Public Health

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I find myself more able to support the Government today than I was on 5 November, and the reason for that is that last month I was concerned about the lack of a plan B and the fact that we might have to have such a thing in the event of the prospect of a third, fourth or fifth wave of this terrible virus. It seems that we are now on the brink of a game changer, in a way that perhaps we could not be confident about last month. That is important, because in the event that we can turn this around in the near future, the need for protected isolation falls away. It is for that reason that I see the logic of what the Government are attempting to do on this occasion, in a way that was eluding me ever so slightly on 5 November. The other thing that probably gets it over the line for me is that the UK appears, with what is proposed for tomorrow onwards, to be doing more or less the same as other similar jurisdictions. That is not just followership; it is important because each one of those countries, with all their experts, will have been making similar assessments and coming to broadly the same conclusions.

We saw in the leaked documents in October that our hospitals in the south-west and the midlands would have been the first to go over capacity. There is a big difference between the two, however, in that the prevalence of the disease in the midlands was much larger than in the south-west. The documents suggested that the hospitals in the south-west would have been overwhelmed on 9 November and the Nightingales on 24 November. In the event, at peak, my largest hospital, the Royal United Hospital in Bath, had 70 cases, and that was on 24 November, 19 days after lockdown. That seems to vindicate the model, the action and even perhaps the broadbrush tiering approach now being proposed by the Government, apropos the point about the midlands and the south-west.

In all this, we have to understand that there is a huge margin of uncertainty. We also need to understand that the facts are changing all the time. I say to some of my colleagues that we have to accept that sometimes there is no evidence in the way that maths, physics and chemistry provide us with evidence, and that we have to deal instead with what appears to be biologically plausible. We have to look at outbreak studies, and we have to look at the application of common sense to anecdote. I, too, am disappointed that the proposed tiering system has so little granularity. We have found, to our dismay, that the tools to do comprehensive contact tracing that would have facilitated such granularity are simply no longer there. Even Germany is now finding that to be the case. In two weeks’ time, it is to be hoped that we will have been able to appraise the situation against the five points, plus the knowledge of human geography that we facilitated with the restrictive measures we put in place earlier this year, and that, where appropriate, boroughs and districts will be able to be re-tiered to the satisfaction of colleagues.

The fundamental problem is our lack of public health capacity, and that is something we need to address in the longer term, notwithstanding the positive early steps the Government have taken at pace in relation to things such as the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the National Institute for Health Protection. Finally, in agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), I would say that the Prime Minister is no natural Grinch, but we have to be very careful that we do not have five days of partying over Christmas only to regret it in January.

Public Health

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I have looked at the Leicester figures frequently; they do go up and down, but Leicester has never come out of the restrictions. It is a point that I have been making, and it is not a party political one. The point is that if an area is in restrictions and does not come out, the restrictions are not working. If an area was in tier 2 restrictions and ends up in tier 3, tier 2 did not work. To go back to that system does not make any sense. For heaven’s sake, we have got to use the next four weeks to come up with something better than that for 2 December, otherwise we will do the usual thing, which is to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December, and then, when we get there, find out that what we said would happen will not happen. I can predict what is going happen because it has happened so many times in the past seven months: the Prime Minister says, “x won’t happen”; x will happen; it does happen; and we start all over again. It is not fair to the British public to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman confounding his own logic? He has spent the past several days berating the Government for not introducing a circuit breaker, but at no time did I hear him explain how we would leave the circuit breaker, which it seems to me was simply the half-term holiday rebadged.

[Keir Starmer]

The lower the rate of infection and the lower the admissions, the more chance there is to get the virus under control. That is why you have to go early. If you want to safeguard the economy, go early. How on earth has it helped the British economy to delay and to go into a lockdown for four weeks when, on 21 September, SAGE was saying it could be two to three weeks? How on earth has it helped the British economy to miss the chance to do lockdown over half-term?

All Members will have seen the data about schools. We all want schools to stay open. How on earth did it make sense to miss half-term? Most schools would happily have said, “We’ll get up early—the Thursday before half-term—and we’ll use Monday and Tuesday as inset days,” and we could probably have got the best part of two weeks of schools being closed naturally, because of half-term, and have the lockdown over then. I do not think there can be anybody in this House who does not think that would have been a better period for a circuit break, lockdown—call it what you like.

It has not helped the economy to waste three weeks. If, at the end of those three weeks, the Prime Minister could say, “Well, there we are—the tiered system is now working, and I’m going to stick with it,” that would be one thing, but the Prime Minister is now saying, “I am going to do the lockdown,” which is failure. That is failure.

The next four weeks cannot be wasted—cannot be wasted. We have got to fix test, trace and isolate. The last figures show that, in just one week, 113,000 contacts were missed by the system. Four in 10 people who should be contacted are not being contacted under the system. If you are not contacted, you cannot isolate. It is not just a number; that is 113,000 people walking round our communities when they should have been self-isolating. Hands up if you think that has helped to control the virus.

We have been on about the track, trace and isolate system for months. The promises come by the wheelbarrow, the delivery never. Only 20% of people who should be isolating are doing it. Something is going wrong. Just continually pushing away challenge and pretending the problem does not exist is a huge part of the problem. Those figures have got to turn around, and they have got to turn around in the next four weeks. If we get to 2 December and those problems are still in the system, we will be going round this circuit for many months to come. If this is not fixed in the next four weeks, there are massive problems.

The Government have also got to stop sending constant mixed messages: “Go back to work, even if you can work from home,” or “Civil servants, get to work,” only a week later to say, “Stay at home.” The constant changing of the economic plans is creating even more uncertainty. There have been huge mistakes made in recent weeks during this pandemic. We have been told so many times by the Prime Minister, often on a Wednesday afternoon, that there is a plan to prevent a second wave—it is working. Well, there was not, and it did not.

Now, less than four months after the Prime Minister told us that this would all be over by Christmas, we are being asked to approve emergency regulations to shut the country down. That is a terrible thing for the country to go through, but there is not any excuse for inaction or for allowing the virus to get further out of control, so Labour will act in the national interest, and we will vote for these restrictions—these regulations—tonight.

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[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

May I start by apologising for reading a newspaper during the Prime Minister’s contribution? Mr Speaker was quite right. However, I was not, in my defence, reading my horoscope, even if the Prime Minister kindly did. I wonder whether, in mitigation, I could bring to the House’s attention the headline that I was reading in the Metro this morning, which says, “Vaccine on front line in a month”. Just imagine my excitement at reading that. I hope that the Metro is correct, but I gently point out to those on the Front Bench that, in the event that it is not correct and we do not get a game changer soon, we will seriously have to think about a plan B. In the few minutes available to me, I shall explain why I think that is the case.

Irrespective of the Prime Minister’s kind remarks about my future career prospects, I will be supporting the Government this evening. I cannot think of a single issue since 2003 that has occupied me quite as much as this, and I have agonised over my choice. I am going to support the Government because it hinges on one thing for me, which is that schools are remaining open, which I have discussed with the Secretary of State. In the light of evidence produced by Ackland et al in Edinburgh, it seems to me that it would be foolhardy to close down schools based on deaths to do with covid, due to the consequences of such an extraordinary move. It is the right decision to keep schools open and prioritise them, and it is for that reason that I will be supporting the Government this evening.

I will also be supporting the Government this evening because it seems to me that, broadly speaking, they are doing the same thing that other jurisdictions are doing, and there is safety in numbers. I will be supporting the Government too because of the wide margin of uncertainty that attends all this and a sense of some humility in trying to examine all this complicated material and make sense of it. Finally, I shall be supporting the Government because I know that the Prime Minister, who shares many of the libertarian instincts that I hold, has pushed back as much as he can on some of the advice that has been given to him. I find that convincing, and if I was in any doubt, having analysed the data over the weekend, that has pushed me over the line in the decision I have made.

I am concerned about the clarity of data and the logistics chains for the vaccine that the Metro hopes will be with us within a month. As the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care knows, I am concerned because I have granular evidence from my constituency that the organisations that can provide the wherewithal to guarantee the cold chain necessary for the distribution of the vaccine have not yet been tapped into. I cite the company Polar Thermal in my constituency, which is a leader in this technology and has yet to be contacted.

I am concerned about the lack of a plan B. Plan B has been made all the more possible by the advent of lateral flow testing technology, which will facilitate focused protection if necessary, and we need to give much closer thought to that. I am concerned about places of collective worship. I am concerned about non-contact sports such as tennis and golf. I understand the logic behind proscribing those activities, but we have to treat the British public as adults and individuals with autonomy and agency. I respectfully disagree with the decisions that have been made on those fronts, and I hope very much, particularly if this sadly has to be continued beyond the beginning of December, that they are looked at again.

Covid-19 Update

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Clearly, the most important thing is that the R should get below 1.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Seasonal flu deaths for the past two years have been relatively light, which means that, in the normal course of things, we would expect a hard winter, noting that in 2014-15 there were 26,000 deaths and in 2017-18 there were 28,000. I appreciate that the Government are doing everything they can to increase the number of vaccinations, but given that we can vaccinate against that disease, unlike covid, will the Prime Minister redouble his efforts to ensure that those who are vulnerable this winter get the flu vaccine that they need?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why I encourage everybody who is vulnerable to get a flu vaccine now, and that is why we have 30 million available.

British Overseas Troops: Civil Liability Claims

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that constructive point. Let me be clear: I am absolutely happy to amend the legislation on the suggestion of any hon. Member to get it right, but it has to be based on fact and reality. The armed forces compensation scheme has a seven-year limit on it anyway. The Limitation Act 1980 also limits the time in which claims can be brought. If hon. Members want to discuss that more widely, clearly that is a broader issue. All we are doing is bringing into line our military personnel and veterans’ experiences.

I will be honest that I cannot, off the top of my head, think why individuals would be diagnosed and choose not to do anything about it, then choose to do something about it much later. I have not come across that in all my experience in the field, but I am happy to learn. If that is the case, I am happy to change the Bill, but that is not what experience shows us. I urge hon. Members to come up with constructive criticism and debate, so that we can really work on the Bill to get it right, because we all agree that we need to do it.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I welcome the spirit of the Bill. To congratulate the Minister, I will send him a copy of my book, “Tommy This an’ Tommy That: The military covenant”. He has done well to bring it thus far, but it is tipped to be heavily amended as it progresses through this place, not least because of Judge Jeff Blackett’s remarks. I press the Minister to look again at part 2, because it seems to me that the “no disadvantage” enjoinder within the military covenant is in danger of being overlooked. I know that he would not want to see that.

[Johnny Mercer]

I am more than happy to look at any part of the Bill, but as I am also bringing in legislation to make the armed forces covenant law and make it actually mean something, it would be quite bizarre for me to bring in another Bill that reduced it. I will, of course, look at that, but I do not accept that the Bill brings any disadvantage to those who have served.

Civil Service Appointments

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is precisely because we do want a good deal that negotiations are being intensified. That decision was taken by the Prime Minister and by the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. We all wish those involved bonne chance.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome the appointment of David Frost, who is well qualified for the roles that my right hon. Friend has outlined. At the weekend in a Government press release, David Frost is said to have said that he is particularly exercised by the importance of the integrated review and the formation of the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. What role does my right hon. Friend envisage for David Frost in the formation of that very welcome new Department? When will the new permanent secretary be appointed to the Department? Does my right hon. Friend agree that he or she has to be an excellent change manager? What relationship will David Frost have to the new perm sec?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very thoughtful set of questions from a very successful previous Minister in the Foreign Office. It is right that the integrated review should look at how diplomacy, aid, and defence and security mesh. He is right that David Frost’s experience equips him well for that role. There will be no single individual who will be reviewing these matters. There will be a range of people, including existing civil servants. I should add that one of those is also involved as another political appointee in the Prime Minister’s policy unit—a biographer of Clement Attlee. I am sure that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) would agree that that is a qualification for high office.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Approach

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I do not think we need an extension to make the processes work. We just need good will on all sides.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

The arrangements that my right hon. Friend has described are potentially good news for businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland and a great opportunity but may I press him on what he describes as very minimal checks? Does he mean the 4% of imports that are currently checked coming into the United Kingdom and the 1% that are physically checked? Does he mean more or less than that? Clearly, the European Union thinks that substantial checks will be required, presumably exceeding those levels, because it is setting up a bureaucracy in Belfast to cope with it.

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about the number of checks that are currently required as goods move into the United Kingdom, often from jurisdictions that do not have such high SPS standards as we uphold. We will continue to have high SPS standards, so the proportion of physical checks required is almost certain to be fewer than are currently required for goods coming from outside.

Mental Health of Veterans

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent and important point, which he and I discussed when we were on the armed forces parliamentary scheme last year.

As we know from recent publicity, last week Commonwealth veterans took legal action against the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence over a systematic failure to assist them properly with complex immigration rules. Many of those veterans, sadly, now fear deportation. The claimants allege that the Government failed to follow their own duties at discharge, meaning that little guidance was given about their immigration status. Under current Home Office rules, a Commonwealth veteran with a partner and two children would have to pay—can you believe this?—nearly £10,000 to continue living in the UK.

Why do I raise that point in a debate on mental health support? Imagine someone risking their life for a country only to find out that they will have to pay just to live there when they retire. I cannot begin to think how stressful it would be for someone on a military pension to try to pay the Home Office’s extortionate visa fees. When the Home Office makes such decisions, they tap into the general problem, which has already been alluded to. Mental health support for veterans is not just a matter for the Ministry of Defence or the Department of Health and Social Care: it is also a matter for the Home Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and many others.

Just last week, Craig Bulman, who served in 2 Para, the Red Devils freefall team and the Household Cavalry, contacted my office and told me about his experience with the Child Support Agency. Again, it is not an issue that would immediately strike us as relating to mental health. However, Craig told me:

“I am currently helping with 13 cases, mostly veterans. Of those, I have four veterans who are suicidal due to their experiences with the CSA. In a couple of these cases, it triggered their PTSD.”

I do not know a huge amount about those cases—in fact, I know little, and there is a lot more to the story—but I would be grateful if the Minister would agree to meet me to discuss Craig’s experience in more depth. I think it would be useful for the Ministry of Defence, as it would for the people Craig is helping. I bring it up again today to reiterate the simple point that we require a more collaborative and holistic approach to improving mental health support for veterans.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I have listened with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. As a veteran, I defer to no one in my admiration of our veterans, or my desire to ensure that their mental health is promoted. However, for credibility, it is only fair to point out that many other public servants are at least as badly affected by some of the traumas to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If he is trying to create a system in which we prioritise the management of particular groups, he needs also to consider the police service, for example, which today loses more frontline people than the armed forces. Otherwise, his case kind of falls apart. I wonder whether he agrees.

[Jamie Stone]

I absolutely accept the point and can think, off the top of my head, of a number of policemen in my part of the far north of Scotland, who, most unfortunately, are leaving the service. That is something we do not want to happen.

I spoke earlier about the highlands’ very own Mark Lister, and it is true that constituencies such as mine face an additional challenge with regard to access to public services. Transport is not good, health services are patchy and we have a housing shortage, as I am sure nearly all constituencies do. I stress again that improving mental health support for veterans requires Government Departments to work together, possibly with other services such as the police, and it requires the Treasury to find the money and put it where it is needed.

The big ask that I want to conclude with is my hope that the Minister and the Government will look closely at my Bill, the National Health Service Expenditure Bill, which has received support from across the House. I am grateful to Members of all parties for what I take as a great expression of support. Second Reading is scheduled for Friday 26 June, the day before Armed Forces Day. I hope that Members recognise that I do not intend to let the matter drop.

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[Johnny Mercer]

I thank my hon. Friend, who knows the impression he left on me in my formative journey into this place. I think that I am speaking for him at a dinner tonight, where we can take the matter further. I shall come on to the question of funds for specific charities in a minute.

[Dr Murrison]

The Minister is of course right that service in the armed forces is positive, generally speaking, in terms of mental health, and veterans probably have better mental health than a non-serving cohort would. However, does he agree that that slightly misses the point, because if PTSD is service-attributable, then in accordance with the military covenant and “no disadvantage” we have an obligation to do what we can to resolve any problems that may have been caused as a result of service? I pointed that out in my report, “Fighting Fit” about 10 years ago.

[Johnny Mercer]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that it is no good sitting down with the widow of somebody who has taken their own life, or with their family, and saying, “Actually, statistically, we are in a pretty good place in this country when it comes to suicide.” The reality when it comes to figures and so on is that we are—the rate of suicide in the service community is eight in 100,000; in the civilian equivalent cohort it is 32 in 100,000. People who have served in the military are less likely to take their own life. However, he is absolutely right that each one of these suicides is a tragedy not only for the individual and their family, but for us as an institution, because we owe this unique debt of gratitude towards those who serve.[Official Report, 16 March 2020, Vol. 673, c. 6MC.]

We are beginning to really shift the debate. We have invested a lot of early money in data. We started from a very low point when it came to veterans’ data and data on suicide. We have put money into a cohort study, looking at 16,000 people from the beginning of the Iraq process through to where they are now. Clearly, most of them are civilians, but we are watching what happens in their lives, the cause of death if they die and so on. We are marrying that with an exercise in the MOD, going over the records of every individual who served who has died since 1991—almost three quarters of a million people —to have a look at the cause of death and the incidence rates. We have just signed the contract to give some money to the University of Manchester to look at cases in which veterans take their lives, to undertake a comprehensive study of the events in their life in the 12 months leading up to that, to answer the question whether we could or should have done anything more to intervene. I totally accept that the Government have not started from a strong start point when it comes to data around suicide and what we have done on it, but I want to make clear this morning that that is changing.

When it comes to this strategic shift in healthcare provision for our service people, I start by paying tribute to the service charities. They have done an amazing job—there are no two ways about that. When Combat Stress started, and throughout the period where mental health really was a Cinderella service—we talk now about winning that battle on the stigma of mental health, but 30 years ago that was not the case—Combat Stress held a candle for this stuff and was the only port in a storm. It has done an incredible job over the years.

However, for a long time Combat Stress and others have talked about the increasing presentation and understanding of mental health versus a decline in giving from the public. That has presented a unique challenge about what we do now. I am very clear, as is the Prime Minister, that that basic underlying mental health provision is owed to those people by this country and the NHS must step forward to provide that. With the problems with Combat Stress that have come to light recently, which everybody knows about, I have brought forward a third service to try to fill the mental health provision gap for our veterans. We have the complex treatment service, which was introduced last year and has been very successful, and we have the TIL—transition, intervention and liaison—service to speed up access to talking therapies and so on, but there is a requirement for a high-intensity service to look after some of our most poorly people on the NHS. I have brought that commissioning forward. The bidding process is going through now and in April I will be launching that. We will have those three services—CTS, the high-intensity service and TILS. That will be the framework through which this Government will see through their commitment to veterans on mental health.

The NHS requires people to deliver those services, and that is where the charities are absolutely critical. They have bid into the services and they are indeed running CTS and TILS in other parts of the country. We have had a lot of bids for high-intensity service. Those charities are going to go through a change as they fit in around this framework and leadership, which they have asked us for for a long time. The challenge then is to make sure that every single veteran and every service member in this country when they leave service knows about the programme of mental health care, so that they cannot honestly look me in the eye and say to me, “I did not know where to turn.” That is the challenge I am absolutely determined to meet. I will come on to talk about funding for that at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am absolutely committed to 0.7% and I am committed to spending it in value-for-money terms for the British taxpayers who are funding it and, most importantly, to ensuring that we help those countries that are most fragile and most in need of aid and then development, so that they can become strong independent countries themselves. Getting to that point involves doing lots of things, and not necessarily in the way we have done them before. We need to ensure that we have a long-term investment perspective to help those countries to become self-sufficient. I do not want countries always to be dependent on UK and international aid; I want them to be self-sufficient, proud countries that can stand on their own two feet.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Given the likely effect of covid-19 on populations that DFID works with, what plans exist to establish contingency funding to deal with mitigation for those populations and to shift funding to the development of a vaccine, which is a global equity?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for the enormous amount of work that he has done in previous iterations of his posts in this Department and others. He is absolutely right; the challenge of finding a vaccine for covid-19 is something that we are actively involved in, and we have already supported £5 million to the World Health Organisation. I was speaking to Dr Tedros yesterday to find out what other support we could bring, not only in cash terms but in expertise such as the skills of epidemiologists and logisticians, which could help the WHO to drive forwards in the weakest health systems across the world to ensure that they have the support they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. Whether his Department plans to allocate long-term funding to end female genital mutilation.

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this matter. I am pleased to say that the UK leads the world in our support to the Africa-led movement to end FGM. In 2018, we announced a further £50 million in UK aid to tackle FGM over the next five years, including £15 million for our programme in Sudan, which is now in its second phase.

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. He will of course be aware that the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is next week. In that context, and given some of the discussions around the potential reorganisation of DFID, he will understand why some in the sector are worried about whether funding will be retained up to 2025. The relationships underpinning those programmes take time to embed, so will he please give us that guarantee?

[Dr Murrison]

Notwithstanding what may happen with the machinery of government, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just said, I remind the hon. Lady that we are committed—indeed, we are legally obliged—to spend 0.7% of GNI. That is a firm commitment, and she should be in no doubt about it.

We, like her, look forward to the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on 6 February. We wish it well and entirely agree with its theme of “unleashing youth power”. Following DFID’s success in helping to achieve legal change in partner countries, we look forward to making another further important announcement about how we will work with international partners to strengthen laws, policies and systems to respond to FGM.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to ensure that UK aid to the Palestinians facilitates peace-building with Israel.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the UK is committed to making progress towards a negotiated two-state solution. Meanwhile, UK aid to Palestinians helps to meet immediate needs, deliver key services and promote economic development. It supports stability in the development of a capable and accountable Palestinian Authority who can act as an effective partner for peace with Israel.

[Robert Halfon]

UK taxpayers’ aid pays the salaries of teachers in Palestinian Authority schools, yet at least 31 official PA schools are named after terrorists who killed innocent citizens. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the children studying in those schools are being taught that it is honourable to commit violent acts against Israelis? Does he agree that, instead of prolonging the conflict by supporting such rhetoric, we must do more to press the Palestinians to stop glorifying terrorists and to use our aid as it is meant to be used?

[Dr Murrison]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. We are clear with the Palestinian Authority on how we expect UK aid to be spent. Last week, I had a further meeting with the Palestinian Authority Education Minister, Professor Awartani, following our meeting in Ramallah last year. He expressed his commitment to the EU’s review of teaching materials, as well as to the PA’s own review, which will be available before the start of the academic year.

Education means hope, and we need to be careful about removing hope from the OPTs, because hope is what is preventing people from falling into the arms of those with mischievous intent for the future of that part of the world.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to implement the findings of the UNICEF UK report on ending preventable child deaths.

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[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

11. What progress his Department has made on achieving sustainable development goal 2 on tackling hunger.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The UK is at the forefront of the fight against hunger, giving £461 million to humanitarian food assistance in 2018 through the World Food Programme. We will take a leadership position as a global influencer and convener, alongside Germany, at the SDG2 summit in Berlin in June and at other events leading up to the New York food systems summit and Japan’s nutrition for growth summit.

[Mr Sharma]

Malnutrition is the No. 1 risk factor for TB, the world’s deadliest infectious disease. A quarter of the 10 million new cases last year were caused by undernutrition, and treatment is less effective for those who are unable to access a good diet. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that fewer people fall ill with TB and to improve access to nutritional support for those who do fall ill?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman is right to link TB and malnutrition, and I hope he approves of the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria last year. That was a huge effort on behalf of this country. I think he will also approve of the GAVI replenishment, which this country will be hosting in London in June.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

T4. I understand that, given the recent significant influx of Syrian refugees into the Kurdistan region of Iraq, there are issues with the allocation of British funding to the Kurdistan region. So will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the region, which has accommodated more than 1 million refugees and displaced people since 2014, and will he sort out the funding?

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

I most certainly do join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the Kurdistan Regional Government and other Governments in the area, including those of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, who are helping. I am not aware of any delays to the allocation to which my hon. Friend refers, but I am happy to look into the matter.

The Prime Minister was asked—