Coronavirus

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. The answer is that the majority are in the younger age group who have not yet had the chance to be vaccinated. Just under one fifth of those going into hospital in the last week have had both jabs, about a fifth have had one jab and the majority have not had any. The majority are under the age of 50 and have not yet had the opportunity to have both jabs. I think there is a material difference when it comes to the state’s responsibility to offer the vaccine to all adults. The duty that we have when somebody has not been offered the vaccine is greater than the duty we have when we have offered a vaccine but somebody has chosen not to take it up. There is a material difference between those two situations that I think my right hon. Friend was getting at.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

May I just take what our right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said one step further? If I choose not to have, say, a yellow fever jab when I am going to a place that suffers yellow fever, the Government of the United Kingdom take no interest whatever in my illness status. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says that he has less of a duty, surely what he means is that he has no duty at all. It is for people to take up the vaccine.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely; this is a UK programme and I have been working closely with my Northern Ireland counterpart, Robin Swann, who is doing a brilliant job in Northern Ireland, to make sure that we get this roll-out as effective as possible right across the whole United Kingdom.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, happy birthday.

I know that my right hon. Friend is as concerned as I am about the impact of lockdown, particularly the first lockdown, on new families with new babies—particularly as seen in the excellent Parent-Infant Foundation report “Babies in Lockdown” and the awful news from Ofsted that some babies have been harmed more than you would expect during that period of time, potentially as a result of poor mental health and so on. So can my right hon. Friend tell us what exactly he is doing to ensure that, during the current lockdown, new families are being provided with the level of support, from partners and statutory services, that they need to help them through?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, and we all know how close it is to her heart. In the first lockdown, many NHS services were suspended, partly because of the uncertainty that we have just been talking about. We know far more about the virus and how to manage it the second time round, and our goal is that all NHS services stay open. That has not proved possible in the areas of the country where there is the highest prevalence, but all maternity services and services around perinatal health ought to stay open everywhere. We have had to delay some non-cancer, non-urgent treatment, but crucially, the best thing to do for this agenda that she champions is to try to keep the virus under control and try to suppress the virus as much as possible.

Coronavirus Update

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He and I are passionately of one voice on this—as, I think, is the whole House. The Government will recommend a vaccine only when it is known to be safe and effective. We will then need to administer that vaccine, and for people to have confidence in it. People who propagate untrue myths about vaccines are putting lives at risk—that is true of the measles jab and other jabs, and it is true in this case too.

The social media companies have an important responsibility. They have taken some action already, and I pay tribute to them for that; in fact, I have a meeting later this week with a Mr Nick Clegg, who is in a position of responsibility at Facebook, but it is not only Facebook and Instagram that have taken action. We will be discussing what more action can be taken to make sure that people who are propagating lies about vaccines do not manage to spread those lies.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Nobody has worked harder than my right hon. Friend to try to save lives and protect people throughout this pandemic, but I know that he, like me, would like a safe and fast economic recovery, so can he please clarify something for my constituents? I have wedding events organisers and business meeting organisers who are genuinely asking what the difference is between a restaurant, which can safely socially distance with perhaps 60 covers, and a wedding, which is allowed only 30 people, who are also socially distancing with all the motivation to do so. Is there some health reason for that, or is it simply a straightforward matter of trying to reduce the return to economic activity?

[Matt Hancock]

No. This is essentially a judgment about ensuring that people have the appropriate social distancing, with, of course, the maximum possible return to economic and social life. There is a judgment to be made about where such restrictions are put; they are the sort of restrictions that nobody would ever want to put in place, but the problem is that the virus thrives on exactly the sort of social contact that people want to undertake when they are celebrating something like a wedding.

We cannot negotiate with the virus; all we can do is try to have the right balance of measures to keep the spread of the virus down while allowing the restoration of economic and social life. Ultimately, the rules we put in place are judgments, and they are the best judgments we can make with the information available. We keep them under constant review—as I hope my right hon. Friend has seen, for instance, with the reopening of nail bars and beauty salons this week—just as we keep the data on the spread of the virus under review.