Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gary Sambrook and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

I welcome the news that the Secretary of State has secured 5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, totalling 355 million dosages for the UK. Does he agree that it is key to putting this virus back in its box, and that it is down to the willingness of the great British public to step forward and to voluntarily have this vaccine so that we can all move on?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, that is right. A vaccine will be approved only if it is both effective and safe, so when your ticket comes up, if you are asked to take the vaccine, then I and the whole serious clinical establishment—all of those who understand the vaccines and the value of them —will be urging people right across the country to get it, because it is good for you, it protects your loved ones and it protects your community. It is the primary route, alongside other things like testing, by which we will get out of this and get life back more closely to normal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gary Sambrook and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Because this is a big team effort by a combination of public and private sector partners. I pay tribute to Deloitte, without which the testing programme would not be possible. I pay tribute to all the pharmaceutical companies and I pay tribute to Amazon, which has delivered the home testing with remarkable success. Instead of trying to divide, we should unite and bring people together.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Dr David Rosser and his team at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust have done amazing work during the pandemic to make sure that people in Birmingham are safe and cared for. Will the Secretary of State give them all the flexibility and support they need to ensure that services at hospitals like Queen Elizabeth can go back to normal as quickly and as safely as possible?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. David Rosser is a great leader of a very, very impressive trust. I was speaking to him only last week. There is an important lesson from covid, which is that many of the NHS central rules and much of the bureaucracy was lifted to allow local systems to respond as a health system. That has worked well. We need to learn from that. We need to not only make that permanent, but see where we can go further in that sort of system working.

Coronavirus

Debate between Gary Sambrook and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The delivery of social care is a devolved matter. We will publish guidance, and we will work with the devolved authorities to make that as consistent as possible, but social care policy is different in the four nations, so obviously we will have to take those differences into account.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

On Sunday, Birmingham will host one of the largest St Patrick’s Day parades in the world. Can the Health Secretary assure me and the people of Birmingham that he will do everything he can to issue the right guidance as quickly and effectively as possible so that people can make sensible decisions when it comes to their use of public transport and attending mass gatherings?