World Immunisation Week

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden]

The Secretary of State is nodding, and I appreciate that.

This means many of the world’s poorest children are in fact living in middle-income countries with a GDP that makes them ineligible for either official development assistance or Gavi support. I hope the Secretary of State will listen to the all-party group on vaccines for all, which has called for Gavi to bring about new criteria beyond a country’s GDP.

Let me now turn to another major threat to universal immunisation coverage. It is a threat that we face both here in the UK and right across the world: vaccine hesitancy, a phenomenon that the World Health Organisation has not only warned is on the rise but has now identified as one of the top 10 major threats to global health for 2019. This year’s theme of “Protected together: vaccines work!” also points to the difficulties in this area.

Since 2014, the number of countries reporting hesitancy has steadily increased, and in 2017 only 14 countries out of 194 reported no vaccine hesitancy. In England, dangerous false stories about immunisations are routinely spread on social media. The likes of YouTube and Facebook are failing to clamp down properly on those who peddle these lies. We must take tougher action and tell the truth about immunisations because the increasing refusal of vaccines has been described by the head of NHS England as a “growing public health timebomb.”

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s recently published online harms consultation needs to include the beefing up of this, and that Facebook and others must be held responsible if they allow such anti-immunisation scare stories to be included on their platforms, because, as we are seeing in America, this is risking and costing lives?

[Dan Carden]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly. We must take tougher action to tell the truth about immunisations, and we need to act fast with global partners if we are to avert the destructive potential of this. According to UNICEF, half a million British children are not vaccinated against measles, and in 2018 there were 966 cases of measles across the country, more than double the number in 2017. This is a worrying and sharp rise that requires our attention.

That is why my colleagues in Labour’s health team have committed to a vaccination action plan that includes getting tough with the big social media companies that are providing a platform that is fuelling a new public health crisis. Labour wants to see the £800 million of public health cuts reversed, more health visitors recruited to provide proper health advice backed by science to parents and GPs given the investment they need to drive up vaccination rates.

LGBT Action Plan

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The right hon. Lady puts it very well. The questions raised by women’s groups, for example, are completely legitimate. Sometimes people forget what we require of people who are changing their gender identity. We require them to live in their new gender for two years prior to changing their gender, so we are not catering for something new. The nation needs to have a calm, grown-up conversation, and this consultation affords us the chance to have it.

We want a good outcome. We want a less bureaucratic and more supportive process for those who are changing their gender identity, and we want those other people to be reassured. Both those sets of people have legitimate desires, and we need to come up with answers so that we have clarity on this issue and so that people can be assured of what is expected, of what is right and of how to treat people when they try to access services, and so forth.

That is how we need to conduct this debate, and I am confident that, having dispelled some of the myths, we will be able to have that debate and come up with a good outcome that suits everyone.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister’s announcement today on the banning of so-called gay conversion therapies is obviously enormously welcome. As part of the process, as she looks to legislation or other processes with the Home Office, will she also try to ensure that such disgusting treatments do not go underground? Will she ensure that people are not able to access them in other countries? What representations is she making not just to Commonwealth countries but to countries across the world that these conversions are not needed, that they do not work and that there is no need for a cure for being gay?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. One of the additional benefits of this action plan is that it will be a catalyst for other nations to follow suit, as has happened with other groundbreaking LGBT legislation passed by this House over many years. I hope that will be the case, and clearly the more we can shine a spotlight on these practices, the more we can educate people who might be vulnerable to going through such appalling practices and the better and more resilient people will be.