Coronavirus Vaccine

Greg Clark Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I can give that assurance. I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking the volunteers, whom I should have thanked in response to an earlier question, and also thank in advance everybody in the NHS who is going to be involved in this roll-out. It is going to be a mammoth effort—people are going to be working really hard this winter, when people already work hard during winter in the NHS—and I am sure that the whole House is very grateful to them.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I join the Secretary of State in thanking the scientists who were involved in this major breakthrough for their brilliance and hard work, and I join my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) in paying a personal tribute to the Secretary of State, who has been tenacious, positive and energetic right throughout this. We are the first in the world and a lot of that is down to him.

We need to keep the virus suppressed during the months ahead. One of the problems with test and trace is that quite often people do not disclose all their contacts because they do not want them to have to isolate for two weeks. Sir John Bell, whom I know the Secretary of State admires as much as I do, suggests that if we subject people who are isolated to two tests and they are both negative, they should be released. He thinks that will safely encourage people to share their contacts and suppress the spread of the virus. The Secretary of State has moved heaven and earth on vaccination; will he do this for test and release?

[Matt Hancock]

It is a great day for science and a great day to be Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, I would have thought. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he said, which was very generous.

On the point about repeat testing instead of isolation for contacts, that is something we are trialling right now, and I hope we can make significant progress on it in the weeks ahead.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that issue. In my statement, I said that we have managed to reduce the backlog among the longest waiters, those who wait more than 104 days, by more than 63% and among those waiting more than 62 days by 44%. There is further work to do—of course there is—but the NHS has made significant strides on the backlog of people waiting for cancer treatment, and I pay tribute to all the work that it has done.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

The concern that many of us have is that restrictions can be imposed in a day, but take months to lift. In London, the restrictions were imposed not because of a higher level of infections, admissions to hospital or deaths, but because of a rapidly increasing rate of infection. If it turns out, when the Secretary of State conducts his fortnightly review next week, that the rate of increase of infection is no greater in London than in places in a lower tier, will he rescind those restrictions and return it to a lower tier?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point and, in a way, highlights that it is not just the case rate that matters; it is also the rate of change of the case rate, the over-60s case rate and the impact on hospitals. In the case of London, cases are over 100 per 100,000, which is a worrying level, but I really hope that the measures, and the people of London and all those who work here, can bring the case rate down so we can get out of it as fast as possible. Team London is, in fact, working on a proposed strategy for coming out of level 2, but the first thing that everybody in London has to do is follow the rules to get the rate of increase down, because it is only then that we can even start to consider the next steps.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are putting in more support and if any area goes into the third level, into tier 3, it gets further support. We are putting more into local test and trace, although on its own that will not work as effectively as the partnership, which is, as I said from the figures, improving and expanding all the time. I welcome the fact that the hon. Lady recognises the sharp rise in cases in Greater Manchester and the need to act. I very much hope that we can act on a cross party basis, but act we must.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

A lot of weight is being shouldered by the Joint Biosecurity Centre, which is engaged in decisions that are having big consequences for millions of people across the country. It is concerning that there was nothing in the Secretary of State’s statement about the criteria for exiting these measures.

When the Joint Biosecurity Centre was created on 20 May, SAGE was told that it would

“pursue a reputation as an organisation that the public can trust. This will require them to be an exemplar in terms of honesty, openness, competence and independence.”

Yet nearly five months on, it has not disclosed the minutes of any of its meetings, the papers that it has drawn on or even who sits on its boards, despite a commitment on its own website to do so. If it is to be the exemplar that it has been billed to be and if the public are to have trust in it given the importance of these decisions, will the Secretary of State order that openness without delay?

[Matt Hancock]

In fact, very shortly the Joint Biosecurity Centre will be making further of its analysis public. It works within the Department and its officials are civil servants, so it is different from SAGE, which is made up of independently employed scientists. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend makes an important point, on which we are acting.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

On the core of the hon. Lady’s point, the assessment of the epidemic on the basis of the updated data is core to our approach to tackling the epidemic. The chief medical officer has analysed the new data, which we have now published—on coronavirus.data.gov.uk we can see the data, and that is on the corrected basis. Based on Joint Biosecurity Centre analysis, the CMO’s advice is that the assessment of the disease and its impact have not substantially changed. That is because the just under 16,000 cases were essentially evenly spread, so it has not changed the shape of the epidemic. It has changed the level, in terms of where we are finding the epidemic and in what sorts of groups.

The hon. Lady asks how many contacts have been contacted, as opposed to how many of the primary index cases. As I said, that is happening concurrently, so as soon as the index case has been contacted by Test and Trace and interviewed, the contacts are immediately contacted. As I said, we have got through 51% of the backlog over the weekend, and we have brought in more resources to complete that task.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and everyone in the House hopes that there will be a safe and effective vaccine available during the months ahead, but the head of the vaccines taskforce has said that she expects it to be available to only half of the population, concentrating on the over-50s and the most vulnerable. Is that the Secretary of State’s understanding? What are the implications for the other half of the population?

[Matt Hancock]

This is a very important question. The vaccines taskforce has done incredibly important work in supporting the scientific development and manufacture of vaccines and in procuring vaccines—six different types of vaccine—from around the world. The work of deploying a vaccine is for my Department, working with the NHS and the armed forces, who are helping enormously with the logistical challenge, and we will take clinical advice on the deployment of the vaccine from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. My right hon. Friend the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee will know that 10 days ago the JCVI published a draft prioritisation, and it will update that as more data becomes clear from the vaccine. That is the Government’s approach: to take clinical advice from the JCVI.

Covid-19 Update and Hospitality Curfew

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

What I say is that we do what is necessary because it saves lives and we understand the impact that it has. The message that I would send to everybody in Bradford is that, the more that they follow the rules that are in place, the faster we will be able to get through this.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

It does seem strange to think that concentrating trade in a smaller number of hours and making everyone leave a pub or restaurant at the same time, rather than spacing them out over the course of the evening, should suppress rather than spread the virus. Will the Secretary summarise the scientific advice that he has had on this point?

[Matt Hancock]

The scientific advice is that the people who are closer together are more likely to spread the virus and that, later at night, social distancing becomes harder. We have all seen the pictures of people leaving pubs at 10 o’clock, but otherwise they would be inside the establishments, and we all know that outside is safer, or they would be leaving later. Of course we keep this under review and of course we are constantly looking at how we can improve these policies, but I think that we have to look at both sides of the evidence to try to get this right.

Covid-19

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) back in her place safe and well. I am sure that all of us welcome her back to the House. Seven months and 42,000 deaths after the first person in the UK died from covid on 2 March, there is still great uncertainty about how we should best respond to the pandemic. We do not have a deployable vaccine against covid, and we do not have treatments effective enough to make it a condition not to worry about. We do not know whether the rise in the number of infections in recent weeks is petering out or whether it will do so. Neither do we know that it will not follow the pattern of last winter and spring of doubling, doubling and doubling again, and whether that happens over a week or 10 days it has the same ultimate impact in terms of running out of control. We do not know whether infection with covid this time will have as severe consequences as it did last time in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. We do not even know whether having covid is a guarantee, or makes it more likely, that someone cannot catch it again.

As we approach winter, there is still much that we do not know. What we do know is that good hygiene, social distancing and the isolation of people with covid worked in arresting the exponential growth of the virus last spring and that they are the only ways that we know how to control it again. I understand, therefore, the decision that this Government and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments have made to introduce or reintroduce some of the measures that impeded the spread of the virus the first time round. Winter is a bad time to be risking losing control of the virus. But that must be it. We must combine the restrictions that are being imposed with the prospect of relief from them.

By the spring, we must embark on a clearly different course. We cannot forever live in circumstances in which the way we live our lives can be upended without notice. By the spring, many of the unknowns will switch to being known. We will know whether a vaccine has been discovered and validated in trials to allow it to be deployed. We will know, after a full year of experience, whether research into treatments has established whether any of them can give us confidence that contracting covid is manageable.

By the spring, we should—frankly we must—have increased our testing capacity to the level at which we can quickly test and isolate anyone who has symptoms of the disease, and test the asymptomatic contacts of people who test positive. We should have developed testing technology to the point that rapid self-administered tests can be deployed at mass scale to allow people to have greater confidence in working in more crowded places and attending events with large audiences. If we gather and analyse data intensively during the months ahead, we should enter next spring with a much clearer idea of whether covid is becoming less dangerous in general and among which people it is a particular threat.

By next spring, we will know enough answers to adopt a settled strategy and to move beyond playing it by ear, so when we reach the spring and summer months—a more benign time for covid than the winter, with fewer illnesses whose symptoms can disguise or exacerbate covid—we must embark on a sustainable policy. We can either arrange the mass vaccination that will eliminate or at least substantially reduce the threat, if the production of such a vaccine has been successfully achieved over the winter; or if no successful vaccine has emerged, it is at that point that we will need to adjust how we live our lives and to live alongside the virus for the foreseeable future, taking the steps that we need to protect the vulnerable from infection while releasing the rest of the population to live their lives without unending or ever-changing restrictions.

My Committee, the Science and Technology Committee, will be taking evidence throughout the autumn and winter and co-ordinating our work with the Health and Social Care Committee, so that every week there will be an opportunity to have sustained questioning of the scientists and decision makers on the conduct of the pandemic here and overseas. From this intense period of inquiry and analysis of the evidence, we will put before Parliament, Ministers and the public our best recommendations, aimed at ensuring that the weeks ahead will be the last time that our lives have to be upturned, our economy stymied and our young people’s prospects blighted because of a virus that a combination of science and good policy should be capable of containing without the severity of the disruption that, sadly, we seem destined to endure this winter.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Care home testing is incredibly important. We have brought down some of the response times, and I am glad to report to the House that, since last week, when we debated the very sharp rise in demand, including among asymptomatic people, that demand has come down somewhat, and the pressures are a little lower on the testing system as a whole. That does not mean that we do not want to increase capacity further—of course we do. It is very important that we have tests available for all vulnerable people, whether they live at home or in a care home.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

The scientific evidence is that covid is detectable by test within seven days of someone being infected, so why should people who have been made to self-isolate not be tested seven days after a possible infection and released if they test negative?

[Matt Hancock]

The incubation period before which the virus can present itself is still estimated to require 14 days of self-isolation. If we could bring that figure down, I would be the first to be pleased to do so. As with our decision to take to 10 days the period for which somebody who has tested positive must self-isolate, this is a critical point, and we must rely on the scientific evidence. If my right hon. Friend has further scientific evidence, I would be happy to look at it.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I was in contact with the Mayor of Greater Manchester this morning on the question of what we do in Greater Manchester. The national measures that were announced yesterday will come into force in Greater Manchester, and it is important that people follow them. We took further action in Bolton. The case rate in Bolton was coming down well, but thankfully before we implemented the rule change to remove some of the restrictions, we were able to act and stop that relaxation from happening, and we then had to tighten the rules up. I am working closely with councils in Greater Manchester, and talking to the Mayor, and I will also take on board the hon. Gentleman’s views in ensuring that we get these measures right. The message to everyone in Greater Manchester is the same as it is across the country: follow the rules and follow the social distancing, because only by doing that can we get this under control.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

The  Secretary of State must accept that there is a problem here. Constituents of mine in Kent displaying symptoms of covid were this week advised to go for tests in Bude in Cornwall and Galashiels in Scotland—and this is in a mild September, before the autumn and winter when people have coughs and colds that may look like symptoms of covid. It is no good blaming people who are asymptomatic. I would be interested if the Secretary of State could say what percentage of people turning up for testing do not have symptoms. This situation needs his personal grip. He referred to the need for him to increase testing capacity from 1,000 a day to 100,000 a day. This is an urgent matter that he needs to grip before the autumn and winter bites. Will he commit to ensuring that by the end of the month anyone who has symptoms of covid can get a test at a reasonable place that is convenient to their home?

[Matt Hancock]

It is of course my goal for that to happen immediately. The challenge is to increase capacity—a subject that my right hon. Friend and I have discussed at length, and of which I know he is a strong supporter—and to make sure that that capacity is used by the right people. That is why I am clear about the eligibility for testing. It is really important that people hear the message that if they have symptoms, of course they should get a test; we urge them to get a test because we need to find out if it is covid for their sake and for everybody else’s. But at the same time, it is important that people who are not eligible do not come forward for tests because they are taking a test away from somebody who has symptoms. Yes, I want to solve this with ever more capacity, but I also want to ensure that the tests are used by the right people.

Coronavirus Response

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Teasing out the answer to that question is a difficult statistical task, but the broad point the hon. Gentleman makes is the right one. We are seeking to tackle this disease, coronavirus, and we have to measure that; at the same time, of course, we need to continue to tackle all the other diseases and to make sure that the consequences of those diseases are measured properly. It is a significant challenge that faces many countries around the world, and that is why scientists are somewhat sceptical about over-analysis and international comparisons of deaths data, as proven by the need for the urgent review I put in place last week.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, if we are to suppress the virus, we need an agile and vigorous response. Six weeks ago, I asked him to ensure that tests were available to elderly residents not only of care homes but in sheltered accommodation and retirement villages. Three weeks ago, he told me that they

“will be rolled out over the coming three to four weeks”.—[Official Report, 29 June 2020; Vol. 678, c. 117.]

Can he confirm whether that is now complete, or will be by the end of the week?

[Matt Hancock]

I will bring the answer to that question to the Science and Technology Committee, which my right hon. Friend chairs, tomorrow. I commissioned an answer to precisely that question ahead of that appearance and was hoping that he would ask a different question today, but I have been found out.

Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to ensure that the social care Minister meets the hon. Lady as soon as possible.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is assiduous and energetic in making himself available to answer questions at all times, and I am grateful that he has agreed to come before my Committee next week so that we have longer than we would have had today given this statement. In March, we did not have the testing capacity in place to cope with the volume of testing that was needed, and it took until May to get it. Sir Patrick Vallance said to the Science and Technology Committee this afternoon that we do not currently have the testing capacity needed for the coming winter. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that it will be available long before then, and that we do not repeat one of the principal mistakes of the current pandemic?

[Matt Hancock]

I was heavily and personally involved in making sure there was that rapid increase in testing capacity back then, and I am determined to ensure that the testing that we need for this winter is available. We have plans in place to deliver it. Of course, that needs to be built; it is not there now, but it will be built. Even if there are no breakthroughs on testing technology that would make testing much easier to access, we have plans to ensure that the testing capacity that is necessary for winter will be available by winter.