Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

No. The Prime Minister has set out the four conditions that need to be met and will be saying more about that on 22 February.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

I add my congratulations to all those involved in the roll-out of the vaccine, particularly those in my local area who have been working non-stop. Will the Secretary of State say something about international co-operation, particularly in respect of identifying new variants and assisting other countries to stop their transmission? What discussions are taking place with the World Health Organisation and others to ensure that we are keeping track of new variants as much as is practicably possible?

Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that absolute assurance. Of course, the supply of vaccines is the rate-limiting step. We have seen the strain on vaccine supply from some of the things that have happened over the past week, and some weeks the supply is greater than in others. The website shows the daily move in the overall supply across the country as a whole. Lancashire will get its fair share and get enough to be able to deliver on the target of the offer to everybody in cohorts 1 to 4 by 15 February. I have looked closely specifically into the figures for the north-west, and it is getting its fair share. I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that the reports circulating on the internet do not come from credible sources.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

I add my congratulations to the workers in the NHS who are delivering the roll-out of the vaccine. Reopening schools will be a major step towards returning to some form of normality for young people in particular, but the presence of the new variant is likely to create some anxiety among staff. To minimise the disruption to education when we return and to create some confidence among staff when they are asked to go back into schools in large numbers, does the Secretary of State agree that we should plan to vaccinate school staff if at all possible before half-term, if not during it?

[Matt Hancock]

The challenge with the proposal the hon. Gentleman puts forward is that vaccinating those who are not as vulnerable to the disease before those who are more vulnerable would essentially increase the overall clinical vulnerability to the disease. I am glad that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) did not raise this issue as health spokesman on the Labour Front Bench, although I know others on the Labour Front Bench do so. We have to follow the clinical order of priority, because my priority is saving lives.

Public Health

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

I will support these measures, but I regret the need to implement them. The public are weary of the Government’s U-turns, dither and delay at crucial moments throughout this pandemic, when what we needed was decisive leadership. Nothing highlights the Government’s incompetence more than their approach to education, and to schools in particular.

At the end of last term, the Government threatened legal action to keep schools open in Greenwich, while at the same time planning to keep all schools closed in January. All the time, the Government were aware that a new variant was ripping through Kent and the south-east, and today, the Government recognised that this new variant was rapidly causing schools to be a vector in our communities. It has been obvious from the start of this pandemic that education was going to be severely disrupted due to school bubbles having to regularly isolate, and that online learning was going to be a regular part of children’s education, but the Secretary of State is yet again way behind the curve. He failed to get devices out to children during the first lockdown, and according to Ofqual, 1.8 million children in this country face lockdown without access to digital devices. A report in July warned the Government of a second spike this winter and also warned there was a possibility of a new variant, yet there has been too little urgency from the Government to get devices out to those who need them. Too many children are going to suffer due to the inability of the Government to read the facts before them.

Now our schools are closed, and confidence in the Government is shot through. Teachers have seen how the virus has ripped through their schools, and parents are worried for their families. To create confidence in the safety of schools, staff will need to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Teachers do not need scientists or experts to tell them the risk to which they are exposed when they are in school. Figures published today in TES show that the infection rate among staff in Greenwich schools was almost three times the rate of the local community. Teachers see these figures, and they need to be confident that they are safe when they return to their classrooms. They have seen at first hand the number of colleagues and pupils forced to isolate and those who have tested positive. The Government must not wait to be forced into yet another U-turn. Teachers need to be tested alongside other essential workers, and the Government should accept that now.

Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have to remember that the vaccine is a great symbol of hope, but it is a means to an end, and the end is the lifting of restrictions and the restoration of our liberties and the freedom for us to act as we please. That is the goal of this programme: to make people safe so that we can get life back to normal and, of course, protect the NHS. On the timing, it is absolutely right, as I said in my response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), that the speed of roll-out can be accelerated because of the decisions announced this morning. The precise timing of that has to be determined by the manufacture, because although we can forecast that, we cannot know exactly how much will be delivered. On the question of how far down the priority list we need to go before people are safe, we will observe that as we observe the reduction—I hope—in transmission that we get, as well as the protection of individuals. So we will keep this under review, but the good news is that I am highly confident that by the spring we will be through this. It was not possible before the approval of this vaccine to say that.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

What information has the Secretary of State received from the experts in the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies about the roles that schools played in the spread of infection in places such as south-east London? Does this suggest that we should have a roll-out of a mass vaccination programme for schools?

[Matt Hancock]

We will vaccinate according to clinical need, because that is the best way both to protect lives and to be able to lift the restrictions.

Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, the roll-out and the 10% of population per week availability of lateral flow tests is available to directors of public health right across the country. If that has not already been organised with York, I urge the director of public health in York to come forward and work with the team to make that happen.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State recognised in his statement that the task of delivering 40 million doses will be vast, and he has also said that he has orders for 300 million further doses. How far away are we from those further doses coming on board, and does not that make that a huge task to undertake at a local level? How is local government involved in co-ordinating this roll-out?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, it will be a huge task. The NHS is leading on it, and of course the NHS reaches all parts of this country. As for the flow of the future doses that we have secured, the only one that is in immediate prospect is AstraZeneca. It would be wonderful to hear the same sort of results soon for AstraZeneca that we heard from Pfizer yesterday. After that, it is next summer before the next vaccine candidate comes on stream, so the focus of the roll-out plan at the moment is on delivering the Pfizer and AstraZeneca projects if they pass the safety test.

Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions)

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The lack of scrutiny throughout this pandemic has led to sloppy decision making on the part of the Government. That is demonstrated in the U-turn after U-turn that we have seen. We have another example today at the Dispatch Box from the Secretary of State, who seems to have scrabbled together a deal with his Back Benchers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) is the second signatory to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and has lobbied many Labour Members to put our names to it, to put pressure on the Government. Did the Secretary of State consult my hon. Friend or any other Labour Member? Does this deal that he has got together have support across the House? Who did he consult? Will this House have the opportunity to stop Government decisions that it does not agree with before they are implemented?

We have seen the Government making decisions and implementing them, and then we in this House—maybe, if there is a statement—are given an opportunity to ask questions after the event. That has just not been good enough. We need to be able to influence what is taking place before the Government act, because lack of accountability enables them to make up the rules as they go along. They make snap announcements; then they need not worry about the implications because they can make another announcement and move on, and tomorrow’s headlines will cover their tracks.

It is small wonder the Prime Minister does not know whether he can come and go, with how many people, or whether it is indoors or outdoors. But one “gotcha” moment for the Prime Minister is not the issue. We are seeing a pattern. Throughout September, the Government have been unable to answer questions on testing of domiciliary care workers. The BMJ, back in April or May, concluded in a report that as many deaths were taking place among people who were receiving domiciliary care as were taking place in care homes, yet we never hear anything from the Government on this issue. Then there is the lack of involvement in local authorities in track and trace, where local knowledge could be used to track and deal with people who need to be isolated. These are issues that we could have raised in this House had we had the proper opportunity to scrutinise the Government. It is time the Government listened.

Covid-19 Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is a former military logistics expert, and in my experience—especially my recent experience during this crisis—there are no greater logistics experts in the world than those in the British military. He knows of what he speaks. We are surging, but doing so particularly in the areas where the case rate is higher, and thankfully in his part of the world the number of cases remains relatively low.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I am sympathetic to the idea of mass testing and have been for some time, but what does the Secretary of State say to someone like Professor David Spiegelhalter, who said that mass testing could lead to hundreds of thousands of false positives, with the knock-on effect of over a million people who have been in contact with those individuals being told to self-isolate? What assessment has the Government made of that issue?

Covid-19

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

If I understand the question correctly, the ability to provide tests to parts of the private sector that need to know people do not have the virus in order to be able to reopen parts of the economy or just enable things to happen is a very important part of where we would like to get to when we have the next generation of testing. At the moment, we of course have to follow a clinical protocol for the roll-out and the use of the capacity we have. We have very significant capacity, having built it up over the pandemic, but the work with the private sector is very important, and we will be publishing more details on this shortly.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) [V]]

I have had personal experience of track and trace over the last couple of weeks. Having filled in my initial form, I was contacted at least three times to be asked for the same information again, so it is a question not just of the contacts, but of what is being done with the data. My assessment is that there is poor management of the data and a waste of time and effort in duplication, including in contacting members of my household and telling them to isolate from the wrong date. Improvements are needed to what is done once track and trace gets in touch with people. Does the Secretary of State agree?

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to look into these individual circumstances. Of course, we are constantly seeking to improve the system. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman was contacted so assiduously by the system, and I take the point about the need for the data to be collected as effectively and efficiently as possible. I hope that he and members of his household are following the rules and doing the isolation that is necessary.

Testing of NHS and Social Care Staff

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), says to me that the hon. Lady is a very powerful campaigner on this subject. For that and for other conditions, people must absolutely come forward and get the help that they need. The NHS is there for that reason.

My third and final point is on testing. Testing for the virus and tracing how it spreads is critical to containing it as we ramp up services and ease the national lockdown. This is especially important for our NHS and social care system so that we can protect our colleagues and the people they look after. We have already built an immense national infrastructure for testing. Back in March, we had the capacity across all our testing channels to conduct fewer than 2,000 tests a day, whereas yesterday we saw more than 237,000 tests carried out. As we have built capacity, we have prioritised those in need. We started with the patients who needed a test, then expanded to NHS and social care workers and their families, then to other critical key workers, before we expanded to the wider community.

Today NHS England and NHS Improvement have written to NHS trusts and foundation trusts to outline further steps that must be taken in the NHS, including continuing to prioritise testing for all NHS staff with symptoms; extra testing of non-symptomatic staff when there is an incident, outbreak or high prevalence; and regular surveillance testing of staff which, on the advice of our chief medical officer, will be fortnightly or more frequently, depending on local or national epidemiology.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

On the testing figures that we get every day, after we take out studies that are being done through testing, along with double testing and those tests that are sent out through the post, are we not down to just about a third of the numbers that the Government claim are taking place? How can we have any confidence in what the Government say about what they are going to be doing about testing going forwards?

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman has talked about taking out large numbers of testing; as the Minister for Care, I have seen a huge demand from the social care sector for testing through those channels, so I would not take out other forms of testing. For example, testing through tests sent to people’s homes very much counts and should be considered as part of our testing programme.

We have put a rigorous focus on testing in care homes, too. We met our target of offering tests to all staff and all residents of care homes for over-65s and those with dementia in England by 6 June. We then announced that we were able to extend the testing programme to all adult care homes. Since the launch of whole care home testing, we have provided over a million test kits to more than 9,000 care homes, and we are now able to send out more than 50,000 test kits a day. We are also running a prevalence study to get a detailed picture of coronavirus infection in care homes. Phase 2 of that study has just gone live, meaning that 10,000 residents and staff across 100 care homes will have repeat swab and antibody tests.

Social Distancing: 2 Metre Rule

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend the assurance she seeks. We are very much aware that time matters, and this review is being conducted as swiftly and as rigorously as it can be.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Before it is safe to reduce the 2 metre rule, do we not require a world-beating track and trace system to be in place? And does a world-beating track and trace system not require a fully functioning app?

[Edward Argar]

As I have set out, I believe we have made an extremely strong and successful start with our track and trace system. Baroness Harding, who is heading up that piece of work, has made it clear that the app is important but that it is, as she characterised it, the cherry on the cake. It is not essential to the effective system that we have already got up and running.