Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s very thoughtful question. I can reassure her that there is no political decision making; the process that the chief medical officers are undertaking is unencumbered by any political motivation whatsoever. We will absolutely follow their advice, and the JCVI is in the room as they are deliberating. It is important to recall that the JCVI advice was that vaccination is marginally more beneficial to healthy 12 to 15-year olds than non-vaccination, but not enough to recommend a universal vaccination programme. It is also worth reminding the House that we have been vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds who are more vulnerable to serious infection and hospitalisation, as the JCVI recommended.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

On vaccine passports for nightclubs, the Minister said yesterday:

“The best way we can keep those industries open…is to work with the industry”.

Does he recognise that industry representatives do not support the proposal? The Night Time Industries Association has said that

“it will cripple the industry.”

Not only is it impractical and indeed unworkable, but it could potentially lead to an increase in illegal events, raves and large house parties—the kind of super-spreader events that the Minister is worried about. In those cases, there will be fewer safety measures. This is a hammer blow for an industry that has suffered more than almost any other over the past year and a half. Will he take its concerns into consideration and think very carefully before bringing such a proposal forward?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Member raises important points from the industry and we will always make sure that we look at them. One piece of feedback from our earlier consultation was that to be able to check IDs, for example, we would want to make this process equally straightforward for the industry.

Medicinal Cannabis

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jo Churchill]

One second. On the expansion of Epidiolex, NICE will work with the manufacturer to assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the medicine in the indicated patient group before making recommendations for routine prescribing and funding on the NHS. That is the proof. Where there is the will and investment in clinical trials, cannabis-based medicines can achieve the medicinal licence that is the gateway to routine funding. They have become a useful tool for clinicians in treating diseases where other licensed treatments have failed, but the licensing process also provides for the development of the evidence and information that doctors rely on to support their treatment decisions, as was laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt). The MHRA is well equipped to provide advice to any prospective applicants wishing to conduct clinical trials or marketing authorisations. Indeed, there have been 13 trials ongoing in the UK in the past 12 months, and six other trials of this type of medicine have been completed.

On refractory epilepsy and the children we are specifically interested in tonight—that is not to exclude any other patient group—NHS England, NHS Improvement and the National Institute for Health Research have confirmed in principle support for two randomised control trials on early onset and genetic generalised epilepsy. These will compare medicines that contain cannabis oil, CBD only and medicines that contain CBD plus THC with placebos. While, like many other projects during the pandemic, there have been delays on commercial discussions, these are nearing completion. Once supply contracts have been finalised, the study team will be able to initiate the formal trial set-up process and confirm a date for patient recruitment. This is a pioneering area of research, and we are keen to support patients by progressing these trials as soon as possible. I feel keenly the frustration that they have taken so long, and I hope to be in a position to make a further announcement on these clinical trials in the next few weeks.

[Jeff Smith]

The Minister is being very generous in giving way, and I know she wants to find a solution to this problem. I tried to get in earlier when she referred to some parents who had used medical cannabis and found that some of it worked and some of it did not work. It sounds like an evidence base was being created there. I understand that she does not want to create a system for all our medical regulation based on observational trials, but there are many experts who say that randomised control trials will not work for cannabis and we need another way of getting the evidence. Given that we clearly have a system that is not working, is there not a case for this particular condition and this particular type of medicine being a special case? We need to find a different way of creating such an evidence base to give the clinicians comfort.

[Jo Churchill]

I will focus on the end bit. We do need to give clinicians comfort if they are going to prescribe medicines that help alleviate children’s pain. The challenge with the observational trial, as anyone who has been involved with medical trials will tell you, is that the smaller the cohort, very often the greater the problem is with the confidence intervals, and so on and so forth. There is a need to look at things by perhaps turning the telescope the other way up to see whether we can focus ourselves on approaching this in a different way to find solutions. However, the bottom line is that we need good evidence, because we have also been in this Chamber talking about drugs where the challenge to the patient has then transpired, and we later we have been here talking about the damage.

Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Well, it is not inevitable—I do not think it is inevitable. It may happen, but it is not inevitable because we also have the planned booster programme to strengthen further the vaccination response. But it is absolutely clear, based on all the clinical advice that I have seen, that a goal of eradication of this virus is impossible. Indeed, there is one part of this country that tried it for a bit in the summer and found it to be impossible. Therefore, we must learn to live with this virus and we must learn how we can live our normal lives with this virus, so I reflect the Prime Minister’s words, which, of course, I concur with entirely, on 19 July. Our goal is to make sure that we get as much vaccination done between now and then—especially those second doses—to make sure that we can open up safely, even if there is a rise in cases, by protecting people from hospitalisation and especially from dying of this awful disease.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

This is a hammer blow to hospitality businesses, many of which are trading currently at a loss, and to the night-time economy, which has been preparing to reopen and now faces more uncertainty. Many of the financial support packages that the Secretary of State referred to—the furlough, the rent moratorium, the VAT and business rates support—are due either to end or to be reduced, and businesses are still racking up debts for which they need a solution. If businesses are going to stay closed, support has to continue for as long as the restrictions last, so what are the Government going to do to give extra support to businesses, many of which are in real danger of collapse?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course I understand the impact of this decision on the businesses that are affected—both those that were hoping to open but will stay required to be closed by law, like nightclubs, and those that can open but will find it harder to trade than they would otherwise. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has put in one of the most extensive sets of financial support in the world. Of course, the more affected a business is, the more it is able to draw down on that support—on things like furlough. Furlough continues until September, but there needs to be a step towards the restoration of normal economic life. Nevertheless, we are determined to support businesses, hence the degree of support that has been put in place—that was put in place at the Budget—not just to cover the period of the road map based on the “not before” dates, but to run further than that, in case there needed to be a delay of one of those “not before” dates, because the whole principle was that we take these steps based on data, not dates.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

It is a pleasure to see my hon. Friend, and I hope it will not be too long before we see him in person in the House again. He is absolutely right to highlight the overall priority as being to get the PPE to the frontline. He highlights clearly the situation we were seeing on our televisions every day—for example, the real challenges at hospitals in Bergamo and elsewhere. That was the context at that time in Europe, and we moved heaven and earth to try to get the PPE needed in time. We did not run out of PPE in this country, but it would be fair to say that there were shortages in particular situations. These were met by the Government through the national shortage response. It was in that context that we had to do everything we possibly could, and I pay tribute to the officials who did it to procure PPE in bulk in an incredibly overheated and challenging global market.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

The Minister rightly said that transparency mattered, so when will the Government publish the full details and criteria of how businesses got into the fast lane?

[Edward Argar]

As I alluded to on the previous occasion I came to this House to answer questions on this matter, we set out that some contracts were put forward by Members of this House and by Members of the other place and were assessed through the fast-track priority lane, but there was no difference in the approach taken—the eight stages that all those contracts had to pass through to be awarded. They were all assessed independently by civil servants, so they all went through the same process, and those contracts that were awarded and that met the rules for the contract award notices publication will be published, and have been published, under the CAN regulations and on the website.

Public Health

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab) [V]]

I am going to vote for this legislation; it is sadly necessary, as today’s awful covid figures demonstrate. I want to speak briefly about how we help people get through the difficult period ahead as we vote today to lock down the country. If we are going to affect so many lives and livelihoods, and if we are going to ask our citizens to help the nation by doing the right thing and making sacrifices, then we as a nation have to do the right thing by them. We need to provide the support that people need to enable us all to work together to get through this.

In the short time available, I will mention three specific areas where we need to do more. The first is businesses, especially small businesses and the hospitality sector. Business rates relief and additional grants are welcome, but for many businesses, their premises costs are the biggest burden. They still have to pay rent, and for many it is unrealistic to think that they can keep building up debt without some additional support. I urge the Government to consider a scheme of shared rental burden, where the renter and the landlord, as well as the Government and the bank or mortgage lender, all take part of the responsibility. The country bailed out the banks during the financial crisis; they should step up and be part of the solution now. There are models elsewhere, such as Australia, that we can look at as a basis for that.

Secondly, as I said to the Prime Minister today, so many people still are not being helped by the self-employment income support scheme. We have now had nine months to come up with a plan to support those workers—people who have worked hard, paid their taxes and now are not getting a fair deal. There are potential solutions out there, and I urge Ministers once again to look at the proposals from the Federation of Small Businesses, among others, to find creative ways to help people who are really struggling.

Many of my constituents are self-employed, and many Mancunians work in our world-leading creative industries. Our festival industry alone is worth £1.7 billion to the UK economy and supports 85,000 jobs. Festival organisers are struggling to get insurance, and they are asking for a Government-backed insurance scheme to enable festivals to be planned with confidence. If we do not help out, many will be cancelled in the ongoing uncertainty, and we will miss out not just on an important cultural part of our summer but on the economic benefit that helps communities and supply chains across the nation, so please; I hope the Government will look positively on that.

Finally, our councils have been at the forefront of this crisis, supporting people and co-ordinating services. The Government said that they would give our councils everything they needed to do that, but the overall impact of covid-19 in Greater Manchester is £802 million this year alone and Government funding for the pressures is £404 million, leaving a gap of £398 million. As a result, Manchester City Council faces cuts in the region of £50 million this year. That is not sustainable, so I ask the Government to fulfil their promises and give our local authorities the support they need to help us all get through this.

Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will write to my hon. Friend immediately with our plans for the roll-out of primary care-based vaccination facilities in Aylesbury. I regret having to put Buckinghamshire into tier 3 measures, but unfortunately it was absolutely necessary on the numbers. Aylesbury Vale, the local authority area, has a case rate of 235 per 100,000 and it is rising really sharply, and my hon. Friend has set out the challenges at Stoke Mandeville, which is an excellent hospital but under significant pressure. I am glad that he understands why we have had to take this decision and I hope that across Buckinghamshire we can get these cases down and get people vaccinated as soon as possible.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Secondary schools in south Manchester are worried about the extra pressure of running a mass testing regime on top of the contact tracing they are doing, on top of the online learning they are enabling and on top of their normal, everyday school responsibilities. We really need to know what support they are going to get to do the testing, so why does the Secretary of State for Education not come to the House to set out the plans and answer questions, as the Secretary of State for Health rightly does?

[Matt Hancock]

The Secretary of State for Education will be setting out these plans. We need to get them out as soon as possible so that people have the last couple of days of term to work on them, and he will be doing that. Testing in schools is incredibly important, and it is going to become more important as we roll it out more broadly. I am really glad to hear some of the statements from the teaching unions about how enthusiastic they are for testing, especially in secondary schools. I am sure that the Education Secretary will want to work with the hon. Gentleman and others right across the country to roll out this programme as effectively as possible and to make sure that we have high-quality testing in schools, so that we can keep kids in education as much as possible and get the infection rate down by finding the positive cases and having them isolate.

Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have, thankfully, seen that the number of excess deaths is around the level of the long-term average. I want to keep it that way and that is why we are taking the action that we are, so that this does not get out of hand like we saw in the first peak.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

There is a pattern here, is there not? Whenever the Government cannot agree a deal, it is always somebody else’s fault. In this case, it is Andy Burnham’s fault for simply standing up for what Greater Manchester needs—not what we want; what we need. Maybe I am also overinterpreting the Secretary of State’s comments, but in his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), he suggested that there might be different offers for different areas. Greater Manchester was asking for a carefully costed package to meet our needs and our requirements. Why can the Government not give Greater Manchester what we need?

[Matt Hancock]

The offer that was made to Greater Manchester was proportionate to the support that we have already given to and agreed with the local leadership in Liverpool and Lancashire, and I regret that the Mayor rejected it. We want to support businesses across Greater Manchester, so we are open to further discussions about business support with local leaders, including the council leaders, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) suggested, and I hope that we can make some progress.

Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that south Manchester now has some of the highest infection rates in the country, but the figures are skewed by the very high rate among 17 to 21-year-olds. Many of those appear to be students who are confined to halls of residence, so the spread of the virus ought to be contained. May I therefore ask for an assurance from the Secretary of State that we will not have any extra local lockdown restrictions in Manchester as a result of figures that give a misleading picture of the extent of the virus in the wider community?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. The hon. Member makes a really important point. This is why I resist the temptation to set a simplistic threshold above which a certain level of action is taken. That is because there might be an incident—I mentioned that there might be such an incident in a workplace, for instance; there might also be one in a halls of residence—where we get a very high number of cases, but if it is confined and not in the wider community we would not want to take action to restrict the social activity of the wider community. That has to be taken into account, along with the data on the number of cases and the positivity, because the number of tests that you put in affects that as well. We take all these things into account in asking both when an area needs to have more restrictions applied and when we can take an area out of restrictions, which of course is so important for everybody living there.

Covid-19

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), especially as, unusually, I agreed with much of what he said. If I have the time, I want to talk about three issues: the return of universities, support for closed-down industries and communication for areas in lockdown. But I have to start with the urgent question of the 10 pm hard closure for pubs and restaurants. There does not appear to be logic behind the measure or a convincing rationale for it, and predictably it led to a chaotic situation in Manchester at the weekend as people were turfed out of venues where they were being managed and were socially distanced on to crowded streets and into crowded takeaways and shops. It comes at a time when hospitality venues are already struggling. The landlord at my local in Withington told me that his pubs have largely been full in recent weeks, but he is losing money because of the capacity restrictions. The 10 pm closure makes it hard for restaurants to include two sittings. Those industries were struggling before the 10 pm closure. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth): we need a review of the measure because it does not appear to meet our needs.

On universities, I could just say that I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said. I will be brief—unfortunately, I have been unlucky in the draw on tomorrow’s statement—but I just want to talk about testing. Three weeks ago in this Chamber, I asked for a national plan for the return of universities, including guidance on how to protect communities around universities and comprehensive testing. That has not happened and we have hundreds of students self-isolating in halls in Manchester. It is going to be only the start of a very difficult time for students, university authorities and local communities such as mine around universities. I echo the call for a proper testing regime for universities, because it will not be practical or acceptable to keep students cooped up in halls over Christmas.

The main issue I want to talk about is the Chancellor’s package and the support, or lack of it, for some of the industries that are completely shut down—industries that I worked in before I came to this House, including the nightlife industry, and the music and festivals industries. I am not against tough restrictions to suppress the virus, but they have to come with support, and some of those industries are getting little or no support. The nightclub industry employs 6,000 people in the north-west—I used to be one of them. Many are self-employed, and many have fallen through the cracks in the self-employed scheme. I will not dwell on the fact that there is still no hope for those excluded people in the Chancellor’s measures. It is a desperately disappointing omission.

This is about support for businesses as well as individuals —the businesses that keep our cities thriving and vibrant. They have been built up over years and, without covid, will be viable—world leading, in many cases. We are world leading in the event industry and the live music industry. At the moment, nightclubs are sitting empty with no support for rent and rates or the other overheads. Live concert companies cannot promote concerts. They provide work not just for the technicians, roadies and musicians, but for the promoters, office staff, accountants and graphic designers—all the people who work for these companies, which are not making any money at the moment. They are viable, thriving, world-leading businesses without covid, and they will get through it. We need some help for some of those industries because they may not make it through this period. I point the House to the £1.4 billion underspend in cash grants that the Government have just clawed back from local authorities. Those industries should be at the front of the queue for that money.

Finally, on local lockdowns, restrictions and communication, according to the media this week, we are about to see the introduction of a new system of tiers, which would allow people to easily understand what the local restrictions are, and what tier they are in. That sounds like quite a good idea. It could well make it a lot easier for people to understand the restrictions they are under, but surely there needs to be some support. If someone is in a tier, which means that business is closed and that people are unable to work, surely that needs to come with extra support for those businesses, or increased access to testing, or enhanced local contact tracing. There needs to be some support for those businesses and people who are subject to the restrictions.

Let me say in my final few seconds that test and trace is clearly not working. In Greater Manchester, we have a very low quality of information from the national system. Local control of that test and trace system would work for us much better than the national system.

Covid-19 Update

Jeff Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are looking at the asymptomatic testing of parts of the population where the virus is rife. Testing roll-out is about the prioritisation of what can be done with the capacity that we want to grow. As the capacity grows we could do more, but also it is necessary to prioritise within that capacity. It is not impossible to envisage reaching a point where everybody tests, say, weekly or more regularly, but there are very many steps along the way.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

With the universities returning shortly, there will be lots of students moving into shared houses, so there is real concern in communities like mine in south Manchester, where there are lots of houses in multiple occupation. There is clearly plenty of good work going on to make campuses covid-secure, but the recently published SAGE advice is very thin on community spread around universities. Will he urgently provide a national plan for managing that situation by limiting transmission in communities around where students live, to include comprehensive testing at universities?

[Matt Hancock]

We are doing a huge amount of work on the very issue that the hon. Gentleman raises. Ultimately, when students are off campus they are citizens like everyone else—hence the focus on the social distancing rules that we all have to follow. However, he is right that we have seen the biggest rise in infections among 17 to 21 year-olds, many of whom will be going to university in the next few weeks.