Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady and I speak regularly about different aspects of her local health system, and I am happy to do so again on this matter. I do not know the exact details behind the specific example, but I do not think it relates directly to how ICSs are configured in statute and guidance. I would be happy to meet her to understand the local factors that may have contributed to the situation.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to increase the quality of nursing in care homes.

Elective Care Recovery in England

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady that our approach, and that of NHS England and Improvement, is designed to ensure that all hospital trusts can make progress—hopefully rapid progress—in tackling their waiting lists and get the resources they need to do that.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

A key way in which we could get more money directed towards frontline services and elective care would be to fix Labour’s disastrous private finance initiative deals. Will the Minister meet me and the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust so that we can look into how we can fix Labour’s PFI debt at hospitals such as the James Cook?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the huge financial challenges that trusts were saddled with following Labour’s PFI deals and I am of course delighted to agree to meet him to see what we can do to try to untangle the worst of them.

Covid-19: Purchasing Effort

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady will know that I have not said that this is not real money; I have said that what has been published here in the accounts is what is required for an accounting purpose. The PPE was purchased, and that was done at the height of a global pandemic and at extremely inflated prices, because every country was desperately seeking to acquire the PPE that was needed. That situation has stabilised over the past two years and PPE can now be purchased for a much, much cheaper rate. Again, I make no apology for our purchasing this PPE to protect these very nurses, who did an amazing job in her local hospital, from the effects of covid.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

This Government acted quickly and decisively to secure as much PPE for the frontline as possible and as many vaccines as possible, while the Labour party carped from the sidelines, attacked the vaccine taskforce and played politics, just as it is doing today. On vaccines, will the Minister join me in welcoming the decision by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to approve the Teesside vaccine, Novavax, which is being manufactured in Teesside for use in the UK?

[Edward Argar]

That was a dexterous way of weaving together PPE and vaccines, but my hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to the amazing work done by the vaccine taskforce and by officials and others across Government in meeting the needs of our population during the pandemic. Of course I join him in welcoming the Novavax vaccine and the opportunities it presents for wonderful Teesside.

Health and Social Care

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of the staff in his local hospitals. He is absolutely right to highlight the fact that that money will make a huge and real difference to patient care in his local hospital trust and in his local area.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in thanking our fantastic primary care services across Teesside, without which we would not have had our world-leading vaccine roll-out? Will he come to Redcar and Cleveland to visit fantastic GP surgeries such as Normanby medical centre and the Saltscar surgery in Redcar, which have been doing all that they can under tremendous pressure?

[Edward Argar]

It looks as if I might be going on tour again; the same thing happened when I last did one of these statements. I am happy to go to “Bluecar”—or Redcar, to call it by its proper name—to see my hon. Friend in his constituency, and to make such a visit when it can be arranged.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Throughout the pandemic, the Government, the NHS and the armed forces have focused on saving as many lives as possible, while the Labour party has focused on this sort of hindsight and political games. Saving lives meant securing as much PPE as possible as fast as possible, so can my hon. Friend confirm that all those PPE contract notices that faced a short delay in publication are now in the public domain?

[Edward Argar]

I can confirm that the contract award notices for the contracts here, the PPE contracts, awarded directly by the Department are now in the public domain.

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his initial analogy. He made a couple of points there. I believe—this is from memory, so forgive me if I am slightly out, and I will correct the record if I am—that around 90% of those bids that came through the high-priority lane were rejected. They were carefully assessed by civil servants against the eight stages of the procurement process set up to ensure that due diligence was followed.

The hon. Gentleman raised a very specific point, which I want to address, because he talked in his question not just about NHS trusts, but quite rightly about those working on the frontline in social care settings and the PPE they needed. He quotes accurately, if my recollection is correct, from the NAO report. One of the factors here was that traditionally, social care settings are private businesses in most cases and procured their PPE directly in private contracts with their suppliers. That is one of the reasons why, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, during the early phase of the pandemic we moved from supplying 226 trusts with PPE to making that service available to 58,000 or so settings to get PPE to social care. That was a reflection of the Government’s commitment and work to make sure that we could use centralised procurement and centralised supply to help support the social care sector get what it needed.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

I commend the Government for their efforts to do whatever it took to protect the frontline during the height of the pandemic. Will the Minister join me in extending our thanks to the amazing NHS workforce and the armed forces personnel working at James Cook University Hospital and Redcar Primary Care Hospital, as well as our teams in primary care, without whom we would not have vaccinated 18 million people?

[Edward Argar]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in doing that. I suspect that, in what has been a contentious urgent question, that is a point on which there will be consensus between me and the shadow Minister. We pay tribute to those working on the frontline of our NHS and social care, and those helping with the vaccination programme.

Covid-19 Restrictions: South Yorkshire

Debate between Edward Argar and Jacob Young

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is no ambivalence towards his city region. There is a deep respect and affection across this House for that region and the people who live there. I am grateful to him for his kind words about the briefing I led with colleagues across all parties relatively recently on this. I am happy to look into the specific question he raises about being briefed by the Local Government Secretary.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Mayor of South Yorkshire, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). He has worked constructively with the Government to ensure proper northern leadership in the interests of public health. Will the Minister confirm that when other areas face changes to local restrictions, his Department will continue to work with local leaders and Members of Parliament? Will he also confirm that there are no plans to move the Tees Valley, and specifically Redcar and Cleveland where cases have recently dropped, into tier 3?