Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will update the House on the pandemic preparedness of the Department of Health and Social Care.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

What we have done to handle this coronavirus pandemic has been unprecedented in modern times. Throughout, we have been straight with people and this House about the challenges that we as a nation face together. The nation, in my view, has risen to these challenges. Of course, there were unprecedented difficulties that come with preparation for an unprecedented event.

This pandemic is not over yet. Our vaccination programme has reached 73% of the adult population, but that means that more than a quarter still have not been jabbed; 43% of adults have had both jabs, but that means that more than half are yet to get the fullest possible protection that two jabs give.

Yesterday, we saw 3,180 new cases of coronavirus—the highest since 12 April—but thanks to the power of vaccination, in which I have always believed, the link from cases to hospitalisations and deaths is being severed. About 90% of those in hospital in hotspot areas have not yet had both jabs, so the continued delivery of the vaccination effort and the ongoing work to control the virus through testing, tracing and isolation are vital.

Yesterday, we saw the opening of vaccinations to all those aged 30 and above. I am delighted to tell the House that the vaccination programme is on track to meet its goal of offering a jab to all adults by the end of July. It has met every goal that we have set. Setting and meeting ambitious targets is how you get stuff done in Government.

As a nation, we have many challenges still to come. I know, and one of the things I have learned, is that the best way through is to work together with a can-do spirit of positive collaboration. The team who have worked so hard together to get us this far deserve our highest praise. I am proud of everyone in my Department, all those working in healthcare and public health, the armed forces who fought on the home front, the volunteers who stood in cold car parks with a smile, colleagues across the House who have done their bit and, most of all, the British people. Whether it is the science, the NHS or the people queuing for vaccines in their droves, Britain is rising to this challenge. We have come together as one nation, and we will overcome.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Families who lost loved ones will have noticed that the Secretary of State, in his opening remarks, did not respond to any of the specific allegations from yesterday—allegations that are grave and serious: that the Prime Minister is unfit for office; that his inaction meant that tens of thousands needlessly died. We had allegations from Dominic Cummings that the Secretary of State, specifically, misled colleagues—an allegation from Mr Cummings, Mr Speaker—on our preparedness and lack of protection for people in care homes.

The allegations from Cummings are either true, and if so the Secretary of State potentially stands in breach of the ministerial code and the Nolan principles, or they are false, and the Prime Minister brought a fantasist and a liar into the heart of Downing Street. Which is it? Families who have lost loved ones deserve full answers from the Secretary of State today. Is he ashamed that he promised a protective shield around care homes and more than 30,000 care home residents have died? Why were 25,000 elderly people discharged from hospitals into care homes without any test? Did he tell Downing Street in March that people discharged from hospital had been tested, even though it was not until 15 April that there was a requirement for testing to take place?

In public, the Secretary of State has often claimed that little was known of asymptomatic transmission at the time, so testing was not necessary, but the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in January flagged evidence of asymptomatic transmission. A study in The Lancet in February flagged it. On 5 March, the chief medical officer said that

“there may well be a lot of people who are infected and have no symptoms”,

so why did the Secretary of State not insist on a precautionary approach and test all going into care homes?

On 6 May, at the Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State claimed that it is

“safer for them to go to a care home.”

Yet 12,000 people had died in those early months. How could he justify that comment? In April, he told the House:

“What is important is that infection control procedures are in place in that care home”.—[Official Report, 19 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 494.]

However, care homes, like the NHS, struggled with the most desperate of personal protective equipment shortages. He was telling us in March from the Dispatch Box that supplies were extensive, but apparently in private, in Downing Street, he was blaming Simon Stevens for the lack of PPE.

The reality is that the Secretary of State and his Department were responsible for PPE, and the National Audit Office report said that the supplies were inadequate. Some 850 healthcare workers died. How many could have been saved had they had PPE? Families lost loved ones and have been let down by the Government, the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, but the truth matters. Those families and the country deserve clear answers from the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister today.

[Matt Hancock]

The allegations that were put yesterday and repeated by the right hon. Gentleman are serious, and I welcome the opportunity to come to the House to put formally on the record that these unsubstantiated allegations around honesty are not true, and that I have been straight with people in public and in private throughout. Every day since I began working on the response to the pandemic last January, I have got up each morning and asked, “What must I do to protect life?” That is the job of a Health Secretary in a pandemic.

We have taken an approach of openness, transparency and explanation of both what we know and what we do not know. I was looking at it this morning. Since last January, I have attended this House more than 60 times. With the Prime Minister, we have together hosted 84 press conferences. I have answered 2,667 contributions to this House and answered questions from colleagues, the media and the public, and we will keep on with that spirit of openness and transparency throughout. As well as coming to the House today, I will answer questions and host another press conference later.

Sometimes what we have had to say has not been easy. We have had to level with people when it has been tough—when things have been going in the wrong direction. Also, we have learned throughout. We have applied that learning both to tackling this pandemic and ensuring that we are as well prepared in the future as possible, but beyond all that what matters remains the same: getting vaccinated, getting tested, delivering for our country, overcoming this disease and saving lives. That is what matters to the British people.

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

The House should know that when serious allegations were made at yesterday’s Joint Committee hearing, we asked for evidence to be provided, and until such evidence is provided, those allegations should be regarded as unproven. In the meantime, we are in the midst of a pandemic, and we need the Health Secretary to be doing his job with his customary energy and commitment.

I want to ask my right hon. Friend about comments made by Neil Ferguson on this morning’s “Today” programme. He said that the Indian variant is now dominant in the majority of local authority areas and, indeed, is the dominant variant, and that the opening date of 21 June is now in the balance. Given how desperate businesses up and down the country are to return to normal, what additional measures can my right hon. Friend take in the short term to ensure that, in terms of surge testing, the vaccine roll-out and improvements to Test and Trace, we really are able to open up as everyone wants on 21 June?

[Matt Hancock]

It is true that the Indian variant is spreading across the country, and estimates vary as to what proportion of new cases each day involve that variant first identified in India, which is more transmissible. My assessment is that it is too early to say whether we can take the full step 4 on 21 June. Like my right hon. Friend, I desperately want us to do so, but we will only do that if it is safe. We will make a formal assessment ahead of 14 June as to what step we can take on 21 June, and we will be driven by the data and advised on and guided by the science, and we will be fully transparent in those decisions, both with this House and with the public. That is the approach we have taken, that is the approach he and his Select Committee would expect, and that is what we will deliver.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

In Dominic Cummings’ opening statement yesterday, he said:

“The truth is that senior Ministers, senior officials and senior advisers… fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its Government in a crisis like this. When the public needed us most,”

we “failed.” We then heard a litany of evidence that the disease was not taken seriously in February last year, further compounded by the ignoring of SAGE advice to lockdown in September, resulting in a worse second wave. Does the Health Secretary agree that the UK Government failed the public? Had he acted sooner, how many lives could have been saved or restrictions avoided? Will he act urgently to prevent further unnecessary suffering and death in the immediate future by holding a comprehensive public inquiry immediately?

[Matt Hancock]

I have been working on the pandemic since January of last year—before the disease was even evident in this country. That is when we kicked off work on the vaccine, and I was told at first that it would typically take five years to develop a vaccine. I insisted that we drove at that as fast as we possibly could, and I am delighted at the progress that we have been able to make.

Of course it is right that we learn from everything that we understand and everything that we see and all the scientific advances. We should do that all the way through. This idea that we should wait for an inquiry in order to learn is wrong, but it is right that we go through all that happened at the appropriate time in order to ensure that we are best prepared for the inevitable pandemics of the future.

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con) [V]]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his visit to the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro earlier this week. We met staff, toured the site of the new oncology wing and looked at the start-of-the-art plans for the new women and children’s hospital—part of our manifesto promise for 40 new hospitals.

Given the gravity of the situation that the Government faced at the beginning of the pandemic, and considering we now know that Dominic Cummings was a hugely disruptive force, I congratulate Ministers, not least my right hon. Friend, on staying focused on the evidence presented by the experts at the time as events changed quickly. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will ignore unsubstantiated Westminster gossip and stay focused on delivering the vaccine roll-out and our manifesto promises?

[Matt Hancock]

I think that is what the public expect us to do. I had a brilliant visit to Cornwall on Monday. It was a pleasure to go to Treliske to see my hon. Friend there and to talk about the new women and children’s hospital that we are building as part of the biggest ever investment in healthcare in Cornwall. Delivering on these priorities on which we were elected, and of course dealing with this pandemic and keeping people safe, is what the public want to see. That is what the expectations of the public are and it is my total focus.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]]

There was no manual to guide Governments going into this new global pandemic and most people feel that the Government responded as well as anybody could. In particular, over the past six months government has worked well together to deliver a phenomenal amount of testing and one of the best vaccine roll-outs in the world. Is the Secretary of State aware of anything that has changed during that time to help the way that government has worked on improving the covid response?

[Matt Hancock]

All I would say to my hon. Friend is that it is very difficult responding to an unprecedented challenge of this scale, but over the past six months people have seen that governing has become a little easier and we are being able to deliver.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

In February, I called for localised, community-based vaccination centres, and I want to pay tribute to Dr Helen Wall, Bolton’s clinical commissioning group, the NHS and volunteers for the roll-out of the vaccine. Last week, my constituents were wrongly accused of vaccine hesitancy, and then we had a quasi-lockdown that no one knew about and many people’s travel plans were thrown into chaos. My constituents can forgive the Government for that, but I am sure I speak for the country when I say that we cannot forgive the fact that:

“Tens of thousands of people died, who didn't need to die”.

Those were the chilling words of Dominic Cummings. Will the Secretary of State tell me when the Prime Minister and others will be investigated by the police for alleged corporate manslaughter? Why did we not follow the example of New Zealand, where they managed to control the virus with a minimum number of deaths?

[Matt Hancock]

What I would say to the people of Bolton is that they have again risen to this challenge. The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal—tens of thousands every single day.[Official Report, 7 June 2021, Vol. 696, c. 2MC.] It is heartening to see the queues of people coming forward both for testing and for vaccinations in Bolton. This has not been an easy pandemic anywhere, but it has been especially difficult in Bolton. In particular I want to pay tribute to the leadership of Bolton Council and Councillor David Greenhalgh, who has done such a remarkable job in very difficult circumstances.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con) [V]]

I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting North Devon District Hospital this week, where he personally thanked the wonderful staff and discussed future development plans. While this Government have worked tirelessly to save lives and protect our NHS, Labour has spent the past year flip-flopping over curfews, lockdowns, schools and our borders, and I am sure he shares my disappointment that even now the Labour party is still more interested in playing politics than working constructively with us. So may I seek his reassurance that as we emerge from the pandemic he is committed to lowering NHS waiting times and improving access to vital GP services, as he continues to make sure that everybody who need care gets care?

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely I am. GP access, in particular, is very important. This morning, I met the British Medical Association and the BMA GP leadership to talk about what more we can do to strengthen access to GPs. These are the sorts of things that matter to our constituents, as does the new hospital that we are going to build in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It was a wonderful visit to Devon on Tuesday, and it has been great going around the country to look at what we can do to invest further in the NHS, strengthen it and support it to deliver better care. North Devon does not have a better champion than my hon. Friend. As for what she said about the Opposition, all I can say is that sometimes the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) offers constructive criticism, he has generally had a good crisis and perhaps he will return to that approach soon.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

In the words of the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser:

“Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with covid back to the care homes.”

If that is true, this is one of the biggest scandals and tragedies of the pandemic. Can the Secretary of State please confirm when testing on discharge from hospitals into care homes was routinely offered? Will he apologise to the tens of thousands of bereaved family members whose relatives died in care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

It has been an incredibly difficult time for those who have worked in and lived in care homes throughout this pandemic. That has been true across the world, and I pay tribute to the staff in social care who have done so much. It was, of course, a difficult challenge, especially at the start when many characteristics of this virus were unknown. As I have answered many times in this House, we have published full details of the approach that we are taking and that we have taken. We have worked with the care home sector as much as possible to keep people safe and followed the clinical advice on the appropriate way forward.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

May I take the Secretary of State back to what he said in his statement about the B1617.2 variant first discovered in India, which I think will be of the most concern to my constituents and the country in the days and weeks ahead? We are bound to see an increase in cases as we open up; that is inevitable. The important thing is breaking that link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. My understanding of all the current evidence is that our vaccines are very effective in stopping serious disease, including from that B1617.2 variant. If that remains the case, does he agree that, on 15 June, there would be no reason not to go ahead with opening up fully on 21 June? That is the important question to which we need an answer.

[Matt Hancock]

That is literally the most important question to which we do not yet have a full answer. The data that we have suggest that, in the hotspot areas, around one in 10 of those in hospital are people who have had both jabs. That is a function both of the protection that we get from the vaccine against this variant and also of the age profile of those who are catching the disease. Those who have not been vaccinated include those who are old enough to have been offered the jab and those who have not yet been offered the jab. The fact that 90% of the people in hospital are those who have not yet been double vaccinated gives us a high degree of confidence that the vaccine is highly effective, but the fact that 10% of people in hospital have been double vaccinated shows that the vaccine is not 100% effective. We already knew that, but we are better able to calibrate as we see these data. We will learn more about this over the forthcoming week or two before we make and publish an assessment ahead of 14 June about what the data are saying about taking the step that is pencilled in for not before 21 June.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for all that he has done to deal with the coronavirus disease and for the roll-out of the vaccine. My mother-in-law died last year from the virus. On Monday, she was taken to hospital, and five days later we lost her. I want to put it on record that we do not blame anybody, but we miss her every single day.

There are those in Northern Ireland who have questions to which they need answers. Our Prime Minister has committed himself to an inquiry, and the Secretary of State has committed himself to that inquiry. I want to ensure that those people from Northern Ireland who have lost loved ones and who have sincere questions can ask their questions—they do not want to blame anybody—and get an answer. Will the Secretary of State assure us that people from Northern Ireland who have those questions can and will be part of that inquiry?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, will welcome the fact that this morning Northern Ireland has been able to open up vaccination to all adults over the age of 18, showing the progress that we are able to make working together with the UK vaccination programme and local delivery through the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. Of course the inquiry must and will cover the entire United Kingdom. In the three nations that have devolved Administrations, of course it will have to cover the activities both of the UK Government and of the devolved Administrations. Exactly how that is structured is yet to be determined and it will be done in consultation with the devolved Administrations. But as he rightly says, it is vital that we use the inquiry to ensure that people can ask questions and get answers in all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con) [V]]

Everyone recognises that lessons can be learned as a result of this pandemic and we do not necessarily need to wait for the inquiry to take place. Does the Secretary of State share my view that integration of health and social care is critical and would absolutely be a lesson to be learned from the pandemic? I was delighted to welcome him to the Isles of Scilly on Monday—the first visit of a Health Secretary, we understand, at any time. Will he affirm that the model that we are developing on the Isles of Scilly to integrate health and social care and improve the outcomes for everyone living there is right for the islands but also a model that could be used elsewhere across the United Kingdom?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. It was an enormous pleasure to go to the Isles of Scilly on Monday morning. I did not know that I was the first Health Secretary ever to visit the Isle of Scilly, but frankly it is so wonderful that I would really quite like to be back there before too long. The integration of health and social care that my hon. Friend mentions is happening on Scilly. It is important on Scilly, but it is actually a lesson for everywhere. I have discussed it with the new Conservative-led Cornwall Council—the first ever majority Conservative-led Cornwall Council. The team there and on the Isles of Scilly are doing a great job of integrating health and social care. Scilly, in particular, needs investment in its health infrastructure and support because it is more remote than almost anywhere else. We will deliver these things. Throughout the length and breadth of this country, we will invest in the NHS and integrate health and social care. The Isles of Scilly could hope for no better advocate than my hon. Friend.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba) [V]]

Yesterday’s revelations have only served to reinforce what many have suspected: a tale of chaos, deception, dishonesty and failure, including the reckless suggestion of herd immunity and chickenpox parties. While so many watched aghast, the Secretary of State chose to respond to these very serious allegations by claiming he had been too busy saving lives to even bother. My enduring memory of the Secretary of State yesterday will be of him quite literally running away from his responsibilities.

I want to focus on one vitally important matter that emerged yesterday regarding deaths in care homes. Did the Secretary of State, as alleged, categorically tell Mr Cummings and unspecified others that people would be tested before being transferred into care homes? If he did not, why then was transfer without testing the adopted policy across England and the devolved Governments, including Scotland? On 17 October last year, I asked the Secretary of State to consider tendering his resignation. Surely if all these allegations are substantiated, he must do so.

[Matt Hancock]

So many of the allegations yesterday were unsubstantiated. The hon. Gentleman’s most important point was that the Scottish Government, with their responsibilities for social care, had to respond to the same challenges and dilemmas as we did, as did other countries across Europe and across the world. We were driving incredibly hard as one United Kingdom to increase testing volumes. We successfully increased testing volumes, including through the important use of the 100,000 testing target, which had a material impact on accelerating the increase in testing, and because of this increased testing we were able to spread the use of tests more broadly. It was the same challenge for the Administration in Edinburgh as it was here in Westminster, and the best way to rise to these challenges is to do so working together.

[Mr Speaker]

We have a connection problem with the line to Dr Andrew Murrison so we will go straight to Caroline Lucas.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

The families of the bereaved deserve better than the grotesque pantomime of the Cummings evidence session yesterday. At the very least, they deserve the publication of the internal lessons learned review. A constituent of mine whose father died from covid acquired in hospital wrote to me to say that the refusal to release it is

“an insult to bereaved family members, who, in the midst of our own suffering, are determined to prevent other families from experiencing the loss we have”.

She is right because the big question is not just about mistakes the Government made last March, but why Ministers never learn from those errors and continue on a path that risks lives and livelihoods. The Secretary of State says he is being straight with the public and this House, so as continued Government negligence risks a third wave of the pandemic, will he finally publish that review urgently, not least so that it can be scrutinised before restrictions are due to be lifted next month?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, we learn lessons all the way through and we follow the scientific developments that teach us more about this virus all the way through, and then we will also have a full inquiry afterwards to make sure that we can learn further lessons for the future. The thing I did not quite understand about the hon. Lady’s question is why she did not refer to the single most important programme that is saving lives, which is the vaccination programme. She should be urging her constituents and others to come forward and get the jab because that is our way out of this pandemic.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Thanks to this Government and the vaccine taskforce led by Kate Bingham, it is Britain that has led the way in vaccinations and it is Britain that has given so much to the world through our vaccination technology and innovation. Globally, over 1 billion jabs have now been given, most of them Pfizer, Moderna or Oxford-AstraZeneca, and it is this Government who backed Oxford university with over £60 million of funding to give the gift of hope to the world. So may I thank the Secretary of State for his efforts and his remarkable achievements in this regard, and may I ask him when he thinks the Teesside vaccine, Novavax, will be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency?

[Matt Hancock]

The last point is very tempting, but I will leave it to the independent regulator to make that decision and determine its timing—but we are all very excited about the progress of the Teesside vaccine, as my hon. Friend calls it, the Novavax vaccine. He is also right to raise the point about vaccinations around the world. The UK can be very proud of having played such a critical role because of the investment we made in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine right at the start of this pandemic, and because we decided together with Oxford university and AstraZeneca to make this vaccine available at cost around the world. I can give the House an update: over 450 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have now been deployed around the world at cost. That is the single biggest gift to the world that we could make with respect to vaccines. It is because of the attitude that the Government took, working with one of our greatest universities and working with one of our greatest industrial partners. It is another example of the big team effort that is helping in this case the whole world get out of this pandemic.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]]

At Prime Minister’s Question Time in July, I raised concerns of a care home owner in Bedford who was told as late as 21 May that, if she refused to accept the return from hospital of a covid-positive patient, they would be discharged to an unfamiliar home. I know the Secretary of State is desperate to dismiss Mr Cummings’ version of events on care homes, but to do so would mean calling the care home owner a liar. Who is responsible for the high numbers of unnecessary deaths: the Health Secretary or the Prime Minister?

[Matt Hancock]

As I said, we have answered this question many times before. What I would add to those answers is that it is another example of constantly learning about the virus. As we learned the impact of asymptomatic transmission in particular, we changed the protocols in care homes over the summer and put in place the winter plan that led to a greater degree of protection in care homes over the second peak. We are constantly looking to make sure that we can learn as much as possible and work with the sector to help people to stay as safe as possible.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) [V]]

Mr Speaker,

“When it comes to the Health Secretary, I’m a fan.”

Those are not my effusive words; they come from some of the highest levels among our health team in Bolton. Like colleagues on both sides of the House, we have been on countless calls with the Health Secretary, with upwards of 100 MPs on many occasions. As he has done today, he has taken the time to respond or come back after each and every interaction with helpful advice and solutions. I say this in private, I say it in public, and I say it—this is a plug—in the “Red Box” in The Times today: these last two weeks, he has thrown his Department’s kitchen sink at Bolton to help us through the recent variant-driven spike. Can he provide an update on the current situation, as well as giving a continued commitment to work hard for Bolton?

[Mr Speaker]

I presume it’s your red box the hon. Gentleman refers to, Secretary of State.

[Matt Hancock]

There are issues around Bolton in my red box very regularly, Mr Speaker. I was waiting on tenterhooks to find out whether, as well as his constituent being a fan, my hon. Friend is a fan—maybe he can tell me later in private. But he makes a very serious point: we have a significant challenge in Bolton right now, with a high rate of covid transmission, and we have done everything we possibly can to support Boltonians to solve this problem with increased vaccination. It is great to see the huge enthusiasm for vaccination and the queues of people coming forward. I say to everybody in Bolton, “Please come forward if you have not had both jabs yet.” Also, the testing effort, which has seen people come forward and get tested, is helping us to break the chains of transmission. That is the approach that we are trying to take now that we have built this huge vaccine and testing infrastructure over the past few months.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State claims that he has always been straight, yet his response to my question last week suggests otherwise. Remember, he was not straight over the need for higher-grade FFP3 masks for our frontline NHS and care workers, he was not straight over the need for the public to wear masks at the start of the pandemic, and he has not been straight over Test and Trace, for example with his fabricated test numbers last April. Given yesterday’s revelations, however, will he apologise to Warwickshire families for the 344 excess deaths resulting from his decision to discharge hospital patients directly into our care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

I do not recognise those figures, but I do recognise the enormous challenge of keeping people safe in care homes at the height of a pandemic in unprecedented circumstances. The other thing that I would say is that in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency we are building one of the biggest testing laboratories, if not the biggest, that this country has ever seen. The ability to have this huge testing capacity is an asset that this country has. It will mean not only that we can help to tackle the virus now, spot the new variants and make sure that we have an understanding of where it might be popping up—such as in Bolton, for instance—but that we are better prepared in future. I would like to work with the hon. Gentleman to deliver this brilliant laboratory in Leamington Spa and make sure that it is a model for how we do diagnostics. That working together is the best approach that we can take.

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

How does my right hon. Friend account for the yawning difference between the account given to the Select Committee yesterday and rehearsed by the Opposition today, and the balanced and objective accounts that continue to be given by the National Audit Office on this pandemic, notably the one published earlier this month detailing the Government’s response to the pandemic? May I ask specifically how he will take forward one of the principal recommendations of that report—that we need to plan for a sustainable healthcare workforce that can be organised at pace in the event of a future emergency of this sort, and that we particularly need individuals who are properly skilled and updated to fill gaps that may arise as a result of a future pandemic?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is quite right on both points. Not only have we been transparent and accountable to this House, and straight with this House about the challenges, but we have welcomed the National Audit Office into Government throughout the pandemic, and it has published repeatedly. For instance, it published on personal protective equipment, showing that we successfully avoided a national outage of PPE. It has reported on every aspect of the pandemic, and we have learned the lessons that are in those reports. I recommend to the House the National Audit Office’s latest publication, which summarises all these lessons and learnings. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of those is making sure that we have high-quality workforce planning for the future.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend noted the various ironies of yesterday’s Committee? It must be personally difficult for him and others who needlessly defended someone so willing to throw them into the road—presumably a road full of those behind the wheel testing their eyesight. But is not the greater irony the strange epiphany in many who have gone from regarding the Prime Minister’s former adviser as a latter-day King Herod whose words and deeds could not be trusted, to regarding him as a prophet who, fresh from the wilderness, brings with him supposed truths written on tablets of stone? Irony of ironies, all is irony.

[Matt Hancock]

I think what the constituents we serve are looking for is a Government who are focused four-square on delivering for them, getting us out of this pandemic and building back better. Observations on ironies I will leave to my hon. Friend.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP) [V]]

Delaying a public inquiry until 2022 could lead to the rewriting of memories, the potential loss of key documents and a lack of full transparency on the decisions that were taken based on the evidence. Given the seriousness of the testimony of Mr Cummings, including that statement, the scale of the disaster is so big that people need to understand how the Government failed them and learn from it. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need a quicker start to a public inquiry than the Government currently plan?

[Matt Hancock]

No.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

What do we know about the Secretary of State? We know that he is exceptionally hard-working, and that every day he woke up to try to save lives. He has been exceptionally good at coming to the House and answering questions. He has also held press conferences and answered questions from journalists. Yet yesterday, we had some outrageous claims by an unelected Spad who broke covid regulations, admitted he had leaked stuff to the BBC, and by his own admission was not fit to be in No. 10 Downing Street. Does the Secretary of State agree that the only mistake the Prime Minister made in this pandemic was that he did not fire Dominic Cummings early enough?

[Matt Hancock]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. I will continue to compliment him while I think of how to respond. The honest truth is that, from the start, I have been totally focused on how to get out of this pandemic. It is absolutely true that the operation and functioning of Government has got easier these last six months, and I think all the public can see that. We are laser focused on getting through this, getting this country out of it and delivering the vaccine programme that we have now been working on for almost a year and a half, which is remarkable. I pay tribute to all those who have been working on this effort. The way to fight a pandemic is by bringing people together and inspiring hope.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab) [V]]

Five hundred and nineteen residents in my borough of Tower Hamlets have lost their lives to covid—in my own family, we have lost five of our relatives—and their family members are grappling with that loss to this day. The hearings yesterday were incredibly distressing. Mr Cummings has admitted to Government failures in handling the pandemic, and said that it meant

“tens of thousands of people died who did not need to die”.

Out of respect for the over 128,000 families of people who have lost their lives, will the Secretary of State admit to the failures today and apologise? Will he, instead of his simple no to the earlier question, bring forward urgently the date of the inquiry, because families like ours, those of my constituents and all those who have lost loved ones up and down the country deserve answers now and deserve for lessons to be learned so that these mistakes are never made again?

[Matt Hancock]

The pandemic has taken far too many people away far too soon, and that has happened in the hon. Member’s family and it has happened in mine. She is absolutely right that we need to ensure that we learn as a country how to prepare as well as we possibly can for pandemics in the future—because it is likely that pandemics will become more frequent, not less—and it is vital that people have the opportunity to get answers. We must learn the lessons all the way through, not just wait until afterwards, and we must have a full inquiry afterwards, so that we can ensure that every detail is assessed and everybody has the opportunity to ask those questions. I think that is the right approach.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

On Sunday, I had the absolute joy of going to the Winding Wheel in Chesterfield and receiving my first vaccine. Will my right hon. Friend thank all the volunteers and staff at the Winding Wheel for what they have been doing? Can he tell me what monitoring has been happening at the Department of Health of an outbreak of opportunism and revisionism that seems to be spreading through Opposition politicians? If it helps, I have an idea of who patient zero might be for that outbreak—Captain Hindsight, if you will.

[Matt Hancock]

I am absolutely delighted my hon. Friend has had his first jab; I did not know he was old enough yet. It is very important that you take decisions in government based on the information that you have at the time. Of course, you can go and assess things based on information you have afterwards, but you can only take decisions on the information that you have, and that is why an unprecedented crisis like this leads to unprecedented challenges, and what you have to do is tackle those challenges as best you possibly can.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]]

At the start of this pandemic, covid-19 was seeded into care homes by a discharge policy that required care homes to take asymptomatic patients. A letter from Kent and Medway CCG to care providers dated 26 March 2020 made it clear that they were asked to take such patients whether they had been tested or not. Yesterday, the joint Select Committee inquiry heard that the Prime Minister was told by the Secretary of State that testing would be in place for these patients. I am asking quite specifically: did he know that the discharge process did not require testing, and did he sign off this policy, which led to thousands of avoidable deaths of vulnerable people and many deaths of care staff?

[Matt Hancock]

I have answered this question many times, and the challenge is that we had to build the testing capacity. At that time, of course I was focused on protecting people in care homes and in building that testing capacity, so that we had the daily tests to be able to ensure that availability was more widespread. That is at the heart of the importance of the then 100,000 target, and we are now up to a position where we have millions of tests available per day.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Surely it cannot be in anyone’s interests, least of all those who are mourning loved ones, for the mob to descend and judge and preoccupy my right hon. Friend at this point in the pandemic. The Government have made clear that there will be a full public inquiry, and that is when hindsight can and should prevail. Now, surely, it is in all our interests that he gets on with his work, bringing his experience to bear on saving lives and carrying out this excellent vaccination programme. Will he meet a cross-party delegation of West Midlands metropolitan leaders who are keen to work with him to deliver those common objectives?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, those are common objectives. The way my right hon. Friend puts it is absolutely spot on. I would be delighted to meet him and west midlands leaders to ensure we can roll out the vaccination effort as quickly and as effectively as possible in order to both save lives and get us out of this pandemic.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Is the Secretary of State aware that, by and large, many of us who have been in Parliament for a long time prefer Select Committee inquiries to public inquiries, because we get a faster and sharper look at a problem while the evidence is fresh? I know he has been very good at coming back quickly to Members of Parliament, including myself in Huddersfield in Kirklees. However, last week was not as good as possible. It seemed that he did not give us a heads-up and we were very much taken aback by the new advice given to local authorities like mine.

One last point: the fact of the matter is that this pandemic and these viruses have not gone away. The disturbing thing that came out of yesterday’s evidence was that there seemed not to have been any national plan for this sort of emergency. Every local authority has an emergency plan. Have we now got one?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, we have learned a huge amount about how to respond to a pandemic. We have built assets and capabilities such as the vaccination programme and the testing, which is so important both to protect people directly and break the chains of transmission, and to understand where the virus is spreading.

I am glad that we cleared up the issue the hon. Gentleman raised with respect to Kirklees. I worked with colleagues in Kirklees and elsewhere while I was in the west country to make sure that we got the best possible solution to the need in Kirklees: to have a turbocharge on the vaccination programme, to have mass testing to break the chains of transmission, and for people to be cautious and take personal responsibility as we lift measures to make sure that things stay under control.

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said about me personally, and for the leadership he has shown in his community.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) [V]]

Yesterday, our Committee meeting was supposed to be about lessons learned. In that spirit, we know that the World Health Organisation stated on 14 January that there was no human transmission. On 11 February, the WHO actually named the virus. We then know that on 14 February, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, in update No. 4, stated that the risk to health systems in the EU and the UK was “low to moderate” and the risk to the population was “low”. We also know that the UK had a plan, but it was mainly based around flu, not brand new viruses. Look at where we are now. Is not the biggest lesson learned that we need a global response and a global resilience plan? Will the Health Secretary be pushing the Prime Minister to make that case at the G7, when we host it here in the UK in June?

[Matt Hancock]

I think that is one of the lessons. I do not need to push the Prime Minister on that; he is absolutely seized of the point. We will be developing the work on that next week at the Health Ministers G7, which is being held in Oxford, and then, of course, at the leaders’ summit which is being held in Cornwall later next month. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in the view he takes as to the importance of reforming and strengthening the global institutions, as well as learning the lessons here at home.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State spoke earlier about the donation of surplus vaccines and other PPE and medical equipment to India and other developing countries. How does that square with the Government’s determination to cut their overall contribution to international aid? Are those donations being counted towards the 0.7% or 0.5% targets and, if they are, can he assure us that that will not be to the detriment of other projects that were already committed towards those targets?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course we are donating items directly—for instance, to India, Nepal and others—but the single biggest global contribution that the UK has made is the Oxford vaccine, which is being delivered at cost by AstraZeneca around the world following funding from Oxford, AstraZeneca and the UK Government. That has already led to 450 million jabs globally, two thirds of which are in low and middle-income countries. Everybody, in all parts of this country, should be proud of that, and there was Scottish support in the development of that vaccine. Of course, we will do as much as we can within the official development assistance budget directly, but that decision to waive the intellectual property charge has been called for from others—from President Biden down—but it is something that we in this House and the whole country should be very proud of.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The vaccine roll-out is going really well in my area and I cannot help but note that the turning of the tide against covid, because of that roll-out, seemed to exactly mirror the turning of the year. Is not it the case that, far from the world being divided into people who are either useless or brilliant and the British state failing at every turn, we have a Government in this country who did their best and a public who came together, as always in the UK, when the chips were down?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend, who was a superb Health Minister, has captured not just the spirit of what this country has been through in the last 18 months, but the spirit of the debate today in this House. The truth of the matter is that we work best when we work together, and we work together when we have a common mission, and the common mission has been tackling this virus. It is absolutely true that we must always do that with an open mind on how to do it better in future, but, in my view, the attitude needed is one where you welcome people in and take things forward in a spirit of positive partnership. That is how you get stuff done, and that is how we have made the progress we have been able to make.

[Mr Speaker]

I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) for his comradely advice, and I just correct the record because, thanks to his steadfast support for the Government’s action through the pandemic and the very grown-up approach he takes to these exchanges, Her Majesty the Queen was pleased to invite him to join the Privy Council, which we on the Government Benches welcome.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for describing the bond that has grown between us. It is true that, even while challenging each other from time to time in times of pandemic, sometimes relationships are strengthened in the heat of responding to something so serious. That is absolutely true. I think he is a wonderful man. I know that occasionally he has to criticise, because he has to please his Back Benchers, but I know he does not really mean it.

Throughout these great challenges and these difficult months, we have protected the NHS and protected and supported the amazing people who work in it, and we are determined to give the NHS all it needs as we emerge from this pandemic. The Queen’s Speech underlines that commitment, first, with a total focus on beating covid through our unprecedented vaccination programme, and then through an ambitious programme of support for our whole health and care system to tackle the backlogs caused by the pandemic, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly described, and a health and care Bill to set the NHS fair for the future—a Bill whose ideas and central propositions come from the NHS itself—alongside social care reforms to tackle injustices that have remained for far too long, public health reforms to learn the lessons of the pandemic and to promote the health of the nation, mental health reforms to bring that legislation into the 21st century and digital health reforms to harness all the opportunities that modern technology provides. That is our mission, a mission to ensure that, in support of all this, we also turn our nation into a life sciences superpower.

The last year has proved beyond measure the value of the NHS across Britain, the importance of social care and the strength of feeling that people rightly have for these cherished institutions. Our task in this Parliament is to help them further strengthen and build back better, and that is what this Queen’s Speech will allow us to do.

I turn first to the immediate task of tackling covid. With more than 70% of adults now having had a first dose and almost two fifths already double vaccinated, we have much to celebrate. Vaccination underpins our road map, which means we can now have pints in pubs and hugs in homes. Yet, as I updated the House on Monday, the race between the virus and the vaccine has got a whole lot closer. I can tell the House that 2,967 cases of covid-19 with the B1617.2 variant have now been identified. We are protecting the progress we have made and the progress that everybody has worked so hard to achieve, with the biggest surge in local resources of this pandemic so far. That means surging vaccines and testing. In the last week across Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, we have given 26,094 jabs, as well as delivering 75,000 extra tests.

But this challenge is not restricted to Bolton and Blackburn. We have used the extensive biosecurity surveillance system that we have built and new techniques to identify the areas we are most concerned about, where we will now surge testing and vaccinations further. We, of course, look at the data on cases, variants and hospitalisations, all of which we publish, but we are now able to use further tools. Mobility data shows how often people travel from one area to another, and we look at that in deciding where the virus is likely to spread. We now analyse waste water in 70% of the country, and we can spot the virus and the variants in the water to identify communities where there is spread.

As a result of all that analysis, I can tell the House that we will now surge testing and vaccinations in Bedford, Burnley, Hounslow, Kirklees, Leicester and North Tyneside, and we are supporting the Scottish Government, who are taking similar action in Glasgow and Moray. In practice, this means that we are putting in place more testing and more testing sites, and we are making more vaccinations available to everyone who is eligible. We are not yet opening up vaccinations to those who are 35 and younger, because across the whole country, the message is crystal clear. This episode shows just how important it is that every single person who is vulnerable to covid-19 gets not just one but two doses, because the vaccine offers the best possible protection against this disease.

Turning to our programme for the future, we must learn from the success of this vaccine roll-out, which shows how we can deliver huge projects with huge flexibility at huge pace. We must apply these lessons to how we tackle the backlog, and I want to set out clearly to the House the sheer scale of the challenge left by the pandemic. I agree very much with the analysis that the right hon. Member for Leicester South set out in respect of the scale of the challenge.

We now have 4.7 million people in England waiting for care and more in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Before the pandemic, we had succeeded in getting the 12-month waiting list down from 18,700 in 2010 to just 1,600 in the months leading up to the pandemic. Now, 380,000 have waited more than a year for care, but these figures do not yet include the returning demand of those people who have a problem but have not yet come forward during the pandemic, often because they have been trying to reduce the burden on the NHS, but are now rightly regaining the confidence to approach the NHS. So the real waiting list is far larger than those figures, and as people re-present with problems that they might not have wanted to bother the NHS with in the past year, we will see the waiting lists go up.

We know that, during the pandemic, 6.9 million fewer patients were added to the waiting list for diagnosis and treatment. The scale of the pent-up demand that will come forward is unknowable, but to give the House a sense of the scale of the challenge, since the start of the pandemic, the NHS performed 70% fewer electives than in a normal year. Some of those will have been resolved without the need for hospital treatment, and that is fine, but some will return. We do not yet know how many will present themselves and add to the waiting lists, but we do know that the NHS needs to operate at a scale never seen before across the whole United Kingdom to clear the backlog, so we are working hard to support the NHS to accelerate the recovery of services.

[Chris Bryant]

The Secretary of State will know that people with traumatic brain injury might well have been treated because they have been in a car crash or something like that over the last year, but then the ongoing neurorehabilitation simply will not have been made available to them. On top of that, we have a new set of people who have neurocognitive problems because of covid. May I urge him to think of putting a single person in charge of the whole sphere of neurorehabilitation and brain injury, to try to get this back on course?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I will absolutely consider that. The hon. Gentleman raises one example of the sort of backlog that has not yet presented itself in many cases to the NHS, and I know that he met the Minister for Health recently to discuss how we can tackle this further.

[James Cartlidge]

The Secretary of State heard the intervention I made on the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). Is he aware that, in January, Ipswich Hospital was able to more than double the number of intensive care unit beds it had available, from 11 to 25, precisely because it moved cancer patients to the Nuffield hospital in the independent sector? Does that not show the danger of ideologically ruling out the use of the independent sector, which immediately reduces the capacity of the NHS?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I thought that his exchanges with the right hon. Member for Leicester South were disappointing, because we know that the Opposition spokesman supports the use of the private sector in the NHS, because he was the guy behind the private finance initiative projects of the last Labour Government. Mr PFI there is a huge fan of the use of the private sector in the NHS, but he cannot admit it, because of the people sitting behind him, and the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) sitting next to him, keeping watch over him from the hard left of the party.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

For goodness’ sake, I was not responsible for a single PFI contract. Actually, I remember that it was for the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, that the right hon. Member was the chief lickspittle and bag carrier in signing off PFI contracts when he was first appointed to the Treasury. He can go through all the Treasury documents and he can FOI it until the cows come home, and he will find that I was not involved in any PFI contracts when I worked in the Labour Government, but I was responsible for helping invest in the NHS, which brought waiting lists down to their lowest level ever.

[Matt Hancock]

Well, it did not actually, because after 2010 we then had to bring waiting lists down, and we brought them down. The 52-week waits came down to just 1,600 before the pandemic, and it is our task and our mission to make sure that we get them down once again. However, this will take time and it will take all the resources that are possible—yes, extra staff, and that is happening; yes, extra capital investment, and that is happening; and yes, extra diagnostics, and that is happening. We have to use all the capacity of everything that we can—north and south, revenue and capital, public and private. What people care about and what our constituents care about is whether they can get the problem fixed, and last year has demonstrated that without doubt. So on the Government side we will use everything in our power to support the NHS. It is only those on the other side of the House who have the ideological divisions, and that just demonstrates once again that we are the party of the NHS.

In March, we committed £7 billion for further funding for healthcare services, including £1 billion to address backlogs from the pandemic, and that has taken our additional funding for covid-19 to £92 billion. We are also helping the NHS to recover medical training, and today I can confirm to the House an additional £30 million for postgraduate medical training. The formula for beating this backlog is looking closely at the demand as we emerge from the pandemic, putting in the right resources to meet this demand and putting in place an ambitious programme of improvement in the NHS.

That brings me to the third thing I want to talk about, which is how we are going to build back better. The Queen’s Speech outlines improvement in almost every area of healthcare, applying vital lessons that we have learned from the pandemic, including from the successful vaccination programme, when the whole health and care system has worked as one in the face of challenge and adversity. The vaccination programme brought a jigsaw of academics, the private sector, volunteers, the NHS, civil servants and many more, and put this together, revealing a bold picture of what is possible in this country when we pull together. That is the spirit and the energy that will underpin our reforms, and all of them have a common thread, which is to improve the health of the nation, based on the principle that prevention is better than cure.

Turning to our health and care Bill, as outlined in Her Majesty’s most Gracious Speech, one of the lessons of the crisis is the importance of integrated working. We knew this before, but it has come right to the front of mind. For years, people in the NHS at all levels have called for stronger integration within the NHS, and between the NHS and others they work so closely with, such as local authorities. The Bill will allow for a more preventive, population health-based approach to how we spend NHS money, helping people to stay healthy in the first place, and that is at the core of our Bill.

The right hon. Member for Leicester South asked about the new integrated care systems. They will bring together decision making at a local level between the NHS and local authorities to ensure that decisions about local health can be taken as locally as possible. The Bill will tackle much of the bureaucracy that makes it harder to do the right thing and free up the system to innovate and embrace technology as a better platform to support staff and patient care.

Her Majesty also set out our commitment to reform adult social care, and we will bring forward proposals this year to give everyone who needs care the dignity and security they deserve. Throughout the pandemic, we have sought to protect the elderly and the most vulnerable, and this will remain our priority as we look to end the care lottery and ensure that people receive high-quality, joined-up care.

This country understands the importance of the NHS and social care, but I also think that there has never been a greater appreciation of the importance of public health. Never have the public been more engaged, and never have we learned quite so much in such a short space of time. We must capture the lessons of the pandemic on how we do public health in this country and put that together with the innovations of the last decade—in data, genomics, population health, science and research.

One of the lessons that we have had to learn quickly is that health security and health promotion each need a single-minded focus. The people who get up in the morning and think about how we increase healthy life expectancy must be different from the people focused on fighting novel pandemic threats. Each is important and each needs dedicated focus. We have split these functions into two purpose-built organisations so that we are better at both.

The new UK Health Security Agency will have a dedicated focus on responding to the current threats, planning for the next pandemic and scanning the horizon for new threats in good times as well as bad. Of course, pandemics do not respect administrative boundaries. The UKHSA’s role is specifically to promote and protect the security of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Next, the job of our new Office for Health Promotion will be to lead national efforts to improve and level up our health—addressing the causes of ill health, not just the symptoms, such as through our plans to tackle obesity and make healthier choices easier and more accessible, and through supporting our colleagues in primary and community care. General practice, after all, is at the forefront of all population health measures and GPs are the bedrock of the NHS. General practice will be central to our levelling up the health of the nation because we know, and they know, that prevention is better than cure. A greater proportion of our efforts will now be directed at preventing people from becoming patients in the first place.

All of that brings me to mental health reforms. To truly level up health and reduce health inequalities, we must level up every part of our health, including mental health. I am determined to see mental ill health treated on a par with physical ill health, and to ensure that support is in place for those struggling with their mental wellbeing. We have provided record levels of funding for mental health services, especially to meet the additional burdens of the pandemic, but we need a better legislative basis—a mental health Act fit for the 21st century.

We are modernising the Mental Health Act to improve services for the most serious mental illnesses and support people so that they can manage their own mental health. The new Act will tackle the disparities and iniquities of our system and improve how people with learning difficulties and autism are supported. Ultimately, it is going to be there for every single one of us if we need it.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

I know that my right hon. Friend shares my passion for legislative reform of the Mental Health Act. We go through this process every 20 years or so. I was wondering whether he could unpack how this will go forward, bearing in mind the need to get the law right while delivering it very quickly so that patients get the benefits.

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend has enormous expertise and wisdom in this area. He is right to make the argument that we need to support everybody’s mental wellbeing, but that we also need a specific focus on very serious mental ill health, much of which has been, in many cases, exacerbated by the privations that have been necessary during the pandemic. He says that this is a process that happens once every 20 years, but it is almost 40 years since we had a new mental health Act. We want to do this with stakeholders on a consensual basis—I am very glad to hear the reiteration of cross-party support just now from the right hon. Member for Leicester South. Our goal is to bring forward a draft Bill in this Session and a Bill potentially in the next Session, so that we ensure it is legislated for during this Parliament. That is a timetable on which we have worked with the many experts who have informed the process, led by Sir Simon Wessley, of course, whose report sparked off this work. I look forward to working on that with him and the Minister with responsibility for mental health, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries).

[Chris Bryant]

I think the Secretary of State just said that we have not had a mental health Act for 40 years, but I remember sitting on the Public Bill Committee for the Mental Health Act 2007. I know that everybody is against lobbying, but my experience as a member of that Committee was that the lobbyists from the mental health charities, the British Medical Association and the pharmaceutical companies were absolutely invaluable in ensuring that we got the legislation right. Will he make sure that is available again this time?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I am absolutely happy to stress that point. This is a consensual process taking into account all the expertise from those who rightly want to influence. The hon. Gentleman almost made a joke about lobbying. The truth is that listening to people who have an expertise and an interest is absolutely critical to getting such a sensitive piece of legislation right. The legislation that this will replace was introduced in the early ’80s, so it is essentially 40 years old. There have been some updates, but there are still some extraordinarily antiquated things in our current mental health legislation. For instance, if someone does not declare then it is automatically assumed, if they are unmarried, that their father should take decisions on their behalf, rather than them choosing who might take those decisions—not their mother and not just one of their parents, but their father. That is just one example of the antiquated practices in this area that we need to address.

Finally, turning to our digital reforms, the pandemic has shown that one of the greatest allies we have in our battle for the nation’s health is data and technology. Digital health has truly come of age over the past year. There is no doubt about it: data saves lives. As we reshape health and social care, we will do it underpinned by a modern data platform, so we can get the most out of this powerful new technology. I am glad, again, that this is an area of cross-party consensus. Telemedicine has taken off. The NHS covid-19 app has been downloaded almost 24 million times and the wider NHS app, on which we can now demonstrate our vaccine status, was downloaded more times on Monday this week than on any previous day. If Members have not downloaded it yet, I recommend that they do. They can see their medical records and show somebody when you had the jab. NHSX committed to delivering the app by the ambitious schedule of 17 May, and it delivered. I am grateful to everybody who worked on this incredibly important project. The lesson of our data-driven vaccine roll-out must be applied everywhere. As citizens, we value the ability to see our data—after all, it is about us and it effectively belongs to us—and we want to see it used to drive better decisions, better research, better treatment and better support for colleagues on the frontline.

My view is that for years the health system has shied away from the modern use of data, and struggled on with paper forms, fax machines and clunky systems that do not talk to each other—but no longer. The pandemic has proved without doubt the incredible value to patients and clinicians alike of the modern use of data. Because of the gift of a universal NHS, we have the opportunity to have the best data-driven healthcare in the world, and I am determined that we seize it. Our health and care Bill and our new data strategy will drive a whole new approach to unleash that potential.

In addition to all those changes, we must, throughout, support all those who improve our health, including those in our life sciences and those who work in the NHS. Last week, I attended with colleagues a service to commemorate the life of Florence Nightingale. In his bidding, the Dean of Westminster reminded us that in Florence Nightingale, compassion and care had the power to deliver not just healing, but change. That must be our mission too: not just to heal, but to change. I am proud to be a member of a Government who deliver on our commitments. We delivered on our commitment to Brexit. We delivered on our commitment to protect the NHS. We are delivering on our commitment to vaccinate all. This Queen’s Speech is a commitment for healing and for change, for a United Kingdom that is stronger, healthier and more prosperous together, and I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

It might be helpful for the House to know that the initial time limit on Back-Bench speeches will be five minutes, and in that cohort of five-minute speeches we have two maiden speeches this afternoon. I can see the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) looking at her notes, and I am sorry to have to say that when we come to her and those after her on the list, the time limit will reduce to three minutes. [Interruption.] She is taking it very well. [Laughter.] Now we go by video link to Dr Philippa Whitford.

First Implementation Plan for Genome UK

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Lord Bethell of Romford, has today made the following written ministerial statement:

Last September, after months of hard work across the UK genomics community, I was delighted to launch Genome UK—the UK’s genomic healthcare strategy.

Ultimately, the strategy set out a vision to create the most advanced genomic healthcare system in the world to deliver better healthcare at a lower cost.

Thanks to achievements made over the last 70 years, from the discovery of the structure of DNA to the completion of the 100,000 Genomes Project, the UK is rightly recognised as a world-leader in genomics.

But for the UK to remain at the forefront of international competition in genomic research and healthcare, and attract investment, it is essential that we start to deliver on the commitments set out in our strategy.

I am therefore delighted to inform the House of the launch of the 2021-22 Genome UK implementation plan. This publication will demonstrate the great strides we have already made in delivering on our vision and outlines the clear actions we will progress over the next year.

This implementation plan has been agreed by members of the National Genomics Board, a group of senior life sciences sector stakeholders, which I chair with Sir John Bell. Over the last six months, we have engaged with our delivery partners and key stakeholders to identify projects and programmes that can be delivered during 2021-22.

We have drafted a diverse and ambitious package of actions and as part of this, I am pleased to announce the following:

A major drive, led by Genomics England, to improve the diversity of genomic data, addressing the historic under-representation of data from minority ethnic communities in genomic datasets, which results in health inequalities. The work will include widespread community engagement alongside sequencing and analytic tool development.

The roll-out of whole genome sequencing to patients with a suspected rare disease and certain cancers in the NHS Genomic Medicine Service, in partnership with Genomics England. This is a truly transformational milestone for patients, and for our overarching one million genomes commitment—our ambition to sequence 500,000 genomes in the NHS and 500,000 in UK Biobank, creating the most advanced genomic healthcare system in the world.

Proof of concept work, led by Genomics England in partnership with the NHS, to deliver the first phase of a next-generation approach for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, integrating multiple data sources and new technologies to support faster and more comprehensive genomic testing for cancer in line with the NHS long term plan.

Our Future Health (formerly known as the Accelerating Detection of Disease challenge) will help drive developments in the next generation of diagnostics and clinical tools—including the evaluation of polygenic risk scores (PRS), drug discovery, and smart clinical trials. In 2021, Our Future Health will pilot participant recruitment processes to build towards their five million participant ambition. Our Future Health will conduct feedback pilot studies in 2022 to test approaches to deliver health-related information, including PRS, to participants.

NIHR, MRC and Wellcome Trust will, over the next five years, provide funding to the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) to develop standards and policies for sharing genomic and related health data. GA4GH aims to ensure its standards are easily accessible and ready for use by global genomic programs and data sharing initiatives. It will proactively engage stakeholders at national and organisational level to drive uptake of GA4GH standards.

Given that Genome UK runs over 10 years, some of its 45 commitments are either long term or will be delivered through cumulative action over the coming years. Implementation of the strategy will therefore be phased, so we have mainly focused on actions taking place this year. Genomics is a fast-moving field, and a phased approach will allow us to review our commitments and reflect emerging science and the latest research findings. Our intention is to align future iterations of this plan with Government funding cycles.

These commitments are just some of the first important steps on the journey to realising the vision set out in Genome UK. However, achieving all our objectives will require new investment over the next decade, with continued collaboration and funding from the public, private and charity sectors becoming ever more important.

Genomic research and innovation will transform healthcare in this country to benefit patients and drive our economic recovery. Given our reputation as a world-leader in genomic healthcare and research, it has the potential to play a key role in delivering our wider goal of becoming a global life sciences.

This iteration of the implementation plan is largely England-focused, but some aspects are UK-wide. For example, the world-leading research programs, including COG-UK, the consortium which delivered large scale covid genome sequencing. We have therefore developed this plan with the support of our partners in the devolved Administrations.

We will continue to work with our partners from the devolved Administrations, the NHS, industry and research, via the National Genomics Board and other venues, to ensure that we deliver on our goal to create the most advanced genomic healthcare system in the world. I also want to emphasise that engagement and dialogue with the healthcare workforce, patients and the diverse UK population, will be at the heart of the journey to reach the vision set out in the strategy.

[HCWS41]

Points of Order

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I accept her apology. I was about to say that we are about to have a debate, and that the right time for the hon. Lady to raise these matters will be during the debate. However, I notice that the Secretary of State is at the Dispatch Box, and if he would like to deal with the matter now, I will exceptionally allow that to take place. However, I do not encourage Members to raise points of order in this sequence of events.

[Matt Hancock]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought that point might come up in the forthcoming debate, but since it has come up now, I can address the question. Of course it is important that parliamentary debates use accurate statistics, so I want to correct the hon. Lady. I can give her the statistics on which the decision was taken. The positivity rates on which we took the decision to put Pakistan, but not India, on the red list were 1.6% in India and 4.6% in Pakistan, which is three times higher, as I said.

There is a further point that is important in this debate, which is that the dates covered by the data that the hon. Lady just gave, and that were widely circulated in the media this morning, included dates after the decision was taken. It is perfectly reasonable to hold politicians to account for the data on which their decisions are taken, but unfortunately we cannot take decisions based on data that has yet to occur. I have just given the facts, and we will now be able to have a debate not only on those facts but on others. It is important that we stick to the facts.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his clarification of that point of order. I reiterate that points of order should not be used in this way. That was a matter for debate, and it is exceptional that I have allowed this exchange, because I recognised the matter to be exceptional and important. I do not encourage hon. Members to bring forward points of order in this way in future.

I will now briefly suspend the House in order that arrangements can be made for the next debate.

Covid-19 Update

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on coronavirus. Since January last year, and especially since 8 December, when the world’s first clinically authorised coronavirus vaccine was given in Coventry Hospital, we have been engaged—all of us—in a race between the virus and the vaccine. As a nation, we have taken some huge strides forward and we can make careful further progress today, and we must remain vigilant.

I can report to the House that there are now fewer than 1,000 people in hospital in the United Kingdom with coronavirus, and the average number of daily deaths is now nine. This progress means we are able to take step 3 in our road map today, carefully easing some of the restrictions that we have all endured. People have missed the things that make life worth living, businesses have endured hardship and everybody has made sacrifices. While we can take this step today, we must be humble in the face of this virus. We have all learned over the past year that, in a pandemic, we must look not just at where we are today, but where the evidence shows we may be in weeks and months down the track. The vaccination programme can give us confidence, but we must be alert to new variants that could jeopardise the advances that we have made.

Today, I would like to update the House on the work we are doing to tackle variants of concern—in particular, variant B1617.2, which is the variant of concern first identified in India—so that we can protect the progress that we have worked so hard to achieve. There are now 2,323 confirmed cases of B1617.2 in the UK; 483 of these cases have been seen in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, where it is now the dominant strain. Cases there have doubled in the last week and are rising in all age groups. In Blackburn, hospitalisations are stable, with eight people currently in hospital with covid. In Bolton, 19 people are now in hospital with coronavirus, the majority of whom are eligible for a vaccine but have not yet had one. That shows that the new variant is not tending to penetrate into older vaccinated groups, and underlines again the importance of getting the jab—especially, but not only, among the vulnerable age groups.

In Bolton and Blackburn, we have taken the approach that worked in south London against the South African variant. We have surged in our rapid response team: 100 people so far, who visited approximately 35,000 people this weekend to distribute and collect tests. We have installed six new testing units, brought in more than 50 new vaccinators and set up two new vaccination centres, as well as extending opening hours and capacity at our existing sites. In Bolton, we have quadrupled the rate of vaccination. We carried out 6,200 vaccinations over this weekend, and it is brilliant to see so many people from the most vulnerable groups coming forward to get the protection, whether it is their first or second jab.

All in all, this is the biggest surge of resources into any specific local area that we have seen during the pandemic so far. It has been co-ordinated by Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the new UK Health Security Agency, drawing on all the health capabilities, locally and nationally, that we have built in the past year. I thank everyone who is working so hard to make it happen, including everyone at the two local authorities; the rapid response team; all the volunteers, including those from St John Ambulance; and, most importantly, the people of Bolton and Blackburn for the community spirit that they are showing.

It has been really heartening, as I am sure the whole House will agree, to see the videos published over the weekend of people queuing up to get the jab. I say to anyone who feels hesitant about getting the vaccine, not just in Bolton or Blackburn, but right across the country: just look at what is happening at the Royal Bolton Hospital. The majority of people in hospital with coronavirus were eligible for the jab but had chosen not yet to have it, and have ended up in hospital—some of them in intensive care. Vaccines save lives. They protect you, they protect your loved ones and they will help us all get out of this pandemic.

This is not just about Bolton and Blackburn. There are now 86 local authority areas where there are five or more confirmed cases. The next biggest case of concern is Bedford, where we are surging testing. I urge everybody in Bedford to exercise caution and engage in testing where it is available.

I also want to tell the House the latest scientific assessment of this variant. The early evidence suggests that B1617.2 is more transmissible than the previously dominant B1117 variant. We do not yet know to what extent it is more transmissible. While we do not have the complete picture of the impact of the vaccine, the early laboratory data from Oxford University corroborates the provisional evidence from the Royal Bolton Hospital and the initial observational data from India that vaccines are effective against the variant. This, of course, is reassuring, but the higher transmission poses a real risk.

All this supports our overriding strategy, which is gradually and cautiously to replace the restrictions on freedom with the protections from the vaccines. The data suggests that the vaccine has already saved more than 12,000 lives and prevented more than 33,000 people from being hospitalised, and we are protecting people at a very rapid pace. Last week was the biggest week of vaccinations since the end of March. Some 36 million people have now had a first dose, and yesterday we reached the milestone of 20 million people across the UK having had their second dose.

I am delighted to see the figures released by YouGov today, which show that the UK has the highest vaccination enthusiasm in the world, with 90% of people saying that they have had or will have the jab. This was no accident. We began planning the campaign for vaccine uptake a year ago. I thank the huge range of people involved in promoting the benefits of vaccination, from Her Majesty the Queen to Sir Elton John, Harry Redknapp, Lenny Henry, Holly Willoughby, Lydia West and many, many others. Our campaign has been based on positivity and science, and I am grateful to everybody who has played their part.

I can confirm that from tomorrow we will be inviting people aged 37 to come forward, before expanding this further later in the week. It has been brilliant to see people’s enthusiasm when they have been invited to come forward, and we want to make it as easy as possible for them to show that they have had the protection the vaccine provides. I am delighted to say that, as of today, people can demonstrate whether they have had their jab, quickly and simply, through the NHS app.

Since January, we have been following a dosing interval of 12 weeks for second doses. Because of the extra protection people get from the second dose, particularly among those most likely to end up in hospital or dying, it is incredibly important that everyone comes forward for that second dose at the right moment. The approach we have taken aims to give the most vulnerable the strongest possible protection against this virus. Since January, that has meant getting the first dose to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. The research shows that this approach has saved about 12,000 lives.

Now, it is important to accelerate the second doses for all those most vulnerable to ending up in hospital or dying. Our vaccination strategy for all parts of the UK, including the areas of surge vaccination, will therefore stick by the clinical advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation: first, prioritise anyone over 50 who has not yet been vaccinated; next, second doses to those over 50 are vital—that will now be done on a schedule of eight weeks; and, then, follow the cohorts in priority order, and the age groups as we open them. This clinically approved approach is the best way to save the most lives, rather than jumping ahead with first doses for younger people. Although the JCVI of course keeps this under constant review, we are clear that its advice is the best way to protect those most in need of protection and so save as many lives as we can. The NHS will be reiterating this advice to all vaccination centres and all directors of public health, and I am very grateful to everyone, in the NHS, local authorities and in the whole system supporting this vaccination programme, for following it.

Today’s opening and step 3 marks an important step on our road to our recovery. We must proceed with caution and care, and bear down on the virus, in whatever form it attacks us, so that in this race between the vaccine and the virus, our humanity, science, and ingenuity will prevail. I commend this statement to the House.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. May I start by congratulating the Leicester City football team on winning the FA cup on Saturday? The winning goal from Tielemans was one of dreams. Leicester City fans boast that Foxes never give up and nor do I, so let me turn to the matters before us.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State warned on the television that the B.1617.2 variant could “spread like wildfire” among the unvaccinated, but does he accept that we could have avoided this? Our borders have been about as secure as a sieve, and the delay in adding India to the red list surely now stands as a catastrophic mis-step. One month ago in this House, I urged him to act quickly in response to this variant. The Wellcome Sanger Institute data today shows a rapid increase in this variant, to 30% of all sequenced cases in the UK, and that excludes cases from travel and surge testing. Alarm bells should be ringing, because although the Secretary of State offers reassurance that vaccines are effective, we have also heard Professor Anthony Harnden of the JCVI recently warn us that vaccines are “almost certainly less effective” at reducing the transmission of this variant.

I entirely appreciate that when questioned I suspect that the Secretary of State will not be able to give a cast-iron assurance about opening up on 21 June, and I am not going to try to push him into a corner; we all understand that we are dealing with uncertainties and we have to be grown up about these things. But we do need a plan now to contain this variant urgently. He is said to be considering local lockdowns. As he knows, I speak as a resident of long locked-down Leicester. Before he takes out his mallet to try to whack moles again, may I suggest a number of things for him to try first?

First, will he consider surge vaccination in all hotspot areas and go hell for leather to roll out vaccinations to everyone? I listened very carefully to what he said about vaccination increases in Bolton, and I hope that also includes Blackburn. Is he saying that everyone over 18 in those areas will now be eligible for vaccination? As he knows, that is something that public health directors on the ground have been calling for, and I hope we listen to them.

We have had these debates in the House before, and the Secretary of State knows that even if we drive up vaccination as high as it can possibly go among adults, there are still about 20% of the wider population—children —who remain unvaccinated, which means the virus can still spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US are moving to vaccinate children. Will he update us on what progress he is making on that front here? On children, the Secretary of State knows that in many secondary schools, mask wearing is no longer necessary. Will he assure us that he thinks that is the right response in the light of the data he unveiled today?

Secondly, the Secretary of State has announced extra surge testing, but he knows by now that surge testing must be backed up by proper sick pay and decent isolation support. That should have been fixed in the Queen’s Speech last week.

Thirdly, more venues are opening up today. Many will be spending a lot of time disinfecting surfaces, like we do in here, which is good and important, but we know so much more about this virus now. We know about airborne spread of the virus, so why are we not supporting venues more with ventilation? What are we doing to help supermarkets, shopping centres and larger venues where air circulates around the building to put in place covid-secure air filtration systems?

Fourthly, what the Secretary of State said about the NHS and the uptake of beds is welcome, but NHS staff, as he knows, are exhausted and fear another surge. What modelling has been shared with NHS leaders, and what are they doing to prepare for any surge in admissions?

Finally, the surge in this variant reminds us that we are not safe until everyone is safe. That is not a slogan; it is a fact. Some 3.3 million lives have been lost globally to this virus, and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from the World Health Organisation warns that we are on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first. Only 0.3% of vaccine supply is going to low-income countries. Trickle-down vaccination is not an effective strategy for fighting this deadly virus. Not only do we have a moral responsibility to play our part internationally, but that also reduces the risk of new variants bouncing back at us and setting us back.

At this critical time, when we need to work internationally to defeat this virus, why are we the only G7 nation cutting its aid budget? How can the Secretary of State defend cutting our contribution to vital science and research projects? Given the total silence from the Government on President Biden’s support for the temporary lifting of patent protections to increase vaccine production, should we assume that the Government do not agree with President Biden?

[Matt Hancock]

Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s substantive questions. The first was about the surging of vaccines and testing into hotspots. We saw in south London earlier in the month and last month that that sort of surge testing can work. We had an outbreak of the South African variant in south London. We put in more than 200,000 tests, and we effectively managed to contain that outbreak. That is the approach that we are taking in Bolton and Blackburn, and we will also take that approach if we see a further spread in other areas of the country. We have been working very hard on that to ensure we have that capacity and can do that effectively. We do that, of course, hand in glove with the local authorities in question, which know the communities on the ground.

We are also making sure we have the vaccines available, but I want to be absolutely crystal clear about the approach to vaccination. The hon. Gentleman asked about vaccinating all over-18s in Bolton and Blackburn, but that is not our approach. I have looked into it in great detail, and we have taken clinical advice. The approach is to make sure that we get done as many second vaccinations as possible, as many first vaccinations as possible among the vulnerable groups, and then as many vaccinations as possible among those aged under 50 in the eligible groups. We have taken that approach because that is what is likely to save most lives. That second jab is vital. The first jab for anybody over 50 could mean the difference between life and death. The very strong focus is to get the vaccine to all those over 50 who have not yet taken the first jab. I am glad to say that reports from both Bolton and Blackburn suggest that uptake among people who are eligible, but who have not yet taken the jab, has increased since we saw the rise of the B1617.2 variant in those areas. It is effective in proving to people that the jab really does work to protect them. That is what the data shows.

The hon. Gentleman asked about children. I have been closely following the results of the clinical studies from Pfizer that show that the vaccine is safe and effective among children between the ages of 12 and 18. We have procured enough Pfizer to be able to offer that jab to children should that be clinically approved here, but given that we are at the stage of opening tomorrow to people aged 37, there is some time to go before we get to 18-year-olds. We are on track to meet the target of offering the vaccine to all those aged 18 and above by the end of July, so we have a couple of months before we need to make and operationalise a decision. We want to be very, very careful and sensitive about whether and how we offer the vaccine to children.

The hon. Gentleman asked about important wider measures. He mentioned ventilation. We have put in place guidance for businesses in terms of strengthening the rules around ventilation, and that, too, is important. He did a bit of a Captain Hindsight act on the Indian variant. He did not seem to mention that we put India on the red list before this variant was even deemed a variant under investigation, let alone a variant of concern. Indeed, we put India on the red list before countries such as Germany and Canada stopped flights from India. We have a strong policy of restrictions at the border and we will remain vigilant.

The final point to which I wanted to respond was on the global moral responsibility to vaccinate everybody in the world. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have a global moral responsibility. I argue that, thus far, the United Kingdom has done, and will continue to do, more than any other nation. It is about not just the huge sums that we have put into COVAX, but the way that we delivered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine around the world. As of this morning, 1.47 billion vaccines have been delivered globally, 400 million of which have been the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. AstraZeneca has charged a profit margin and a margin for intellectual property of zero—no charge for intellectual property, no profit for AstraZeneca. Costs, of course, need to be met, but we have taken nothing for the money that we put into the vaccine’s development. This is the biggest gift that this country could give to the world. A total of 65% of those 400 million doses have been delivered into the arms of people in low and middle-income countries, including more than 150 million in India. On the COVAX facility, which is the biggest global effort to vaccinate in low and middle-income countries, it has delivered 54 million vaccines so far, 53 million of which have been done with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

This country can be hugely proud of the contribution it has made. It is far bigger so far than that of any other country. We took the view from the start that we do not need to change our IP rules, we do not need to change the law, we just need to get on and get the vaccine out to as many people around the world as possible, at cost. Everybody in this House should be very, very proud of what AstraZeneca and Oxford University have done with the support of the UK Government. That is how we save lives around the world.

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

Many of the new variants come from abroad, so clarity on borders policy is essential. We now know that the first wave was largely seeded by people coming back from their spring holiday break in Italy, France and Spain, so will my right hon. Friend provide absolute clarity on the amber list? Should my constituents in Farnham, Godalming and Haslemere—indeed, all our constituents—go on holiday to countries on the amber list even when it is no longer illegal?

[Matt Hancock]

The answer is no. The official Government advice is very clear that people should not travel to amber or red-list countries or territories. People should not travel to amber-list countries for a holiday. What is on the amber, red and green lists is kept under review, based on the data assessed by the Joint Biosecurity Centre. Our priority is protecting the progress we have made at home. We will assess whether any new countries might go on to the green list every three weeks and, of course, we constantly monitor to check that the countries on the green list remain safe. If a country is not on the green list, people should not travel there unless they have an exceptional reason.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]]

Covid cases in India began to soar at the start of April, so why were Pakistan and Bangladesh added to the red list at that time but not India? Was it because of the Prime Minister’s planned trade visit? After India was finally added to the red list on 19 April, the restrictions did not take effect until 23 April. How many people arrived from India in those days, trying to escape having to go into hotel quarantine? When I previously raised the issue of applying hotel quarantine to all travellers, the Secretary of State claimed that the current system was protecting the UK; does he now accept that the entry and community spread of the Indian variant shows that that simply is not the case and that having a negative test does not rule out the possibility that travellers are carrying covid?

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has stated that evidence shows that the B1617.2 Indian variant is up to 50% more infectious than the Kent variant and has advised that, as in Scotland, areas with rising numbers of cases should remain under covid restrictions. The Indian variant has been doubling every week despite lockdown, so why is the Secretary of State ignoring SAGE advice and opening up areas like Bolton that have exponential growth?

Thankfully, the Indian variant does not show significant vaccine resistance, but the Secretary of State must know that it is not possible to outrun the virus through vaccination alone. As those aged up to 35 are not eligible for surge vaccination, that leaves a large pool of unvaccinated people among whom the variant can spread. It will take two to three weeks before even those who receive a vaccine in the coming weeks are protected. Does the Secretary of State not accept that the variant is in danger of surging and that without local travel restrictions it will spread to other areas? It is good news that fully vaccinated people are not ending up in hospital, but just letting the virus spread among young adults could allow the evolution of yet another UK variant.

[Matt Hancock]

I answered those questions in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). The truth is that when we put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list, positivity among those arriving from those countries was three times higher than it was among those arriving from India. That is why we took those decisions and, of course, they were taken before the Indian variant became a variant under investigation, let alone a variant of concern. It is striking that the Scottish Government took the decision to put India on the red list at the same time as we in the UK Government did. It is all very well to ask questions with hindsight, but we have to base decisions and policy on the evidence at the time.

When it comes to how we are tackling the virus in the UK, the hon. Lady is quite right that it is good news—albeit early news—that the vaccines do appear to be effective against the B1617.2 variant. I am obviously pleased about the evidence we have seen but we are vigilant about that. I am glad that the approach we are now taking in Bolton and Blackburn worked against the South African variant in south London. We always keep these things under review, but I think that as a first resort, surge testing, going door to door, ensuring that we find and seek out the virus wherever we can spot it, and putting in the extra resources with the armed services who are supporting us, are the right approaches while we keep this under review. The numbers thus far nationally are still relatively low and, thankfully, we have a very good surveillance operation across the UK so that we can spot these things early and take the action that we need to.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with Sir Patrick Vallance, who told my Committee that new variants will arise all the time and that border restrictions will only slow, not prevent, those variants that originate overseas? What level of vaccination protection do we need to get to in this country before my right hon. Friend is in a position to rescind the rather strange advice that he has just given to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) and allow people who have been tested three times and quarantined for 10 days to travel to places such as France and Spain?

[Matt Hancock]

Typically my right hon. Friend asks the most pertinent question, to which we do not know the answer. The level of vaccination that we need in order to withstand the incursion of new variants, even those that the vaccine will work against, depends on their level of transmissibility, and we do not know the increased level of transmissibility over and above that of B117, the previous main variant here in the UK, which was first discovered in Kent. This is an absolutely critical question, but unfortunately we do not know the answer to it yet.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Having reached this tremendous milestone today, and given the sacrifices that the British people have made through lockdown and the fantastic successes of the vaccination programme, will the Secretary of State listen to his own colleague, the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who said last week that, with the new variant, we must “isolate, isolate, isolate” every single case and its contacts? Will he finally commit to paying people’s wages to stay at home to self-isolate, and provide practical support in terms of accommodation and support for dependants if necessary? Otherwise, we will only go backwards.

[Matt Hancock]

I am afraid I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s characterisation of the situation, not least because the approach we are taking in Bolton did work effectively in south London. We are piloting new approaches to ensuring that we can support people to isolate, and some of those pilots are taking place in areas where we can see cases of B1617.2. We keep this under close scrutiny and review to see what works effectively.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

Part of our fight against covid, and indeed against future viruses, is to improve our domestic vaccine manufacturing capability. To that end, the Government are fast-tracking the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre at Harwell in my constituency. I will be visiting it in a few weeks, but could my right hon. Friend provide an update on the progress so far?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, we are making significant progress with the onshoring of vaccine capability. It is about developing the vaccine, as the team in Oxford did brilliantly, but also about manufacturing it onshore, and boy, if there is one lesson we have learned from this whole thing, it is that we cannot just not care about where manufacturing happens. Having it onshore really, really matters, for resilience but also to ensure that it is close to the NHS so that the whole supply chain can learn and constantly improve. I am delighted that we are pushing forward with the VMIC project in the same way that we have brought onshore manufacturing supply in Teesside, in Livingston in Scotland and in the fill-and-finish plants at Wockhardt in Wrexham, at Barnard Castle and elsewhere. It is a big project and, frankly, a big opportunity for life sciences in the UK to ensure that we can do all this onshore, because in my view, the pandemic has shown that we need to.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for his comprehensive answers. I know that he has regular discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Minister, Robin Swann. There has been a surge in the Indian variant in Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and in the maiden city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. Can the Northern Ireland Assembly Health Minister call upon the UK for expertise from Westminster to assist us, which I believe will show once again that we are always better together with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Matt Hancock]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. The UK fights this together. There are outbreaks also in Moray and in Glasgow, and I have been talking to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health about the action that is going on to tackle the outbreaks there. I talk frequently with Robin Swann, who is doing an absolutely brilliant job with the Health portfolio in Northern Ireland. The fundamental point is that the benefits of the United Kingdom working together are once more demonstrated by our ability to work together to tackle this variant.

[Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) [V]]

More than 20 million people have now received their second dose of the vaccine, an achievement that demonstrates the phenomenal pace at which we are delivering vaccine across the UK. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this incredible milestone demonstrates what our Union can achieve when we work together?

[Matt Hancock]

I have just waxed lyrical about the value of Scotland working with the UK Government and of Northern Ireland working with the UK Government, and my hon. Friend almost chastises me for not mentioning Wales. Of course working with Wales is incredibly important—look at the Wockhardt fill-finish plant. The number of people who have been vaccinated in this country with a product that is manufactured in Wales measures in the tens of millions, including me. We should all be very proud of that, and I look forward to working with my new Welsh counterpart, the Minister for Health in Wales, and making sure that we use all capabilities across these islands to get us back on the road to recovery.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Today sees the long-anticipated lifting of many of the restrictions on our life and social life. At the same time, this strain of the virus reminds us that we need to be cautious in how we mix and how we hug our loved ones. It is important that we have clear messages about interaction, so will the Secretary of State ensure that Government messages are clear, unambiguous and not mixed, as at present?

[Matt Hancock]

It is really clear that we are removing restrictions. I am delighted that we are able to remove restrictions, such as the absolute restrictions on close physical contact, and rely more on people’s personal responsibility. In order to do that, we are providing the best possible advice that we can, such as to hug, but cautiously. Everybody knows what that means: it means outside is better than inside, it means making sure it is in ventilated spaces and it means that those who have had the vaccine, and in particular two vaccines, are safer than those who have not.

It is incumbent on us all to communicate these messages from our scientists and to make sure that people understand them. I am pretty sure that the British public get that. Given how brilliantly people have responded to requests during the pandemic, I am highly confident that this approach will be successful and that people will be cautious, but enjoy the new freedoms that we are thankfully able to give.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I listened very carefully to what the Secretary of State said in his statement about people being able to prove that they have had the vaccination through the NHS app. I also listened carefully to what he said about the importance of the Union. Can I just draw to his attention something that I hope he can look at urgently? I have thousands of constituents who live in England, but who are registered with GPs in Wales and who receive their vaccinations in Wales. At the moment, it is not proving possible for them to register with the NHS app that they have had their vaccination. Can I ask him to urgently fix that for my constituents and those across our United Kingdom?

[Matt Hancock]

This is another example of where we work better together as one United Kingdom; we are working to solve this problem precisely. Coming from the borders with Wales, I understand this very clearly. Work is under way to ensure that there is interoperability between the data systems in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This situation was not foreseen when health responsibilities were devolved. I have been working with my counterparts in the three devolved nations on fixing it, and we have agreed to fix it. Getting these data to talk to each other is technically complicated, but that work is under way.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

In their decisions on easing the lockdown, the Government have rightly emphasised the importance of being driven by data, but when Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the red list, the data showed that daily infection rates were substantially higher in India. Will the Secretary of State admit that the decision not to put India on the red list at that time was influenced by the Prime Minister’s imminent visit to Delhi and the desire to secure a trade deal? Does he now recognise that that was a mistake?

[Matt Hancock]

If I just explain the data to the hon. Gentleman, I am sure that he will understand. The measures of the case rate per 100,000 are influenced by the amount of testing that is done in any country, and there is not nearly as much testing in Pakistan or Bangladesh as there is in India. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the rate of positivity of people coming from Pakistan was three times higher than that of people coming from India, which was at that time quite low. We have to be careful with the raw data, and we have to look at the underlying positivity. One of the advantages of testing everybody at the border is that we now effectively have a global surveillance system to understand the positivity of travellers from any individual country. As I said, the decision was taken on the basis of the fact that the positivity was three times higher from Pakistan than from India.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con) [V]]

In Bolton we are battling the Indian variant, with the rate currently standing at 274 per 100,000. The heroes of Bolton jabbed 6,200 people this weekend. Well done to the Health Secretary and his Department. Will he pay tribute to the Bolton team—Councillors Greenhalgh, Baines and Morgan, Dr Lowey and Dr Wall? Will the Government commit to first-dosing the whole of Bolton before the end of May and getting the second dose out to more vulnerable groups at a similar pace? Finally, what would the Health Secretary like to stress to Boltonians as we open up today with the rest of the country?

[Matt Hancock]

There is one other person who my hon. Friend did not add to the list, probably due to modesty, and that is himself. He has worked incredibly hard over the last few days to get the message out to people across Bolton, and I am very grateful. My message to everybody in Bolton and Blackburn is: take these steps, but please take them safely. Get a test and get yourself vaccinated as soon as you are in one of the eligible groups. It is incredibly important that we get vaccinations to anybody over 50 who has not had a jab yet, so please come forward now. Anybody over 50 who has had one jab eight weeks ago or more should come forward for their second. Crucially, get a test.

I pay tribute to all those my hon. Friend mentioned. Councillor David Greenhalgh, the leader of Bolton Council, has worked incredibly hard, as have his whole team. We are working cohesively together, and I very much hope that with that effort, we can get this sorted.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

Obviously vaccines are important, but so is testing. Six months ago to the day, the Health Secretary told us that the UK would open two new mega laboratories in early 2021 to double the country’s capacity for carrying out covid-19 tests. We were then advised that they would open in early spring. The one in Scotland was cancelled. The one here in Leamington remains surrounded in secrecy, non-disclosure agreements and private contracts for staff employed by private companies, some linked to Conservative donors. The Health Secretary will be concerned by the delay, I am sure, even if he does not have a financial concern in this project himself. Can he tell us what is going on, and can he confirm when the place will open and that staff will be employed directly by the NHS?

[Matt Hancock]

We have a PCR testing capacity in this country of many hundreds of thousands more than we use each day. The Leamington Spa project is incredibly important and the people working there are doing a magnificent job. Frankly, I do not think that the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question deserves an answer.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I strongly share my right hon. Friend’s sentiment, which he expressed earlier, about his pride in the role that the United Kingdom has played in the global vaccine effort, through the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Of course, the Indian variant shows that we remain vulnerable while the virus is rampant abroad, so what further steps can we take in the global fight against covid?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point that we cannot stress enough. We all, especially developed countries, have a role to play in making sure that we get the vaccines around the world. The UK approach is focused on outcomes and on getting as many people as possible vaccinated globally. The best way to do that is to allow the work that we have done here—the research and the proving of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine—to be replicated and manufactured everywhere at cost. That is a better approach because it protects future intellectual property values and allows for the research money to go into new vaccines and variant vaccines. It does not undermine the system of intellectual property, which is the underpinning concept of all pharmaceutical development, yet at the same time it makes sure that we get people vaccinated around the world. This country should be incredibly proud that we have helped vaccinate over 400 million people, with many hundreds of millions more to come.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

On Saturday, my friends and I put on our trainers and walked 26 miles in Gower to raise a bucketload of cash for the fantastic breast cancer charity Walk the Walk. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer, I know only too well the devastating impact that the pandemic has had on cancer services. One of the key ways in which the Secretary of State can help with the Government’s goals to recover from the pandemic is by ensuring that we have enough well-trained and motivated NHS staff now and into the future. What discussions has he had with the Treasury to ensure a comprehensive, multi-year funding settlement for the NHS in the autumn spending review? Will he meet me and Macmillan Cancer Support to discuss this urgent matter?

[Matt Hancock]

I am always very happy to meet the hon. Lady, who works incredibly hard on this topic. I am delighted to say that the recovery of cancer services is going well and that in many of the centres, the rate of diagnosis, testing and surgery is above 100% of 2019 levels. That is very important. Of course, we are working towards the spending review. The NHS has a long-term baseline settlement, but on top of that we are putting extra money into the recovery that she rightly champions. I would be delighted to talk to her more about it.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The message today is all about the balance between celebrating the return of more freedoms today and in the future, and the need for caution, depending on the good sense of my constituents in Gloucester and those elsewhere. Will my right hon. Friend tell us how many of those recently hospitalised in Bolton as a result of the new variant had already been vaccinated; what more we can do to help spread the word to those who have not yet agreed to be vaccinated; and what role he expects pharmacies to play in testing as we go forward?

[Matt Hancock]

The best understanding that we have is that five of the 18 who were in hospital yesterday had been vaccinated once, and one had been vaccinated twice but it is not clear how recently. Therefore, the majority have not been vaccinated, but most of them could have been vaccinated. That is frustrating to see, but it is also a message to everyone. We monitor this closely and the latest information on those who have been admitted to hospital in Bolton over the weekend is similar: the majority are unvaccinated. It reinforces the message that people should come forward and get vaccinated, because that is best way to protect everybody.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

Before Christmas, it was the mutation—the Kent variant—mixed with the opening of the economy in York that caused a rapid spike of covid-19 infection, as people came to visit our city en masse and spread the virus through the hospitality sector, where still many workers are yet to be vaccinated. Here we are again, and who knows what will come next? A different variant—the Indian variant—with high transmissibility is about to be spread in a city that many people are already visiting, with more to come. We feel vulnerable. What proactive, preventive steps will the Secretary of State take so that we do not pay that heavy price again for the Government not acting fast enough?

[Matt Hancock]

The most important difference between now and then is, of course, that the vast majority of those who are vulnerable to ending up in hospital or dying of covid have had two vaccines. The vaccination uptake rates have been spectacularly high and the uptake rate of the second vaccine has also been incredibly high. That means that the protection afforded to those who have chosen to take up the vaccine is very high. The latest estimates show that having two jabs and waiting a fortnight or so after the second jab leads to around a 97% reduction in mortality. Of course, we will continue to drive and to open up access in order to find the final few per cent. of people, but the lesson of the last few days is that people who have not taken up the opportunity to be vaccinated should do so, because it is those people who have sadly ended up in hospital, and we do not want that.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

The Health Secretary can be proud of his role in the vaccination programme, and I welcome the further reduction in the age of eligibility. It may surprise my right hon. Friend, and indeed the House, that despite my appearance and general manner, there are still a few years yet to go, but I will be there, seized of the importance of taking up my vaccine. May I urge him to favour a surge in vaccination, rather than to flirt even momentarily with the idea of imposing local restrictions, which are not helpful and create a great deal of resentment?

[Matt Hancock]

I am glad to say that we will get to my hon. Friend before the end of July, no matter how young he is. I am pretty sure he is an adult in both actuality and attitude—crikey, I am getting myself into more trouble than I anticipated.

I understand my hon. Friend’s broader point, which is a call against local lockdowns, and we have had differences of view on that in the past. It is not where we want to go, though of course we do not rule it out. We have seen our approach work—it worked in south London —and we have this huge testing capacity, which we did not have in the autumn, of hundreds of thousands of tests a day. That capacity is expanding, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) articulated. We also have millions of lateral flow tests, which are simple and easy to use, and people get the result fast. With surge testing plus the vaccine, we have many more tools in our armoury than we did before.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

I am very grateful in advance to the NHS Fife staff who will give me my second dose of the vaccine exactly 10 weeks to the day after my first one.

The Secretary of State indicated that probably a significant factor in the spread of the highly transmissible new variant is that people who could have been vaccinated by now chose, for whatever reason, not to accept the vaccine. In a number of cases, people have genuine concerns, but a major issue must be that people are declining the vaccine because they believe the lies deliberately and maliciously spread by anti-vax campaigners on social media. What further action do the Government wish to take against those who deliberately spread those lies for no other purpose than to put the lives of others at risk?

[Matt Hancock]

The anti-vaxxers have not had a very good time of it recently, and I am absolutely delighted that take-up is as high as it is. One of the reasons we have been able to take on the anti-vaxxers so effectively is that we have not danced to their tune. Instead, Members right across the House—I am looking around now and I see people in all parts of the House who have played their part in this—have put across the positive, science-based, objective, enlightenment values, if you like, of why the vaccine is the right thing. We as a House, as leaders of our national debate, have done that with one voice, based on the scientific advice. We have done it across the four nations of the United Kingdom with one voice. We have done it with scientists, with clinicians, with religious leaders—with all those who have a strong voice in this debate. Telling the positive story is the vital thing that we can do. Of course there may be those who do otherwise, but that is not for us—it is for us to tell the positive story.

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for playing his part in that by celebrating having his second jab. I am thrilled that he will have, in just a couple of weeks’ time, the maximum protection that one can get. He is helping not only himself and his loved ones, but all of us together to get through this.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con) [V]]

I was going to ask the Secretary of State to confirm whether, for those vaccinated, there is effectiveness against the B16172 variant, and how many deaths in the UK from that strain have been recorded among the vaccinated. However, given that he has just effectively turned the amber list red, can I ask him what is the point of me having my passport anymore? Covid will always mutate and the vaccine will always have to keep up. We have managed to vaccinate 99% of the mortality risk cohort. When will this Government actually take a little bit of risk and allow people to get on with their lives again?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

The red, amber and green lists reflect the risks that there are in other places around the world. The amber list means that people need to quarantine at home, the red list means that they need to quarantine in a hotel, and the green list means that we think it is safe to travel. My hon. Friend should get his passport out—he can get on a plane to Portugal or one of the other countries. The system allows for some careful foreign travel. However, my first duty is to protect the lives of people here in the UK, and the best way to do that right now is to make sure that we are cautious on international travel to protect the opening up here at home.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State will know that analysis of the data published by Public Health England shows that the spike in cases in Bolton so far is mostly confined to schoolchildren and young adults who are socially mobile and have not yet been vaccinated. There are valid concerns, therefore, that as lockdown eases today, it might lead to a rise in cases within unvaccinated cohorts across Salford, which borders Bolton. Can he confirm that he will act now to protect people in Salford by curbing any spread beyond surge hotspots and accelerating the vaccine roll-out programme in Salford not just for second doses, but for first doses for young, unvaccinated cohorts?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, we are opening up vaccinations for those aged 37 tomorrow, and anybody in Salford who is in one of the eligible groups and has not been vaccinated should come forward. If you are in Salford and you were vaccinated more than eight weeks ago but have not yet had your second jab, please come forward. We now have a very good surveillance system in this country and we publish all the data from it so that we can all see the cases day by day. We can also see the impact on hospitalisations. I am glad to say that, thankfully, the almost inexorable link from cases through to hospitalisation and death that we saw in the past is now broken. The link is not completely severed, but it is much, much weaker because of the protection of the vaccine. Those are the things that people can do in Salford, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady to get those messages out to everybody.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will know that my constituency of Hyndburn and Haslingden borders Blackburn with Darwen, and I thank the Department for having listened to colleagues’ call for extra support and resources through additional vaccines and surge testing. On a call this morning, Amanda Doyle, the integrated care system lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria, told us that one of the main concerns today is not a shortage of supply but the uptake of vaccines, so will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging residents across Lancashire to come forward for their jab when eligible, and reiterate how important this is in protecting our local communities?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, 100%. Just like people across Salford and Greater Manchester, people across Lancashire should come forward to get the jab if they are eligible. In some areas, such as parts of Bolton, we are going door to door with the jab; in the wider area, we are saying to people, “Come forward and get your jab. That is the best protection you can have.” Twice-weekly testing is also available to everybody now, so people should come forward and get their tests. The more regularly they get tested, the more they can help break the chains of transmission, and when they get their chance, they should get the jab.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Thanks to the Prime Minister’s delaying travel restrictions, an estimated 20,000 people arrived in the UK from India before restrictions were put in place. Can the Secretary of State inform the House how many of those arrivals were covid positive and were subsequently quarantined, and if not, why not?

[Matt Hancock]

We publish that data, so I refer the hon. Lady to the gov.uk website.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

The vaccination programme is one of the biggest and most successful civilian logistical exercises in our country’s history, and I thank the Secretary of State for his role in delivering it. It should open the way for our hospitality businesses to start operating at full capacity in due course, and for events, festivals and conferences to start, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about when this will happen. Will the Secretary of State publish a plan so that those two crucial sectors of our economy can reopen? It may take a while, but they need a plan and a timetable.

[Matt Hancock]

We are working on a plan for that with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and of course on the social distancing review that the Prime Minister is leading on. We are committed to making sure that we publish that well in advance of the decision on 14 June as to what the data show about step 4, which is currently planned for 21 June. Of course, we have set out four parameters for taking that step on 21 June, and the first three are currently in good shape. The challenge is the new variant, but it is far too early to be able to say anything about that specifically. We will look at the data up to 14 June and make an announcement on that date.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab) [V]]

Covid restrictions are easing, but almost 5 million people are waiting to start NHS treatment, so now is not the time for a major reorganisation of the national health service. However, the Government’s plans for the future of the NHS and social care would embed a postcode lottery, allow for the deregulation of NHS professions and allow the discharge of vulnerable patients from hospital before they have been assessed for continuing healthcare. Public consultation on this has been woefully inadequate, so will the Secretary of State pause the entire process until after all covid restrictions have been lifted, and then carry out a full public consultation so that patients, NHS staff, care workers and unpaid carers can have their say?

[Matt Hancock]

On the contrary, the proposed reforms set out in the White Paper, which have come from the NHS itself, will help to deal with the backlog. They will help to make sure that the NHS is ready for the rest of the 21st century. They have been welcomed by the Health and Social Care Committee, and I am grateful to that Committee for its report last week, which welcomed those reforms while asking for further detail on a couple of other areas, which we will work with the Committee on.

I urge the hon. Lady to speak to her colleagues in the local NHS, and ask them whether they think that collaboration is the way forward; whether we should have greater interoperability; and whether we should have greater integration on the ground, and get rid of a load of the bureaucracy that is currently there in law. If she is not persuaded by her local NHS, by me or by the Select Committee, perhaps she should speak to her own Front Benchers, who also welcomed the reforms.

[Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)]

As of last week, over 82,000 doses of the covid vaccine have been administered across the High Peak. It is an amazing achievement and I put on my record my thanks again to everyone who has made that possible. I urge the Health Secretary to focus on doing surge vaccinations and surge testing in those areas with growing numbers of new cases to put us in the best possible position, so that we can get rid of any remaining restrictions as soon as possible.

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, this is our planned approach. I am glad to say that the number of cases across the High Peak is very, very low. I am also glad to see that the vaccination rates across the whole of Derbyshire are really high—I was in Derbyshire just before the elections, and the rates are high and there is huge enthusiasm behind the project. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in making sure that that is what has happened.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) [V]]

Given that the so-called Indian variant is now a variant of concern and is linked to several outbreaks in schools, why have the Government just abandoned the requirement to wear face masks in secondary school classrooms? The Secretary of State is fond of claiming that he is following the science, but this flies in the face of scientific advice from SAGE, public health experts and teaching unions. It begs the question as to why he is getting rid of one of the few mitigation measures in schools that we know actually works when we have such a transmissible variant. No one wants to see face masks in schools for longer than necessary, but neither do they want children to lose out on face-to-face education because of virus outbreaks. Once community rates go up, school rates go up, so why is he needlessly putting education at risk?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady kind of answered the question in the question, when she said that everybody wants to see face-to-face education. The thing is that in a classroom setting, being able to see somebody’s face does have a material impact and, therefore, we do not want to have face coverings in school settings for longer than they are necessary, but we are prepared to have them in place where they are necessary. There is discretion for local directors of public health where there are significant challenges. It is something that we discussed, for instance, with the director of public health in Bolton and in Blackburn. That has been part of the discussions over the last few days. What the hon. Lady is asking for is a blanket approach, including in areas where the number of cases is incredibly low. The decision that we have taken, on balance—taking into account the education risks and the advice from SAGE and public health experts—

[Caroline Lucas]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady shakes her head. We listen to the scientists and, crucially, balance both the public health advice and the impact on education. Therefore, we have a more localised approach, without the blanket approach that she recommends.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Today’s measures are very welcome in Aylesbury, with local pubs, restaurants, the museum and the cinema all eager to welcome back customers. Will my right hon. Friend reassure local residents that, as business and culture return to normality, so too will our health services, and that, over time, it will become easier once again to have face-to-face appointments with GPs?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. My hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the letter sent out from Dr Nikki Kanani, who is the medical director of primary care for NHS England, reiterating the point that it is important to offer a face-to-face consultation for a patient who really wants one while also using technology where that is the most clinically appropriate thing to do. These decisions should be taken between doctor and patient together. There is no greater supporter than me of the use of technology in healthcare. I think it improves access no end. People do need to be able to go to the surgery if they so choose and see the right person—the clinically appropriate person. That is the approach that we are taking while making sure that we can use a system that allows people to access the right services in the right settings as much as possible.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

People will understandably feel angry that all the progress that everyone has worked so hard for by supporting the vaccines and following restrictions is now being slowed or potentially put at risk because the Government’s border measures have failed to prevent the spread of a new variant. Can the Secretary of State tell me whether it is true, as reported, that even by 7 April, 5% of people arriving from India had covid, apparently 50 times higher than the rate here; what that figure had risen to by 19 April; and how many of the 2,323 already identified new variant cases are people who travelled directly from India, and how many are people who caught it through onward transmission that was not prevented by the border measures?

[Matt Hancock]

As I said, the positivity rate for people travelling from India was relatively low at the start of April. We published the data of the positivity rates from the managed quarantine service. However, by the end of April, the positivity rate from India had risen, so we took the precautionary decision, even before this variant was deemed a variant under investigation, to put India on the red list. We did that before other similar countries, such as Germany and Canada, banned their flights. I understand the enthusiasm of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for pursuing this line of questioning, but we have to take decisions based on the evidence; we cannot take decisions based on evidence that arrives afterwards, which is what she seems to think we should have done.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

More than 70,000 people in Redcar and Cleveland have now had at least one jab, which is an amazing achievement so far. It is great to hear that the vaccines seem to be protecting against the Indian variant too. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Novavax vaccine, which is made in Teesside, will also be tested against the Indian variant and other variants of concern, and will he update us on when it will be made available as another great Teesside export?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, Teesside is playing it part. In fact, earlier today I met Ben Houchen, the newly re-elected Mayor of Teesside, to talk about what more we can do to invest in Teesside—in the NHS in Teesside, and in life sciences, such as vaccine production, on Teesside. He is doing a fantastic job of taking the voice of Teesside right into the heart of Whitehall—as is my hon. Friend, of course.

My hon. Friend is quite right to raise this point about the Novavax vaccine, which is going to be manufactured on Teesside. Of course, we will study its impact against the new variants, but we have a high degree of confidence that the Novavax vaccine has a broad coverage. In fact, one of its attractions is that it has that broad coverage, not just against the variant that it was precisely designed to deal with but against a wide range of variants. That is part of the theory of the technology that underpins that particular vaccine. It is a very modern vaccine, it is very exciting, and it is terrific that it is being made on Teesside.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

We are not safe until everyone is safe. Following President Biden’s announcement that the US Government will support an intellectual property waiver to help scale up the volume of safe and effective covid-19 vaccines globally, can the Secretary of State explain why the British Government are still blocking the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver at the World Trade Organisation?

[Matt Hancock]

Because we have a better approach. Our UK approach has led to the vaccination of 400 million people. The hon. Gentleman should take enormous pride in that. We have been able to do that while protecting the intellectual property rights that will lead to the development, for instance, of the new vaccines, the new technologies and the variant vaccines that are going to be necessary in the future. It is that combination of the protection of intellectual property rights plus the giving away of this vaccine at cost to the developing world—to lower and middle-income countries.

I reiterate the point I made earlier, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will take pride in: of the 54 million vaccine doses delivered through the COVAX facility, of which we are a major funder, 53 million have been of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, delivered with no charge for the intellectual property. That is the approach we should be taking. That is what we will do, and I urge everybody around the world to follow.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I do aim to try to take everybody, so can we have concise questions—and concise answers, Secretary of State?

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that London has a younger cohort and is full of communities from across the world, but many are hesitant because of the activities of pharmaceutical companies in the countries of their origin. Will he look at aspects of control to ensure that those communities can get the vaccine they choose to take, rather than attempting to force them to take vaccines they are extremely reluctant to take?

[Matt Hancock]

We have had a principle of saying that they come forward for the vaccine and get the vaccine that is there on the day, but of course we have nuanced that because of the changes in the clinical advice on the AstraZeneca vaccine. As we reach further and further into those who need encouragement to come forward, so we are willing to look at more and more creative solutions to tackle people’s hesitancy. As it happens, I was in Brent central mosque last week at Eid. It was absolutely wonderful to see the work they have done to make sure that people of all faiths and none can come forward. For many Muslim people it means that in Brent they can go forward to somewhere where they are very comfortable being vaccinated. It was brilliant, frankly, to see teams working in the mosque to vaccinate people of all backgrounds. The imam was vaccinated by someone with the support of a member of the Jewish community with me looking on, all organised by a Hindu administrator. It was modern Britain at its best. They have done thousands of vaccines and they have done great work. I know it is that sort of approach that my hon. Friend is looking for. If we can do more on the specifics of which vaccine, I am very happy to look at that. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I think we have just heard the skies opening above us. I am grateful we can now eat inside restaurants.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Hull Royal Infirmary is a tower block and the geography of the building has resulted in a higher number of covid transmissions in hospital, despite the excellent work being done by all NHS staff. I fear that covid cases caught in hospital will only increase with a more transmissible strain of the virus. Will the Secretary of State look urgently at providing Hull Royal Infirmary with the funding it needs to improve its building as we all learn to live with the virus?

[Matt Hancock]

As the hon. Lady knows, we are building 48 new hospitals over this decade. Forty of those have been set out, but there are a further eight slots, so she may want to work with Hull Royal Infirmary to bring forward a proposal. Of course, tackling infection within hospital is incredibly important work and always has been since the time of Florence Nightingale. It is even more important right now and I think it will be a higher priority over the years ahead. I am always very happy to look at all proposals.

[Kate Griffiths (Burton) (Con) [V]]

Today’s relaxation of restrictions is so welcome for all those who work in the hospitality industry. Pubs, restaurants and leisure facilities are all making huge changes to operations to welcome back customers, while also ensuring they keep everyone safe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should support those local businesses, while ensuring that we play our part in abiding by the safety measures and exercising caution as we gradually return to a normal way of life?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. My hon. Friend puts it very wisely. As the Member of Parliament for Burton, which is famous for its beer and its pubs, she no doubt speaks for her whole constituency when she says that she welcomes the measures we are taking and the steps we are able to take today. People should take those steps with caution. Outside remains better than inside. It is harder in the rain, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is still better to be outside if you can. Putting more down to personal responsibility is the right approach at this stage, with the low level of virus and the huge scope of the vaccination project. I am very grateful to her for her support in pushing that agenda.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that in Glasgow we have seen an increase in the virus due to the so-called Indian variant. That means that although everybody in this House is celebrating the return to indoor hospitality, many Glaswegians have not been able to experience it today, which we bitterly regret.

Up until 6 o’clock yesterday, flights were still coming into the UK from India, and 20,000 people have arrived in the UK since the alarm was raised about that variant. Does the Secretary of State really want to look Glaswegians in the eye and say that that was decisive action that has led to their staying in tier 3?

[Matt Hancock]

The history as the hon. Gentleman describes it is, in fact, wrong. We put India on the red list and therefore required hotel quarantine before the variant was designated even as under investigation, let alone as a variant of concern. So yes, we did take pre-emptive action. Anybody arriving now who has been in India in the past 10 days must go to a hotel to quarantine.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Although the incredible success of our world-leading vaccination programme has reduced the number of people in hospital with covid substantially, thereby relieving much of the pressure on the NHS, many of my constituents are still waiting longer for non-urgent NHS care. I am delighted that Blackpool Victoria Hospital is included in the pilot project looking at innovative ways to deliver services and reduce the backlog. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that it will get all the resources it needs to remove the backlog as quickly as it possibly can?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. Blackpool Victoria is a fantastic hospital and the team there has worked incredibly hard, especially over the past year and a half. I am delighted that it is part of the plan to work out how we can go even faster to get not just to the baseline 100% levels of activity in the equivalent month in 2019, but far higher than that, because we have to get through the backlog. The backlog is not just those who are currently on the waiting list, although too many are waiting more than a year and the waiting list is too long; there are also people who have not yet presented, but who we know are likely to have a problem. This is a huge challenge and I am very grateful to colleagues in Blackpool, who are working so hard not just to get through the backlog, but learn how best to get through it so that others can learn from them.

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

The staggering success of the covid vaccination programme means that on current trends, sadly, non-covid viruses may well kill more people this winter than the coronavirus. Is my right hon. Friend confident that an effective flu jab will be available to address this year’s emergent strains of flu? What will he do to maximise uptake of the flu vaccine by vulnerable groups? What is the latest on a covid booster dose this autumn? Would the flu jab be given at the same time?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is quite right to ask all those questions. In fact, I met Simon Stevens and the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment about the matter this morning, because we want to ensure that the flu vaccine programme this winter is a success. We had the biggest flu vaccination programme in history last winter. We are currently trialling the co-administration of flu and covid vaccines—I am waving my hands because one goes in each arm. We are looking at that for the autumn as part of a booster programme for covid. A lot of work is under way in this space; I suggest that my right hon. Friend discusses it with the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, who is now responsible both for the covid programme and for the flu programme, in order to better tie them together.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I heard what the Secretary of State had to say about testing rates in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but according to Johns Hopkins University, the daily infection rate in Pakistan back in April was 4,500; in Bangladesh it was 7,000 and in India it was 100,000. Surely, if he were taking a precautionary approach, he should have placed India on the red list much sooner.

[Matt Hancock]

No. The statistic that is missing from that analysis, which was also missing from that of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), is the amount of testing that is done in each country. We have to look at the positivity when an appropriate selected sample is tested. It is not possible to do that in many low and middle-income countries, so the best way is to look at the positivity rate of people who are travelling to the UK, because we test everybody. That is the most statistically appropriate way to assess the question that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) rightly tries to assess, and it showed that positivity rates were three times higher in India.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The time limit in the Queen’s Speech debate following this statement will start at five minutes, but I am sure it will go down thereafter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is right to praise the incredible efforts in Bournemouth, which I know he has played a very direct and personal part in delivering, and I look forward very much to visiting as soon as I can get down there—and, by the way, I agree with Sir John Bell that Bournemouth is a great place to go on holiday and I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees about that too.

On global support, of course as and when we have excess doses we will look to support countries around the world with those doses, but the number of doses that we can support around the world from our excess purchases is small compared with the spectacular support we have already given the whole world with the more than 400 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that have been delivered at cost. The majority of Oxford-AstraZeneca doses have been injected in low and middle-income countries, and 98% of all COVAX jabs given so far have been that vaccine delivered on the back of British science, supported by the UK Government, Oxford university and AstraZeneca, doing this all without taking a profit. We should be very proud of that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

The wider the gap between the rich and poor, the bigger the difference in our life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. That has been laid bare over the last year: the UK’s high and unequal covid death toll has been driven by the rampant poverty and inequality that successive Conservative Governments have allowed to go unchecked. In January, the Prime Minister promised to implement Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s recommendations to address that and to build back fairer, so what discussions has the Health Secretary had with the Prime Minister on that, and will investigating the UK’s structural poverty and inequality be part of a covid inquiry?

[Matt Hancock]

I discussed this issue with the Prime Minister. The office for health promotion is intended to be able to tackle some of those issues, led clinically by the chief medical officer, to make sure we can strengthen the public health case around Government, because so many policies of Departments outwith the Health Department are critical in addressing the question the hon. Lady raises.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for yet again coming to the House to update us on the covid situation. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the whole Government must take great credit for the vaccination programme. The Secretary of State is surely right when he says we can defeat covid only if we have vaccinations, and we have been tremendously successful at that; I think we did 800,000 in one day last week. However, is it possible for us to increase that vaccination rate even more so we can defeat this terrible pandemic even earlier?

[Matt Hancock]

I hope so. The great limiting factor remains supply. We get them out as fast as we get them in; there is not a stockpile waiting. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of the programme: trusting the vaccine science and offering everybody a vaccine is the way out for all of us. If the Bolton example demonstrates that it is the unvaccinated who end up in hospital, we need to get that message to everyone. I would far rather be getting the vaccines out than having to undertake the sorts of local lockdown we had in the autumn; it is a far, far better approach, because we have these capabilities—the vaccines and the mass testing. That is the approach we are taking; my hon. Friend is right to highlight it, and he was very kind to say what he said about me.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

People are really grateful to GP surgeries for their role in the vaccine roll-out, but are very keen to be seen face to face by a doctor, where that is appropriate, and in a timely manner. What is the Department doing to make that increasingly possible, please?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the note that went out last week from Dr Nikki Kanani about ensuring that face-to-face access is available to the appropriate clinician, and that the use of technology should be encouraged but should be a matter for a discussion between the clinician and the patient. For many people, it is more of an advantage. Personally, I use telemedicine, and it is much more convenient for me, as a healthy and busy 42-year-old, but for some people it is right to see their clinician face to face. That letter went out last week, and we obviously constantly keep this issue under review and monitor it carefully.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Last week, I met the Taskforce for Lung Health, which raised a concern about an increased occurrence of lung scarring in long covid sufferers. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact of this on potential resources for the health service?

[Matt Hancock]

We are of course worried about the impact of long covid, and the evidence is growing about the different impacts. The clinical advice is that there are a number of different syndromes that are, together, badged as long covid. For some people it has an impact, as the hon. Member says, on lung scarring; for some people the impact is more neurological. So we have to make sure that the services, the response and, indeed, the research are targeted at the different types of long covid. I am very happy to arrange a discussion between him and our clinical leaders on long covid, because it is a very important topic.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con) [V]]

The Health Secretary may be forgiven, as he is one of the busiest people in the country at the moment, if he missed Tielemans’s strike from 30 yards and the VAR decision late on in the game, but 21,000 fans saw it live, and many of them were my constituents who were there to celebrate Leicester City winning the cup. Wembley of course holds 90,000 people and it was a test event, so when will we find out the results of the test event and the outcome for things such as the Euros in the future?

[Matt Hancock]

We will find out the results in the next few weeks. Of course, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) may have been so cheerful in his opening remarks because he was there, and he saw Leicester triumph. I watched it, and I just thought how brilliant it was to see a live crowd again. It was not full— that is true—and no doubt it could have been filled, but it was not full because we are taking it carefully. I am working with my right hon Friend the Culture Secretary and the Minister for Sport—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) —who I know found it extremely enjoyable to be able to go to a sports event as the Minister for Sport, which he has missed. We will assess the data that come out of it. Everybody who went is part of a testing regime. We will look at the results, as we will look at the results of the other pilots, such as the Brits and the snooker at the Crucible, and then make an assessment.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The UK’s defences against incoming covid infections are only as strong as the weakest point. I am still awaiting a response from the Health Secretary about the Hounslow director of public health’s concerns about covid-infected seafarers being transported to Hounslow hotels by the shipping companies, with no quarantine, no prompt notification to local public health teams and no consistent infection control at the hotels. Travellers and staff at Heathrow are also raising concerns about weaknesses in the arrivals process. When will the Health Secretary convince this House that the UK’s covid defences are fit for purpose?

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the team who have put together the managed quarantine service, which has run remarkably smoothly for such a complicated operation. They are always very happy to hear feedback, and are constantly improving the system. I work very closely with the Home Secretary and the Transport Secretary on this. There have been remarkably few complaints about a system that has had to be put in place for significant numbers of people.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Health Secretary for his constant support in ensuring continuous vaccine supplies to the Baths Hall. We have, of course, been following the Prime Minister’s announcements closely in Scunthorpe. Will my right hon. Friend set out more detail on how the move toward some second doses after eight weeks will be implemented, especially for those who have already booked their 12-week appointment?

[Matt Hancock]

I am delighted that we managed to sort out the wrinkle that we had with the supplies of vaccine to Scunthorpe. It was a really good example of how this should work: my hon. Friend spoke up for Scunthorpe, and then the Minister got it fixed. I am very glad that we managed to sort that, and if there are any further problems, please do let me know.

We are inviting people who are over 50 and have a second jab booked 12 weeks after their first to rebook their vaccination from eight weeks after—not before eight weeks, because the effectiveness of the second jab strengthens for those first eight weeks. They can do that on the national booking system or through calling 119. We are texting those whose numbers we have to communicate with them. There is a whole process in place to get people rebooked wherever possible.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

People in Chesterfield are looking forward to getting back to the football stadium this weekend. I am not sure we will enjoy it quite as much as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) did this weekend; none the less, it is incredibly important to everyone. For that reason, they are understandably worried by the increase of the Indian variant, so it is important that we understand the decisions. I heard what the Health Secretary had to say about the reasons why he thought it was appropriate for India to be put on the list later than Pakistan and Bangladesh, but there will be those who think that the Prime Minister’s impending trip to India was a factor. We know there is an inquiry coming down the track. Will the Health Secretary confirm and clarify that there were no discussions, when the decision was made to put India on the red list later than Pakistan and Bangladesh, about the economic consequences, the Prime Minister’s trip or anything like that, and that it was purely health considerations that were in play?

[Matt Hancock]

These decisions are based on the evidence, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre puts forward the evidence for red-listing. In the first instance, the red list is there to stop new variants, but this variant was not a known variant under investigation. Because of the increase in the overall rates—the overall positivity—of people coming to this country, first from Pakistan and Bangladesh at the start of April, and then towards the end of April from India, we took the precautionary decision to put them on the red list. That is a matter of fact; I am happy to state that. The job now is to make sure we keep this all under control.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

The success of the vaccination programme has surpassed expectations, in part because of the very effective work that was done in tackling vaccine hesitancy at the start, but it is implicit in my right hon. Friend’s statement that, in Bolton and Blackburn particularly, there has been less success with persuading some people. What does he consider to be the model of good practice in persuading hard-to-reach groups? Where does he think that has taken place, and how will he roll it out in other areas?

[Matt Hancock]

I am incredibly proud that the UK has the highest measured rate of enthusiasm for taking the vaccine in the world, and especially that such a diverse nation has been able to achieve that record by taking this positive attitude and having people from Her Majesty down setting out the value of being vaccinated. I pay tribute to the comms team at NHS England and my communications team from across Whitehall, which have taken the lessons for how to get a positive narrative, especially on social media, and made sure we fought lies with objective truth. That has been fantastic.

On the ground, there are some really good examples. I mentioned my visit to Brent central mosque and I pay tribute to the people there. Some brilliant work has happened in Leicester; for instance, there was a vaccination centre right next to an area heavily populated by those of Somali background, but they were not going to the vaccination centre despite the fact that it was next door and so we set up a vaccination centre almost next door but where the doctors and clinicians are themselves Somalis. We then we saw a very sharp rate in the Somali vaccination rate. That is one example that I can immediately add to the elucidation of the answer to this question, but there are legion. People from around the world have been coming, via Zoom, to talk to some of our more innovative vaccination centres, be it at the mosque, at the Hindu temple in Neasden, which is doing brilliant work, in Leicester or, now, in Bolton and Blackburn, where I hope we can make some really significant progress. Frankly, this country should be proud of how people have pulled together to make this vaccination programme work.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Unbelievably, I am older than Will Wragg, marginally, so I have had my first jab. The second jab is a week Saturday—bring it on! Secretary of State, thank you for your statement today. We will suspend for two minutes.

Coronavirus Restrictions Regulations

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 SI 2020/750 came into force on 18 July 2020 and have now been extended until 17 July 2021. These regulations give powers to local authorities to issue a direction to impose prohibitions, restrictions or requirements in respect of:

individual premises (regulation 4(1));

events (regulation 5(1)); and

public outdoor places (regulation 6(1)).

A local authority may give a direction under regulation 4(1), 5(1) or 6(1) only if it considers that the following conditions are met:

a) that giving such a direction responds to a serious and imminent threat to public health,

b) that the direction is necessary for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, controlling or providing a public health response to the incidence or spread of infection by coronavirus in the local authority’s area, and

c) that the prohibitions, requirements or restrictions imposed by the direction are a proportionate means of achieving that purpose.

The local authority must have regard to any advice provided by its local director of public health, its interim or acting director of public health, or a consultant appointed by the director, interim director or acting director of public health, in order to issue a direction under the No. 3 regulations.

The No. 3 regulations also allow for the Secretary of State to give a direction to a local authority requiring it to issue a direction under regulation 4(1), 5(1) or 6(1) if the conditions in paragraphs (a)-(c) would be met in relation to the direction. The Secretary of State may also revoke such a direction but must first consult the chief medical officer or deputy CMO of DHSC. To date, I have not given or revoked any directions under regulation 3 of the No. 3 regulations.

Support to local authorities

To help support local authorities in their decisions to issue directions under the No. 3 regulations, optional templates for directions, a decision-making guide and a process map have been provided by the Joint Biosecurity Centre. In addition, a newsletter is regularly published offering additional guidance, local authority case studies and communication of initiatives within local areas to provide assistance. Training has also been offered to all local authorities on the aims and use of the No. 3 regulations, most recently in March 2021.

Use of directions to respond to a serious and imminent threat to public health

Local authorities have used the No. 3 regulations to manage the risk of virus transmission in their local areas. Figures from 18 July 2020 to 29 April 2021 are:

Contingent Liabilities Notification: NIHR National Biosample Centre

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation (Lord Bethell of Romford) has today made the following written ministerial statement:

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) National Biosample Centre is a state-of-the-art bio-sample storage and processing facility. It was established in 2014 through a capital grant from the then Department of Health to the University of Oxford, with the aim of enhancing the nation’s capability and capacity to support medical, health and life sciences research into disease mechanisms, new diagnostics and treatments. The NIHR National Biosample Centre remains a key national asset in the context of the Government’s commitment to the life sciences and, since April 2020, it has also served as the Milton Keynes lighthouse lab for covid-19 testing.

To help ensure the long-term financial viability of the NIHR National Biosample Centre, and following consideration of several options, I have approved the transfer of the assets and leasing business from the University of Oxford to the Department of Health and Social Care; in return, the Department will pay £1 and provide the University of Oxford with two indemnities relating to its ownership.

I have today presented a departmental minute notifying Parliament of the two contingent liabilities arising from the provision of these indemnities. Details of the contingent liabilities are set out in the minute.

[HCWS937]

Covid-19 Antivirals Taskforce

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I would like to update the House on the establishment of the Government’s new covid-19 antivirals taskforce.

Following the success of the vaccines and therapeutics taskforces, Her Majesty’s Government are seeking to remain at the forefront of the battle against covid-19 and further develop our standing as leaders in the life sciences sector. The new team will lead the search for novel oral antiviral treatments to provide additional protection for the UK population, particularly those currently deemed most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on the NHS.

The UK’s vaccine programme, whilst immensely successful and vital in pandemic recovery, will not protect everyone. Vaccine effectiveness is not established in all groups of the UK population, and there will be some groups for whom vaccines may not be effective protection, so antiviral treatments will provide an alternative form of protection.

The aim of the antivirals taskforce is to search for the most promising novel oral antiviral medicines and speed up the process of development, manufacture and deployment, with the goal of having at least two of these drugs ready to deploy by the autumn.

We are still at a relatively early stage of the vaccine deployment programme. Our understanding of the implications that mutations of the virus may have on vaccine efficacy is developing all the time. Antivirals can be used for two key purposes: first, to inhibit the virus at an early stage to stop mild disease becoming serious illness. By inhibiting the virus at this stage, the drugs also prevent replication—both within an individual and from person to person—limiting the impact of and spread of covid-19, relieving pressure on the NHS and supporting our ongoing return to normal life.

Secondly, antivirals may also be able to be used as post-exposure prophylactics, to minimise the spread of the disease where there has been contact with known, positive cases.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UK has proven itself a world-leader in identifying and rolling out effective covid-19 treatments, including the world’s first treatment, dexamethasone, which has saved 22,000 lives in the UK so far and an estimated million worldwide. These treatments help the recovery of patients who have been hospitalised with covid-19. The aim of an oral antiviral treatment is that it will be readily available for use outside of these settings, for example, in a patient’s own home.

Building on the successful work of the therapeutics and vaccines taskforces, the antivirals taskforce is bringing together the brightest minds from medicine, industry experts and across Government and the life sciences to find a new, innovative treatment for patients to take at home. A short competition will be run to identify a suitable chair for the taskforce.

We are already engaging with industry to identify antiviral compound candidates which could be ready for deployment in the autumn, and will update the House with the taskforce’s progress in due course.

[HCWS932]

Covid-19 Update

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on coronavirus.

This virus is diminished, but not defeated. Cases, hospitalisations and deaths are back to the levels we saw in September. Throughout the crisis, we have protected the NHS, and there are now 2,186 people in hospital with covid across the UK—down 94% from the peak. The average number of daily deaths is 25—down 98%. Because of this brighter picture, we have been able to take step 2 on our road map, and it is brilliant to see the high streets bustling with life once again and to hear a real-life crowd back in Wembley this weekend—especially if one is a Leicester City supporter.

Now, with fewer covid patients in hospital, the NHS is already turning to focus on the work to tackle the covid backlog. Step by step, we are returning this country towards normal life, and we are on track to meet the road map set out by the Prime Minister. Last week, we hit our target to offer a vaccine to priority groups 1 to 9, and we are on track to offer a vaccine to all adults by the end of July. However, we must be vigilant, cautious and careful throughout, because we want this road to be a one-way street.

The vaccine uptake has been astonishingly high. For all over-50s, uptake is 94%. Enthusiasm among those in their late 40s was so high that they briefly overloaded the website when we opened up the booking system last week. We can see the result of that uptake in the real world. The latest data show that 98% of people aged between 70 and 84 now have covid-19 antibodies, which are crucial to the body’s ability to fight the disease—98%. That is the protection our vaccination programme is spreading across the whole United Kingdom. Uptake among all ethnic minority groups continues to increase. Public Health England estimates that the vaccination programme prevented over 10,000 deaths up to the end of March, and it will protect many more as the roll-out continues.

We know that the first dose gives significant protection, but the second dose is crucial to make people as safe as possible. On Friday and Saturday, we saw record numbers of second doses—over 499,000 on each day—and I am delighted to tell the House that, as of midnight last night, we have now given second doses to over 10 million people across the United Kingdom. Three quarters of over-75s have now had both jabs, rising to four fifths of over-80s. The vaccine is our way out of this pandemic, and I am delighted that it is being taken up in such huge numbers.

We will do everything in our power to drive uptake, especially when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable. The vaccination rate among care home staff is currently below 80% in over half of all local authority areas. Many care homes have called for vaccinations to be required for those who work in such settings. We have therefore launched a consultation into whether we should require care home providers that care for older adults to deploy only workers who have received their covid-19 vaccination, unless they have a medical exemption. We all know that older people living in care homes are at the greatest risk from this virus, and we have a duty of care to protect the most vulnerable, so we will consider all options to keep people safe.

As we deliver on stage 2 of the vaccination programme—to vaccinate all remaining adults in the UK—we must also turn our attention to what comes next. The biggest risk to our progress here in the UK is a new variant that the vaccine does not work as well against. We know from our response to other viruses, such as flu, that we need updated vaccines to tackle mutated viruses. I can tell the House that as we complete the programme for first and second jabs, we are ramping up plans for a booster shot to make sure that our vaccines stay ahead of the virus. We have already procured enough vaccine doses to begin the booster shots later this year. We will be working with our current vaccine suppliers and new suppliers such as the CureVac partnership to work out which vaccines will be effective as a booster shot and to design new vaccines specifically targeted at the variants of concern, such as the variant first found in South Africa.

Our goal is to ensure that the vaccine protects against this dreadful disease whatever it throws at us, to keep us safe and protect our much cherished return to a normal way of life. The booster shot is important because it will help protect against new variants, but until then we must remain vigilant in case a new variant renders the vaccines less protective. New variants can jeopardise the progress that we have made here in the UK.

Thanks to our early investment in covid genomic sequencing, we have in this country one of the best systems to spot and supress new variants wherever we find them through a combination of tough measures at the border, our genomic sequencing capability and a massive testing system. I would like to inform the House of another new development in our testing system. We have been piloting Pharmacy Collect, a system in which people can go and pick up tests for free from a pharmacy. I am delighted to tell the House that following the successful pilot, we have now rolled out Pharmacy Collect to over nine in 10 pharmacies, meaning that the universal testing offer, through which everyone can get tested up to twice a week, is now freely and easily accessible to anyone who wants it. You just have to go to your local pharmacy, Mr Speaker.

I would also like to update the House on our response to two new variants. One is the variant of concern first identified in South Africa. We have now detected a total of 557 cases of this variant since it was first identified in December. We have seen a cluster of cases in south London, predominantly in the London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Lambeth and Southwark, and identified single cases over the last week in Barnet, Birmingham and Sandwell. Around two thirds of these cases are related to international travel and have been picked up by the day two and day eight testing for international arrivals. However, we have seen a small amount of community transmission, too.

As soon as those cases were discovered, we acted quickly to put in place enhanced testing, tracing and sequencing in Lambeth and Wandsworth. We have brought in 19 mobile testing units in our largest surge-testing operation to date, and we are distributing test kits to housing estates, secondary schools, places of worship and workplaces. I would urge everyone who lives in these areas, whether they have symptoms or not, to get tested regularly and help us keep the variant under control.

Secondly, we have recently seen a new variant, first identified in India. We have now detected 103 cases of this variant, of which, again, the vast majority have links to international travel and have been picked up by our testing at the border. We have been analysing samples from those cases to see whether the variant has any concerning characteristics such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines, meaning that it needs to be listed as a variant of concern.

After studying the data and on a precautionary basis, we have made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list. That means that anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen cannot enter the UK if they have been in India in the previous 10 days. UK and Irish residents and British citizens who have been in India in the 10 days before their arrival will need to complete hotel quarantine for 10 days from the time of arrival. These rules will come into force at 4 am on Friday. India is a country I know well and love. Between our two countries we have ties of friendship and family. I understand the impact of this decision, but I hope that the House will concur that we must act, because we must protect the progress that we have made in this country in tackling this awful disease.

Another way that we have kept the country safe is through maintaining a strong supply of personal protective equipment. At a time of massive global demand, we secured supply lines, created a stockpile to see us through the winter and created onshore manufacturing capacity here in the UK. I am pleased to inform the House that since February last year, we have distributed more than 10 billion items of PPE to protect people working in the NHS, social care and public services right across the country. Delivering so much PPE at such speed and scale has been an extraordinary effort that has not only helped us through the crisis, but provided a lasting legacy for the future.

Let me make two further points. I would like to inform the House that today we have appointed Professor Lucy Chappell as the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care. Professor Chappell has a stellar track record in science and research, including leading on the work on vaccinations in pregnancy. She has worked closely with our National Institute for Health Research, for which she will now be responsible. I am sure that the whole House will join me in congratulating Professor Chappell on her appointment.

Finally, last month we laid before the House our one-year status report on the Coronavirus Act 2020. I am sorry to say that the report contains an error relating to section 24 of the Act, which concerns Home Office measures on data held for national security purposes. Full details are set out in a written ministerial statement being laid today. The error does not change the substance of the report, as we will be laying the regulations to expire section 24 alongside other provisions as soon as parliamentary time allows.

In summary, we are moving down our road to recovery, vaccinations are rising and the pressure on our NHS is falling. As we enjoy the freedoms that are returning, let us take each step safely. We must hold our nerve and follow the rules while the vaccinators do their vital work. I commend this statement to the House.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Let me start by saying that I have no doubt that Downing Street was reluctant to cancel the Prime Minister’s trip to India. As a Member of Parliament for Leicester, I am immensely proud of our deep ties and bonds with India, but it was the correct thing to do in the circumstances, because we must always be vigilant and driven by the data, and variants are the biggest threat to our progress.

Tackling the variants demands that vaccination continues to be rolled out successfully; I again pay tribute to all involved. Uptake levels are improving, as the Secretary of State said, but they are still too low in some minority ethnic communities. Will he provide extra resources to the local communities that need them to drive up vaccination rates?

We will look carefully at the details for vaccinating social care staff, but the Secretary of State will know that every attempt throughout history to force mandatory vaccination has proved counterproductive. Why does he think this attempt will be any different?

Even with high levels of vaccination across the population, there will be significant groups who are unvaccinated—children, for example. The virus will be endemic, as the chief medical officer has recently confirmed. Papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies model a third wave this summer. How do we avoid that? May I suggest to the Secretary of State that one way that we could do that would be to pay higher sick pay and expand its scope? Some of the poorest and the lowest paid will continue to suffer and be left exposed to the virus unless we fix that. We should not just glibly accept these health inequities; it could mean that urban areas are left behind, remaining under restrictions with higher infection rates. For the millionth time of asking, will he please fix sick pay?

Let me turn to India, which has the most cases in the world at the moment—more than 250,000 confirmed cases a day, I think, and going up. That is one of the world’s steepest surges, right now. Uploads of Indian sequencing to the global open access database show that the new double mutant B1617 variant has become dominant in India in the past few weeks, out-competing our home-grown Kent strain. As of today, COVID-19 Genomics UK reports 135 cases of B1617 in the UK and 115 in the last 28 days. It has been the fastest growing variant in the UK in the last three weeks. Most of those variants are imported, so we welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement about adding India to the red list, although I hope that there will be support and help in place for constituents such as mine who are legally in India and want to return.

We also now have cases in the community that are not linked to international travel. I understand that the Secretary of State is carrying out analysis of those samples, but surely we now need to start surge testing and designate B1617 as a variant of concern. How long will it take before we have more definitive evidence that it is more infectious or immune-escape? We already know that this variant carries mutations of concern in other variants. If we have learnt anything in the past 12 months, it is that this virus ruthlessly exploits ambiguity and that we must act fast when the situation is controllable, because in a few weeks’ time, it might not be.

The Secretary of State did not mention vaccine passports in his statement. Does he anticipate that vaccine passports will soon be needed for football games or concerts? As he said, Leicester City have made it to the FA cup final, and they are a team challenging for Europe on merit who always put fans first. Many who are anticipating going to a football match later this year will be wondering this: if they need a vaccine passport, will it be based on one dose or two? He may have seen data from Israel or the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US which suggests that people are still infectious after one vaccine dose, so can he update us on that front?

Finally, I turn to the latest Sunday Times revelations about the lobbying by Greensill and Cameron of the Secretary of State and the very highest NHS officials about the payday financing scheme. This was not an act of altruism to staff in a pandemic but an investment plan to package up loans to sell to investors, with the former Prime Minister, not nurses, in line for a payday windfall. Cameron wrote in one of his emails:

“As you can imagine, Matt Hancock”

is

“extremely positive about this innovative offer.”

They sought a partnership with NHS Shared Business Services, which is jointly owned by the Department. They sought access to the personal and financial data of thousands of NHS staff. They wanted their electronic records for their own commercial gain. Their plan was to expand into the social care sector, where staff are on low pay or zero-hours contracts, and because the market is fragmented and made up of private providers, the supposed non-profit offer would presumably not apply.

There were meetings and communications with a parade of the most senior NHS officials, including former Health Minister Lord Prior and Baroness Harding. At least 30 trusts may have spent valuable time considering the adoption of this untested payday lending scheme, and it is all because the Secretary of State succumbed to the lobbying of his old boss Cameron. So again I ask him, will he publish all the text messages, all the emails and all the correspondence with David Cameron? Can he tell us how many NHS leaders and officials Cameron and Greensill lobbied and met? How many NHS trusts in total were approached about this expensive, unneeded scheme?

While we are on the issue of NHS Shared Business Services, can the Secretary of State also tell us why he never declared his own links to Topwood, the confidential document shredding firm which was still on Friday night, until it was curiously taken down, using the NHS logo on its website to promote itself? With so many accusations and allegations of sleaze and cronyism, these are basic questions that deserve clear answers. NHS staff deserve a pay rise and support, not these payday loan apps forced on the NHS by speculators trying to make money out of the pandemic. How can he possibly defend it?

[Matt Hancock]

Let me address the final point first. As I said to the House last week, my approach was and is that local NHS employers are best placed to decide whether to take up offers of pay flexibilities, and Ministers are not involved in decision taking in NHS Shared Business Services. When it comes to the other matter that the right hon. Gentleman raised in terms of my declarations—which are known to him and to everybody else only because I have followed the rules in letter and spirit and made that declaration—I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, rather than him, who said that he was not suggesting that any rules were broken.

I turn to the covid-related matters. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support of the decision to put India on the red list, which is not one that we take lightly. He is right to ask about surge testing, to make sure that we limit the spread as much as possible of the variant first found in India, and I can confirm that we will be doing that.

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support for vaccinations, which he has demonstrated at all turns. It is partly because of the unanimity across the House among all parties on the importance of vaccination that we have this absolutely spectacular level of uptake. He says that every attempt at mandatory vaccination is counterproductive. I gently point him to the fact that surgeons needs to have a vaccine against hepatitis B. Vaccination that is tied to work in fact has a longstanding precedent in this country.

The right hon. Gentleman asks many questions about certification, but he knows that a review of it is under way at the moment, being led by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who I am sure will have heard his representations and questions, and will be able to address them in the review.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman says that we must avoid a third wave by sticking to the rules, and he is right. We should avoid a third wave if we can, and the way that we can do it is by sticking to the rules and getting the jab. That is why the vaccination programme is so important. It is why the road map is cautious and, we hope, irreversible. That is the plan, and with the 10 million second vaccines and the progress in the vaccination programme that we have seen in the last few days, weeks and months, I am very pleased to say that we are on track.

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

It is a pleasure to see you face to face, Mr Speaker, after some time.

The Health Secretary is absolutely right to put India on the red list and to explore mandatory vaccination of certain frontline workers, however difficult and sensitive that decision may be, but he will know that in the last week NHS waiting lists have risen to nearly 5 million people, which is nearly one in 12 of the population of England—the true cost of the pandemic. It is equally true that we have had capacity problems in the NHS for some time. That is partly why we have opened five new medical schools.

Does my right hon. Friend agree with the letter that he recently received from the three main health think-tanks, which says that Health Education England should be given a statutory duty to publish regular, transparent, independent, objective workforce projections, so that we can ensure that we really are training enough doctors and nurses? That approach is strongly supported by the Health and Social Care Committee and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. I hope that he will support it too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

We will certainly consider that. I have seen the letter. We have discussed the question. I would add that we have a record number of doctors in this country, in part thanks to the work that my right hon. Friend put in place when he was in my shoes. We have a record number of nurses—more than 300,000 for the first time in the history of the NHS. We do need, of course, to look to the future and ensure that we are preparing for it, as the letter suggests. We also need to ensure that we keep driving the project of delivering 50,000 more nurses in the NHS over this Parliament. I look forward to giving him a more substantive response, but I hear his encouragement to ensure that we take steps in that direction.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]]

While the vaccine programmes across the UK are going well, vaccine-resistant variants remain a major threat. I welcome that the Prime Minister has now called off his visit to India due to its devastating surge in covid. Cases of the B1617 Indian variant in the UK are still very low, but they have been doubling every week, despite lockdown, suggesting that like the Kent variant it is much more infectious than the original virus. I therefore welcome India’s being added to the red list to reduce further importation.

Will the Secretary of State not now consider extending hotel quarantine to all arrivals, as travellers from red list countries can currently avoid it by coming via a third country? We have already seen increased numbers of the South African and Brazilian variants in European countries, from where travellers are not placed in hotel quarantine, and more infectious or vaccine-resistant variants could emerge in any country. We simply would not know about it until it was too late.

The pandemic is still accelerating, and as well as causing appalling suffering and death in other countries it clearly poses a threat to the people of the UK. Does the Secretary of State not recognise the need for a more co-operative, global response to covid if we are to bring the pandemic under control and allow a safer return to international travel and commerce?

[Matt Hancock]

I certainly agree with the hon. Lady on her final point, on international collaboration and working together, which, along with the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, we are working incredibly hard on. We are using the UK’s presidency of the G7 and the enthusiasm of the new Administration in Washington to try to drive international collaboration, in particular collaboration among like-minded democracies in favour of an open and transparent, science-led response to pandemics. I hope that she will concur with that approach.

On the new variants of concern, it is important when looking at the numbers to distinguish between community spread and spread connected to travel. By taking the action that I have just announced to put India on the red list, we are restricting yet further the likelihood of incursion from India of somebody with a new variant. However, the majority of the cases that we have seen already in this country have been picked up by the testing that we have in place now for every single passenger entering this country. That is a sign of the system working, and it is now being strengthened.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I am delighted to say that I have had my second dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and, so far, no ill effects. In Harrow, we have had surge testing because we have had a relatively small number of cases of the South African variant discovered. Literally thousands of people have been tested, but one of the most frustrating things is that these tests then have to be sent off and there appears to be an extremely long turnaround time before we get the results. What can the Secretary of State do to speed up getting the results of these tests? Otherwise, people will not be aware of whether they have the variant or whether they should take particular actions.

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this important issue. I know that this is an important announcement for him and his constituents, representing as he does a significant number of constituents from the Indian diaspora. We have managed to reduce somewhat the turnaround time for the sequencing of positive tests, but we are also introducing a new type of test that can detect not just whether someone is positive but whether they have one of the known variants without having to go through a full sequence. That can give us a snapshot much, much faster—within a matter of hours—of whether a positive result has one of the known variants, before sending it off to sequencing so that we can see any new variant that we do not know about. We are introducing that technology. It is starting in the Lighthouse lab testing facility in Glasgow and we are rolling it out across the system. It is an important tool to make sure that we can get the turnaround time of spotting the variants down faster.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is quite astonishing that the Secretary of State’s statement had absolutely nothing to say about the Government’s plans for vaccine ID cards—something that has apparently been trialled. Only last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission told us that vaccine ID cards, and possibly even the mandatory vaccination scheme that he is trumpeting today, could be unlawful, yet this House has had no opportunity to express a view on them at all. When are the Government going to come clean and share their plans for vaccine ID cards with this House?

[Matt Hancock]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to my previous answer, which is that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is leading a review on this area that will report in due course.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the phenomenal roll-out of the vaccine programme, which has been astonishing. I, too, have had my second vaccine, which makes me feel much happier.

We have been told regularly that we are following the data, not the dates, but sadly it seems to be the other way round—that we are following the dates, not the data. We know that in Derbyshire, for instance, there are huge swathes of villages and towns with no covid whatsoever, and that is repeated over all sorts of areas of the country. Last week I managed to go out on several nights because I could—which was great, and the atmosphere was fantastic—but we need to start getting businesses back to normal. We need to get hospitality businesses operating, fully functioning, and using their indoor spaces. Some of the outdoor spaces I have been in are quite enclosed, so can we not go indoors as well now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), is among the 10 million who have had their second jab; that is really good to see. The hope and cheer that the vaccine brings links to the second part of her question, about the speed of the road map. The reason for the timing set out in the road map is that we want to see the impact of one step before we take the next step. We are but one week on since we took step 2. That is a significant reopening, as we have no doubt all seen in our constituencies and around the country. We want to see the impact of that on the data before taking the next step, so we can have confidence that this is an irreversible path—a one-way street, as I put it. That is the reason for the way that we have set this out, and that is how we are planning to proceed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Along with others, I welcome the roll-out of the vaccine, as that is very important, but few would deny that it is now time to look at waiting lists, and I shall put one on record. What steps have been taken to get routine operations such as hip replacements and tonsil operations back on the table to address the eye-wateringly long waiting lists? That is vastly concerning, especially when we hear, for instance, of children who were on waiting lists for tonsils and adenoids to be removed last year; due to dips in oxygen levels they were considered urgent at that time, but that now appears to be okay. That is very worrying.

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. The waiting list issue is very significant; it has built up because of covid, but we must tackle it and we are absolutely determined to do so. He, like me, will have seen the figures last week on the increase in the waiting list in England, but the waiting list has increased in all parts of the UK. We have put in extra funding, an extra £7 billion in total for next year in England and, through the Barnett consequentials, to the three devolved Administrations. That is there to make sure we can get through this backlog while also of course dealing with covid and the infection prevention and control needed to tackle covid. This is a vital task, the hon. Gentleman is right to raise it, and we are working very hard to address it.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is rightly proud of the stunning performance of the vaccination teams across the country, and of course I pay tribute to those who have been engaged in that in and around Ashford. I am sure he agrees that it is particularly important for care workers to be vaccinated, and not just care home workers but domiciliary care workers who go from house to house providing essential care. What is he doing to encourage take-up among care workers, to get as close to 100% as possible?

[Matt Hancock]

It is incredibly important that all care workers take up the jab if they possibly can, unless they have a vital medical reason not to, because the jab of course not only protects us, but protects people we are close to, and care workers are close to people who are vulnerable—that is in the nature of the job. That is why I think it is right to consider saying that people can be deployed in a care home only if they have had the jab, and we are looking into that. We have not said that for those who work in domiciliary care—caring for people in their own homes, rather than in a care home—because those in care homes are at the highest risk of all, but I would absolutely urge anybody who is a carer, whether they work in social care or are an unpaid carer, who has not already got the jab to please do get it, to protect not just them, but those to whom they have a duty of care.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

As the UK rolls back lockdown restrictions, the global death toll has reached 3 million, and the World Health Organisation is warning that the world is approaching the highest rate of infection so far. With three new variants in three continents, all these variants now in the UK and the reduced efficacy of the different covid vaccinations against these variants, it is clear that the UK’s success in fully emerging from this pandemic is co-dependent on how well the rest of the world is doing. I asked the Health Secretary about global co-ordination of surveillance of new variants back in February, and the World Health Organisation is now consulting on this, so can he update the House on our response to this consultation?

[Matt Hancock]

This is an incredibly important subject. I agree with the substance of what the hon. Lady asked in the question, and she is quite right to raise this. We have put in place the new variant assessment platform, allowing any country around the world to use our enormous genomic sequencing capability if they want to sequence positive cases to discover what is happening in their countries, but our borders testing system, in which all positives are sequenced, also means that we in fact get a survey from around the world through those who have travelled to the UK, and we can relay that data back to individual countries so that they understand that better. Of course, it would be far better if something like the new variant assessment platform was run on a multilateral basis globally—for instance, by an organisation such as the WHO. We are engaged with the WHO on making sure that it is available, but my view was that we needed to get on and offer this to everybody and then build a network of labs around the world that can make such an offer so that sequencing can be available in every country, because it is currently far too patchy.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con) [V]]

May I add my congratulations to the team that has managed to give two vaccinations to over 10 million people? That is fantastic news. Given the risk of variants, I welcome the difficult decision that the Secretary of State has made to add India to the red list. What research he has commissioned on those, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who have had two vaccinations, and what possibility there might be that people who have had two vaccinations are able to go about their daily lives with fewer restrictions than those who have not?

[Matt Hancock]

The latter question is really a question tied to the certification work. We have not hitherto, as my hon. Friend well knows, said that the rules for people who are vaccinated should be different from those for people who are non-vaccinated, but we know that some other countries are proposing to say that that will be case for international travel, so we do need to have a way of showing or proving it. However, we have not yet come to any conclusions about how we should do that and whether we should do that domestically. That is a matter for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

On measuring how effective a second dose is, we have tests in the field right now to follow a sample of people who have had both tests, having them tested regularly—weekly, typically—to check whether they test positive, and therefore testing the effectiveness of both of the vaccines in the field. So far, we have published the results of that after one jab. Very early results are coming through after two jabs, and in the next couple of weeks we will have some really rich data on that, I should hope, because we have now seen a significant number of second jabs—10 million as of midnight last night.

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab) [V]]

The vaccination roll-out for the majority of the country has been nothing short of amazing, and I would like to thank the local NHS providers in Enfield and across the country for their herculean efforts. Sadly, for some parts of the country, including many parts of my constituency of Enfield North, a postcode lottery appears to be emerging, whereby vaccination rates are stubbornly low and falling behind the rest of the country. What is being done to combat this, and what additional support will the Department be providing to areas with consistently low vaccine rates?

[Matt Hancock]

We have a huge amount of work on to tackle exactly the phenomenon that the hon. Lady describes. I thank people in Enfield who have been working on the vaccination programme, because they have done incredibly well, but there is much more to do. We have to ensure that we make the vaccine more accessible—that it is easy to access—and that people have reassurances if they are hesitant. The Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), is leading on these efforts, including with innovative approaches that we are currently trialling, such as allowing multigenerational households to be vaccinated at once, to see how we can drive up uptake in those groups in which we have not seen such high uptake. As I said, overall uptake among over-50s is 94%, which is far higher than my best possible hopes just a couple of months ago, but if we can reduce that final 6%, for every percentage point that comes off it, the safer we all get.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con) [V]]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the extraordinary roll-out, which is still continuing, and I thank all the health workers across Wimbledon and south-west London.

In his statement, my right hon. Friend was right to identify the risk of new variants and to mention genomic sequencing and boosters. Will he confirm that there will be availability of rapid testing, with tests that provide results quickly and identify new variants, and that the booster programme will be rolled out on a similar basis to the vaccine programme, which has been so successfully rolled out?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. The booster shot programme will be rolled out in a similar way to the first two jabs. There will of course be some differences, not least because of the interaction of an autumn covid vaccination programme with the autumn-winter flu vaccination programme. We still need the final clinical results on their interaction to see whether someone can have both at the same time, which would obviously be logistically easier. Those matters need to be resolved. The reason for the announcement today is that we want to be absolutely clear that a booster shot programme will happen this autumn—later this year—and we are determined to make it as efficacious as possible, because, ultimately, dealing with these new variants will require booster shots, especially for the most vulnerable.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab) [V]]

Over the last week, several serious concerns have been raised with me about the managed quarantine hotel system, with harrowing stories of families with young children stranded in airports because they cannot contact the booking provider to arrange accommodation, and others in quarantine hotels left without food for days on end. Will the Health Secretary tell me just what he is doing to urgently resolve the frankly shambolic situation with the booking system, and what he is doing to end the inhumane treatment of quarantine hotel guests by ensuring that food is not only provided on time but meets the faith and dietary requirements of travellers, particularly those fasting during Ramadan?

[Matt Hancock]

I am afraid I do not agree with the prognosis. We are, of course, very careful to ensure that the vast majority of people who go through the managed quarantine service—hotel quarantine—have a good experience. Of course, they have to be in a hotel when often they would rather not be, so it is an unusual situation, but it has been put in place with great sensitivity and I am very grateful to all those who have worked so hard on it, not just in my Department but among the hotels, the airports and the carriers. However, the hon. Gentleman clearly has some significant individual concerns, and I would be very happy to ensure that the Minister for Public Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), meets him to hear those individual concerns and to try to make sure that they are resolved—in particular the point about ensuring that food provision is appropriate for those fasting at Ramadan, which of course is very important.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con) [V]]

Given that the seven-day rolling average of covid deaths is now 24.9, with just 10 yesterday, and that in normal times the daily cancer death toll averages over 450—a figure sadly likely to rise due to delayed treatment and the disruption of the pandemic—what are the Government doing to catch up with the cancer screening and operations backlog and get the health service back towards other medical conditions so that the death toll from non-covid cases does not become the worst legacy of this emergency?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is quite right to ask about that; it is an incredibly important topic. I am pleased to say that, over the second peak this winter, the amount of cancer work—surgery and treatment—continued much closer to normal. He is quite right that, in the first peak, it was reduced significantly. We are very focused on the backlog that has been created by the pandemic, but I am pleased that the death toll from covid is coming down. In fact, the very latest data, published today, shows that the number of deaths recorded with covid after 28 days is four. Those numbers tend to be lower at the weekend, and we mourn each of them, but that nevertheless reinforces his point that it is vital that we get on with getting through the backlog that has been created by the pandemic.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

I want to challenge the Secretary of State about the inexplicable delay in adding India to the red list of countries. I welcome the announcement that it will now be included on that list, and I hope very sincerely that this will not be another stable door moment in the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Secretary of State knows that the SNP has committed to increase NHS funding in Scotland by 20%. Will he commit to a similar uplift for NHS England in order to help drive the recovery of the NHS after coronavirus and truly build back better?

[Matt Hancock]

I recently saw the figures for the proposed increase for NHS spending in Scotland. The proposed increase is lower than in England; it is lower than the money that has been passed over to the Scottish Government from UK taxpayers to spend on the NHS in Scotland. My question is: what has happened to the money for the NHS in Scotland that was given to the SNP Government in Holyrood? They have not spent it on the NHS. We know that they have many wasteful projects. Thankfully, we work very closely together on important things such as the vaccination effort, which has been a true UK success story, but this question of the missing millions for the NHS in Scotland is one that we need answers to from the Government in Holyrood.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con) [V]]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the foresight and the early investment decisions made on vaccines 12 months ago. Here in Aberconwy, the result is falling infection rates and a tangible sense of hope, albeit one coloured with frustration as we watch businesses in England open ahead of us. We have the second-oldest demographic in Wales, and it is right that their environment is protected to ensure their wellbeing. That is properly a priority. However, can my right hon. Friend give the elderly and the vulnerable, and their loved ones, assurances that they will one day be able to leave their accommodation to visit family, resume employment and otherwise pick up their old routines?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. We want to get back to normal for care home residents—of course we do. We are taking steps in the right direction in England. I cannot comment on the situation in Wales; that is rightly a responsibility for the Cardiff Administration. As we progress down the road map, I hope we will be able to make further progress.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

At today’s meeting of the all-party group on myalgic encephalomyelitis, we discussed the overlaps between ME and chronic fatigue syndrome and long covid. Obviously, there are some striking similarities. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact that contracting covid can have on people with ME/CFS? Given their vulnerability, will he now do a bit of a U-turn and make them a priority for vaccination?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, the prioritisation for vaccination when it comes to those who are vulnerable is clinically determined. I know that this question has been looked into. We are also looking into work on the links between ME and long covid, which share some similarities but are different conditions. It is an area that needs further work and further research—there is no doubt about that. If there is an update to the clinical advice on prioritisation and whether those with ME need to be in category 6 or category 4, I will update the hon. Lady. Thus far, however, we are following the clinical advice and that is the approach we have taken overall.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con) [V]]

I was really pleased to hear my right hon. Friend reference the appointment of Professor Lucy Chappell and the work on vaccines in pregnancy. Will he please update the House on what is being done to reassure young women that there is no plausible way that vaccination can affect fertility? Will he also let us know how quickly he expects pregnant women, who we know might be immunosuppressed, to be called forward for their vaccination, or will they have to wait for the age band that is appropriate?

[Matt Hancock]

I was absolutely delighted that on Friday, following the work of Professor Chappell and others, we were able to make the announcement with respect to the vaccination for those who are pregnant. The prioritisation remains as with people who are not pregnant, so it will essentially be by age unless there is another reason that one might be in a higher group, for instance if you are a social care worker. It does not affect the prioritisation. Hitherto the advice had been understandably cautious, because clinical trials are not done on people who are pregnant. However, there is now very clear advice for those who are pregnant: when it is your turn, come forward and take advice. Have a discussion about your individual circumstances with your clinician. They can then, subject to that individual circumstance, which is of course appropriate in pregnancy, be vaccinated. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. It was a really important announcement on Friday. Mr Speaker, I probably should have included it in my original statement, but unfortunately it was already rather long. I am absolutely delighted that Professor Chappell and the whole team—it was a big team effort—were able to ensure we made this progress.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister, has just announced that he has no plans to open up his borders. Of course, he is absolutely right. I am speaking—I apologise—completely with the benefit of hindsight, but I am sure everybody would agree that if we had done what Australia had done, we could have opened up our economy months ago. It has had only 910 deaths and only 29,000 infections. What I want to hear from the Secretary of State is that he will resist the very powerful lobbyists from the travel and airline industries and from airports, and that he will be absolutely determined to follow the evidence, not allow unnecessary travel—we do not know what variants are out there in the world—and be really tough with the red list.

[Matt Hancock]

That is the approach we have taken so far since the introduction of the red list and the hotel quarantine. Through the testing of every single passenger who comes here, we essentially now have a survey of the world. We can see where the new variants are from the people coming through the testing regime. I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s wise counsel.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Health Secretary is clearly right to put India on the red list and to safeguard the vaccine programme from new variants. However, the India variant has been under investigation for three weeks, and other neighbouring countries with lower and slower covid rates were put on the red list 10 days ago. This week, Hong Kong identified 47 covid cases on a single Delhi flight. Before Friday, we still had 16 direct flights from India and many more indirect ones. Can he explain, contrary to his previous answer, why India was not put on a red list 10 days ago, when other countries were? Can he publish the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s assessments, recommendations and criteria and also publish a full genomic analysis of which countries all the new variant cases are arriving from, so that we can see where the border gaps still are in the measures that he has in place and make sure that we do not keep having these delays?

[Matt Hancock]

We keep all these decisions for each country under constant review. The challenge of the genomic data is that some countries have excellent coverage of genomic sequencing and others do not. Actually, that is not particularly correlated with their income. For instance, South Africa, a middle-income country, has excellent genomic sequencing. We take the decisions very rapidly when we need to. We keep all this under constant review and I am glad that she welcomes the decision to put India on the red list today.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

May I add my congratulations to all those who have been involved in the fantastic vaccine roll-out that the Secretary of State set out in his statement? It is obviously breaking the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths, as we are seeing dramatically from the figures. Many members of the public and businesses, having looked at the road map, which he also mentioned, will have seen that as of 21 June, the Government and the public are expecting the country to be broadly back to normal, but, of course, there is the small print about the reviews on social distancing. Will he confirm to the House and the public that as of 21 June, he expects us to be broadly back to normal, without social distancing? If that is not the case, will he set out what the evidence base will be for that decision?

[Matt Hancock]

Any decisions like that would be based on the evidence, and we have far more evidence now than we did when making these decisions previously. I fully expect that there will be some areas of life, without the need for laws in this place, where people will behave more cautiously than previously. The wearing of masks is one—before this pandemic, wearing a mask in public in this country was extremely unusual. I imagine that some people will wear masks, and choose to wear masks, for some time to come. Our goal is to manage this virus and the pandemic that it has caused more like flu—in fact, like flu. Flu comes through each year. We do take action to deal with flu—we take action on nosocomial infection in hospitals and through the flu vaccine programme—but we do not stop normal life as we know it. That is the overall attitude and approach. My right hon. Friend mentions that four reviews were set out as part of the road map and they will, of course, have to conclude. But that is my hope because, as he knows, I very firmly believe that this vaccine is breaking that link. We can see it in the data every single day and in the way that the country is responding. It is uplifting.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]]

I add my praise to the team rolling out vaccines in Salford, led by Salford Primary Care Together, which is doing a remarkable job. The current guidance on visits out from care homes says that any resident who makes a visit outside a care home must self-isolate for 14 days on their return, even if all they have done on their visit is to sit outside with a family member. This is longer than people have to quarantine when returning from red list countries, including India, which has the most cases in the world. This is clearly disproportionate, so will the Secretary of State set out what he is doing to enable regular testing to be used to cut this self-isolation requirement for care home residents?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady raises an important point on a subject that she knows extremely well. If I may, could I give her the respect of considering the question and writing to her with a full reply, because it is a very important question and I want to make sure that we get it right? Maybe we can then have a correspondence to make sure that we get to the right result.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

The UK’s vaccination programme has been an international trailblazer, the strategic aim of preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed has clearly been met, and I am delighted that my right hon. Friend, who has done a tremendous job as Secretary of State throughout the pandemic, appears determined not to allow a shift in the goalposts and to follow the cautious pathway out of lockdown. But can we please, and can he please, ensure that we have a rational and balanced discussion about viral variants? Viruses always mutate and there will be an unavoidable level of risk that we will have to get used to post pandemic, unless we are to become a perpetually frightened, introspective nation—the opposite of global Britain?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend has deep experience in this area, and I am very grateful for what he said—that was very kind. He is absolutely right about the fact that viruses always mutate, and we can rise to that—we can respond to that—as we do with flu. This is another area in which the parallel with how we manage flu as a country is the right one, because the flu virus mutates most years. We work out, observing the Australian winter, what is the most likely variant we will get in our winter, we adjust the vaccines to that variant and then we roll them out over the autumn. That sort of programme is likely to be needed in this country for some time to come. We will start later this year with the booster shots, and we will make progress after that according to the evidence as we see it. I hope he was not trying to make a point of something; I always try to be rational, but it is sometimes hard.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) [V]]

I hope I do not still sound like a robot, Madam Deputy Speaker. The gradual easing of restrictions in recent weeks has come as a great relief and is very welcome, but we know that the pandemic has caused a colossal backlog of unmet healthcare need, including dental care. Many people have been unable to access any treatment for dental problems, and check-ups have simply not been happening for more than a year now. Will the Secretary of State set out the steps he is taking to enable dentists to begin to clear that backlog of treatment? When there is already huge inequality in oral health and so many people are facing financial hardship, what is he doing to ensure that people do not miss out on vital preventive check-ups because they cannot afford them?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We have maintained access to urgent dental treatment throughout the pandemic. We put in place dental centres to be able to do that in the first peak and dentistry was not closed in the second peak—indeed, we have put in place an incentive to get dental practices really motoring. Of course there is infection prevention and control that needs to be updated as the prevalence of the disease comes down, but making sure that we have those check-ups is incredibly important, because it is one of the most important preventive measures there is, especially for children. Given her interest in and enthusiasm for this subject, I hope she will support the proposals for much more widespread fluoridation of water, which we are proposing to put into legislation when parliamentary time allows and which was part of the White Paper we published in February, because that is one of the biggest steps we can take to protect dental health.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) [V]]

The NHS has had its busiest and most crucial year ever, fighting the pandemic and delivering the vaccine roll-out, and all while continuing to provide routine care and treatment. We owe our NHS workers so much, yet this Government are proposing just a 1% pay increase, not even the 2.1% previously promised. Can the Secretary of State not see that after the year we have had, this is an insult to their heroic efforts? Will he commit to getting a pay rise for staff that truly reflects the value of their work?

[Matt Hancock]

The admiration in which I hold NHS staff holds no bounds. The question of pay is rightly one for the independent pay review body, and I look forward to its publication.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

On Friday I visited the vaccination centre at the Harlow Leisurezone to see the extraordinary work it is doing. Will my right hon. Friend thank the remarkable NHS staff and volunteers at the Harlow Leisurezone and at Lister House for vaccinating 40,000 residents in Harlow with their first jab? Given what he has said previously about Public Health England and the move to Harlow, will he meet me and colleagues to discuss the move and the exciting proposals for Public Health England, to ensure that Harlow and the surrounding area of west Essex becomes the public health science capital of England?

[Matt Hancock]

May I add my praise for those at the vaccination centre at Harlow Leisurezone? They have been working incredibly hard and we are all very grateful. I would add Essex County Council to my right hon. Friend’s long list, which I fully endorse. The council has leaned into the vaccination effort right across Essex. I am always happy to meet him, and with the recent announcement on the UK Health Security Agency, I think now is a good time to have a discussion on this topic.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

I have been contacted by several constituents who ordered very expensive tests from companies recommended on the Government’s website as part of the test to release scheme. Some never received their tests, some never received their results, and some received their tests late and feared being in breach of the rules. They have had to battle for refunds, and we have heard of others having to leave home to get their tests, which undermines the whole scheme. What vetting, if any, does the Department undertake before listing these companies, especially as demand will no doubt increase, given that the Government are so keen to open up international travel again?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is quite right to raise this. We have kicked two suppliers off the list of approved suppliers for testing for international travel, and we are quite prepared to do more if suppliers do not meet the service obligations that they sign up to. If she wants to send in the individual evidence, we will absolutely look at it. We keep this constantly and vigilantly under review. The companies that provide tests must meet their obligations in terms of timeliness and of treating their customers fairly and reasonably. As I say, two of them did not continue to meet those specifications, so we took them off the list of available testing suppliers. We are quite prepared to do more if that is what it takes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

This session is supposed to finish in three minutes’ time, but we have 12 more questioners. I would like to be able to get everybody in, and a fair number are in the Chamber. I am sure that everyone will be co-operative in keeping their questions very short, and I ask the Secretary of State to be equally brief with his responses.

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con) [V]]

Following the important announcement last week, I know that many expectant mothers in Guildford and around the country will welcome the certainty that they can safely come forward for a vaccine when it is offered. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that he will continue to take every precaution to ensure that pregnant women have the support that they need to make an informed decision about what is right for them and their health?

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. This decision was taken on the basis of the best possible science and significant amounts of data from pregnant women who have already been vaccinated, so people can have the confidence to come forward and get the advice that they need for their specific circumstances and then get the protection of the jab.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP) [V]]

The Scottish Government and the First Minister have commitment to a full public inquiry later this year into all aspects of the handling of the pandemic, including care homes. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he supports a full public inquiry into the UK Government’s handling of all aspects of the pandemic in England as well?

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[Matt Hancock]

This is obviously a matter for powers greater than the Health Department. It is something that the Prime Minister has clearly set out his views on, and that is what I will stick by.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

Along with the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), I have previously raised the issue of residents who travel abroad for medical treatment having to pay hundreds of pounds for covid tests to travel out and to return. This is affecting my constituent, David Hopkins, and others across the country. Will the Health Secretary work with the Secretary of State for Transport urgently to find a way to allow patients such as David to use free NHS tests for medical travel purposes?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I am happy to look into it. I am also pleased that the cost of the tests that are needed for travel is coming down, and an important piece of work is under way to see how we can get that down further. Nevertheless, my hon. Friend makes a strong case for her constituent.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Face coverings are likely to remain a feature to protect against covid-19, but people with hidden disabilities who cannot wear such coverings will face abuse. Despite raising the matter on previous occasions, including once with the Prime Minister, and having been promised an awareness campaign, nothing has happened. Will the Secretary of State tell me when that campaign will happen?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, an awareness campaign is under way, and I am grateful for advance notice of this question. I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the full details. He may say to me, “Sorry, Matt; more needs to be done,” in which case I will look into it, but he makes an important point on which I essentially agree with him.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the big reductions, based on the vaccinations, in case and death numbers. Will he briefly update us on better air extraction, cleaning and other measures to control infection in hospitals to reassure the many patients who now need non-covid treatment?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend has asked about this many times, and he is quite right to, because it is not just about cleaning. We have learned a lot during the pandemic about the importance of good ventilation, and that is now embedded in infection prevention and control. As cases in hospitals come down, hospitals across the country are separating, as much as is possible, those who might or do have covid from people who are coming to hospital having been tested and knowing that they do not have covid. That is incredibly important to reassure people that if they are asked to come to hospital by a clinician, it is the best place for them.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), the Secretary of State said that it was up to local NHS trusts to decide whether to take up the Greensill payday loan app, but The Sunday Times yesterday published an email between David Cameron and Matthew Gould, the head of NHSX, on 23 April. It reads:

“As you can imagine, Matt Hancock, David Prior [NHS England chairman], Simon Stevens [NHS chief executive], as well as the many trust CEOs, are extremely positive about this innovative offer.”

Is that email correct? Was the Secretary of State “extremely positive” about the Greensill app? Does he not think there is something morally wrong with using poorly paid and struggling NHS staff to allow a private company to construct a financial bond to be traded on the international money markets?

[Matt Hancock]

As I said to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), my approach was and is that local NHS employers are best placed to decide.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con) [V]]

Rugby’s primary care network-led vaccination centre at Locke House has provided over 34,000 first and 11,000 second doses to JCVI groups 1 to 9 through a fantastic team of staff and volunteers. The GPs, however, have chosen not to take part in phase 2 of the programme, and the centre is expected to close in mid-July as a consequence. Our local doctors would prefer to vaccinate groups 10 to 12 in their own surgeries, although that option is not currently available to them. What can the Secretary of State do to facilitate that approach to the important task of vaccinating the under-50s?

[Matt Hancock]

I will look into that question, which has not been raised before. Generally, the use of a primary care network—a group of GP practices—to come together to offer one centre has worked really well. That is the first I have heard of that concern, so I will take it away and ensure that it is looked at properly.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister today cancelled his planned trip to India this week, and the Health Secretary has just announced that India has been placed on the Government’s travel red list amid a devastating surge in coronavirus cases, with well over 200,000 detected on a daily basis. A new double-mutation variant is reportedly more potent, and dozens of cases have been detected here in the UK, too. To assuage community concerns, will the Health Secretary clarify that our vaccines are effective against this new variant?

[Matt Hancock]

We simply do not know that. We are acting on a precautionary basis. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, but we are looking into that question as fast as possible. The core of my concern about the variant first found in India is that the vaccines may be less effective in terms of transmission and of reducing hospitalisation and death. It is the same concern that we have with the variant first found in South Africa and is the core reason why we took the decision today.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

May I add my thanks to the NHS in Amber Valley, which has been moving through the vaccines so fast that it had even done more than 70% of the 40 to 50 age group by last week? What is my right hon. Friend’s message, though, to those who are saying that, based on media reports, we have now reached the herd immunity level and therefore this problem has all gone away?

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[Matt Hancock]

We do not think that that is true.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con) [V]]

Stoke Mandeville Hospital in my constituency is home to the National Spinal Injuries Centre. Despite continuing to do excellent work throughout the pandemic, a particular challenge arose when it came to providing support to relatives of patients who need to learn together how to adapt when back at home. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that planning for a third wave of covid-19 will give full consideration to the needs of spinal injuries patients and their families?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course, I will give that matter consideration. I also make the case that while, as we open up, there may be more transmission, I very much hope that that does not lead—in fact we know from the data that that is highly unlikely to lead—to the same impact in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, because we know that the vaccine is incredibly effective against the variants that are at large here in this country. That is another reason to be cautious against the incursion of new variants for which we cannot give that assurance.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

Lateral flow testing is really important in our continued fight against the pandemic. I am really pleased that many of my constituents have been able to access asymptomatic testing since Friday of last week, but, for residents in Wales, these tests are not yet available to order online through the gov.uk portal. Will my right hon. Friend confirm whether that will be the case shortly?

[Matt Hancock]

We are working closely with the Welsh Government to ensure that the testing offer in Wales is as rich and as easily accessible as the testing offer in England. Testing has been a UK-wide programme, but, of course, the more we get it into local communities, the more it must be delivered through the NHS locally—for instance, through pharmacies, as announced today. That needs to be done by the Welsh Government. We are working closely together to try to make sure that people can get access to these tests as easily as saying “Jack rabbit”, wherever they live in the United Kingdom.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. We will now have a three-minute suspension for cleaning purposes.

Covid-19 Vaccination Update

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I wish to inform the House of actions we are taking to improve uptake of vaccines across the adult social care sector.

In February 2021, we published the UK covid-19 vaccines delivery plan setting out the significant programme of work under way to drive vaccine uptake, including actions to improve access and to address the concerns of those who may be hesitant to receive the vaccine.

We have been working to make the vaccination accessible to people living and working in care homes. Vaccination teams have visited all older-age care homes in England and are running a minimum four-visit schedule for each. For those workers who may not have been present when the vaccination team visited the home, access via other vaccination services has been available. We also opened the national booking service for seven weeks so that frontline social care workers could book their own appointments, and care home workers can now arrange vaccination directly through their GP.

We have worked hard to address concerns among the adult social care workforce by delivering an extensive communications programme, running targeted advertisements and issuing a stakeholder toolkit containing regularly updated Q and As, guidance and communications materials. Positive messaging using influencers, leaders and care home workers who have already been vaccinated has boosted confidence and tackled misinformation, as have briefings with different faith groups who have become ambassadors for getting a vaccine.

We continue to do everything we can to increase vaccine uptake. We have targeted support at older adult care homes where vaccine uptake is low, such as in London. As of 4 April 2021, vaccine uptake among eligible workers in older adult care homes in London is 68%, compared to 82% in the south west. Local efforts, by employers, local authorities, public health teams and others, supplement this Government’s support.

Despite efforts, vaccine uptake among care home workers is not consistently at the level that we know from SAGE advice is needed to minimise the risk of outbreak: a minimum vaccination rate of 80% of staff and of 90% of residents in each home—that level must be maintained. Only 53% of older adult homes in England are currently meeting this recommendation.

It is imperative that together we now take every step necessary to reduce the risk of spreading the virus to those most at risk from covid-19 and those who care for them. We must protect people living in care homes, and we must protect the workforce who perform such a vital role.

Vaccination is a safe, effective way of preventing the spread of covid-19. It is therefore right that the Government act now to ensure that those working and assisting in older adult care homes are vaccinated to protect everyone in these settings.

From today, we are consulting on taking steps to require care providers to deploy only staff who have been vaccinated within older adult care homes. This measure would be intended to protect the people most at risk in our society—around 90% of those who died from covid-19 were people over 70.

Making vaccination a condition of deployment in older adult care homes in this way would help to further protect older people living in care homes, who are among the most vulnerable to covid-19, and ultimately save lives. A five-week consultation launches today to help inform decision making around how the change could be implemented and whether respondents think it will be beneficial. This will include areas such as potential impact on staff, safety and who could be exempt. Staff, providers, stakeholders, residents and their families are being urged to take part to have their views heard with an outcome expected by this summer.

I will provide an update to the House, following the completion of the consultation.

[HCWS917]