Coronavirus Update

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

It is vital that we deal with the back- log of cases that is building up because of the absolutely necessary requirement, in the peak of the crisis, to pause a lot of activity. I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to support and protect the NHS, including with increased resources.

That point brings me back to something that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said at the start and that I should have responded to. He seemed to complain about the £1.5 billion of capital funding that we have put into the NHS recently, but of course it is also very important that we take forward measures to ensure that there is capacity there, too.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Of course the whole House hopes that in the coming months a vaccine will be developed that can be rolled out, possibly early in the new year, but in the meantime—I know that this issue is close to the Secretary of State’s heart—there are 58 million people across the UK and the US, up 7.7 million since the outbreak, who have joined anti-vax Facebook pages. Tech companies, mainly Facebook, have made more than $1 billion from supporting and advertising anti-vax sites, including those that sell fake cures and discourage the public from getting any medical support when showing signs of covid. As we move towards finding a vaccine, may I press the Secretary of State to look into putting more investment towards ensuring that we tackle those anti-vax sites? As they have been described by many, they are simply an ideological dirt bomb waiting to go off.

[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.