Higher Education Reform

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Chris Bryant

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I call Chris Bryant.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not mind that you were taught by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

I am concerned about academics, because working in academia is pretty grinding at the moment. Academics are trying to run a business, trying to make the sums add up every year, trying to recruit the right students and the best students, and trying to meet all sorts of different quotas, while also trying to get on with their research. What in this package will really make the life of an academic an attractive one?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I hope that our £900 million investment in the higher education sector will send a strong message about our backing for it. The Augar panel recommended that we bring down the fees, but we did not choose to take on that recommendation. I think that academics are doing an excellent job, and I am very grateful to them. I am pleased to see them making sure that students are given the quality of HE that they deserve by returning to face-to-face education.

Covid Vaccine Passports

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a very strong libertarian argument and not one with which I would disagree. This is a difficult and important decision. As he says, we are still not in a place where I can stand here and say, hand on heart, that we have transitioned this virus and that it is no longer a pandemic. That is why we are having to take this decision. I slightly disagree with his latter point; public buildings should obviously remain accessible and open to all without these passports, because there are relative measures that we can take to allow us the additional protection as we head towards the booster programme.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I am feeling sheepish about earlier; my apologies—touché.

This is just nonsense. I am 100% in favour of vaccination and 100% opposed to vaccine passports. There is no legal definition of what a nightclub is, as opposed to a place where other people might be bouncing up and down, and shouting at one another across a Chamber in a room of 500 people. There is no legal definition that the Minister is going to be able to rely on. The Government will effectively be turning bouncers on the door into legal officers, who will be deciding whether somebody has had a placebo or not. This is for the birds. We can relieve the Minister of all his pain; he just has to say that he has thought again and he is not going to do it.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question. Bouncers will not have to decide if someone has had a placebo or not, because anyone who has been on a trial will be deemed to be vaccinated and will receive their certificate.

[Chris Bryant]

Even though they’re not?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I said this at the Dispatch Box before recess. Actually, the Secretary of State took to the World Health Organisation a plea to the rest of the world that people in trials should be considered fully vaccinated, whether they have had the placebo or otherwise, in order to encourage them to come forward for vaccine trials. I repeated that today. It will not be an issue for nightclub bouncers.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The vaccination programme could in no way have delivered the extraordinary uptake without the backbone being NHS doctors, nurses and pharmacists, working with our armed forces, local government and the private sector to deliver it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

And the police.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

And volunteers and the police. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) reminds us all of the role that policemen and women played in ensuring that the vaccination roll-out worked well. The very clear guideline is that we should take both personal and corporate responsibility. It is great to see Transport for London, other transport systems and the M10 of metro Mayors, which I speak to regularly, taking that corporate responsibility. We all have our part to play, as we have done by coming together and vaccinating the country at scale. This is the most infectious respiratory disease that is aerosol-transmitted.

[Official Report, 19 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 695.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams).

The correct response should have been:

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Chris Bryant

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The vaccination programme could in no way have delivered the extraordinary uptake without the backbone being NHS doctors, nurses and pharmacists, working with our armed forces, local government and the private sector to deliver it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

And the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent question; I agree. I remember that when I took on the role of vaccines Minister in November, I explained to the House and the country that the reason we began by vaccinating phase 1—the most vulnerable cohorts, as set out to us by the JCVI—was that categories 1 to 9 were where 99% of the virus’s mortality was coming from. That work has gone incredibly well: in all those categories we have uptake of more than 90%, in some of them it is at 95% or 96%, and in one it is even at 100%. There is very high uptake of the second dose as well. I think that it is right that we now take this step, pragmatically but cautiously, as we transition from pandemic to endemic status and help the rest of the world to do the same.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Because of the pandemic, nearly 5 million people in the UK are now waiting for hospital treatment of some kind or other. In many cases, they are waiting for really important operations, from eye operations that could save or improve their eyesight to hip or knee operations. Everybody gets that the NHS has been really stretched, but the problem is that thousands of people are now saying, “You know what? If I pay £3,000, £5,000, £10,000 or £20,000, I can get that new hip or that new knee done with exactly the same doctor that I would see in the NHS, but in the private sector.” Surely that is unfair. Surely we must say that the NHS will buy up every single piece of spare capacity in the UK to get the backlog down as fast as possible, including for cancer care and for things that might seem minor but that make a dramatic difference to quality of life, such as hips and knees.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the hon. Member for that thoughtful question. He is absolutely right: there are about 5.3 million people waiting for treatment. He is also right that we have to make sure that the NHS has the resources to do it, which is why two things have happened: the Secretary of State has made it a priority to deal with the pandemic, and he has made it an equal priority to deal with the backlog. He has made £1 billion available for the NHS to do that work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. We engaged with industry constantly throughout this process: when I took this job on last year, we engaged with industry over REACH, and we are looking at a UK REACH. Most importantly, we are looking at the energy-intensive industries and how we can innovate, for example, in steel and in the steel cluster. We have had good news today for British Steel, and we can use the investment that the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth is making in carbon capture, usage and storage to turn the industry into the greenest steel industry in Europe.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Government help to decarbonise the Rhondda? I ask because following the flooding we have seen significant landslides on former coal sites. I do not want to overstate this, but there is some anxiety about what that might mean for the future and stability of some of these tips. Will the Minister make sure that the Secretary of State meets me and other MPs in affected areas to make sure that the Coal Authority is doing everything in its power to make sure everybody is safe?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The Secretary of State will certainly meet him and other concerned MPs, and make sure that the Coal Authority is doing everything it can. I would also like to visit to see for myself what is happening, so that we can work together on this. Getting to net zero by 2050 is a joint effort by the whole of this House, not just this Government.