Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head to Surrey and the Chair of the Health Committee, Jeremy Hunt.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

The news from AstraZeneca is fantastic. The Secretary of State and British science in general deserve enormous credit.

The NHS is now busier than last April; in parts of London it looks like it may fall over. However, back in April, schools were shut, but next week primary schools are due to reopen. In September, we came to regret allowing university students to go back en masse, but some universities will start to go back from next week. Why, in the middle of winter, when the NHS is under such pressure, when we have a dangerous new strain of the virus, are we taking such huge risks? Should not our entire focus for the next eight to 12 weeks be on saving lives, getting the first dose of the vaccine out to every single vulnerable person, stopping the NHS collapsing and putting NHS frontline staff at the front of the queue for the vaccines so that we keep safe the people upon whom our safety depends?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the Secretary of State replies, may I remind Members who are not in the Chamber that they should have the same dress code even though they are virtual? It is only fair that we treat each other with the same respect.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman rightly asked about the arrangements in place for Christmas, which the Prime Minister set out yesterday very clearly. Christmas is a very special time of year and that is why we have put in the arrangements that we have. It is a matter of people’s personal responsibility to ensure that they act and see their loved ones in a way that is safe and careful. I think people understand that and, what is more, I think people will abide by it. We know that it is safer to see older people, especially if they are over 70 or clinically extremely vulnerable, if we have taken the care to reduce social contact beforehand. We also know that, after Christmas, being able to reduce social contact will be important for keeping this under control.

I think that aspect of personal responsibility is important. Sometimes in this House it feels to me that the debate is as though, if we do not, in Government, put in place concrete rules, nobody will take any action. Actually, it is down to individuals—each and every one of us—to take responsibility for our actions, within the rules, of course, but also being cautious. This is a massive team effort and my experience of the last few months is that when a community has come together to get case rates down, that is when it has happened and when it has worked. Even with the rules in place, it is only when the community essentially comes together to get this under control that we get cases coming down along with the pressure on the NHS. I regret having to take the action that we have to take. I deem it necessary, and there is a strong view right across Government that these actions are necessary, but I also plead that personal responsibility is absolutely central to how we as a society should respond to this pandemic.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the mass vaccination roll-out. The mass vaccination sites are appropriate for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, should that come through and be approved by the regulator, so it is some weeks until we will see those rolled out. However, we are every day having more and more primary care sites coming on board with the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine, and it is very good to see that happening. I expect the numbers that are vaccinated to accelerate. The team have made a very good start and there is a long way further to go.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the data systems. They have largely been working very effectively. Of course, any very large logistical roll-out like this has niggles, but they are small and have been brilliantly dealt with locally on the ground.



The hon. Gentleman asked about the roll-out of testing in schools. As I say, the Education Secretary will set out more details on offering all secondary schools, colleges, special schools and alternative provision settings the help, support and facilities to test as many secondary-age and further education students as possible, as they resume their education in January. I thank in advance all the teachers and support staff in schools for their work; no doubt they will lean in and support this task to ensure that school return can be done as safely as possible.

Finally, I echo the hon. Gentleman’s words and wish him a happy and safe Christmas. I look forward very much to seeing him again in January.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con) [V]]

In the past week, I have received unexpectedly joyful emails from residents of South West Surrey who have been among the first in the world to receive a clinically approved vaccine for coronavirus. I thank my right hon. Friend for that early Christmas present. I also thank him for the energy, for the endless media rounds and for the dedication that he has shown in the past year, which must have been one of the toughest imaginable for a Health Secretary. I am also grateful that Waverley has been excluded from the Surrey-wide move to tier 3, in recognition of our lower infection rates, although we will remain vigilant.

I want to ask my right hon. Friend about Christmas, just a week away. Of course personal responsibility matters, but, in a pandemic, so does clarity. Irrespective of the law or the regulations, should we or should we not have indoor social gatherings with elderly and vulnerable family members?

[Matt Hancock]

People should act with great caution in this pandemic, because doing so protects them, protects their families and protects their loved ones. We have set out what the rules are, but they are not a limit up to which we should all push. We can all act within those rules to limit the spread, by reducing social contact in the days up to meeting a family member who may be, for instance, over 70—or any other family member. It is reasonable and responsible to take that sort of action.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he said about the vaccine roll-out. I have been cheered by the messages I get from constituents and others now that they are receiving the vaccine. We just have to ensure that we get the deployment out as fast as the vaccine can reasonably be produced and as fast as the NHS can deploy it, so that we get people the safety of that vaccine and so that we can get through this and out of this as soon as possible.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am glad to say that across large parts of the country there is very good evidence that tier 3 restrictions are working and the rates are coming down, but we need to be vigilant and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, overall rates are no longer coming down, hence we are having to take further action.

The hon. Gentleman talked in particular about the lessons from Liverpool; the primary lesson from Liverpool is that when everybody pulls together and everybody makes the sacrifices that are necessary for their whole community, we can really get this thing under control. I am grateful to colleagues across London and Essex and Hertfordshire, to whom I have been talking today, who are committed to working to ensure that we get the public health messages out first and foremost, and to the Mayor and the Conservative candidate for Mayor, who are both committed to working on behalf of the capital and, of course, those parts of Essex and Kent and Hertfordshire that are affected, because the single best thing that we can all do is speak with one voice about what is needed to get this virus under control.

The hon. Gentleman asked about Christmas, and my recommendation to people is to be cautious and careful. He asked about NHS funding and staffing; of course we have the strongest funding in history for the NHS, and I am delighted to say that we have more nurses in the NHS than ever before—14,000 more nurses than this time last year. I pay tribute to each and every one of them.

The hon. Gentleman asked about contact tracing and no doubt he will have seen the figures published on Thursday, which show that contact tracing now reaches over 80% of contacts. I pay tribute to the team, both local and national, who are ensuring that we can get to more than four fifths of people whom we need to reach, and that has been rapidly improving.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about Fred, the gentleman with terminal cancer whom he spoke to this morning. Those with terminal cancer are, of course, clinically vulnerable by the nature of that awful disease, and we will ensure that those who are clinically vulnerable get access to the vaccine when clinically appropriate. I am very happy to take up the individual case he raises and ensure that Fred gets a fair deal.

All in all, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the measures we have outlined today and of course for the vaccine programme, which is rolling out across the country right now.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

These are incredibly difficult decisions, but I wholly support them, because the evidence from all over the world is that acting early and decisively is the best way to save both lives and jobs. It would be perverse in the extreme if we were to take our foot off the pedal so close to rolling out the vaccine.

However, may I first ask the Secretary of State about the new strain? He said that it is highly unlikely that the vaccine will not work with a new strain. When will we know for sure? Are any trials going on? Will he get more up-to-date scientific information anytime soon?

Secondly, may I ask the Secretary of State for clarity? With just 11 days before Christmas, lots of people will be thinking about Christmas shopping. From Wednesday, will it be against the regulations for those living outside London to go to Oxford Street to do their Christmas shopping? Will that also be against the regulations for those living inside London? Is the only way legally to do Christmas shopping now to go online?

[Matt Hancock]

First, on my right hon. Friend’s question about the new variant, it is being assessed in Porton Down right now. As I said in my statement, the medical advice that we have is that it is highly unlikely that this new variant will impinge on the impact of the vaccine, but we will know that in the coming days and weeks as the new strand is cultured at Porton Down and then, of course, tests are conducted on it.

My right hon. Friend’s question about Christmas shopping is important. It is recommended that people should minimise travel, unless it is necessary, in a tier 3 area, and should minimise travel, unless it is necessary, to a tier 3 area. We have taken this action to try to protect people and to try to slow the spread of this virus, and that is absolutely the right thing to do.

Ockenden Review

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his, as always, constructive and reasonable tone in his response. Yes, I can assure him that the resources are in place, and have been guaranteed to be in place. As for the deadline, it is 2021. I cannot give an exact month. It was really important to me—I believe that Donna Ockenden has mentioned this in her report a number of times— that the first 250 cases were evaluated so that we could take the learning from those cases and introduce it as quickly as possible. In that way, we could identify what had gone wrong so that we could prevent it from happening again in the future. That is why we have produced the report in two stages. We know the findings of this interim report and the recommendations that have been identified by Donna and her team can be put in place. The second stage of the report will appear before the end of next year—certainly in 2021. I will, as the hon. Gentleman requests, and personally if he requires it, update the House on what is happening with the report.

With regard to the maternity safety training fund, we secured £9.4 million in the spending review. It cannot be underestimated, in this time of covid, what a huge achievement that was. The money will not go into the old format of the maternity safety training fund, because we do not believe that that worked as well as it should have done. Much of that money was used to backfill the staff, who then, unfortunately, did not attend training. We did not get the best results—the biggest bang for the buck.

What we, as a Department, are doing now is directing that £9.4 million to where it is needed most and to where it can be spent in the most effective manner to produce results in maternity safety. That work is ongoing now in the Department, and I hope to be able to update the House and the hon. Gentleman very soon on how that money is being spent and what results we expect to see in return for the expenditure.

I did not anticipate the hon. Gentleman’s question about midwives. I do not have the exact number, because the figure rises every day. None the less, we are recruiting new nurses—I think the figure was 12,000 when I last gave a statement to the House—some of whom will be recruited to become midwives. So, yes, work is under way on the workforce and on nurse recruitment.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

Babies’ skulls were fractured and bones were broken in excruciatingly traumatic births that would never have happened if mothers’ wishes had been listened to. This is an utterly shocking report, and I think the whole House is immensely grateful to Donna Ockenden and her team for such a thorough report, and to the Minister for taking it so seriously, as she always does.

Although much has improved in maternity safety in recent years, does the Minister agree that it is time to stamp out the “normal births” ideology, which says that there can be a debate or compromise about the total importance of a baby’s safety? That should always be paramount, and decisions on it should always be taken in consultation with the mother. The report team said they had

“the clear impression that there was a culture within The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust to keep caesarean section rates low”.

That needs to stop—not just at Shrewsbury and Telford, but everywhere throughout the NHS. The biggest mistake in interpreting this report would be to think that what happened at Shrewsbury and Telford is a one-off, as it may well not be and we must not assume that it is.

Secondly, the report talks about the “injudicious use of oxytocin” to facilitate vaginal births that perhaps should not have been happening. Will the Minister look into that issue? Finally, this report happened because Rhiannon Davies and Richard Stanton, who lost their daughter Kate in 2009, and Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths, who lost their daughter Pippa in 2016, persuaded me that something needed to happen. Is it not shameful that we make it so hard for doctors, nurses and midwives in the NHS to speak out about tragedies that they see and that all the burden for change is left on the shoulders of grieving relatives? Is it not time, once and for all, to end the blame culture that we still have in parts of the NHS?

[Ms Dorries]

My right hon. Friend asked a number of questions that deserve answers, so please bear with me. His first point was about the number of caesarean sections and the thought or belief in the hospital that it was a good thing not to have them, which the report identifies.

The report shows us that there were years when C-sections at Shrewsbury and Telford were running at 11% and the national average was 24%, and at 13% when the national average was 26%. That demonstrates a lack of collegiate working between midwives, doctors and consultants. Most of the report’s recommendations show that, fundamentally, that is the problem: a lack of communication and an unwillingness to work with people—the medics, doctors, obstetricians and midwives. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about intervention. There is the old saying, “Mother knows best”, but every woman should own her birth plan and be in control of what is happening to her during her delivery.

I give all thanks to my right hon. Friend, because this report is fundamental in terms of how it is going to inform maternity services across the UK going forward, not least because the NHS is working on an early warning surveillance system. What happened at Shrewsbury and Telford was that it was an outlying trust. As with East Kent and others, including Morecambe Bay, where we have seen issues, there has been an issue culturally; they are outlying, without the same churn of doctors, nurses, training or expertise. The NHS is now developing a system where we can pick up this data and know quickly where failings are happening.

Oxytocin is a drug used in the induction of labour to control the length, quality and frequency of uterine contractions. There are strict National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on the use of that drug. My right hon. Friend is correct: every trust should follow the guidelines. By highlighting that in this report, we will ensure that trusts are aware of those guidelines and that they are followed in future.

Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is right—we can all look forward to a much brighter 2021. We must stick with it for now, but we can see the way through this.

The hon. Gentleman asked several very reasonable questions. We start today vaccinating in 70 locations across the UK, and we will expand these locations over the coming days. Today we will set out the next tranche of hospital hubs, including Leicester, and vaccinations in Leicester will start in the coming days.

On access to the vaccine, of course we need to make sure that it is available to all, and that includes all with disabilities and all our most vulnerable people, like those who are sleeping rough. This will be best accomplished when we get the primary care community vaccination model rolled out, which will be in the coming weeks. We need to make sure that how we get the vaccine physically out into the primary care networks can be assured as safe, because obviously that is one step more difficult than vaccinating from a hospital, hence we have started in hospitals and then we will get out into primary care and community delivery, and then into the vaccination centres after the new year.

The hon. Gentleman asked about NHS students. The definition of NHS and social care staff set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is those who are patient-facing, for obvious reasons. We will set out more details in due course.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about the publication of data on the number of vaccines that have been administered, and according to which priority groups. We will set out those details when the vaccinations have taken place, so that people can see how the programme has been assessed. Overall, may I join him in saying how wonderful it was to see the pictures on the TV this morning—emotional for many of us—and that I am delighted that we have been able to make this progress?

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

Like many, I would like to congratulate our scientists; I would like to congratulate the Health and Social Care Secretary himself, the vaccines taskforce and NHS frontline staff, all of whom have made this extraordinary day for our country possible. It is very, very cold outside, and the question on many people’s minds is: are they now able to book a summer holiday? What is my right hon. Friend’s answer to that question, and is there anywhere in particular that he would recommend if the answer is yes?

[Matt Hancock]

It makes me very proud that we have managed to start this vaccination programme sooner than many people anticipated. People told me that it was not going to be possible and that it was all very difficult. It has been difficult, but we have got there, and we did so because of international science, working with German scientists and American pharmaceutical companies, and people right around the world working on this project. I have high confidence that the summer of 2021 will be a bright one, without the sorts of restrictions that made the summer of 2020 more restricted. I have booked my holiday—I am going to Cornwall.

Coronavirus Vaccine

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady shakes her head, but that is how we have to deal with a pandemic in practice.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

This is a huge personal triumph for the Health Secretary, who has always backed the science. In choosing and backing on behalf of the country the first vaccine to prove efficacious, he has scored a massive goal for the country; he deserves great credit for that. It will also have global significance. I was in a meeting with the World Health Organisation this morning, which congratulated the UK on being the first country to approve a vaccine, because it will encourage other countries around the world to approve vaccines faster.

I want to ask the Health Secretary about something different, which is the plight of people with learning disabilities. He will know that Public Health England says that they are two to four times more likely to die from covid. The news he has given this morning about people in care homes is tremendously welcome, but people with learning disabilities often feel that they are forgotten, particularly those in supported accommodation. Will he redouble his efforts to ensure that they, too, are able to be reunited with their families ahead of Christmas?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is gracious and kind in what he says, and I welcome the WHO’s comments this morning. It has supported the UK approach and rightly commended the MHRA, our independent regulator. It has followed all the same steps that any high-quality regulator would, should and will, but it has followed them rapidly and sometimes in parallel, instead of one after the other. That is how we have got to the position of being the first country in the world to have a vaccine that is clinically authorised; it is because the MHRA has done a brilliant job, working with Pfizer and BioNTech, to make sure that the same safety considerations are looked at but in a way that made the process as fast as is feasibly and safely possible. The WHO has backed that approach. Regulators around the world could take a look at the MHRA, and we should all congratulate it.

My right hon. Friend rightly asks about making sure we vaccinate those with learning disabilities and offer them vaccination at the right point in the prioritisation. I have discussed that important consideration directly with the JCVI, which takes into account the higher mortality of those with any given condition and has done so in the prioritisation that it set out this morning. Age is the single biggest determinant of mortality from coronavirus, which is why age is the predominant factor in the prioritisation, but it is not the only one. That matter has been considered by the JCVI and it is important that we accept and follow the JCVI advice as much as is practicable in the delivery and deployment of this vaccine.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The goal of the Government is to bring R to below 1 to suppress the virus until a vaccine can keep us safe. That is the strategy.

I shall take the precise points that the hon. Gentleman raised. He asked for an exit strategy. The statement I outlined is the exit strategy: it is to keep the virus suppressed with the minimum damage possible to the economy and, indeed, to education, while we work as fast and as hard as we can towards a vaccine and with the widespread use of community testing across the piece to help to keep the virus under control.

I would have expected the hon. Gentleman to welcome the massive progress in Liverpool that has shown that a combination of sticking by the rules and community testing at very large scale can help to bring this virus right under control. Instead, he criticised that it does not get into harder to reach communities. That is exactly where we need to get into, and that is why we do it in combination and hand in hand with the local authority.

I praise Joe Anderson, and I also praise other local leaders, such as Ben Houchen in Tees Valley, who is working with us on this, Andy Street and leaders across the west midlands, and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) in South Yorkshire, who we are working with to get a community testing system up and running in places such as Doncaster. I want to see the community testing that has been successful in Liverpool rolled out right across the tier 3 areas as much as is possible, and I invite all councils to engage.

We invited councils to engage ahead of the decisions today, and we also invited all colleagues in the House to have an input, but it is important that we have clear public health messaging, because unfortunately we did see the number of cases going up and continuing to go up in those areas where local leaders were not working alongside us. It was a sharp contrast to what happened, for instance, in Liverpool, but also in other areas where the local leadership was so constructive and positive.

The hon. Member for Leicester South asked for a scorecard for the exit strategy. We publish the data, and if we can make it into an even more accessible format, I think that is a good idea. He asked about supporting the NHS—absolutely. I am delighted that, yesterday, my right hon Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the support of the Prime Minister, put another £3 billion into the NHS, on top of the £6.6 billion that is already being invested. That money starts flowing this financial year for this winter and then runs into next year.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the need to support people who have tested positive. We have put in place a £500 support payment. On NHS Test and Trace, I thought from the figures this morning that he would have welcomed the fact that the majority of in-person tests are now turned around within 24 hours. That is significant progress on the speed of turnaround in testing, for which I am very grateful to my team. There will be further support for local councils that find themselves in tiers 3 and 2 to support the action that is needed. But all in all, let us come together and work together to get this virus under control and keep it under control, so that we can get life back to normal as soon as possible.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

May I welcome the Prime Minister back from his splendid isolation to the place that he has no doubt been itching to get back to more than any other—this House of Commons—and say how wonderful it is to see him here?

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

It is great to see you.

[Jeremy Hunt]

From a sedentary position, I think the Prime Minister said that he was delighted to see me here. [Interruption.] Indeed, he is delighted to see me here—on the Back Benches. [Laughter.]

Turning to more serious matters, these are very difficult decisions, and part of the leadership we have to show in a pandemic is telling people unwelcome news. I want to salute the Health Secretary’s cautious approach to Christmas because, much as we all want Christmas to be as normal as possible, nothing would be more crazy than to take our feet off the accelerator at this moment and then see a spike in deaths in February, so I think this is the right approach.

There is one bit of further good news—on top of the news about vaccines and on top of the news about mass testing—that I know the Health Secretary would like to be able to give and that would be enormously welcome: that every single person living in a care home could be sure that they could be visited by a close relative before Christmas. I know he wants to do that, but there are huge logistical challenges in getting that mass testing technology to work in time. May I urge him to do everything he can, because that would make such a big difference to the nearly 400,000 people in care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

I hesitate to interrupt the love-in between the Prime Minister and my predecessor, but I am grateful for his support—for their support. This is a set of difficult measures, but I think the public understand why we have to take them and why they are necessary.

On the point about getting visiting going in care homes, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sometimes we talk about these tests and this new technology in an abstract way or from a scientific point of view, but it really matters and it really improves people’s lives. Where we can use testing to make visiting safe in care homes, that is an example of the way in which these new technologies can help to get life a little bit back towards normal. Of course, it must be done in a safe way and carefully, but we are now developing the protocols for exactly how that can happen and working hard with the goal that everyone should have the opportunity to visit a loved one in a care home before Christmas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

This morning, the Select Committee has been hearing about workforce burnout. Witness after witness said that the one thing that would make a big difference to NHS staff is knowing that we are training enough doctors and nurses for the future even if we do not have enough now. Nearly two years on from the NHS 10-year plan, we still do not have the workforce projections published—I know that the Secretary of State is keen to get them published. Can he assure the House that, when they are published, they will be the independent projections and not what the Treasury has negotiated with his Department as part of the spending review?

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. I can give him a couple of projections and a couple of facts. Over the past year, we have 13,500 more nurses in the NHS than we did a year ago, and thousands more doctors. Let me give him this projection, which I am sure that he and everybody on the Government Benches will buy into: we are going to have 50,000 more nurses in the NHS by the end of this Parliament.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for his questions and for the approach that he is rightly taking. Like him, I am delighted that we are able to roll-out routine testing to NHS staff. That starts today. I am grateful to him for his support and I am grateful for the support and the urging of the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt).

On contact tracing, we continue to work on the constant improvement needed, but, as the hon. Member said, the expansion of testing in a radical way because of the new technology that we have invested in and spent months working on, means that we will now be able to find more of the primary cases and more of the people who have the disease and then will be able to get them and their contacts to isolate. The single most important challenge is finding the people who have the virus in the first place.

The hon. Member mentioned children. The vaccine will not be used for children. It has not been tested on children. The reason is that the likelihood of children having significant detriment if they catch covid-19 is very, very low. This is an adult vaccine for the adult population.

He asked about the JCVI prioritisation. It is really important that we prioritise according to clinical risk. The JCVI has looked into all the risk factors, including ethnicity. It has concluded that age and whether a person works in health and social care are the two prime risk factors, which far outweigh any other, and so they are the primary risk factors that cascade into the draft interim prioritisation that it published on 25 September, which of course will be updated as it gets the final data that comes through from the clinical trials.

He asked about the proportion of the population that needs to be vaccinated. The honest truth to that question is that we do not know what proportion of the population the vaccination needs to reach in order for it to stop the epidemic. The reason we do not know that is that a clinical trial can check for the impact of the vaccine on protecting the individual—43,000 individuals, half of whom have had the vaccine. What cannot be checked is the impact on the transmission of the disease by those people, because a significant proportion of the population have to have had the vaccination to understand that. That is the difference between a so-called disease-modifying vaccine, which tests how much it affects the disease that an individual suffers if they get covid-19, versus an epidemic-modifying vaccine, which is about the impact on the spread and transmission of the disease. We cannot know that until after the vaccine has been rolled out, so we will monitor that very closely.

The hon. Gentleman asked about manufacture, which is important, and for this vaccine that is a matter for Pfizer. It is a difficult process. Distribution is also a huge challenge, and that is being led by the NHS. Because the vaccine must be stored at minus 70° until the final hours, the cold-chain requirements are significant and add to the logistical complications. However, we have known about that cold-chain requirement for many months, and it has been part of our planning for some time. We have a good degree of confidence that that will be in place.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about international collaboration. I am delighted that the UK has been a leader in efforts for international collaboration to find a vaccine. It has put in more money than any other nation, co-ordinating and bringing together scientists and vaccine specialists, and using our aid budget to ensure that people around the world get the vaccine in countries that, in some cases, could not afford to vaccinate their own population. We are a big part of the international work, and I very much look forward to working with colleagues in the United States, and everywhere else around the world, to ensure that we have a global vaccination programme as soon as a safe and effective set of vaccines can be made available.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the Health Secretary on securing access to the new vaccine. Choosing which vaccine to back must be a bit like playing roulette, and to secure 40 million doses of the first vaccine to prove efficacious is an enormous achievement for the country. He deserves great credit for that. I also thank him for bringing forward the introduction of weekly testing of NHS staff to the end of next week. That will reassure our very hardworking front-line staff that they are not infecting their patients, which is one of their primary worries.

The biggest issue we now face is the fact that only around one-fifth of those who we ask to isolate comply with that, and we do not even know all the people who we would like to isolate. What does the Secretary of State think of Sir John Bell’s suggestion to the Health and Social Care Committee this morning that, instead of asking people to isolate, we should give them 48-hour lateral flow tests, and ask them to isolate only if they are positive?

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is generous with his words. I also direct his warm words of gratitude to the vaccine’s taskforce, which has done so much work to ensure that we procure and secure the supplies of these vaccines, should they prove safe as well as efficacious. On Sir John Bell’s comments, that option of testing people regularly—not if they are a primary case and have the virus, but if they are a contact—would not be open to us had we not secured the huge capacity for lateral-flow testing that we now have in this country. I very much look to clinicians for advice. Sir John Bell is a highly respected clinician and expert in this area, and I am sure that everybody will want to look closely at that issue.

Baby Loss: Covid-19

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow two such remarkable speeches. Nothing I say will come close to the extraordinary emotions that we have heard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), with whom it is a great honour to co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss. When my hon. Friend talked about seeing Lily’s name in the registry of Truro cathedral, I think what we all thought was that is just the first of many important moments that Lily will be remembered—this is another of those moments. What is so striking about the courage shown by my hon. Friend, and by so many families, is that she chose to relive the agony that she went through over and over again, because she wants to stop other families going through that same pain. That represents extraordinary courage, and I think it is an incredibly good omen for her time in this place that she is prepared to do that.

It is also an honour to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who has made an extraordinary contribution to the Health and Social Care Committee in the short time that we have been working together. She drew my attention to the issue of women having to cope with extreme emotional stress on their own during the maternity process. I thank her for that, along with all the other work she has done on the Committee on maternity issues. On Tuesday we heard from James Titcombe, one of the best known baby loss campaigners in the country, who, the Minister told me, lost his son Joshua exactly 12 years ago today. James gave an inspirational testimony. It is because of those many families up and down the country that we are having this debate today. I also thank the Minister, who I know will give a compassionate and supportive response. She totally gets patient safety and these issues, and will be doing everything she can to resolve them.

We all understand the importance of infection prevention and control in a pandemic. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), as a doctor herself, will understand that. The answer surely has to be an expansion of the testing facilities, which we know are in the process of being expanded. If we are able to test everyone in the city of Liverpool, it must be within our grasp to make it possible to test people who want to be with their partners in those crucial moments of a pregnancy.

I hope that today’s debate will shine a spotlight on the wider issues around baby loss. The uncomfortable truth for all of us is that in this country, according to the latest figures I have seen, we lose about 3.9 babies per 1,000 born in neonatal deaths—deaths within the first 28 days. In Sweden, the rate is about half that. That means that if we had Swedish safety levels in this country, about 1,000 more babies would live every year.

The Select Committee is doing a big inquiry into what lessons need to be learned. I will just talk about one particular lesson that has long been a concern of mine. We make it far too difficult for doctors, midwives and nurses to speak openly about any mistakes they may have made or may have seen, because still, in too many parts of the NHS, we have a blame culture. People are worried that they might lose their job, they might get disbarred or there might be negative consequences for others they work with. We heard on Tuesday that one reason why Sweden has managed to achieve a much lower neonatal death rate is that they have made it much easier for doctors, midwives and nurses to speak openly about things that may have gone wrong. They have managed to change a blame culture into a learning culture.

One thing I hope we will look at is whether it is appropriate under the law that the only way a family can get compensation in this country is if they can prove clinical negligence. That immediately creates antagonism between a family, who perhaps have a child born disabled and desperately need financial support for that child’s life, and the doctors, midwives and nurses responsible for that child’s birth, who also want to help the family with every fibre in their body, but worry that if they speak openly about what happened, they might end up with a successful claim of clinical negligence against them. I hope that is something we can address.

I want to finish by saying this. As we reflect on how to be more compassionate with people going through some of the extreme agonies that we have heard this afternoon, we should always remember that the best possible way to handle baby loss is to ensure that it never happens in the first place. Getting the culture right in our maternity units is the best way that we can save heartache for thousands of families. It is the best tribute to baby girls such as Lily and to baby boys such as Joshua Titcombe, and it is the best way that we can turn the wonderful intentions we are hearing in this debating Chamber into actions that will make a difference for the lives of many.