Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

11. What recent estimate he has made of the size of backlogs in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)]

The number of people waiting longer than 62 days for treatment following an urgent referral for suspected cancer in England has come down considerably, from 35,000 people in May 2020 to about 19,000 people. The NHS is putting in place extra capacity to diagnose and treat cancer patients, with the aim of clearing the cancer backlog of patients waiting over 62 days from referral to first treatment by the end of March 2022.

[Sajid Javid]

First, let me say that NHS staff have done a phenomenal job throughout the pandemic in helping patients with cancer or any other illness. A comprehensive plan of support has been in put in place, with this Department working with our NHS colleagues carefully to provide, for example, advice and help. Extra mental health support has been provided as well, and we are looking to see what more we can do.

[Tony Lloyd]

My late constituent Anne began to suffer pain in April. She never had a GP visit. She had two visits to accident and emergency, which did not result in any treatment plan. Finally, after four months, she had a non-urgent visit to a urologist. Sadly, because at no point was she diagnosed with a terminal condition, she was not given access to hospice care and died in September. I put it to the Secretary of State that this is no way to treat an elderly lady and no way for her family to suffer. What is he going to do to guarantee that there will not be many more Annes in the months and years to come?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that case. I am very sorry to hear about his constituent Anne and send my condolences to her family for what has happened.

The hon. Gentleman will understand that, during the pandemic, sadly, many people stayed away from the NHS, on which there was a huge amount of pressure. Despite everyone, especially those working in health and care, doing as much as they could, it just was not enough for some people. There is not only emergency spending to deal with the pandemic pressures—this year there is an additional £34 billion—but much more investment in equipment and diagnostic processes, such as the community diagnostic hubs that we announced last week, which will help to make a real difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

First, let me say that our GPs have done a phenomenal job during the pandemic. The nation really cannot thank them enough for what they did during the pandemic and what they continue to do. The GP access programme that I announced last week is about providing extra support for GPs to do what they love doing best, which is seeing their patients. The extra £250 million over the next five months will be ringfenced—it will be protected—and it will be there to expand general practice.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

T5. I thank the Secretary of State for his earlier response about my former constituent, Anne, but I did not detect that he mentioned the shortage of oncologists and radiologists in the health service. There is a 33% shortage of radiologists, and a 17% shortage—and growing—of oncologists. What is the commitment, not simply for this year but on an ongoing basis, to make sure that we train, train, train and have the staff who can deliver the cancer detection that is so fundamental?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. Whether it is for treatment for cancer or other illnesses, we do need more clinicians in the NHS. On meeting the ongoing demand, I was pleased to see that this year we had the highest number of students ever entering medical schools for general practice, for example, and across the board. He may be interested to know that, for the year to date, to June 2021, the NHS has 2,700 more doctors and 8,900 more nurses. There is more to do, and I am pleased that he raised this issue.

NHS Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and we have seen some really effective collaboration across health and social care during the pandemic. We want to continue to build on that. One of the things I am doing is working with Health Education England, which is launching a review looking ahead at how we can go further in bringing together our healthcare workforce and registered staff in the social care workforce.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister is quite rightly embarrassed because she can say nothing about NHS pay, but she should be equally embarrassed that she cannot answer the question about parity of esteem for care workers. Over 100,000 care worker vacancies exist in this country. What are the Government going to do to make sure not only that the care workers in post are not exhausted but that people who need care get the care workers that they need?

[Helen Whately]

It is true that the social care sector does face a challenge and has faced a challenge in recruiting people. We are supporting the sector and we have supported the sector during the pandemic. As part of our work on social care reform, we are looking at the workforce to see, for instance, how we can make sure that social care is an attractive place to work, particularly for people coming into the workplace for the first time, and then provide career progression opportunities so that they stick with social care for a long time.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

In answer to an earlier question I informed the House that the test and release pilot results will be available in one to two weeks’ time. When they are, we will come to the House and share them with Members.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister has proved himself to be helpful and thoughtful in the way he has handled his brief, but will he tell us what research there has been into the impact of long covid on younger people? If in the end long covid is an issue not simply for adults but for children as well, will that affect the way we assess the need for a vaccination programme for young children?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that excellent question and for his support on the weekly MPs’ briefing that we deliver on a Friday. Long covid is a serious issue among adults and children, and the JCVI of course looks at the available evidence. I caveat what I say by reminding the House that obviously this virus has been with us for only 17 months and we have had vaccines for only the past eight of those months, so we are learning all the time. As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have made money available to the health service so that it can look at how to support, for example, GPs in diagnosing long covid.

Motor Neurone Disease (Research)

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Cummins. Like me, you will be well aware of the position of Rob Burrow, the former Leeds Rhinos player, who had an illustrious career as a rugby league player. He is lending his strong support to Doddie Weir’s campaign for more work to be done on motor neurone disease because of the devastating effect on him, once a super-athlete. It has reduced him to someone who knows that he is enjoying the last of his days on a kind of borrowed time—not the way any super-athlete would expect to end.

I also want to talk about the sheer humanity brought out by motor neurone disease. I have lost friends to this horrendous disease. A very good friend of mine, Steve Mycio, who worked with me when I was a police and crime commissioner—he was the deputy chief executive at Manchester City Council—had a sharp brain and a keen intellect and was a very powerful runner, but when motor neurone disease struck him, it was not long before it had a devastating effect on him. Because he was such a strong character, he did everything he could to make sure life continued as normal. He described the consequences of losing the use of both arms and falling flat on his face as almost comical, but he lost the capacity to do things he had taken for granted for so long. It is such a cruel disease.

The wife of another friend of mine said to me after he died, “Actually, death was a blessing. He didn’t want to live locked into a condition that left him at the mercy of his brain, but not with the use of his body.” That is the reality of MND. That is why this debate and the petition are important. We need research, and I hope the Minister will be able to give us some proper answers today.



When I talk to neuroscientists they say that they believe it is possible to find, if not a cure, at least pharmaceutical solutions that can take people forward on their MND journey, and maybe control MND in the long run. The prospects are truly enormous. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) made a very good speech. It is right and proper that the funding for MND be there in its own right, not simply linked to other neurodegenerative diseases. Nevertheless, the possibility of cracking the code for MND gives hope, so neuroscientists tell me, that we can begin to look for cures and solutions to other neurodegenerative diseases.

We know that a third of those who contract MND will be dead within a year, and for others the prospects are not good. There may be 5,000 people at any one time suffering from this disease, so £50 million as an investment in stopping that kind of suffering makes human and societal sense. In the end, it makes financial sense, because if we invest now and concentrate efforts, there is a possibility of seeing results very soon. It could be world-advancing science, and this country has the neuroscientists and researchers capable of taking it forward. I join very strongly the demand of the e-petition that we make this investment in an MND translational research institute. It can make a material difference. It can stop the human suffering that MND causes. That is worth spending some of our money on.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell my hon. Friend about just one of the measures that we are taking. A huge number of tests are carried out—over half a million a day—and that gives us a certain insight into how the virus is changing, if it is. The genome sequencing resources that we have are the best in the world; we do almost half of the genome sequencing in the world. That is fed directly to our scientists and our world-leading vaccine programme and taken into account as we develop new vaccines. My hon. Friend knows about the booster programme, which will continue into next year—and for who knows how long? Every time we have a booster we will be doing everything we can to take into account changes in the virus.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Health Secretary has referred to the pressures on our GPs and our hospitals from non-covid patients, and that is of course real. Most health professionals—doctors, nurses and others—have been double-jabbed and regularly use at least the lateral flow test to ensure that they are not infected with covid. However, one of the local hospitals in my constituency, Fairfield General Hospital, tells me that some 30% of doctors were not available recently because they had been pinged as they had, not surprisingly, come into contact with somebody with covid. This happened not because they found they were infected but because they had to go into quarantine for the 10-day period. We risk a build-up of cases when we increase the number of times that our medical professionals are likely to find themselves pinged. Will he see whether there is some way, at least for medical staff, of bringing forward the August date?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of people who are pinged, so to speak, for coming into contact with an infected person and who have to self-isolate. The announcement that I have made today will clearly make a huge difference to everyone that is pinged in such a way, including all the fantastic people that work in our health service—the doctors, the nurses and others. As I said, it will come into force from 16 August. We thought carefully about whether we could do that earlier, and it is a fair question, but we decided not to do so, based on the best public health advice, because by 16 August many more people—even more than now—will be double-jabbed, and that extra layer of protection made us more comfortable in sticking with that date.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I congratulate Tony Lloyd on his knighthood? I call Sir Tony Lloyd.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you for your remarks, Mr Speaker, both at the beginning of this session and to me personally. I am grateful.

It is axiomatic that the higher the rate of infection, the higher the rate of transmission. In this battle between the virus and the vaccine, the virus wins, with those high rates. The only antidote to that is, as we saw in Bolton, surge vaccination. Bolton now has the second highest rate of the Greater Manchester boroughs; we have been overtaken, alas, by Salford. That is why people across Greater Manchester do not understand why we do not have surge vaccination. Yes, it would be good for Greater Manchester, but it would be good for the whole country. Can the Secretary of State explain?

[Matt Hancock]

I would love to surge vaccinate the whole country. Supply is the rate-limiting factor; it has been from the start. To surge the whole country would be to go as fast as we can, which is what we are doing already. Yes, we can surge in relatively small areas. In the areas that need extra support, which now constitute about 10% of England, we are increasing testing where we have the spare capacity, especially of the lateral flow kits; we are putting in place the guidance to be more cautious; and we are putting in place the extra support we can give to get the vaccines out, especially to groups who are harder to reach. But we need to bring the whole country forward with the vaccination programme. That is why we are going as fast as we can, and I am delighted that we are able to bring forward the date by which we will have been able to offer all adults a dose from the end of July to 19 July as part of what we are able to announce today.

Future of Health and Care

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

When you go to Burnley, Secretary of State, I know you will also put Ribble Valley, Chorley and a few other places on your list.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State may be aware that before I returned to Parliament, I had some involvement with the establishment of the Greater Manchester model of health and social care. Can I offer him two insights from that? First, social care is clearly not yet funded in the way that is needed if we are to have proper integration. Secondly, it was possible to have a Greater Manchester strategic level for the nearly 3 million people of the conurbation, but to have integration and delivery at the district level. On the integrated care systems, will he guarantee that there will be nothing that prevents the very successful model that Greater Manchester is already pioneering?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. The changes in Greater Manchester, in which the hon. Gentleman had an important role, are a good example of where we can drive this sort of integration. I can confirm that nothing I am proposing would get in the way of that. In fact, I hope that the changes in the White Paper will help areas that, like Greater Manchester, are already some way along this journey to go further, and will support them by ensuring there are fewer legislative barriers to the sorts of actions that they want to take. That includes both the measures across the NHS and the integration between health and social care.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The performance of people on Teesside in getting the jab rolled out so fast has been absolutely magnificent—particularly, but not only, in Stockton-on-Tees, and I am not just saying that because it was my hon. Friend who asked me that question. It has been a really impressive performance and I am very happy to look into when we might be able to open a Teesside mass vaccination centre, but what I can say is that across Teesside the roll-out is going well and I am grateful to everybody who is coming forward so enthusiastically to get the jab.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

May I join the Secretary of State in congratulating those in my constituency who have worked so hard on rolling out the vaccine? At the moment, in Rochdale, as in other areas, people are given roughly a week’s notice of the quantity and the type of vaccine that they will receive. As a way of working, that is fine for the first round of vaccinations. When we come to the second round, though, can flexibility be built in so that those responsible for delivering the vaccine know which vaccine and how many vaccinations they will get, so that they can ensure that those second vaccines are the ones that are needed?

[Matt Hancock]

I absolutely understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes and I join him in what he says. I understand why people who are delivering the vaccine on the ground want to know those forecasts. The challenge is that the supply schedule is lumpy. We do not want to give certainty inaccurately: we do not want to imply that there is certainty where there is no certainty. There is certainty, though, in the fact that we have a high degree of confidence that the second doses will be available and, of course, will be distributed according to need, with the right vaccine for the right second dose going to the right place—we have a full record of that. The second dosing starts in earnest in a couple of months’ time—obviously, 12 weeks on from 4 January, when we shifted the dosing on to a 12-week schedule. We have the logistics under way to ensure that people get access to the right dose to match the first dose that they had. I am very happy to talk to him further if he has any more questions about the logistics of getting this sorted.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

As you know, Mr Speaker, we look in great detail and at a granular level at the geographies that these restrictions have to cover. Unfortunately, central London’s case rates are rising, and we know that if an area is surrounded by other areas where there are significant increases then those high rates tend to move into that area if it is left out of a set of restrictions. I understand, of course, the impact on the economy, but the very clear public health advice was that London should move together because all areas of London are seeing an increase in rates and we need to stop that.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Health Secretary seemed to answer rather dogmatically the question of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) about lateral flow tests. May I say to him that it does seem reasonable that, as a diagnostic for people to self-isolate, the test has validity, but with its very high number of false negatives, is he seriously recommending that this is the first line of defence for people going into our care homes? If he is, it is a very dangerous proposition on his part.

[Matt Hancock]

It is important that we use the right tests in the right circumstances but with the right other conditions. So for instance, there is clear visitor guidance of which testing is one part, but personal protective equipment is another critical part. The nuanced question of the hon. Gentleman is entirely reasonable, but the thing that I find frustrating is the idea that we should discourage people from coming forward for asymptomatic testing when the task is to find as many people as possible who have the virus to get them to isolate. Yes, we should ensure that visiting care homes is done as safely as possible—there are health upsides to visiting as well as the challenges posed by the virus—but in terms of asymptomatic testing, I encourage people, where tests are available, to come forward, because that is how we find where this virus is and help to isolate it.

Covid-19 Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, across London there is a huge amount of travelling to work. Although of course in different boroughs the rates are different—my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that—and in his patch they are lower than the London average, nevertheless, unfortunately, they are rising sharply. We considered a borough by borough approach, but because of the integrated nature of London and because, unfortunately, cases are rising fast across London, we decided that the best approach is for the whole of London to go into level 2 together.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

I have to ask the Secretary of State, as another Member of Parliament who, in his words, is “up there”: does he understand that people in Greater Manchester fear that an indefinite period in tier 3 would mean the pauperisation of our people and the destruction, at least in the short and medium term, of our economic capacity, with no certainty—unless he really does get test, track and trace not just improving but working well—that we would come out of it any better than we went in?

[Matt Hancock]

By “up there” I meant on the screens at the top of the Chamber rather than anywhere geographically. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the best way to avoid the outcome that he seeks to avoid is for everybody to pull together across party lines, across communities, to get the public health message out that we need to work together to deliver for the people of Greater Manchester and all other areas of the country.