immediately. That will be a massive undertaking, and I thank everyone for their hard work thus far.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you were not in the Chair yesterday, but I somewhat embarrassed myself by perhaps displaying more of the parent in me than the Minister. This country’s journey in beating the pandemic, however, has been a little like watching one’s child grow: it is a huge undertaking, it comes without a manual, we are proud of the successes and, when things are trying, we attempt to learn and move on—but the work is never done. Over the past year, so many parts of our country have risen to meet an incredible set of challenges; challenges they are facing every day. Only by ensuring that we have those different lines of defence, and by pulling together in local, regional, national and international ways will we protect those on the frontline and allow family and business life to resume and get back to a different, albeit more normal way of life.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As Members will see from the call list, quite a number of people wish to participate in this debate. We will start all non-Front-Bench contributions at six minutes, although clearly that limit might be reduced later on depending on how many interventions there are.
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. It is a chance to remember those whom we have lost, and to share the hopes and fears of our constituents, who collectively have shown such resolve and sacrifice since the start of the pandemic and in the face of ongoing restrictions. It is also our opportunity to thank and pay tribute to the many individuals and organisations who are helping in the response. We have heard tributes to those providing PPE and scrubs, and even to pizza suppliers. The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) said that he hoped the Government were in listening mode. We are. I personally am in listening mode at 10 am every single weekday, when colleagues can find me and raise any issues, particularly cases that they are struggling to get sorted out with Departments.
I want to spend a bit of time talking about procurement, which, as the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) pointed out, it is extremely important to get right. We have followed clear processes throughout the whole pandemic. We have also issued new public procurement notes—not just for central Government, but for partner bodies. At the heart of that is value for money, and we always remember that it is not our money that we are spending. Accusations have been made about the quality of the equipment provided. I want to get it on record that 0.5% of PPE supplied turned out not to be up to spec or was faulty. That is an incredible achievement by those 500 civil servants, who have done an amazing job in this pandemic.
There have been accusations of a high priority lane. There is no such thing. As all hon. Members will know, there is a triage service for Members of Parliament. Today I have heard the scheme criticised by certain Members who actually used it, including the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who used it twice. Several MPs placed those contact points on their websites. No special treatment was given to those companies. The same due diligence was applied—all eight checks. What it did allow was gumption to be used. There were many great offers of help out there, and there were also some not so great offers of help. We wanted to avoid good bets being parked in a system and buried under thousands of not so useful inquiries. Those businesses and MPs were not on the take or the make. All of us were working together to meet huge demand, and to keep health workers, care workers and other key workers safe.
With regard to transparency, everything is in the public domain and is independently reviewed by the National Audit Office. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), quoted the NAO report, which showed that no evidence was found that Ministers had improperly hidden interests, or had been involved in procurement decisions or contract management. If any part of Government—for example, the intelligence agencies—cannot reveal issues with procurement, there are systems to ensure that that is properly scrutinised in this place.
The National Audit Office said that we were behind in our paperwork, and that is the case, but as one civil servant said to me, “I would rather be behind in my paperwork”—and they will be catching up on that—“than care workers not have gloves.”
The 11 ministerial directions included bounce back loans, local authority grants, the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, small business grants, and the leisure and retail support funds. Concerns were raised with Ministers about them, but Ministers said, “No. Crack on: people need support.”
The hon. Member for Nottingham North rightly raised the issue of Test and Trace, as many others have done. I shall not go through all the statistics, but the latest published results, for the week of 29 October to 4 November, show that where communication details were given 78.3% of contacts were reached and told to self-isolate. He made very good points both on lab capacity and on support, which I shall raise with the Department, and, of course, on the importance of locally led contact tracing. We now have 80 local authorities involved in that. It is a central system, but they are doing the contact tracing locally.
Many Members, including Opposition Front Benchers, have spoken about the exit from this particular lockdown in England and the importance of getting the right balance. Hon. Members have also spoken about data. The Treasury provides regular data. We have key performance indicators in health.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) mentioned the quality of answers he was getting. I am on this and have sent two of his questions back to Departments in order for them to do a better job.
I agree with the points raised by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) with regard to risk management and what we can learn. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) made several points, but I say to him that, as well as the financial reasons that are often given for the Union of the United Kingdom, it is not just about head; it is also about heart. It is about our mutuality, and I think there is no greater example of that than the NHS—four devolved systems all learning from each other’s unique strengths, but working as one for the benefit of the whole United Kingdom.
Many Members spoke about the fact that covid has stamped on the fault lines of inequality in our country. The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), who is no longer in his place, mentioned the Marmot curve, and he was right to do so. However, although we have had a lot of cross-party co-operation, it is quite wrong for people to revert to the default setting of claiming that the motives of Government Members are a result of their being either evil or stupid. Those are ridiculous stereotypes, but they still persist in our politics. The idea that people who were on free school meals as children or who grew up in deprivation or in the care system suddenly become a bunch of rotters when they get their Conservative party membership card is ridiculous.
The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) rightly raised important points about the BAME community and our Central Office of Information work. I shall write to her at length. The Central Office of Information does an incredible job in outreach and uses surrogate spokesmen, as she suggested.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood) raised very important points about workforce resilience, and I will take them up. Many Members raised issues about additional support and paid tribute to their constituents. The hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) raised issues about care home visits. Their points were well made. Pilots are taking place for fast testing and improving all that. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) raised excellent points about parking, which I shall take up. I shall also ensure that we publish on the parliamentary website clarity around exams, because there have been statements made about that.
In the 10 seconds that I have left, I would like to thank all hon. Members for their contributions. When I spoke before, I mentioned that although we were in darkness, there were many points of light.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered covid-19.
Dame Diana Johnson
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was really disappointed that in the Minister’s winding-up speech there was no reference to Hull. I made a very clear ask for a response to the letters from the three Hull MPs and the leader of the council. I think the Minister might want to respond to that point.
Penny Mordaunt
I will happily respond. I am sorry that I did not have a lot of time at the Dispatch Box. However, during the course of the debate I arranged for the covid-19 taskforce—who, through the Cabinet Office and my office, will co-ordinate this—to have a meeting with the hon. Lady and any other people, whether colleagues in this place or the local resilience forum. The notes that she has given us today on further logistical support are incredibly important, and we will act on them. I will see her after this debate to confirm all that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Thank you. I should just say that both Front Benchers agreed to keep their contributions shorter than they ordinarily would have done in order to accommodate as many Back Benchers as possible.