Covid-19: PPE Procurement
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the due diligence and performance management performed on the public procurement of personal protective equipment during the covid-19 pandemic.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will try to stay in my lane.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
Sourcing, producing and distributing PPE is, even in normal times, a uniquely complex challenge. However, the efforts to do so during a pandemic, at a time when global demand was never higher, were truly extraordinary. Early on in that pandemic, our priority was clear: to get PPE to the frontline as quickly as possible. All of us in this House will remember that moment, and how desperate we all were to see PPE delivered to the frontline.
During the course of the pandemic—nearly at its peak—400 staff were working on sourcing protective equipment, and tens of billions of items were sourced. We worked at pace to source new deals from around the globe, and we always buy PPE of the highest standard and quality, and at the best value for money. Over the course of the programme, due diligence was done for over 19,000 companies, and over 2,600 companies made it through that initial due diligence process.
With huge demand for PPE all across the world, and with many countries introducing export bans, our risk appetite had to change. We had to throw everything behind our effort to protect those who protect us and those who needed it most. We had to balance the risk of contracts not performing and supplies being priced at a premium against the crucial risk to the health of frontline care workers, the NHS and the public if we failed to get the PPE that we so desperately needed.
As well as due diligence checks, there was systematic price benchmarking. Prices were evaluated against the need for a product, the quantity available, how soon it was available and the specification. Many deals were rejected or renegotiated because the prices initially offered were not acceptable.
There are always lessons that we can learn from any crisis, but we must not lose sight of the huge national effort that took place—I thank the officials who worked on it—to protect the most vulnerable while we tackled one of the greatest threats to our public health that this nation has ever seen.
Angela Rayner
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. I welcome the Minister to his place—I think this is the first time we have met at the Dispatch Box—but to be honest, to his defence of due diligence I would say, “What due diligence?” Last night, documents seen by The Guardian revealed yet another case of taxpayers’ money being wasted, with a total failure of due diligence and a conflict of interest at the heart of Government procurement.
In May 2020, PPE Medpro was set up and given £203 million in Government contracts after a referral from a Tory peer. It now appears that tens of millions of pounds of that money ended up in offshore accounts connected to the individuals involved—profits made possible through the company’s personal connections to Ministers and the Tories’ VIP lane, which was declared illegal by the High Court. Yet Ministers are still refusing to publish correspondence relating to the award of the Medpro contract, because they say that the Department is engaged in a mediation process. Can the Minister tell us today whether that mediation process has reached any outcome, and what public funds have been recovered, if any? Will he commit to releasing all the records, both to the covid-19 public inquiry and to this House, once the process is completed?
Rightly, there are separate investigations into Baroness Mone’s conduct, but the questions that this case raises are far wider. It took a motion from the Opposition to force the Government to release records over the Randox scandal. Will they agree today to do the same in this case without being forced to do so by the House? Can the Minister say now what due diligence was performed when awarding the Medpro contract?
Today’s reports concern just one single case, but this Government have written off £10 billion just on PPE that was deemed unfit for use, unusable, overpriced or undelivered. Worse, Ministers appear to have learned no lessons and to have no shame. As families struggle to make ends meet, taxpayers spend £700,000 a day on the storage of inadequate PPE. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government’s new Procurement Bill will still give Ministers free rein to hand out billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash all over again?
Mr Speaker
Order. Can we please stick to the rules of the House on time limits? I do not make the rules; the rules are meant for us all. This is happening too often.
Neil O’Brien
The right hon. Lady asks two main questions, the first of which is what we are doing on PPE Medpro. It has been widely reported that it had an underperforming contract. Let me set out what we do in such cases. The first step is to send a letter before action, which outlines a claim for damages. That is followed by litigation in the event that a satisfactory agreement has not been reached. To answer the right hon. Lady’s question directly, we have not got to the point where a satisfactory agreement has been reached at this stage.
On the high-priority group, let us be clear about what it was and what it was not. Approximately 9,000 people came forward. All Ministers will have had the experience of endless people ringing them up directly to try to help with the huge need that there was at the time. Many of us, as Back Benchers, will have been approached by constituents who were keen to help and needed to be referred somewhere. All that the route did was handle the huge number of contacts coming in to Ministers from people offering to help. Let me be clear that it did not give any kind of successful guarantee of a contract; indeed, 90% of the bids that went through it were not successful. Every single bid that went through the route went through exactly the same eight-stage process as all the other contracts—it looked at the quality, the price and the bona fides of the people offering to produce.
On the point about PPE that has not been useful, I set out in my answer the extraordinary context in which we were operating. There was a global scramble for PPE. People were being gazumped: goods would be taken out of the warehouse if people could turn up with the cash quicker than them. It was an extraordinary situation in which we had to act in a different way. Loads of us will remember standing up in this House and saying to Ministers, “What are you doing to get more? More, quickly!” That was the context in which we were operating.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if we had not wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on PPE, we would not have to increase taxes as much as we are doing? What has happened to the £122 million that was spent on 25 million gowns supplied by the company referred to earlier? Those gowns were not fit for purpose and were never used.
Neil O'Brien
That was the underperforming contract that I referred to in my previous answer, and I set out the process that we go through when we take action on underperforming contracts. There is the initial letter before action, and then a process in which we look to see if a satisfactory agreement can be reached. If not, that leads on to litigation. Of course, there was wasted PPE—my hon. Friend is absolutely correct about that—but I have already set out the context of the global scramble and the huge amount of PPE that was successfully delivered, saving lives and protecting workers in our NHS.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
From the moment we learned about the existence of this VIP lane for the politically connected, it was almost inevitable that it would come to this. This get-rich-quick scheme to fast-track cronies, politically connected pals and colleagues was never going to end well. I suspect that today’s revelations, however shocking, are simply the tip of a very large iceberg—an iceberg that could yet sink this ship of fools.
Transparency International UK has flagged as a corruption risk 20% of the £15 billion given out by the Tories in PPE contracts at the height of the pandemic. As we have already heard, they are spending £770,000 every single day to store much of that useless equipment in China. One Tory politician who had absolutely no background in PPE procurement personally made millions from those contracts, so do the Government plan to investigate proactively how many others like that are in their ranks, or are they content to sit there and watch this dripping roast of sleaze, corruption and scandal unfold on its own?
Neil O'Brien
Of course we take action whenever we find underperforming contracts, and I have set out how we do that. We are working our way through that. I say simply to the hon. Gentleman that we were all desperate to get PPE for our health and social care workers and for everybody who was responding to the pandemic. Inevitably, some of those contracts were not going to perform, and we are now taking action against all those underperforming contracts. On the idea that the “politically connected”, as he says, had some sort of greater success, they were our constituents—they were getting in touch with all of us, they had to be referred on somewhere, they had to be managed and they went through the same process as every other contract.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I think there is a little rewriting of history here. At one stage in the pandemic, getting PPE was the most important thing, and I remember Members on both sides demanding quicker action from the Government. The Minister has explained the situation fully, and I regret that the Opposition are making political points from what was actually a great success in protecting our NHS staff. Does the Minister agree with me or with that lot?
Neil O'Brien
My hon. Friend is completely correct. Some have short memories. Many of us stood up in this House to chivvy Ministers, asking, “Why aren’t you going faster? Why don’t you do more? Take the risks, get the stuff—we need it.” That was the priority. Many Members want it both ways: they criticised us at the time for not going fast enough or taking enough risks, and now they do not accept that we are going through all the contracts that did not perform.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
Is it not clear that slack management in the Department led to get-rich elements of the British ruling establishment taking money from the NHS at a time of national crisis? Their watchword was “greed” rather than “public service”. Where is the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock)—I have notified him of my intention to mention him—who was in charge of the NHS when all this was going on? Is he still in Australia getting his £400,000 for eating unspeakable parts of the anatomy of various beasties?
Neil O'Brien
I cannot comment on the latest goings-on in the jungle but the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s point is the same as I have given before: there is a clear process, which every PPE supply bid, regardless of where it came from, went through.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
During my time as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, we have looked closely at the procurement of PPE. The National Audit Office found that
“ministers had properly declared their interests”,
and that Ministers were not involved in procurement decisions. Is the reality not that the civil servants making these decisions were doing their best to secure PPE supplies for the NHS and the frontline in the face of a global pandemic? While we need to learn lessons from how this was handled, some of the people commenting here seem to forget the intense pressure we were under at the time.
Neil O'Brien
My hon. Friend is completely correct. When Mrs Justice O’Farrell went through these cases, she noted in her summing up that given the time-sensitive nature of the work, it was not irrational for the Department to decide that it was prepared to take more risk than usually would be acceptable, because of that extraordinary context that is so quickly forgotten in the questions we are hearing in the House today.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister has made much of the context of the time and the speed and the calls for PPE, but what my and, I am sure, everybody else’s constituents wanted was PPE quickly and appropriately. Earlier this year the High Court ruled that the Government’s VIP lanes were not only inappropriate, but unlawful, and in breach of the obligation of equal treatment. Does the Minister appreciate that constituents across the country are calling for an explanation? Will he back the Liberal Democrat amendment to ban VIP lanes for all future Government contracts?
Neil O'Brien
I have set out the challenge. We had a situation where MPs and Ministers were all being contacted by constituents who were desperate to help and who either had contacts with suppliers or were suppliers themselves of PPE. They could see on the TV every night the desperate need for PPE, and they were keen to help in that huge national effort. I have talked about the scale of the operation to supply and source that PPE in the extraordinary circumstances we were in. A way had to be found to manage all those contacts we were getting. All of us were getting in touch to try and offer help, so a way had to be found to manage all these things, and that is what I have described this morning. All these things, to reiterate, went through the same rigorous process as every other contract.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The Minister says that lessons will be learned about Government procurement from this PPE scandal. Will he look at the contracts that the Home Office has for accommodating and feeding asylum seekers, which are ripping off the hotels and the food suppliers, causing asylum seekers to live in malnutrition and squalor? These contracts have many of the same characteristics—vast profits and executive salaries, and an opaque network of subcontractors run by people who may not pass fit-and-proper tests—
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Today’s revelations show further evidence that the Government’s VIP lane was possibly criminal and was exploited by Members of the Government party. Will the Minister today commit to publishing in full the names of the Ministers, MPs or officials who referred firms on to that fast-track lane? Stop being evasive. We need to know what corruption happened.
Neil O'Brien
I have good news for the hon. Member. We published the information about who referred in which contracts in November 2021.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I heard what the Minister said earlier about the process and how meticulously it was followed for every company that applied for contracts during covid. What is it about the individuals or companies that had associations with the Conservative party or Ministers that made them so adept at getting through the process?
Neil O'Brien
As I said, 90% of them did not get a contract, so it was not that they were being given some sort of guarantee of a contract. That scheme was a way of managing the contacts that were happening with Ministers. They were being directly contacted by MPs from across the House and all sides of it. There had to be a way of understanding what was happening with each of those bids, because otherwise it would have been completely overwhelmed. To reiterate: all the bids went through exactly the same process—not done by Ministers, but by civil servants—of checking the quality, the price and whether they could realistically deliver. There was no difference in the process that they went through.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
These are issues that many Opposition Members in particular have been raising for a long time. My Ministerial Interests (Public Appointments) Bill, now in its third iteration, has its Second Reading next Friday. Given the current situation, and given that my Bill would help to address some of the issues of transparency, can the Minister assure me that the Government will now incorporate that into their programme?
Neil O’Brien
I will look closely at all the suggestions that the hon. Member makes. I have not had a chance to look at the Bill, but I am sure that we are always in the market for constructive ideas.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
At the same time as the Government were being obstructive and deliberately attempting to block Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in the north-east from providing PPE from a factory of its own, people who were closely connected to the Government were making millions from PPE. Minister, is that just a strange coincidence?
Neil O’Brien
The people who came through the high-priority route were not politically connected people, except in the sense that they were being referred by MPs across the House. I do not know the exact details of the north-east supplier that the hon. Gentleman mentions. If he gets in touch, I will be happy to take that up and provide him with a full explanation of what the issue was with that bid for a contract.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for the answers he has given. There was a heavy use of direct award contracts to purchase PPE items. As of April 2021, £371 million had been paid for PPE direct award contracts in Northern Ireland. Does the Minister agree that, in hindsight, there should have been better insight into the supply chains of this PPE, where it came from and who was making it, given the reports that PPE contracts were given to Chinese firms using labour schemes?
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Gentleman always makes constructive suggestions, and today is no exception. He knows that we have an ongoing inquiry into the lessons that can be learned and a dialogue with the Health and Social Care Committee about many of these issues. Given its heritage, Northern Ireland was an important supplier of textiles and PPE equipment. Inevitably, given the global balance of production, a lot of items did come from China, as he says, but as part of the lessons learned, we should be thinking about domestic supply.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
We have all seen the shameful Guardian front page this morning, but the front page that sticks in my mind is the one showing nurses in bin bags—not PPE on the frontline, but bin bags. This was at a time when Luton Borough Council was facing another cut of £11 million. People are struggling, so why are this Government not lifting a finger to get our money back? They could start by releasing the records after the mediation process.
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Lady’s question takes us back to that extraordinary moment when we had a huge crisis of PPE, and we were desperate and doing every conceivable thing we could to get the PPE that those nurses needed; that is what I have been referring to in my answers this morning. It is just not true that the Government are not lifting a finger to get the money back. We have a process, and there is a substantial team in the Department working on it right now.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Minister said that constituents contacted many of us looking for the ability to access contracts to aid PPE procurement. He told the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) that the information was published last year. Can he confirm for the House how many Conservative MPs were able to provide access to the VIP fast-track line, and how many Opposition MPs were able to? It is a fairly simple question.
Neil O’Brien
I do not have that information to hand, but I have a seat on the edge of Leicester, an important textiles town, and I had loads of constituents get in touch with me to ask, “Where can I go?” We sent them on to a mailbox, and after they were in that mailbox, they went through the usual process that every other supplier went through.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
For Tory peers and other chums of the Conservative party to have been profiteering at taxpayers’ expense from shoddy, unusable PPE, especially through the VIP procurement lane, at a time when people were locked down in their homes and tens of thousands of people, including my loved ones, were dying is absolutely sickening, shameful and unforgiveable. Given that The BMJ estimates that the Government have written off approximately £10 billion in unusable, undelivered or shoddy PPE, will the Minister take the opportunity to apologise to bereaved families for the amazing lack of integrity at the heart of the whole process?
Neil O'Brien
I set out earlier what the high priority route was and was not: it was absolutely not a guarantee of any kind of contract; it was a way of managing the huge numbers of contacts and offers for help that we were all receiving. It delivered something in the order of 5 billion items of PPE, all of which helped to save lives and protect workers in our NHS and social care settings. Of course, we had to take up those offers of help and respond to them when people wanted to help in the middle of a huge national and global crisis. We had to process those offers, but they were processed in exactly the same way as every other bid for a contract.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
After Lord Agnew resigned, he wrote in the Financial Times:
“Fraud in government is rampant. Public estimates sit at just under £30bn a year. There is a complete lack of focus on the cost to society, or indeed the taxpayer.”
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is currently in Committee, is full of holes and the Government have refused sensible requests by the Opposition to fill those holes. Will the Minister reconsider those amendments in the light of the rampant corruption in Government?
Neil O'Brien
We keep all those things under review, but the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill is part of addressing some of the issues that the hon. Lady is concerned about. We are blurring together two different issues slightly—[Interruption.] Let me finish the point. Lord Agnew was talking about the loan scheme, but that relates to the same issue of the need for pace, which all hon. Members were calling for at the time. There was a need to get loans out to small businesses, which saved tens of thousands of jobs in my constituency and, I am sure, her constituency as part of the huge and unprecedented £400 billion spend to preserve lives and livelihoods.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
BCB International in my constituency, which is an accredited bona fide pre-pandemic supplier to the Ministry of Defence, adapted production lines to produce a range of PPE. It supplied the Welsh Government and other public bodies such as the police, yet in spite of repeated attempts, it did not get a look in—or even a reply—from the UK Department of Health and Social Care. Today, we might have heard why. Despite the shoddy way that he was treated, its managing director Andrew Howell has offered to meet the appropriate personnel to discuss any possible low-cost, legal and easy solutions to maintain British supply security of essential equipment. Will the Minister now facilitate that meeting?
Neil O'Brien
I mentioned that due diligence was done on more than 19,000 companies—a huge number of companies and people got in touch to offer to help—but let us continue that conversation. I am happy to talk about the particular issue that the hon. Lady raised.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Welsh Labour Government received £874 million for PPE as its population-proportionate share, but spent only £300 million—about a third of the money given. That suggests, says Cardiff University, that the UK Government could have saved £8 billion, or £300 a household across the UK, had they used public authorities, health authorities and councils instead of private profiteering contractors known to Ministers. Will the Minister look carefully at the Welsh model and, in future, use the public sector rather than private sector cronies known to Ministers such as the former Health and Social Care Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who is out in the jungle making more money for himself?
Neil O'Brien
Inevitably, a huge amount of the PPE that is produced in the world is produced by private companies. There is no world in which we could avoid the use of private companies to supply PPE.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
My colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee are at an important evidence session this morning, otherwise I have no doubt that many more of them would be here. The report on PPE contracts, which was unanimously agreed by the Committee earlier this year, stated:
“At no point was consideration given to the extent of the profit margin that potential suppliers would be taking on payments for PPE. Neither was consideration of any potential conflicts between individuals making referrals through the VIP lane and the companies they were referring. We”—
the Public Accounts Committee, unanimously—
“are therefore unsurprised to see the reports of excessive profits and conflicts of interest on PPE contracts.”
Yet if today’s Guardian reports are correct, the extent of lobbying of Cabinet Ministers, one of whom is back in the Cabinet, by a senior Conservative politician went significantly further than the Public Accounts Committee was aware of at the time. Can the Minister confirm that the reports of additional lobbying in today’s Guardian are accurate and, if they are not accurate, can he come back with a statement to confirm that?
Neil O’Brien
I read the same article as the hon. Gentleman. I notice that it did not lead to a contract—the case that was mentioned in The Guardian—but more generally, absolutely, there are many lessons to learn about this process. However, we were having to pay, in some cases upfront, for PPE because, as part of the global scramble for PPE that I have described, if we were not prepared to go that extra mile, we would simply not have had the PPE and we would have had more nurses without the vital protective equipment that we all needed.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I am sure that many MPs on this side of the House had no idea that a VIP lane existed for PPE contracts, but even if I did know about a VIP lane for referring contracts, if a constituent came to me and said, “Alan, I have never worked in a PPE environment. I’ve never ordered it before, but I’ve got a great plan. I can order it from China. Just refer me to a Minister”, I would not have done that because it would be impossible to do proper due diligence. So it beggars belief that this Government accepted recommendations from companies with no involvement and no expertise in PPE contracts, and still awarded these billions of pounds of contracts. Instead of mediation with PPE Medpro, is it not the case that a full investigation is needed and, if the Government are not going to do it, surely we need a public inquiry into PPE procurement.
Neil O’Brien
We are prepared to litigate whenever a company did not provide. There is a process, which I set out earlier. In many cases, there were people who did have important contacts in China and in other countries where PPE was being produced, and it was important to pursue all those leads because we needed to have that. But, to the hon. Gentleman’s point, due diligence had to be done and was done on all those cases in the same way. I have talked about the scale of the challenge and the 19,000 companies on which due diligence was initially done, and the huge drop-off between that number and the 2,648 companies that actually made it through that filter. So we can see in the difference between 19,000 and 2,648 that there was a huge amount of filtering done by the team of 400 people who were working so hard to try to get the PPE that we needed to the nurses and doctors in our NHS.
Smokefree 2030
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for securing this important debate. I add my voice to the voices of those who have wished the hon. Member for City of Durham a speedy recovery. A lot of the people who contributed to this debate, including the hon. Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and for Blaydon (Liz Twist), and my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who all spoke eloquently, have personal experience on this subject, and a real passion for and dedication to achieving a smoke-free England by 2030—a goal to which the Government are completely committed.
I am pleased to update the House on the Government’s work on the Khan review—the independent review of Smokefree 2030 published in June. Tragically, smoking remains the single biggest cause of preventable illness and death across the country. There are still six million smokers in England, and up to two out of three of them will die from smoking unless they quit. Smoking causes seven out of 10 cases of lung cancer, and most people diagnosed with lung cancer die within a year. One in five deaths from all cancers in the UK was connected to smoking in 2019. Smoking substantially increases the risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke. Smoking is responsible for around 3.7% of all hospital admissions, and so costs the NHS a staggering £2.4 billion each year.
People who start smoking as a young adult lose an average of 10 years of life expectancy, or around one year for every four years of smoking after the age of 30. As many hon. Members have said, action is vital if we are to meet the Government’s manifesto commitment of extending healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. The Government are committed to levelling up society and extending the same chances in life to all people across the country. As various Members have said, smoking is one of the largest drivers of health inequalities, and rates vary substantially across the country; we heard about that from the hon. Member for Stockton North. As Dr Khan stated in his independent review, smoking prevalence is four and a half times higher in Burnley than in Exeter, so there is huge variation around the country.
Smoking is a huge drain on the household finances of the most disadvantaged families. In Halton in Cheshire, smokers spend an estimated £3,551 a year on tobacco—nearly 15% of their income. That is a shocking statistic. Reducing smoking presents a huge economic opportunity to increase productivity and people’s incomes. Smoking is very high in certain populations, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said, a third of all cigarettes smoked in England are smoked by people with a mental health condition—an incredible fact.
Behind all these statistics are individuals, families and communities who are suffering from the harms of tobacco. That is why we are so committed to our goal to be smoke free by 2030. We have committed to doing more to help smokers quit and to stop people taking up this deadly addiction in the first place, because we know that most smokers want to quit and many wish they had never started.
The UK is considered a global leader on tobacco control, and investment in evidence-based stop smoking interventions, a strong regulatory framework, local authority stop smoking services and the NHS has ensured that we now have the lowest smoking rate on record: 13.5% in England, down from 21% in 2010 and 45% in 1974. That is a huge change in our society.
In the 2017 tobacco control plan, we set a bold ambition to reduce smoking prevalence among 15-year-olds from 8% to 3% or less by the end of 2022. I am pleased to say we are well on track to meet that target. The Government have also committed to an escalator that increases duties by more than two percentage points above inflation until the end of the current Parliament. In 2010, the average price of a packet of cigarettes was £5.70; and in 2022 the average price is £12.72. Since 2010, duty on cigarettes has more than doubled, and a minimum excise tax has been introduced to increase the price of the very cheapest cigarettes, because we know that one of the most effective ways of stopping people smoking is making it more expensive.
On top of that, we continue to fund a range of comprehensive tobacco control interventions. We have provided £72.7 million to local authority stop smoking services through the public health grant, and more than 100,000 people have quit with the support of a stop smoking service in 2020-21. This year alone, we have provided £35 million to the long-term NHS commitment on smoking, which means that by the end of 2023-24 all smokers admitted to hospital, whether an acute hospital or a mental health hospital, will be offered NHS-funded tobacco treatment services. We will be using those regular touch points, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash suggested, to drive down smoking.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East asked about maternal smoking, and the same model is being provided for expectant mothers through the new smokefree pregnancy pathway, including focused sessions and treatments. A new universal tobacco treatment offer is being piloted as part of specialist community mental health services for long-term users of specialist mental health and learning disability services, to help the most vulnerable populations.
The change in treatment for women who smoke in pregnancy is remarkable. Women now routinely get a carbon monoxide test. People will be offered support. In some cases, there are exciting experiments with vouchers and financial incentives that can help, particularly in some poorer communities, people to stop smoking. There is a lot of work on maternal smoking.
Since leaving the EU, we have implemented a new UK-wide system of track and trace for cigarettes and hand-rolled tobacco to deter illicit sales. I have talked about how we have increased duties to drive up prices and to deter smoking, which would of course be undermined if illicit products were circulating.
We have limited the number of cigarettes that people can bring into the country via duty free to 200, making it much harder for those who want to illegally evade excise duties on tobacco. That will help to prevent the sale of cheap cigarettes, further reducing the illicit market.
Although smoking rates have fallen, we recognise that they are not falling fast enough. That is why we asked Dr Khan to undertake the independent review to help the Government to reduce the devastation that smoking causes. The review makes a number of bold recommendations.
Stop smoking services run by local authorities and funded through the public health grant continue to offer smokers the best chance of quitting, and people who get help from local stop smoking services are three times more likely to quit successfully than those who try to quit unaided. I pay tribute to the work of those services, and I assure them that they remain a key part of the Government’s smokefree 2030 ambition.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister knows as well as I do that local authorities have been under tremendous financial constraints in recent times. How can we ensure that local authority public health continues to be funded so that these services can continue? At the moment the services are quite inadequate.
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Gentleman is right that these services are hugely important. All authorities saw an increase last year and there is a 2.8% increase this year, with funding heavily weighted towards more deprived areas, but there is much more we need to do, and we keep it under active review.
We are also building investment in anti-smoking marketing campaigns. It was heartening to see the number of people who joined the annual Stoptober campaign last month. This well-known initiative encourages smokers to abstain for 28 days each October, as we know that smokers who manage to quit for 28 days are five times more likely to quit permanently. In England, the Stoptober campaign has now helped more than 2.1 million people quit since its inception in 2012.
Dr Khan also called for the NHS to prioritise further action to stop people smoking. The long-term NHS plan commitments are a huge step towards preventing smoking-related illness, and they are making significant progress towards reducing preventable ill health and reducing the burden of smoking on the NHS. I have talked about using touch points in hospitals to offer people help to stop smoking.
We have discussed vaping as a substitute for smoking. We recognise that vaping is far less harmful than smoking and can be an effective quitting device. We also recognise that there is more the Government can do to tackle the myths and misconceptions that surround vaping. Our recently published “Nicotine vaping in England” report set out the most up-to-date evidence on vaping, providing an even more compelling case for supporting smokers to switch. However, in recognition of the recent increase in vaping rates among children, which my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash mentioned, we are doing more to prevent children from vaping. We have updated our online materials, and we are working closely with the Department for Education to communicate with schools on how best to set policies around vaping.
My hon. Friend asked a specific question about the MHRA and medical licensing. We are working closely with the MHRA to support a future medically licensed vaping product, which would carry many benefits, including tackling scepticism of e-cigarettes among healthcare professionals. We understand that several products are applying for medical licences early next year. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work she has done on public health.
As a world leader in tobacco control, the Government continue to support lower and middle-income countries to implement effective tobacco control strategies, and through official development assistance funding to the World Health Organisation-led framework convention on tobacco control 2030, we are supporting a further nine countries to protect their populations from the harms of tobacco.
Both my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned article 5.3 of the tobacco control treaty, to which I can confirm the Government are absolutely committed. I consider myself forewarned about the report mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East.
The Government are determined to address the challenges raised by the independent review and to meet our bold smokefree 2030 target. I understand the compelling arguments made by the Khan review and the very strong evidence in the recent “Nicotine vaping in England” report. Over the coming weeks, we will be quickly taking stock on whether a refreshed tobacco control plan is the best way to respond, and on how and when to take forward all the suggestions made by that review.
The Government recognise that more action needs to be taken to protect our people from this dangerous addiction. We know that the action we take must be comprehensive, bold and ambitious. The prize of reaching a smokefree 2030 will be huge for this country, particularly for our most disadvantaged citizens. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
Pensioners and children are particularly vulnerable to cold weather, which is why we are spending £37 billion on our energy support package. A typical household will save a third—£700—of what they would have paid this winter. The 8 million most-vulnerable households will get £1,200 in support this year to help with the cost of living. The record block grant agreed at the spending review will enable devolved Administrations to provide further services to support those in need.
Drew Hendry
It is a fact that growing up and living in poor and cold housing leads directly to bad health outcomes. The director of University College London’s Institute of Health Equity, Sir Michael Marmot, stated that the Government must act now, because
“we are facing a significant humanitarian crisis with thousands losing their lives and millions of children’s development blighted”.
That was before the Chancellor’s U-turn on the energy price guarantee, which will mean that average household bills are £4,000-plus a year, or more if they are off-gas grid. Does the Minister think that is acceptable, or will he urge his colleagues to do much more?
Neil O’Brien
I actually agree with the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s point. That is why, as well as the huge direct support to households, we are investing £12 billion in Help to Heat schemes to help make people’s homes warmer and cheaper to heat, another £1.1 billion in the home upgrade grant, and £500 million in the sustainable warmth competition. We take this issue very seriously, and colleagues at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are taking further actions to clamp down on squalid housing.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Access to GP appointments is particularly important to help to deal with winter pressures, so can the Minister update the House on progress in implementing the improvements promised in October last year to help GPs to expand to meet demand over the winter?
Neil O’Brien
My right hon. Friend is so right, and she has been a powerful champion on this issue. We have invested £1.5 billion to get an extra 50 million GP appointments per year. The number of appointments in September was up 7% compared with the same month in 2019. We now have an extra 2,300 doctors working in primary care compared with 2019, and an extra 19,300 primary care professionals, on the way to the goal of 26,000 extra primary care professionals. This is hugely important, we are investing in it, and my right hon. Friend is right to campaign on it.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We know that, if poorer communities cannot afford to heat their homes, health inequalities will worsen significantly over the winter months and beyond. Despite the seriousness of this issue, the previous Health Secretary—that is the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), in case Members are struggling to keep track—planned to ditch the Government’s long-promised health disparities White Paper. Does the current Minister intend to do the same? If he does, how will he seriously address the dreadful health inequalities that have widened after 12 Tory years?
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Gentleman implies that I disagree with him about this. In fact, the Government are working hard to clamp down on squalid housing. That is exactly what we were doing in my previous Department, DLUHC, and I have just mentioned some of the things that we are doing: the £37 billion we are spending to help people to meet the cost of living, the £15 billion of that that is targeted on the very poorest households, and the £12 billion that we are investing in making people’s houses easier to heat. We will continue to tackle health disparities across the board.
Neil O’Brien
We are taking the action that I have just been describing in terms of direct support for households. Of course, because health is devolved, we are also helping the devolved Administrations. The Scottish Government, for example, receive £126 per person for every £100 per person of equivalent UK Government spending in England and Wales. That enables the Scottish Government to provide extra help for those in need. It is another example, on top of furlough and the energy support scheme, of how this country is strongest when we all work together constructively.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
During the pandemic, we provided £1.7 billion to protect dental services. Now, through the improvements announced in the summer and our recent plan for patients, we will pay dentists more fairly and improve access for patients. We are enabling practices to deliver more activity than they are contracted to deliver—up to 110%—practices will have to keep their NHS website details updated, making them easier to find, and we are enabling dentists and their wider teams to work to their full scope of practice, improving access. The number of dentists doing NHS work increased by over 530 last year, but there is much more to do.
Mark Fletcher
The Minister is aware that recent Local Government Association analysis showed that Bolsover has some of the worst dentist provision in the UK. That is highlighted by constituents to me daily. Whether it is getting access to treatment or even registering for an NHS practice, my constituents are struggling. Will the Minister take a look at that and meet me so we can discuss what more we can do for dentistry in Bolsover?
Neil O’Brien
Absolutely. My hon. Friend has been a formidable campaigner on this issue. I know he met the Secretary of State to talk about it in the summer. It is a pleasure to have talked to him already and I am happy to meet with him further. Seven Derbyshire dental providers have been commissioned to deliver extra weekend activity to improve access this winter and, nationally, we are exploring how to incentivise dentists to work in areas where getting an NHS dentist is proving challenging.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Effective dental provision is essential not only for quality of life but for nutrition and confidence. Indeed, not being able to access it at important points in life is storing up more trouble for later, yet nine out of 10 dentists are not accepting NHS patients and, with the soaring cost of living, my constituents cannot afford dental treatment. What will the Minister say to them and do to address the millions who cannot get the dental treatment that they need?
Neil O’Brien
The hon. Lady asks a powerful question. As well as the reforms that we started this summer and I announced in our plan for patients, as we start to think about the next dental contract, we are thinking about all the different things we can do to incentivise dentists to work in particularly poorer areas where there is difficulty accessing services. We are also working with the General Dental Council to review the processes that overseas dentists have to complete before they start to provide NHS care, which are sometimes more arduous than those for doctors. We are also thinking about the internal market of the UK and making it easier for dentists in Scotland to practise in England as well.
Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I welcome the shift in responsibility for NHS dental services in my area to my local Hampshire integrated care board. That will bring a real improvement by focusing on local priorities, rather than the previous regional approach. Will my hon. Friend join me in encouraging ICBs to ensure that they adequately fund dental services, especially for elderly people and children? Dental health is as much of a priority as any other aspect of our health.
Neil O’Brien
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The shift to ICBs is right and it is an opportunity to integrate services in a way that has not been done before. She is right to stress the important preventive role that dentistry can play, which also reduces demand on other services, including accident and emergency.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
A constituent of mine recently rang the national health contact centre about the possibility of an NHS dentist in Southampton and was told not only that no dentists in Southampton were taking on patients but that no one within 25 miles of Southampton was taking on patients either. What does the Minister have to say to my constituent, who has no prospect of a dentist now and no prospect of a dentist remotely in the future?
Neil O’Brien
That is extremely concerning. This year, in NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB, there were 1,255 active dentists, compared with 1,248 the previous year. However, there is clearly an issue, which the hon. Gentleman was right to raise in the House. I am happy to talk to him more about that offline to ensure that we can solve that important problem.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
In the hon. Gentleman’s local NHS this year there were 758 active NHS dentists, up from 736 in the previous year. I have already mentioned some of the steps we are taking to tackle the problem of dental deserts and ensure that everyone in the country can see the dentists—and the GPs—whom they need to see.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
Members of the Kent and Medway integrated care board are doing their best to recruit more GPs, but they are finding it difficult to attract them to our area. One reason is their close proximity to London, where newly qualified GPs can earn thousands of pounds more than they can if they practise in Kent. Will my right hon. Friend consider extending the NHS London weighting allowance to Kent and Medway?
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
With flu cases on the rise, what action is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that all parents are aware that they can access the free nasal vaccine at their GP surgery for all pre-school children?
Neil O’Brien
My hon. Friend’s question gives me an opportunity to thank her for her fantastic work on vaccinations and our world-leading roll-out of vaccines across the country. She has also provided an opportunity to remind everyone of the opportunity to get those life-saving vaccines this winter and to get boosted.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
This month a care provider in my constituency is closing, citing the workforce crisis. I have listened carefully to the Ministers’ answers, and the current Chancellor spent the last year telling us about the critical need for a workforce strategy. The door is open. Has the Secretary of State had a conversation with the new Chancellor to ask for a workforce plan on which we can all rely?
Kettering General Hospital Redevelopment
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O’Brien)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), on securing this important debate. The fact that he has managed to trigger so many debates on this subject shows what a relentless champion he has been for the project. It was pleasing to hear about the good progress that is being made, in no small part thanks to his help. As he says, I should declare an interest: many of my own constituents use the hospital; and, as I come through his constituency on the train each night, I see the expansion of Kettering that he described, and which makes the investment so necessary.
My hon. Friend asked a number of technical questions that I am afraid I will have to take away and come back to him on, because I want to give precise answers rather than ones that are wrong; however, I undertake to do that with the Department. Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust continues to work closely with our new hospital programme team as part of the plan to deliver 48 hospitals by 2030. I am pleased to see that, to date, the scheme for Kettering General Hospital has received £4.4 million, and on 14 October—these are live events—we wrote to the trust confirming £38.2 million for the package of enabling works that he talked about, including the new energy centre, which as he said is much needed, and the high voltage cable.
On 20 October, just six days ago, officials from the new hospital programme met with the trust to discuss the next steps for the enabling works, to ensure that the funding can be accessed swiftly. It was a very positive meeting and, subject to some technical assurances being met, which are progressing rapidly, we are working towards a memorandum of understanding that will be signed to enable the drawdown of the funds. That will enable the works to commence and is a positive step forward in providing the facilities that the staff and the patients need. All the hospital projects that are part of the new hospital programme, including the one at Kettering General Hospital, will work with that central team with the support of regional system and local trust leadership to design and deliver that new and exciting investment.
The collaborative approach is intended to help each trust to get the most from its available funding, while avoiding repetition of works. For example, modern construction methods and net zero techniques will be embedded in the programme from the outset, as my hon. Friend called for. That will maximise the benefits of the programme and ensure that we get the best value for money for taxpayers in Kettering and across the country. The commitment to fund a programme of new hospitals is an exciting opportunity to build the next generation of intelligent healthcare facilities, as well as to embed a long-term capability to manage future capital investment into the NHS, which is much needed.
We are working closely with Kettering on how it will deliver better and more efficient design through the standardisation that comes from the approach we are taking. The intention is that end-to-end delivery timescales will be reduced and we will be able to deliver more quickly. That will also allow the new hospitals to benefit from efficiencies and economies of scale and from being built concurrently with others of the same kind. For Kettering General Hospital, that will mean state-of-the-art facilities to ensure world-class provision of healthcare. That will improve patient outcomes, which is what we all want to see.
The Government have been doing ambitious work, providing substantial capital investment to support the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. In October 2020, an initial £3.7 billion of funding was confirmed to support the delivery of 40 new hospitals, with a further eight schemes invited to bid for future funding to deliver 48 hospitals by 2030. I am pleased that six of the hospitals in the programme are already in construction, including the Royal United Hospital in Bath, which is the first of the 40 new hospitals to begin construction. In addition, in August last year, the northern centre for cancer care opened, the first of the eight hospitals confirmed by the previous Government. This hospital building programme comes in addition to significant upgrades to over 70 hospitals worth £1.7 billion, and a wider programme of capital investment.
In conclusion, I pay tribute to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering. He has done such good work in continuing to push in such a constructive way to ensure that the meetings are happening as quickly as they need to, that everyone is playing their part and that both sides are working together to fix the issues that he has talked about, to deliver the opportunities that he sees so clearly. I am delighted that we have now approved the business cases for the £38 million-worth of enabling works for the energy centre and the cable, which will enable the work to commence at the site. We will make sure that this ambitious and innovative approach to building new hospitals is a success, not only at Kettering General Hospital, but across the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Motor Neurone Disease
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O'Brien)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) and the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) for securing this important debate, and thank everyone who has taken part. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South has been a fantastic champion for research on this cause. I was grateful for his comprehensive speech, and for the chance to speak to him beforehand. He has given me very clear marching orders.
The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) made important points about head impacts in sport, which is clearly a key priority for research, while my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) gave us the inspiring words of Doddie Weir and made the important point that we must simplify funding for researchers. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a typically compassionate and experienced speech, and made important points about the need for all of us around the UK to learn from each other and the interaction between MND research and research into other diseases. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) told us about the inspiring courage of those who have been victims of this terrible disease, but go on to channel that into campaigning for improvements. He also made important points about the need for older people to get themselves checked up, and talked about some of the encouraging research that is happening in Edinburgh.
I was extremely sorry to hear about the terrible personal experiences of the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). To answer some of his questions directly at the start, that £50 million is still absolutely Government policy. He was completely correct to highlight the importance of social care, hence our announcement the other day of an extra £500 million for social care.
I pay tribute to all those impacted by MND who dedicate their time to campaigning for a better future, including those involved in the “United to End MND” campaign and the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. There is a lot that we must be grateful to them for.
MND is a brutal condition. We have heard throughout the debate about the devastating impact on people and their families. We have made great strides in research, but we still do not know exactly what causes motor neurones to die off. I echo the sentiment expressed in the House: we must move fast for people living with MND now and those who will be diagnosed in future. We need a better scientific understanding of the causes and mechanisms of MND, and we need to ensure that we are delivering the highest-quality care and support for those living with it and their families.
I will now talk about how we are supporting people living with MND and then talk about research. People living with MND need treatment and support to ease their symptoms and maintain their independence for as long as possible. As such, NHS England has set out that all services for patients with MND should be specialised, commissioning the specialised care that those patients may receive from 25 specialised neurological treatment centres across England. That includes the prescribing of complex communication devices, to enable people with MND to communicate as effectively as possible; offering non-invasive ventilation to support respiratory function; and compassionate personal care and support that meets people’s individual needs.
In 2019, the National Neurosciences Advisory Group published a toolkit for improving care for progressive neurological conditions, including MND. That toolkit is helping commissioners to make improvements to pathways for people with MND, enabling quicker and more accurate diagnoses. It also helps to commission services that are co-ordinated, flexible and responsive to the rapidly changing needs of the patient, with improved choice in end of life care for people with MND. That will ensure that people with MND receive the best possible care.
We know we need to get things right for people living with MND and other neurological conditions. That is why we are delivering the neuroscience transformation programme, which will support services to deliver the right service at the right time for all neurology patients closer to home. NHS England has appointed a national clinical director for neurology, who will provide national leadership and specialist clinical advice, and an announcement on that is expected imminently.
Through research, we are making major advances in understanding and treating the disease and funding world-class researchers across many of our universities in the UK. We are seeing real progress, and there are many reasons for optimism. The Medical Research Council invested £10.3 million in MND research in 2020-21, supporting vital research to increase understanding of the causes and genetic mechanisms of MND. At the UK Dementia Research Institute, scientists are investigating the root causes of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS—the most common form of MND—and identifying ways to protect brain cells from damage. Earlier this year, the researchers developed a test to detect abnormal protein in the brain. This protein causes 40% of familial ALS cases—that is, ALS that occurs in more than one family member. That highly sensitive test is now being used in a clinical trial to assess the effectiveness of a new treatment for ALS.
At the Francis Crick Institute, researchers are working with stem cells to investigate the molecular processes that cause MND. That research is identifying what may go wrong with neurones, to find ways to treat the underlying disease mechanisms. The National Institute for Health and Care Research translates scientific breakthroughs into treatments that will benefit patients. The NIHR spent £3.2 million on MND research last year, supporting research on care and quality of life, as well as trials of new therapies. Researchers at NIHR’s biomedical research centre in Sheffield have pioneered evidence-based interventions to manage the symptoms of MND. For example, many people with MND struggle to consume sufficient calories, even though there is evidence that eating a high-calorie diet may improve survival. Researchers are developing nutritional interventions to support people with MND in eating a high-calorie diet, which may enhance their quality of life.
The NIHR is also supporting trials of potential new therapies to treat the underlying disease. One study under way is the Lighthouse 2 study, which will test the effectiveness of Triumeq, a repurposed drug from the treatment of HIV, in improving survival rate, function and quality of life for people with MND. In September, NIHR-funded scientists reported findings from a phase 3 trial of the drug tofersen. The trial showed that the drug can slow and reduce progression of the disease in patients with MND caused by the faulty SOD1 gene.
During the debate, we have heard about the need for greater investment in MND research. We have already talked about the £50 million that we are investing over the next five years, and that commitment was reaffirmed in September and again today. That money is available to apply for now from the NIHR and UKRI, and officials continue to work closely with the MND research community and those in aligned scientific disciplines to ensure that the scientific ambitions for MND research can be realised.
In June, we launched a new £4.25-million collaborative partnership, which is jointly funded between Government and charity partners, to bring the MND research community together. That partnership will be led by Professors Ammar Al-Chalabi and Chris McDermott. I know that they and the patient group that has been campaigning for greater investment in MND research are optimistic about the opportunities that the new partnership will provide. Some of its key aims are: to develop better ways to clinically measure MND progression, to develop a bank of human cell models on which to test new therapies, and to improve MND registers so that doctors can collect detailed, high-quality data about the disease. We also launched an NIHR highlight notice on MND to signal to the research community that MND is a priority area and to invite ambitious research proposals from all researchers working in MND and aligned scientific areas.
I am sympathetic to researchers who want to minimise the number of applications that they have to make to secure funding, which is why, during the summer, officials from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the NIHR and the Medical Research Council met researchers linked to the United to End MND campaign to discuss how the MND research community could effectively access funding through a smaller number of focused applications. The NIHR and the MRC look forward to seeing those applications when they come in and to talking more about how we simplify things.
I personally welcome the opportunity to meet some of those researchers in due course to discuss their progress and how we can further streamline funding and avoid wasting researchers’ time with lots of applications for small penny packets of research funding. That is an important priority in research across the piece, but it is more important in this area than anywhere else, because the research is so urgent and there are many people desperate to see progress. I am keen to meet those researchers and take that forward.
Motor neurone disease is a priority for the Government. I am encouraged that we are seeing progress in research. We will continue to invest in MND research and work with charities, the research community, and people with MND and their families to build on the successes and deliver breakthroughs for people living with MND now and in future.
Coronavirus
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
None of us wants these restrictions to go on for a moment longer than they have to. All of us are proud of our world-leading vaccination effort, and I pay tribute to everyone involved in delivering it in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. However, when we see that cases are doubling roughly every 10 days and that within a week or two we will be back to the same number of cases every day that we had at the start of the November lockdown, we can see why there is real cause for concern. That is why it is right to go for the delay that we will vote for this evening. We know that getting a second vaccination dose gives people a lot more protection against this dangerous new variant. We know that many more people will be fully vaccinated as a result of this delay and that will potentially save thousands of lives, so it is the right thing to do.
My pleas to Ministers are as follows. The first is that we use the time that we are buying tonight to really drive vaccination rates among that last 4%—perhaps 1 million people—among the most clinically vulnerable groups. As the number of cases accelerates, those people have a target on their back, and it would be a tragedy for them to die of fear, ignorance or simple lack of knowledge at this stage, at the very end of the pandemic.
My second plea to Ministers is to continue to improve our ability to detect at an early stage and close our borders against dangerous new strains. While the Indian variant is very dangerous, as this thing bounces around the world, one day there will potentially be something worse, and we need to be ready for that. Last but not least, we must improve our ability to nip future pandemics in the bud. I believe that involves reappraising our attitudes to things like challenge trials, so that we never have to go through this again.
It is the right thing to do to delay ending the restrictions for a few more weeks. It is a difficult decision but it is the right one. We need to put in place all the right measures to ensure that we are never in this position again, and that when we abolish these restrictions, we abolish them forever.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
No. 47 has withdrawn, so the final Back-Bench speaker is Shaun Bailey.
Covid-19 Update
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
We have had significant measures at the border throughout. The new, stronger measures are necessary because of the arrival around the world of new variants of concern at the same time as the vaccine roll-out is progressing successfully. We do not want the very successful vaccine roll-out to be undermined, so it is reasonable to take a precautionary approach to international travel now, while we assess the effectiveness of the vaccines. We are clear that they have some effectiveness; the question is to what degree. That is being tested right now.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
Given the incredible success of the UK vaccination programme, it would be terrible to put at risk our opening up by importing new variants like those seen in Brazil. Will my right hon. Friend stand ready to further tighten the measures at the border and the enforcement of quarantine, and does he agree that if we want to see rapid opening up, as we all do, we should be supporting strong measures at the border?
Covid Security at UK Borders
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
One of the great pleasures of recent weeks has been to see lines of people queueing up outside in Market Harborough and up in Oadby to get their vaccines against the coronavirus. It has been an inspirational effort, involving everyone from Britain’s amazing scientists to NHS workers—the doctors and nurses who are rolling out the fastest vaccination programme anywhere in Europe. We have now managed to vaccinate more than France, Spain and Italy put together. It is a fantastic effort, where we really are among the world-leaders.
With that inspirational background in mind, and that success that is bringing us closer every day to getting back to normal—[Inaudible.] Of course there must be support for people in the transport sector who are badly affected by this, and I welcome the fact that somewhere between £2.5 billion and £3 billion of aid has been given to the air transport sector alone, but we are right to tighten the borders to protect the effort we have made on vaccinations.
It is right that we are bringing in the new 10-day quarantine, with the option to go to five if people—[Inaudible.] I welcome the extra policing—[Inaudible.] I encourage Ministers, in all the different things they are doing, to get things in place and stand ready to go further as appropriate—[Inaudible.] I think that the red list and the hotel quarantine is an excellent idea, and I commend what Ministers are doing there. We are learning from the—[Inaudible.] All have had in common strong health borders, so it is great to see that Ministers will stand ready and will, I am sure, add to that list and tighten that regime further if necessary.
It is also very good to be bringing in the new requirement that people have to have a negative test within three days of travelling to the UK. Again, let us bring that in —it is an excellent measure—and stand ready to tighten the nut further if necessary. That could perhaps be through, in countries where it is possible, adding a lateral flow test or doing other things to add to the health border.
Overall, I congratulate Ministers on the decisive steps they are taking. I think it is good to be bringing in these health borders as Britain, now leading the world in vaccinations, tries to get back to normal in a safe way, protecting lives. We have seen today the new South African variant arriving in the UK. That is a warning to us all and shows just why these measures are so desperately needed. I support what Ministers are doing, and I stand ready to support them as they go further and tighten the nut.
Covid-19 Update
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
We are opening more and more GP vaccination hubs each day. The answer specifically on Chester-le-Street is as soon as we practically can, but it has to be done in a safe way. That is out my hands and out of the right hon. Gentleman’s hands. An important operational set of procedures needs to be gone through to open the hubs. It is complicated. I will look into the right hon. Gentleman’s example and write to him with details, but he will understand, as I am sure the people of Chester-le-Street will, that we are trying to get the vaccine rolled out as quickly and as safely as possible, but “safely” is an important part of that.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if people in Harborough and Oadby and Wigston continue to drive down rates of infection locally, the different districts and boroughs in Leicestershire can be put in different tiers if the data supports that? Will he join me in congratulating our local NHS here in Leicestershire on the efficient way in which it is rolling out the vaccine across the county?
Matt Hancock
Yes on both counts. We looked at Leicestershire in great detail and I wish that we could have taken the county and the city out of tier 3. Unfortunately the data did not support that conclusion. I am grateful to everybody across Leicestershire, because I know that this has been a long, hard slog with measures in place for a long time.
Covid-19 Update
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
The right hon. Gentleman asks a characteristically critical question and puts his finger on a vital logistical point. We are planning to help students to get home safely with the assistance of mass testing. In places such as Leeds, mass testing is being made available to the directors of public health. Of course, these things must be dovetailed. The universities will be in the lead on the mass testing of students, but this process, by its nature, will absolutely draw on the public health knowledge and expertise of the local council. Although each of us has become something of a public health expert over the past 11 months, the professional support from the public health team in the council will be critical to this task.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
I welcome my right hon Friend's announcement on the roll-out of mass testing for NHS staff and congratulate him on securing so many doses of the vaccine. It is wonderful news that the efficacy of the first of these vaccines seems to be so very high. I have read in newspapers over the past month countless pundits telling me that there would be no vaccine and that the right thing to do would be to let the virus rip and try to protect a few vulnerable people. Does this not show that it is right to listen to the scientists and the real experts rather than pundits who would have put millions of people’s lives at risk?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend feels strongly about this point. That is understandable, because the strategy that we have pursued has been to suppress the virus while we work on the vaccine. We are not there yet, but this progress towards a vaccine demonstrates why we followed the strategy of protecting life even though we know that there are challenging consequences for businesses and other parts of society. We have done so because we have a good degree of confidence that a vaccine will come and will make a significant contribution to solving this problem without the huge risk of its impact on taking people’s lives, especially the most vulnerable, that would be incurred if we did not suppress the virus.