Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The right hon. Gentleman asks who is included in the 3% pay rise recommended by the independent NHS Pay Review Body. They are the 1 million NHS staff, including nurses, paramedics, consultants and, of course, salaried GPs. The junior doctors he mentions have a separate, multi-year pay rise over three years, amounting to 8%.

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the capacity for testing. I looked at that before coming to the House, and the capacity currently for PCR tests is not 600,000 but 640,000 a day, according to the latest data that I looked at. He asks about schools. There will be two supervised tests for schools. He knows that in Monday’s statement we announced our acceptance of the JCVI guidelines on vaccinating vulnerable children, vaccinating children who live with vulnerable adults, and vaccinating those who are 17 but within three months of their 18th birthday. The JCVI will keep under review the vaccination of healthy children as more data becomes available from countries such as the United States of America and Israel.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a question around the covid vaccination pass and nightclubs, other crowded unstructured indoor settings such as music venues, large unstructured outdoor events such as business events and festivals, and very large structured events, such as business events, music and spectator sport events. They are the ones that we are most concerned about. We have seen other countries, whether it is Holland or Italy, opening nightclubs and having to reverse that decision rapidly. What we are attempting to do, and the reason we have the covid vaccination pass in place, is to work with industry while we give people over the age of 18 the chance to become double-vaccinated. It would be hugely unfair to bring in that policy immediately. Giving people until the end of September is the right thing to do, while at the same time allowing businesses to open safely, using the app now—because the app went live and the industry is very much engaging with it.

There are no easy decisions on anything to do with this virus. That is the one thing we have learned. The most effective tool we have against the virus is, of course, the vaccine programme, followed by the tool of self-isolation. If we want to get back to normal and get our lives back, we need to transition this virus from pandemic to endemic—from pandemic to manageable menace—as quickly and as safely as possible. If we release all restrictions now, including self-isolation, which I am sure a number of colleagues will ask about today, we risk the number of infections, which the shadow Secretary of State worries about as I do, rising rapidly. That could risk the transition of this virus.

We are working flat out with industry. I commend companies such as Lidl, which knows it is under pressure but will work through it with us. We will allow critical, frontline and key workers and health and social care workers to get back to work if they take a negative test, as I announced on Monday. By 16 August, everyone who is double-vaccinated will be able to do that.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)]

May I start by wishing you and your family a ping-free summer, Mr Speaker? Thank you for upholding the values of this House over the past few months.

The Minister of State will have heard of YouGov, which said this week that a tenth of the people who had the NHS covid app have deleted it, and that a further fifth are considering doing so. Given that he made his living from listening to public opinion, does he not think it is time for the Government to listen to public opinion and immediately scrap the 10-day isolation requirement for double-jabbed people who are pinged, in favour of having to isolate until they take a negative PCR test? Otherwise we risk losing social consent for this very important weapon against the virus.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would briefly like to ask you about the issue we were not able to ask Ministers about in the House yesterday, which is the decision on NHS pay. I support the decision to accept the pay review body’s recommendations. It is the right thing to do, but it costs £1.5 billion. Can the Minister confirm it will not be paid for by cuts to other parts of the NHS budget? If it is going to be funded through a new national insurance rise for health and social care, as The Times says today, will he confirm that the funding for social care will be ring-fenced, so that we do not have a situation in which social care, once again, loses out because of pressures in the NHS?

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman said “you,” but I was not responsible for the decision yesterday.