Health and Social Care

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting both the investment and the need for us, as the custodians of the taxpayer’s pound, to make sure that the money is well spent by implementing innovation and reform so that it gets to the frontline and delivers patient care, which is exactly what we are doing.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I have a sneaking suspicion that we will not get to the second private Member’s Bill today, so I hope it is okay if I mention that I am enormously grateful to the Government. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has just texted me with the good news that the Government and I, and all the charities, will be working together on acquired brain injury. We will now have a national strategy across all Departments. It is a miracle that the Government have suggested that I should co-chair it with the Minister for Care and Mental Health, because I can be very irritating—[Laughter.] I see I have united the House. Seriously, this is a really good day and I hope we will be able to make a dramatic difference to the millions of people in this country who have suffered an acquired brain injury. Answer that!

[Edward Argar]

I have never found the hon. Gentleman to be irritating in any way, and I have always enjoyed my interactions with him on a range of issues. On a serious point, I pay tribute to him for his campaigning work on this issue. It is a huge step forward, and I know the insight he will bring, working with the Minister for Care and Mental Health, will genuinely make this a strategy of which we can all be proud. I congratulate him on his achievement.

Covid-19 Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We are very confident about the supply that we have, including accommodating the new advice that I have accepted from the JCVI. I join my hon. Friend in thanking the many thousands of GPs across the country who have been crucial to our vaccine programme.

May I take a moment to address the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) asked about the timing of laying the regulations? I want to clarify that the regulations setting out the new measures have been made by the Minister for public health and vaccines—the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup)—and are in the process of being registered with the National Archives. They will then be laid before Parliament and should be available to review online at around 5 pm.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It does not feel as if the pandemic will be over any time soon; we have only got to omicron so far, not omega. May I urge the Secretary of State to look at two things? The first is the deliberate campaign of disinformation that is going on around the country. Some of these people are dangerous—their views are certainly dangerous. I hope that the Secretary of State will work with the Home Secretary to make sure that we check on all these campaigns about “new Nuremberg laws” and that nobody does damage to people working in the health service.

Secondly, will the Secretary of State tackle the problem of profiteering? Frankly, some companies are now charging completely disproportionate prices for PCR tests. There should surely be a fixed price across the whole UK.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about how the danger of disinformation is costing lives, not just here in the UK, but across the world. Rightly, we have talked a lot about South Africa today. He will know that there is very low take-up of vaccines in South Africa even when they are available; that is partly due to disinformation campaigns. I assure him that we are working across Government with the Home Office, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and other Departments to counter such disinformation as best we can.

On PCR tests, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the remarks that I made a moment ago.

Covid-19 Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

First, my hon. Friend is right to talk about the demand on GP services, which is one reason why I announced, just a few weeks ago, the winter access programme, with a record amount of support, which will undoubtedly help. On the vaccination programme, GPs across the country are doing phenomenal work, but I want to make sure it is working in every part of the country. If there is more we can do in his area, we will, and I would be happy to meet him.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am delighted to say that I have been boosted, so I am grateful. I am not sure everybody is grateful, but I want to ask about long covid, because there is lots of evidence now that people who suffer from it have had long-term neurological changes and that is sapping the provision of services for other people with neurological conditions. Is it not time we had a strategy for brain injury across the whole of government, including every Department, not just his own?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience on this issue and has talked about it many times in this House. He is right to link this to long covid. I hope I can reassure him. Work is going on in the NHS, in the Department and in some of the research institutes on long covid, which the Government are supporting with millions of pounds, and the NHS is working with people who are suffering from long covid, listening to them about what more we can do.

NHS England Funding: Announcement to Media

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I always listen with great care to my right hon. Friend. He is right that we in this House, on behalf of taxpayers, provide the resources to the NHS and others to deliver the outcomes that we want for all of our constituents, but it is absolutely right that the NHS and others set out their plans for doing so, and that we hold the NHS to account for delivery against those plans. Ministers will draw up those plans in tandem with the NHS because, quite rightly, just as I will hold the NHS to account, I know that my right hon. Friend will hold me to account in this House. A key element of those plans for tackling the backlog must also be reform and innovation rather than simply more of the same.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I honestly despair. This announcement will not make the blindest bit of difference to the backlog. There will not be the kit in place anywhere near in time to make sure that people get their biopsies back in the next 18 months or two years. There will not be enough staff, because we are not training enough this year even to backfill the number of people who are leaving all of these professions this year. The problem will get worse, not better, unless the Government can tell us how they will make sure that more doctors, oncologists, pathologists and dermatologists stay in the profession and that more of them do more additional sessions a week, for instance, by increasing their overtime payments. The Government might want to sort out the pension problems, which mean that many people are leaving. They might want to provide some kind of golden staying-on bonus for people and make sure that they have a few extra days’ holidays. Most of them are not desperate for money; they are desperate for just a moment to be able to draw breath so that they can do a decent job. However, if we do not have the people, this is all a waste of money.

[Edward Argar]

I know that the hon. Gentleman genuinely feels strongly about this issue. He and I discussed it in a recent debate in Westminster Hall, and I think I am due to meet him to discuss the 10 points that he flagged up then as genuinely practical suggestions to help improve both retention and recruitment in the NHS workforce. He knows that I am always happy to do that. Hopefully, my office will have been in touch with him. If it has not been in touch, it will be, because I want to have that conversation with him.

On the hon. Gentleman’s key point, there are number of things. This is about not only tackling the urgent backlogs now, but building a system that is resilient for the future and that can actually tackle the broader challenges that we as a society face. That means more diagnostic capacity and more diagnostic capacity at an earlier stage, as some other countries have. I am quite happy to acknowledge that, under Governments of both political complexions, we could have done more, and that is why we are doing more now, and I say that to him gently. He talks about urgency; he is right. He also makes a very important point, which I tried to allude to in my earlier answer. If I did not land it clearly, I will attempt to do so now. He is absolutely right to highlight the risk of burn out and exhaustion, for want of a better way of putting it. As I said, it is very easy for people to say that X specialty was not working during the pandemic because that surgery was not happening, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the people involved were probably helping out—the anaesthetists and theatre nurses were—so we do need to address that point. I will be happy to see the hon. Gentleman.

Future of the National Health Service

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important debate, especially at the moment.

In essence, the NHS is about people. It is about its workforce. There can be as many hospitals and clinics as we want, but without any staff in them, they will not make anyone’s health any better. I am painfully aware that after covid, so many of the people who work in the NHS are—I think the medical term is—knackered. They are completely and utterly exhausted. I know of dermatologists and pathologists who ended up helping out in intensive care units in addition to doing their ordinary day job. They were doing hours and hours every week and have got to the end of the year and are completely and utterly exhausted.

There is a phenomenal backlog; we all know about the numbers of people on waiting lists. That is partly because lots of people did not to present to their doctors because they did not want to bother them or were frightened of getting covid. There are lots of terrible stories of people who are presenting very late, particularly with cancers. I had a stage 3B melanoma, and I am painfully aware that if I had left it a few more months, I might not be here today. At the time, I was given a 40% chance of living a year. I know what it is like for all those families who feel desperate that someone has been delaying, and then get terrible news. It is also a phenomenal additional cost to the NHS if somebody presents later, because the surgery and the treatment will be far more complicated.

There are all the cancelled operations for elective surgeries that are not necessarily life threatening but life enhancing, such as knees and hips. When I was first elected in 2001, we still had the waiting list hangover from the previous Government, with people waiting five years for a new hip or knee. That is where we are now. That leads me to a real concern that the Government, with their new healthcare levy, are frankly putting the cart before the horse. If we do not have the people to deliver, throwing money at the NHS will not make the blindest bit of difference to health outcomes.

In the UK, we have roughly three doctors per thousand head of population. The rest of the EU, including countries that have many, many fewer than us, have 4.2. We are 1,939 consultant radiologists short. That is one of the things that will make a difference to whether people with late-stage cancer live or die. In oncology, 189 more clinical oncologists are needed in the UK now, and that is without considering the increase required to deal with the backlog, as well as the new presentations. We have roughly 650 consultant dermatologists in the country; we need roughly another 200. Skin cancer is one of the fastest-growing areas of cancer death in the UK. Only 3% of diagnostic laboratories in the UK are fully staffed at the moment. That means delays in getting results, in particular from histopathology, to doctors to be able to start the necessary treatment.

I have some quick-fix answers, and I hope the Minister will implement all 11 of them. First, reward staying on in the profession, because lots of people are retiring early. Secondly, reward coming back into the profession, because getting more retirees back in would really help with the workforce problem.

Thirdly, sort the gender pay gap. That is one of the problems that is making it much more difficult for lots of women to stay in the profession.

Think about providing sabbaticals to people. Sometimes burnout can be prevented just by allowing somebody to have a three-month or six-month sabbatical, knowing they will come back in.

Sort out the pension problem. I know the Government think they have done that, but it is still an issue and is why lots of people are not carrying on.

We have to deal with the fact that overtime is now paid less than it was five years ago. Lots of people are saying, “I don’t really want to do an extra clinic on a Saturday morning or a Sunday afternoon.”

We have to deal with pay erosion—a point that was made earlier. If we keep on not paying doctors enough in the NHS, in the end they will choose to go to Australia, Canada or New Zealand.

We have to sort out the issue of private sector capacity sucking far too many consultants out of their NHS work, day in, day out. That simply means that people, including in very poor constituencies such as mine, will say, “You know what? I’m going to find the £5,000, £6,000 or £7,000 to have that hip or knee operation for my Auntie Val, because it is about the quality of her life.”

We have to train more people. I do not know why we are still lagging behind what we know we need. We should have more places for training, and we should be encouraging other disciplines, such as pathology, dermatology, emergency care and so on.

We have to sort out the immigration factors, which play into all this and mean that so many doctors who have worked here for some time are going back to the countries they were born in because they do not feel that they have a place here in the UK. Finally, please stop putting the workforce last in deciding what we do about the NHS. We cannot run an NHS permanently at 95% or 98% capacity, because then when there is a crisis, such as the one we have had over the past two years, the whole thing is—and this is a technical term—buggered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak and listen in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for setting the scene and all those who have made contributions. Every one of us is definitely agreed on one thing: the importance of the NHS, what it does and what it has done over time. If we needed further reinforcement of that, what we have seen in the past year has told us. In my family, I lost my mother-in-law to covid, so I do understand. During those difficult times for families, health service workers are there, masked up and doing their best to try to preserve life.

As my party’s health spokesperson, I must emphasise the importance of the NHS and highlight the issues of concern for my constituents, to ensure that the future of the NHS is maintained and provides hope to those who currently feel that it is not being maintained in the way that it should. It is a devolved matter, as the Minister knows. During the 18 months of the pandemic, we might have taken our NHS for granted in a way. We did not take the staff for granted; that is not the point I am making. The point is, the NHS was there, we depended on it and it was important to have it in place to help out. I put my thanks on record to all those healthcare workers across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I know we clapped the NHS staff. I live out in the countryside but, believe it or not, I could hear the clapping starting three miles up the road. I could hear the clapping in the midnight air from people in the village of Greyabbey down the road. People were out in numbers creating that crescendo of noise. We need to galvanise public compassion and our sense of community and wartime spirit to restore to the NHS the pride we have. I look to the Minister to do that.

This is a debate about the NHS, but the Northern Ireland protocol is preventing 910 medicines from getting into Northern Ireland. That will have an impact on the NHS. It is not the Minister’s responsibility, but would he convey to the relevant Minister the importance of our having medications that are available in the rest of the United Kingdom? They are available on the mainland, but we cannot get them in Northern Ireland. It is terribly frustrating, and a further 2,400 medicines may be at risk. It is an important issue, and it is an NHS issue. It needs to be on record.

I feel that the prioritisation of treatments and services are at the forefront of the future of the NHS. Too many people are awaiting cancer treatment. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is here. His story is a personal one. I remember speaking to him in the Chamber. I did not quite know what was happening, but I had not seen him for a while, and I did notice that there was a scar on the back of his head.

[Chris Bryant]

A scar?

[Jim Shannon]

Well, I noticed it after the surgery. Our NHS saved our honourable Friend’s life. It is good to hear his personal story as well.

Health reconfiguration is crucial to ensure that our NHS is held to its highest standard. By the same token, these changes must be assessed to ensure that they benefit the future of the NHS. We want the correct funding. I hope that the Minister will reaffirm that he will encourage the Secretary of State to undertake discussions with his counterparts in the devolved institutions to weigh up how this will impact on other parts of the United Kingdom. People are waiting for life-saving cancer treatment, and people are waiting years for a consultation. Unfortunately, some of my constituents waited and did not get the surgery. They did not get their diagnosis early on and some of them are not here today. That is the reality of the waiting times that we all worry about.

The King’s Fund states that

“even under the most optimistic circumstances outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward View, an additional eight billion a year in funding was to be needed by 2020.”

We are already a year behind. If we want to protect and maintain our NHS, we must ensure that the correct funds are in place to secure its future in the United Kingdom. I urge the Minister to listen to NHS workers and focus on what they are telling us. The Minister needs to protect their jobs and livelihoods and the NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I appreciate why Opposition Members might not want to hear what Labour Governments did in the past, given the extent to which they massively accelerated the privatisation of our NHS. To address the hon. Lady’s point directly, we do believe that there is a role for private providers, the independent sector, voluntary organisations and others in providing healthcare services in this country.

Workforce is an issue that a number of colleagues have rightly raised. I am afraid I cannot say to the hon. Member for Tooting and others that, among other things, I am taking on responsibility for mental health in my new portfolio. However, following the departure of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) to the Treasury, as of about three days ago, I will be assuming responsibility for workforce alongside the other responsibilities in my portfolio. I look forward to working with her and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who I believe is the shadow Minister, as well as meeting with Opposition Members who take a close interest.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke with typical wisdom on that matter and made a number of very powerful points. At the risk of a negative impact on my career prospects—although the reshuffle has just happened, so hopefully I can get away with it now—I agree with a lot of what he said. He highlighted that, were it not for a prompt diagnosis, he would not be here. For what it is worth, I think I speak for everyone in the Chamber—if not on all points, then certainly on this one—when I say we are all extremely pleased that he is still with us. He is a man of great integrity and strong beliefs, and I look forward to working with him. We meet on a number of things. I am happy to meet with him to talk about his suggestions and how they might factor in to how we move forward, in the spirit of bipartisan and constructive discussion.

[Chris Bryant]

Get on with it.

[Edward Argar]

With the meeting or the job, or both? A number of hon. Members have raised “Agenda for Change” and pay and conditions. I hope I can reassure them, as I sought to do with the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). It is not our intention that integrated care boards depart from “Agenda for Change”. The Bill is drafted in such a way as to seek to replicate what is currently there. On Second Reading, I offered to have a meeting with her. I would be very happy to have that meeting, if she gets in touch.

On funding, this Government have passed legislation increasing NHS funding by £33.9 billion by 2023-24 and put £2 billion into elective recovery. In addition, the Prime Minister announced a massive cash injection into our NHS a couple of weeks ago.

I want to give the hon. Member for Leeds East a little time at the end, so I will just make a couple of quick points. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) is right: we are always happy to learn from our Scottish friends. In response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that is a matter of medicine supply which I discuss regularly with the Northern Ireland Health Minister, and it is absolutely vital that we seek a resolution. I believe that the previous approach by Lord Frost is the right one to find a sustainable way forward.

Covid Vaccine Passports

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

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

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

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

[Chris Bryant]

Even though they’re not?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

Health and Social Care

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

And the police.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

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

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

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

The correct response should have been:

Covid-19 Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

And the police.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

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

[Nadhim Zahawi]

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

Coronavirus

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

No—on the contrary, that is our view of how far through the vaccination programme we need to get. We are not aiming to eradicate the virus in this country because that is not possible. Indeed, in the parts of the country where it has been tried, it has been found to be not possible. We are aiming to live with this virus like we do with flu. I can give my right hon. Friend an update: as of midnight last night, 1.2 million over-50s and 4.4 million over-40s have had their first jab, but not their second. We seek to get a second jab into a majority—not all, but a majority—of them by 19 July. The estimate is that by taking that pause in this step, we can save thousands of lives. I can tell my right hon. Friend that taking further time and pausing for longer is not estimated to save many more lives, because of the level of protection especially among the over-50s, who are, as we all know, the most likely to die from this disease.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that I broadly agree with what he is doing today. He referred just now to us having to live with the virus as we do with flu. With flu, we do not require people to self-isolate, and we do not ask them to test and trace. My understanding is that the Government intend to keep test and trace on a mandatory, statutory basis all the way through the rest of this year and possibly until the end of March—or am I wrong?

[Matt Hancock]

With flu, of course, if people have symptomatic flu and are ill, they do tend to stay at home. Of course we have not done that on a mandatory basis before, but it is advisable that if people have symptoms of flu, they stay at home. For contacts, as the hon. Gentleman probably knows, we are already piloting an approach whereby instead of having to isolate as contacts, vaccinated people go into a testing regime. That is an approach that I am very attracted to for the future, especially as more and more people get vaccinated, because we know that the risk once vaccinated is so much lower.

We are accelerating the second doses, and we are reducing from 12 weeks to eight weeks the time from first to second jab for all those aged 40 and above. In fact, since I came to this House on Monday, I have rearranged my second jab to be eight weeks rather than 12 weeks after my first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

Yes we will, for exactly the reason that the hon. Gentleman sets out.

[Chris Bryant]

On someone proving that they are double vaccinated, there is still an issue between England and Wales and other parts of the UK. I wonder when that will be solved, because obviously everybody does not live in a hermetically sealed unit.

[Matt Hancock]

As somebody who grew up right on the Welsh border, I entirely understand that. I am working with Baroness Morgan, the new Health Minister in the Welsh Government, to ensure that we have the interoperability that the hon. Gentleman calls for. That is a significant piece of work that is under way. We need to sort this for vaccine data flows, and frankly all health data flows, across the border, and use this particularly acute need to change the policy and practices, to sort this out once and for all.

The regulations before the House today are there in order to pursue our goal, as throughout, to work to protect lives and get us out of the pandemic as soon as is safely possible. I commend the motion to the House.

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[Jonathan Ashworth]

Of course I want to see terminus day on the 19th, although I am not sure if we are going to see terminus day on the 19th. The hon. Gentleman, who is always well-informed, will no doubt have read the explanatory notes, which indicate that this four-week period is to assess the data, and the four tests will be applied at the end of that four-week period. That is not quite the terminus day that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have indicated.

[Chris Bryant]

It is wholly misleading to call it a terminus date anyway. Even if we were to implement cessation of some of the measures on 19 July, there will still be lots of other measures that will exist, including test and trace, maybe for quite proper reasons. To mislead the nation by constantly going on about freedom days and terminus days is just a mistake.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Of course I want to see terminus day. I want to see freedom; I want to get back to doing the things that I enjoy—although I am quite happy to sit in a group of six in a pub; I am not sure that I have more than six friends, Mr Deputy Speaker, so it has suited me in many ways. But more generally—[Interruption.] I see you have one less friend today, Secretary of State.

I am keen to see terminus day. But interestingly, although the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Secretary of State have tried to hint that restrictions are coming to an end by using the new phrase, “We have to learn to live with the virus like we live with flu,” the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister have not outlined to us what that means. They are trying to suggest to us that it is all going to go back to normal, but actually we put in place mitigations to deal with flu year by year. The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was a Public Health Minister. He was very much involved in the flu vaccination campaign. We vaccinate children to deal with flu. We put infection control measures into care homes when there is a flu outbreak. There will have to be mitigations in place when we go back to living with this virus, but the Secretary of State must explain to us what those mitigations are. Will we continue wearing masks?

Covid-19 Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I want to get rid of all the restrictions that have been put in place to manage this pandemic, and we will get there. My hon. Friend will have noticed that the link we have explicitly made is to the rate of vaccination and getting the vaccines done over these four weeks to come. Of course it is my duty to recommend to the Prime Minister the actions I think are necessary to keep people safe—as a Health Secretary, that is my duty—but I am also a parliamentarian who represents constituents who want these restrictions removed as soon as safely possible. That is our goal, and this is a difficult balance. I think we have got the balance right, unfortunately, today—I say “unfortunately” because I wish it was easier. It is not, but we are able to make some progress and I very much hope we can make the full degree of progress that my hon. Friend wants to see in the not-too-distant future.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I want to ask about the Test and Trace app, because this relates to freedom as well. As I understand it, the Government intend to keep the legislation in place on Test and Trace all the way through until next March. At the moment, tens of thousands of people every day are pinged by the app. The app does not tell them when the infection might possibly have taken place. I know of schools where four whole classes were sent home because a single teacher had been pinged over the weekend. I have known of construction businesses where every single person has had to be sent home. If we keep on doing this, particularly in some parts of the country where there are high levels of infection, we are going to have large parts of the economy constantly being closed down. I know that there are some measures in place, but the financial problems are still very difficult, especially for middle-class families. They may have the financial freedom but they still find it very difficult to stay in work and be able to do their work when the rules are all changing. If we really want freedom, we are going to have to turn this blunderbuss into something more precise, are we not?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course the purpose of the app is to identify people who have been in close contact with somebody who has tested positive and let them know that, and therefore ask them to self-isolate—that is what it is there for. The hon. Gentleman asks me to get more data so that it can be more targeted. He will know from last summer’s debate that the restrictions on the amount of data we can gather through that app are put in place by the companies rather than by us, so we cannot be more targeted. I am very happy to arrange a briefing for him on the details of that. But the goal is to ensure, in time, especially for those who have been vaccinated, that we follow through on the pilots we have done under which people who are contacts—not the “cases” themselves—are able to go into a testing regime, rather than having to isolate. There are pilots under way to check clinically that that works, and I look forward to seeing their results.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

The best thing that I can point my hon. Friend to is the slides that were presented by the chief medical officer today. I will see whether there is anything further that we can publish, but as a general rule, we publish all the data on which these judgments are made. Central to the judgment today is the fact that we are seeing a rise in hospitalisations, especially over the past week, and especially among those who are unvaccinated or have just had a single jab. Those people are not largely those who are unvaccinated out of choice; it is those who are unvaccinated because they have not yet had the opportunity because they are younger.

Until about a week ago, hospitalisations were basically flat. We thought that the link might have been completely broken between cases and hospitalisations or that it might be a lag. Sadly, hospitalisations then started to rise. For deaths, we have not yet seen that rise, which I am very pleased about; hopefully they will never rise, in which case the future will be much easier. It may still be that there is an element of it that is a lag, and we will be looking out for that very carefully over the couple of weeks ahead, but nevertheless our goal is to get those vaccines done in the five weeks between now and 19 July in order to make sure that this country is safe. I will commit to publishing anything further that we can that underpinned the decision, but I can honestly say to my hon. Friend that most of it is already in the public domain.

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I completely agree with every single word of your statement earlier, as I guess you knew I would. I want to ask, however, about the provisions for our business from next week. As you know, these things were all timed to change at the same time as the national situation, which has now been changed.

I presume that there will be a knock-on effect on parliamentary business: whether Select Committees will meet in hybrid form or virtually, how we will conduct our parliamentary business in the Chamber and the Division Lobbies, and so on. I know that some of that is your responsibility solely, Mr Speaker, but some of it is the responsibility of the Government and might need changes to the Standing Orders. I wonder whether you have had any notification from the Government that they intend to bring such changes forward or of when we will debate them, when we will ensure we get them right, whether there will be proper debate and whether there will be a business statement to tell us when all that will happen.

[Mr Harper]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Listening to the Secretary of State, I was struck by what he said about the need to get people vaccinated and about the very important difference that that makes to the level of risk. In the House’s decision making about how we conduct our affairs, would it be relevant to look at the proportion of Members who have been single or double-vaccinated? My judgment would be that if the vast majority of us have been vaccinated, this level of social distancing is simply not necessary and the House could get back to what I know you want, Mr Speaker: much more effective holding of the Government to account.