Health and Care Bill

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

That is exactly what we are doing through the work commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which is why Lords amendment 29B is unnecessary.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I fear that I cannot, but my hon. Friend may catch me during my winding-up speech. I want to make progress, as about 10 Back-Bench colleagues wish to speak.

Finally, on the adult social care cap, the Government have announced our plan for a sustainable social care system. It is fair, affordable and designed to end the pain of unpredictable care costs by capping the amount anyone needs to pay at £86,000. Without clause 140 there would be a fundamental unfairness: two people living in different parts of the country, contributing the same amount, would progress towards the cap at different rates based on differences in the amount their local authority is paying. We are committed to levelling up and must ensure that people in different parts of the country are benefiting to the same extent, and our provisions support this. Amendments 80A to 80N also make crucial changes to support the operation of charging reform, as these changes were lost by the removal of clause 140 in the other place.

Lords amendments 80P and 80Q insert a regulation-making power to amend how

“costs accrued in meeting eligible needs”

is determined in section 15 of the Care Act 2014. However, if regulations were made using this power, they would result in anyone entering the care system under the age of 40 receiving free personal care up to that age. As local authority contributions would count towards the cap under these changes, a 35-year-old with average care costs would reach the cap and not have to pay anything towards the cost of their care, yet a person who enters care the day after their 40th birthday would need to contribute towards the £86,000 cap over their lifetime. We believe this is unfair. Our plan already includes a more generous means test that means more people will be eligible for state support towards the cost of care earlier, enabling them to keep more of their income.

The changes introduced in the other place also threaten the affordability of our reforms. Lords amendments 80, 80P and 80Q would clearly affect financial arrangements to be made by this House and, as such, have financial privilege. These new Lords amendments would cost the taxpayer more than £1 billion a year by 2027-28. Ultimately, this would mean we need to make the same level of savings elsewhere, making the system less generous for other users. I hope I have been able to provide some reassurance that we believe our approach is still the right one, and I ask the House to disagree with the other place’s amendments.

Finally, I put on record my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) and the noble Baroness Morgan of Cotes for their constructive and positive engagement during the Bill’s passage on ways to strengthen co-operation between the UK Government, the UK Statistics Authority, the Office for National Statistics and the devolved Administrations, and for their passion for strengthening the Union. I am pleased we are taking forward that work, albeit outside this Bill. I am stimulated by their important work.

We have sought throughout the passage of the Bill to be pragmatic and to listen to this House and the other place in either accepting their amendments or addressing them in lieu. I hope the House recognises that this approach continues to characterise our work, save where we sadly cannot agree with the other place in respect of its amendments on both the workforce and social care caps.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

With the leave of the House, I would like to thank right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), and indeed to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), with whom we spent many happy hours over many weeks in Bill Committee.

I also put on record my gratitude to the amazing Bill team in the Department, with whom it has been a pleasure and a privilege to work on this piece of legislation. They have done an amazing job.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), under whose leadership we saw the genesis of this Bill, and whom it was a pleasure to work with and work for over a long period of time.

On reconfigurations, and on tackling modern slavery and supply chains, I hope and believe that these measures attract support across the House, and therefore will not reprise the case for them here.

In respect of workforce planning, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) and many others who have spoken in highlighting our gratitude to the NHS workforce and our recognition of the pressures they have faced, particularly over the past two to two and a half years, but also more broadly. That is why we have not only put in place the measures I outlined to deliver an assessment through Health Education England of the needs of the workforce and the framework for growing it, but rather than waiting for that, already put in place measures to continue to significantly increase the workforce.

[Steve Brine]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

Yes—it is the only intervention I will take, but I promised my hon. Friend.

[Steve Brine]

When I visit the elective orthopaedics team at Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester later this week, I suspect that they will not tell me that the workforce is not one of the things on their worry list, so it is regrettable that the Government cannot accept amendment 29B. They are obviously going to get their way and win the vote, but will the Minister and his team reflect on the argument that has been had between the two Houses over the past year and, in that spirit, take this issue forward? It is not going away, I need to have an answer for the team on Friday, and what I am hearing right now is not going to satisfy them.

[Edward Argar]

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that I always reflect carefully not just on what he says and what my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) says, but on what the other place, and other hon. and right hon. Members on either side of this House, say.

I hope I have provided the majority of colleagues with sufficient reassurance about the steps the Government are already taking and our commitment to ensuring that we have the right number of people working in the NHS, coupled with the increases in staffing that we have already delivered and continue to deliver. I hope that the House will again agree that the substantial work already being undertaken by the Government to improve workforce planning is leading to the improvements we all seek, and I therefore urge hon. Members to reject their lordships’ amendment.

We also ask that amendments 80, 80P and 80Q are rejected and amendments 80A to 80N are accepted in lieu. The cap on care costs clause is key to this Government ending unpredictable care costs for everyone by introducing a universal £86,000 cap. That must stand part of the Bill, alongside the necessary further amendments 80A to 80N, and we encourage hon. Members to back us on this.

This Bill is an important step forward in evolving our health and care system to meet future needs, and it comes from a Government who are clear in both their record and their future plans in their support for our NHS. I hope that the other place will heed the large majorities with which this House has already sent these measures back to it, and I hope that we will do so again this evening. We always listen to the other place, but we believe that this House has, on multiple occasions and hopefully again this evening, expressed a clear view of our position on these matters.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 29B in lieu.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

To a degree, that is why I mentioned the Javed Khan review. We are undertaking a lot of work and let us see what emerges from that, as well as from consultations and other pieces of work, and draw it all together. I can see where my hon. Friend is coming from, but I think that the Government have set out the right approach, so I encourage right hon. and hon. Members to reject their lordships’ amendments.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Edward Argar]

I will if my hon. Friend is brief, but I know that a lot of colleagues wish to speak on the abortion amendment and I want to give them enough time to do so.

[Steve Brine]

Further to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, when I published the tobacco control plan in 2019, with the smoke-free ambition for 2030, we in the Government promised to consider the “polluter pays” approach to raising funds for tobacco control and smoking cessation services. The Lords amendments just require the Government to fulfil that commitment, which was barely three years ago, and to consult. I press the Minister on that again because we as a Government committed to doing this less than three years ago.

[Edward Argar]

My understanding—although my recollection may fail me, so I caveat my comment with that—is that this was initially looked at that stage, but was not proceeded with. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to press that point and I pay tribute to him for being the policy Minister at the time and for making huge progress on this agenda. I suspect that we will return to this matter subsequently, and I look forward to the comments of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting, in due course.

Elective Care Recovery in England

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible and serious point. As I said earlier, it is about the workforce. Buildings and technology are fantastic, but it is the people who operate them who really make the difference. I can offer him the reassurance that we are already well on target to meeting our 50,000 nurses pledge from the 2019 manifesto. In October 2021 there were thousands more doctors and thousands more nurses in our NHS compared with October 2020. We continue to grow that workforce from a whole range of sources, including the additional medical school places that this Government delivered a few years ago.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

There is no question but that the waiting list is impacting on my constituents’ quality of life, but I fail to see how taking £36 billion out of the system would help. Can I ask my hon. Friend to look further upstream and tell me how the very welcome 10-year cancer plan announced on Friday will improve our health and prevent more complex future interventions? Will he confirm that the 28-day cancer standard, which does sound familiar—I left office three years ago next month—is a maximum, not a target? In other words, we always want to do much, much better, because we know that the quicker cancer is caught, the better the outcome.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for touching on the 10-year cancer plan. He is absolutely right that the earlier the diagnosis, the better the outcome, as a rule, in cancer treatment. Yes, we set targets, but we always hope to exceed them. It has been incredibly challenging to do that over recent years, and that is why we as a Government are not only investing the resources, but putting in place the reforms that are needed to achieve these targets.

NHS England Funding: Announcement to Media

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady knows that I have a huge amount of respect for her and her work in this House. She is absolutely right to highlight the need for parity of esteem not just to be a phrase, but to be made a reality in our constituencies and on our streets. That is why we have significantly increased funding for mental health not just in revenue terms, but in the capital terms about which we are speaking today—as I alluded to in response to the shadow Secretary of State, in terms of investing in eliminating mental health dormitories, but also in terms of new hospitals. I suspect that the hon. Lady was possibly alluding to child and adolescent mental health services. I am always happy to discuss that issue with her, as is the Minister for Care and Mental Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan).

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

My good friend and the very excellent Minister is going to help me out here, because he said that we will hold the NHS to account for these plans. He knows that I have raised this matter in the House before, when we announced the £12 billion of funding. I know that there is a plan for the catch-up; I know that it has been agreed with the Department and I know that it has been agreed with the Treasury, because a Treasury Minister has told me from the Dispatch Box. How can we all hold our local health trusts to account when we have not seen that plan? Please can it be published?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend asks a key question. I can reassure him that he will see that plan published in the coming weeks. I know that he will both study it carefully and hold me and the NHS to account on what is in it.

Covid-19

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered covid-19.

When I last spoke in this Chamber in a general covid debate, on 12 January, we faced a very grave situation. There was a very real risk of our hospitals being overwhelmed, the number of people tragically dying from covid-19 each day was in four figures, and our vaccine roll-out was just getting off the ground. As I stand here today, we have made huge progress, and while there is no room for complacency, thankfully we now face a very different picture.

That we find ourselves in this changed position is largely down to three factors. The first is our amazing NHS and social care workforce. The pressure they have experienced has been phenomenal. Their response to that pressure has been humbling to all of us: the teamwork, the resilience, the dedication. It has been truly inspiring. They have our admiration and our thanks, and we must always reiterate that, but they must also continue to have our unwavering support in the months ahead as we build back better after this pandemic.



The second factor is, of course, our national lockdown. On 12 January, the average number of cases per day was 44,302; more than 30,000 people were in hospital with covid-19; and, on average, more than 1,000 people were dying of the disease each day. Today, we see an average of just over 11,000 cases each day; just under 20,000 people in hospitals with covid; and a heartening and welcome decline in the number of deaths.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

One of the great differences between the start of this nightmare and where we are now is on personal protective equipment for health and care staff, which was a big issue at the start. There were a lot of stories over the weekend about the procurement of PPE. I know from my time as a Minister in the Department that sometimes government is not elegant, but surely what we did was to make sure that we did not run out of PPE. We should congratulate many of the officials in the Department on making sure that that did not happen, as history records it did not. For my constituents who are concerned about the process that went on, will the Minister reassure me that everything was above where it should be?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend was a distinguished Minister in the Department for some time and rightly highlights the situation that we faced at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. It is testament to the phenomenal efforts to procure PPE of the officials in my Department, in the Paymaster General’s Department and others that we did not run out of PPE in this country. Indeed, credit for that should also go to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who ensured that throughout he put the provision of PPE and people first, even when, as we have seen, that may have led to challenges and to process not being entirely adhered to in respect of the timings for the publication of contract details. He and I have the greatest respect not only for the recent judgment, which we will consider carefully, but for the importance of transparency. I believe that my right hon. Friend did the right thing: he did everything he could to ensure that his No. 1 priority was to get that PPE procured and to the frontline to protect those who were protecting all of us and helping to save lives.

As on so many occasions over the past year, in recent weeks the British people have once again made huge sacrifices to comply with the necessary restrictions. It has been incredibly hard for individuals and businesses up and down the country, but in the figures that I have set out, we can see the impact that those sacrifices have made in helping to suppress the spread of this virus.

Despite the progress, over the past week an average of 449 people still lost their lives each day—449 families and friends who have lost loved ones. It is still far, far too many. It reminds us that, even now, as we map a brighter course forward, we must never lose sight of the threat posed by this virus.

Smokefree England: Covid-19 and PHE Abolition

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to appear opposite the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). It is happening with regularity: three times on three different days last week and again today. Indeed, it is happening with a fair degree of regularity that I am speaking in front of you in this Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is always a pleasure.

I thank all hon. Members for their participation in today’s debate with typically well-informed and important speeches. As the shadow Minister has alluded to, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), within whose portfolio this matter would normally fall, has been taking a simultaneous debate in Westminster Hall, so it is a rare pleasure for me to be able to speak at the Dispatch Box on this matter.

I thank the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) for securing this important debate. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, I think this is her first debate in her name in this Chamber, and, consistent with the principled approach that she adopts in this place to raising issues that she passionately cares about, she has done that today, and I pay tribute to her for doing that.



We should all recognise the significant achievements made on tobacco control over the past two decades through cross-party working. In that context, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said, while I may not agree with everything that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair did, it is right that I recognise and pay tribute to him for his work in this space when he was leading the country. Smoking rates are now at their lowest ever level in England and the UK, and that is a great public health success story.

However, as Members have highlighted powerfully, there is no room for complacency. Smoking still causes more than 78,000 deaths each year, and there is much more still to do, which is why we announced our smokefree 2030 ambition. As Members will know, the UK is a global leader in tobacco control. Our commitment to tough tobacco control will continue after 1 January 2021. We laid the Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 on 28 September to reaffirm that commitment, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North and I debated recently.

The covid-19 pandemic, as we well know, has put a huge strain on our health and care system. The Government have published guidance regarding covid-19 and the risks from smoking, so this debate is very timely. The message has been clear that quitting smoking will improve a person’s health and recovery prospects if they are unfortunate enough to contract covid-19. It is important that we recognise the great work of local authorities—I will come to that later—and the NHS, along with the third sector, in their support to help smokers quit during these exceptionally challenging times. They have ensured that stop smoking services have continued and used the opportunity of the pandemic to reach out to more smokers to encourage them to quit. I thank them for the work they have done and continue to do.

Action on Smoking and Health has estimated that around 1 million smokers may have made a quit attempt during the pandemic, and that is good news. The Government have provided funding to support ASH’s “Today is the Day” campaign, to enable the stop smoking message to reach as many smokers as possible in some of the most deprived areas, and I pay tribute to ASH for its work. Public Health England’s Better Health Stoptober annual campaign has also continued at a national and local level to support people quitting during the pandemic.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for his speech, which brought an important perspective from Northern Ireland to this issue. He mentioned two things that I want to pick up on. He asked whether I would engage with the Health Minister in Northern Ireland, Robin Swann, on this issue. Although this comes under the portfolio of the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds, I am due to talk to Robin Swann next week about other matters, so I will endeavour to shoehorn it into the conversation in the way that the hon. Gentleman so elegantly does with a number of topics in this Chamber in various debates. I thank and pay tribute to Robin Swann for all the work he is doing in partnership with us at this difficult time.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the role of Ofcom. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who is due to respond in the Adjournment debate, is very near to the Chamber, if not present at this moment, and I suspect he will have heard the points made by the hon. Gentleman and will reflect on those in his work.

The Government are committed to levelling up society to ensure that no communities get left behind. That is why we announced our bold ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030 in the prevention Green Paper consultation. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham North for rightly highlighting the importance of this being a cross-party issue, which typifies the approach that he takes to these matters in the House.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, who was an incredibly effective public health Minister. He is missed in that role and in Government, and I hope one day he will return to the Dispatch Box. He played a hugely important role in drawing up the current tobacco control plan for England. He also gave us some very good tips on how to speed up delivery within our excellent civil service if a Minister decides that he wants to accelerate clearance and implementation of a policy. The recent prevention Green Paper highlighted the urgency of tackling disproportionate smoking rate harms in deprived areas, which the hon. Members for City of Durham and for Blaydon highlighted. The Green Paper also highlighted the disproportionate smoking harm rates among the LGBT community, pregnant women and those with mental health conditions, which again goes to points that hon. Members made. I will endeavour to address those in just a moment.

In terms of that tobacco control plan, the points made about what happened last time and the fear of a gap, I reassure Members who highlighted the need for no gaps and for continuity that it is something of which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds is very much aware. I know she would want me to reassure the House that she is working extremely hard on ensuring that effective measures and effective planning continue to be in place to address the challenges of smoking. Smoking, as has been alluded to, is one of the biggest behavioural drivers of health inequality in England and reduces life expectancy by 10 years on average. That accounts for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest, which again Members have made very clear.

Turning to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Blaydon, although rates for smoking in pregnancy are the lowest recorded, they remain around 10%. Clearly she is right to highlight that that must remain a concern for all of us in government, in this House and in this country. More needs to be done to reach our national ambition of a rate of 6% for smoking in pregnancy by the end of 2022.

Public Health England continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement on their long-term planning commitments to offer all patients NHS-funded treatment services over the coming years, including a new smokefree pathway for expectant mothers and their partners. I am confident that progress will continue to be made to hit that target, but I know from experience that the hon. Lady, in her typically courteous but firm way, will continue to hold Ministers to account in achieving that.

[Steve Brine]

While we are on the subject, as the song goes:

“The saddest thing that I’d ever seen / Were smokers outside the hospital doors”—

name the band. It is not a national problem, but it is a big problem in some areas, which is why I made the point to the Minister—will he convey this to the public health Minister?— that it has to be a regional and local approach through the directors of public health. It is a much bigger problem in some towns than it is in others.

[Edward Argar]

I will not seek to outdo my hon. Friend in his knowledge of music or, possibly, his expertise in this area, but I will certainly convey that point to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds.

Alongside tackling smoking in pregnancy, a big challenge is to reduce smoking rates in those with mental health problems, as the hon. Member for Blaydon said, which remain significantly higher than the general population at 42%. The NHS long-term plan will also offer a new universal smoking cessation offer, available as part of specialist mental health services for long-term users of those services and in learning disability services. The Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) will be looking into that, working in close partnership with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds, because it is important that we have a joined-up approach. The hon. Member for Blaydon highlighted in her speech the excellent practice in some parts of the country and in some parts of the NHS and the fact that that is not replicated everywhere, which goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester. It is important that we level up, to coin a phrase, across the country in using and sharing that best practice.

The Government are committed to a smokefree 2030, and we are developing the plans to ensure that is a reality. The plans will build on the good work already under way in the tobacco control plan and the commitments being delivered in the NHS long-term plan, to which, while the pandemic has obviously impacted on the NHS, we remain committed.

I said in my introduction that the UK is a world leader in tobacco control. That is demonstrated by how seriously the Government take our obligations as a signatory and party to the World Health Organisation’s framework convention on tobacco control, the FCTC. Tackling the harms caused by smoking is a global effort, with 8 million deaths a year worldwide linked to tobacco, 80% of which are low and middle-income country deaths.

The Government have invested up to £15 million in official development assistance funding to support the WHO’s FCTC 2030 five-year project, supporting up to 24 countries to improve their tobacco control and improve their population’s health. The project has received considerable praise from global public health and development communities and helped to raise the UK’s profile and strengthen our global reach. I am proud to say that the Department recently received a UN Inter-Agency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases award for 2020 for the project. The project is in its final year and we are considering plans to extend it, depending on the Department’s spending review settlement for official development assistance. In a second, I shall address the point about the spending review raised by the hon. Member for City of Durham—I shall be very brief, as I am conscious that I need to leave a couple of minutes for her to reply at the end.

We continue to review the evidence on e-cigarettes, including their harms and usefulness in aiding smoking cessation. Although they are not risk-free, there is growing evidence that they can help people stop smoking, and they are particularly effective when combined with expert support from a local stop smoking service. The Government’s approach to the regulation of e-cigarettes has been and will remain pragmatic and evidence-based. The current regulatory framework aims to reduce the risk of harm to children, protect against the re-normalisation of tobacco use, provide assurance on relative safety for users and provide legal certainty for businesses. We will continue our work to appraise the evidence on new products, including e-cigarettes, and their role in helping smokers quit.

I note comments about proposals for future regulatory changes to help smokers quit smoking. Post transition period, this country will no longer have to comply with the EU’s tobacco products directive, and there will be opportunities to consider in the future regulatory changes that can help people quit smoking and address the harms from tobacco. Although there are no current plans for divergence, I would reassure the House that any future changes will be based on robust evidence in the interests of public health and will maintain this country’s ambitious and world-leading approach in this area.

The Department will be carrying out a post-implementation review of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 and the standardised packaging of tobacco products by 20 May 2021 to see whether the regulations have met their objectives. Part of this review process will involve a public consultation to start before the end of the year for people to submit their views and evidence, and I hope that gives some greater clarity about timescales.

The Department has already conducted another post-implementation review and public consultation on various tobacco legislation, as the hon. Member for City of Durham mentioned, and we will publish a Government response shortly. I understand that the aim is to do so before the end of this year, although obviously a lot of work is being put into tackling the pandemic.

I hear what Members have said about the importance of public health grants and local authorities. Like the shadow Minister, I am a former cabinet member for public health. He would not, I suspect, like me to be tempted to try to fulfil the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer by pre-empting the spending review. As for Public Health England and the future, we are engaging with stakeholders and will consider the best future arrangements for the wide range of non-health protection functions that currently sit in PHE. Our commitment to smokefree 2030 and to working collaboratively to maintain our ambitious agenda and our high standards in this area is undiminished; indeed, it is enhanced.

Covid-19 Restrictions: South Yorkshire

Debate between Edward Argar and Steve Brine

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I reiterate the tribute I paid to the hon. Gentleman for his approach throughout this. It is abundantly clear that he and all of his colleagues have the best interests of his region at heart and have worked constructively throughout this process to get the right health and economic outcome for his area. I can absolutely give him that commitment. I and my colleagues look forward to continued close working and co-operation with him as we move forward to beat this disease in his area.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The three-tiered local approach has to be right, and I pay tribute, as the Minister just did, to the cool heads of some local leaders for working with Ministers so sensibly. Surely people in South Yorkshire and elsewhere need to know where they are at and be confident that the goalposts will not move, so can the Minister please comment on stories this morning that plans are being worked up by the chief medical officer for local—not national, but local—three-week circuit breaker lockdowns in tier 2 and tier 3 areas?

[Edward Argar]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is not something I have been involved in or had sight of.