Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will certainly answer the questions posed by the hon. Gentleman, but as for his proposal to dismantle the testing system that we have built so painstakingly over the past six months using not only the NHS and PHE, but all the testing capacity of the nation, that is one that I and the British people will reject. We need to build our capacity, and we need to build on what we can do. We have built one of the biggest testing capacities in the world over the past six months, and I will reject all narrow, partisan calls to dismantle a testing capacity that is working.

Of course, with the increase in demand for tests that we have seen in the past few days, there have been challenges, which we have acknowledged, and we are working day and night to fix them. The long-term solution, using the new technologies that are coming on stream, is a critical part of ensuring that we can expand testing capacity still further.

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman got into a bit of a muddle on contact tracing, saying that under 70% of contacts are traced. That is simply untrue and below the number that we publish weekly—we published the latest figure last Thursday.

Some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions were sensible. On schools, he is quite right that having clear guidance on how we approach schools and on what schools should do in the event of an outbreak is important. That guidance has been published and sent to schools. In the first instance, of course, a school should work with their local director of public health to minimise the impact of an outbreak.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about financial support for those who have to self-isolate, and we have put that in place. We have rolled that out in areas of the north-west, and we are watching the progress effectively.

The hon. Gentleman rightly asked about Leicester, where, of course, he has both national responsibilities and a local interest. The local lockdown in Leicester has resulted in a significant drop in the number of cases, and we will take a formal review of the measures in Leicester on Thursday. I will be certain to talk to him in advance of that and take his local intelligence and views into account.

The hon. Gentleman asked for a plan for higher education. An enormous amount of work has been done with all universities to ensure that the sector can open safely in the coming weeks.

Finally, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman started his response in a constructive form in respect of the measures that we must take in Bolton. I have communicated with the Mayor of Greater Manchester and he has had a briefing from the official team—that has been offered. The statutory responsibility of course lies with Bolton Council, with which we have been working very closely to put into place measures that in essence build on the measures that Bolton Council has been putting in place. I put on the record my thanks to those in Bolton Council—its leader, David Greenhalgh, who has been doing an excellent job, as well as the director of public health and the chief executive—because it has been a difficult challenge in Bolton.

Thankfully, what we have learnt from this sort of local action elsewhere in the country is that we do not see large-scale numbers of people travelling to other areas nearby where there is a problem. We have not seen that yet. Of course, we remain vigilant on that and on all these measures, but I am sure that the people of Bolton will understand how significant this problem is and will follow the guidance and, indeed, the new laws that we will bring in to back up the proposals we have made today.

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

I thank the Secretary of State for his public recognition of the terrible symptoms that many people face many months after their coronavirus bout has ended; his words will give great comfort to the 60,000 people who have been suffering for more than three months.

On testing, it is important to recognise the step change that we have seen and the massive increase in the volume of testing that is now taking place. Will the Secretary of State give the House some sense of the confidence he has that, with the increased testing and the local lockdowns that are now being rightly pursued, we will be able to follow the low infection levels seen in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and not see the increases we have seen in France and Spain and have to go back into another national lockdown?

[Matt Hancock]

The Chairman of the Health and Social Care Committee precisely sets out our goal. Some countries—not only in the far east but closer to home—have seen a rise in cases, especially among younger people, and taken action that has turned the curve. That is particularly true in, for instance, Belgium, which we were very worried about a month ago: the case rate came right down when Belgium put a curfew in place. We are taking local action here, and our approach to local action has been commended by the World Health Organisation.

Of course, the responsibility is on all of us. I know that this is a riff that we talked about a lot in March, April and May, as the cases were coming right down, but we all have a role to play in this, because the local action and the test and trace—actions that we take in Government and with local authorities—are only the second and third line of defence. The first line of defence, for everybody in this Chamber and all our constituents, is to follow the social-distancing advice. We will be stepping up the communications and making sure that people are reminded very clearly of the rules, and we will also be taking action to step up enforcement, to make sure that we can keep this virus under control until we can build up both the mass testing capacity and ultimately, as I mentioned in my statement, the vaccine on which the scientists are doing great work, although all vaccine work is uncertain until we get clarity from the regulators that a vaccine is safe and effective to use.

Covid-19

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will answer as many of the hon. Gentleman’s questions as possible. His first question about the effectiveness of NHS Test and Trace is very important. He is right that we are investing in public health teams, and so we should. As we discussed in Health questions earlier, it is important to have the combination of the national system and the local one. It is also important that we communicate to people that it is important to engage in testing and contact tracing for those who test positive and their contacts. It is important to be able to communicate to people so that they get those messages, and we will do that in whatever way is effective to get those messages across.

The hon. Gentleman asks about the importance of mass testing. I bow to no one in my enthusiasm for mass testing and am glad that he supports my drive for it. He might remember the exchanges we had some time ago when I rather stuck my neck out in pushing for mass testing when we needed to get to hundreds of thousands of tests. We now need to increase the number of tests again.

The hon. Gentleman mentions both saliva tests and pool tests; we are trialling both of those. As with vaccines, to which I shall come briefly, we will only use testing that is validated and for which the results are safe, so it is important that we use the world-class facilities that we have at Porton Down to make sure that tests are validated before we use them in public. Saliva testing and pool testing are both options that we are working on.

Local lockdowns are working. Local action, taken jointly between national and local government, is having an effect, as the hon. Gentleman knows well from Leicester, where the case rate is right down. We do publish the data on which such decisions are made. In fact, from last Thursday, we now publish data at lower-super-output-area level, which is the lowest level in terms of how local the test results can be reasonably published. We also provide extensive data to directors of public health.

It is important that all elected officials are engaged in the process of making lockdown decisions, so, as we set out the week before last, we require councils to seek consensus with local elected officials, which includes colleagues in this House. For instance, if your area, Mr Speaker, were under consideration for the need for intervention, we would require your local council to seek consensus with you—although that consensus is not always possible, and there have been a couple of examples where it has not been—and would then make as targeted an intervention as possible. We want to get to the point at which everybody is on the same side in the battle against the disease. I am glad to say that in nearly all council areas the process has worked well. I urge all council leaders to work to engage with their local MPs and with colleagues from across the House to make sure that colleagues’ views are taken into account in trying to seek consensus.

The hon. Gentleman makes the point that a vaccine must be deployed only when safe and effective, and he is completely right. He and I are as one, along with every single Member of this House, in our abhorrence at the anti-vax people who peddle lies, and in our abhorrence at the anti-test people who similarly try to argue that testing is somehow wrong when it is not. In the UK, a vaccine will be deployed only when it is safe and signed off by the regulator. The UK health regulator, the MHRA, is one of the finest regulators in the world. It is robust, independent and technically brilliant. People should know that we will sign off a vaccine only when it is safe. Having said that, we will also work incredibly hard and give all the resources that the vaccine development teams need to try to get a vaccine over the line as quickly as possible.

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

The Secretary of State has made impressive progress in making testing available to everyone with covid symptoms, but I wish to press him on the availability of tests for people who are asymptomatic. Will he confirm that it is the Government’s intention to introduce regular weekly testing for NHS staff, teachers and other people who are in regular contact with the public and who could potentially transmit the virus? Even if it cannot be done right away, is it the intention to do that as soon as possible? Surely that is the best way to reassure patients that their hospital is safe and parents that their kids’ school is safe.

[Matt Hancock]

It is my intention to deploy as much testing as possible using the new testing innovations coming on stream and to do so as widely as possible following clinical advice. We have set out the process we propose to use for the current generation of testing capability, but if a new, easier type of test gets over the line, of course we will always keep that under clinical review, being guided always by clinicians.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.

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

The ongoing problems in maternity units in Shrewsbury, Telford and east Kent hospitals have shown that independent, blame-free investigations into baby deaths have never been more important. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is still the Government’s intention to put the healthcare safety investigations branch on to a statutory footing, and that those plans will remain in the Queen’s Speech later this year?

[Matt Hancock]

Nobody has done more for the cause of patient safety in this country than my right hon. Friend. We are seeking to put the health service investigatory branch into law at the earliest legislative opportunity. He will know that, as a Minister, I could not possibly pre-empt what Her Majesty might say in a few months’ time in the other place, but I will say that, in the same way that we introduced the Health Service Safety Investigations Bill just before the election, it is our full intention to legislate for it at the earliest chance.

Coronavirus Response

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. If questions and answers can be as concise as possible, we will hopefully get many more Members in.

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

This may be the last coronavirus statement before the summer break, so I congratulate the Health Secretary on his stamina over the past six months and in particular on his decision to introduce the 100,000 tests target in April, which I think will be seen as a turning point in our battle against the virus.

The central challenge we now face is that according to the latest figures and as the Secretary of State knows, about 1,700 people a day are being infected by the virus and about 400 a day are going into NHS test and trace, which is about a quarter. As we think about how to prevent a second wave, will he give the House some details as to how we are going to bridge that gap so that we can go into our Christmas holiday with the same cautious optimism as we are going into our summer one?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. That is a really important point, and we monitor those data all the time. I am glad to say that the latest data are a little bit better than my right hon. Friend suggested, but the point is still important. The main cause of the gap is people who are asymptomatic and therefore do not know they have the virus and do not come forward for testing. We are going to ramp up our communications to make clear that, if in doubt and if people think they might have the symptoms, they should come forward and get a test. We are also going to ramp up our asymptomatic testing of high-risk groups, which he and I have had exchanges about before. I am grateful for what he said about the 100,000 testing target. Of course, he will recognise that I am as delighted as he will be that the Prime Minister set me a new target on Friday to hit half a million by the end of October, so there is my summer sorted.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for special dispensation to ask this question remotely. I want to ask the Health Secretary about the worrying variation in coronavirus mortality rates between hospitals, which appear to range from 12.5% to 80%. There may be some issues of deprivation or ethnicity, but some of that variation is likely to be due to a failure in some hospitals to adopt best practice, which is what the Getting It Right First Time programme, led by Professor Tim Briggs, addresses. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me and Professor Briggs to discuss whether the Getting It Right First Time programme could help to reduce covid mortality rates?

[Matt Hancock]

I would be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend and Professor Tim Briggs, who does an incredible job. He is a brilliant public servant, who has done great work on the Getting It Right First Time programme. As my right hon. Friend knows better than almost anybody, the unjustified variation in performance between different hospitals within the NHS is a huge issue across the board, because if the standards in every hospital were the same as the standards in the best hospital, the performance of the whole would be so much higher. That is exactly what the Getting It Right First Time programme was designed to deliver. It was instigated by him, and I would be very happy to listen to what both he and Professor Briggs have to say.

Coronavirus Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I can certainly answer some of the genuine questions that were under there. The tone of constructive engagement that the hon. Gentleman used to engage with was a better one for him.

We clearly follow the evidence on face coverings, and I set out some of the reasons why now is the right moment to introduce this policy. Trying to turn this into a party political football ill behoves the hon. Gentleman, not least because when his colleague the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) was asked yesterday whether he knew what Labour’s policy was on face masks, he said:

“On that specific detail…I don’t…I would like to know…if we are going to call for clarity…it would be good to have clarity on our own policy.”

So we can take the criticisms from the Opposition Front- Bench team with a pinch of salt.

I come to the specific substantive questions that the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) asked. I have set out that there is a process for whether changes can be made in Leicester. The process is that we will look at 14 days of data, and today it is 14 days since the measures were introduced. We will look at that on Thursday of this week and make a public announcement as soon as is reasonably possible about whether any changes can be made to the situation in Leicester.

Thankfully, the numbers have been coming down in Leicester and we have put in that extra testing, but the number of positive cases in Leicester is still well above the rest of the country. I will not prejudge the decision that we will take on Thursday, and we will take into account all the data. The hon. Gentleman asks for specific metrics. We will not set out specific thresholds. Instead, we will look at all the data—both the level and the rate of change—and make the appropriate decision in consultation with the local authorities.

The hon. Gentleman asks about health and safety inspections. There are risk-based health and safety inspections on all the types of facility that he mentioned, and that absolutely needs to be based on risk. For instance, we have seen across the world that meat-packing factories have a much higher risk of outbreak, so we have targeted inspections on them.

The hon. Gentleman asks about data. Patient identifiable data is available to local authorities when they sign a data protection agreement. Of course, there has to be a data protection agreement, and, as he knows, we plan to publish more and more of that as open data.

We will continue the work to control the virus. We will continue to bring in measures as they are appropriate, and I look forward to a return to the spirit of constructive engagement for which the hon. Gentleman is so well known.

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

I congratulate the Health Secretary on the impressive resilience that he has shown throughout the coronavirus crisis, but as we both know, the joy of his job is that winter is always around the corner. One of the most sobering statistics in this morning’s report from the Academy of Medical Sciences is that the number of people every day over winter who have covid symptoms will increase from 100,000 to 360,000. It is obviously vital to know which of them have coronavirus and which just have regular winter flu. The report states that it is essential to have a massive ramp-up of testing and tracing capability before then, so what are my right hon. Friend’s plans are to do that, and when he does it, will he be able to do what not just Sir John Bell, but Sir Paul Nurse and many other distinguished scientists are calling for, which is routine testing for NHS frontline staff?

[Matt Hancock]

I take very seriously the royal colleges report. We are engaged in a massive ramp-up of testing and of the contact tracing that my right hon. Friend has long championed. The scale of the ramp-up of testing will be big enough to cope with the sorts of figures that are described in the royal colleges report—that is even on the current testing technology. If there is a breakthrough so that we can get testing technology that is even easier to roll out, where it can be done at the bedside in the community rather than having to be sent to a lab, we will be able to have an even bigger roll-out.

On my right hon. Friend’s final point, as he and I have discussed in this Chamber, we have put in place a programme of regular testing of NHS staff that is advised by clinicians. That insists on regular testing that is, again, risk-based, and as we further ramp-up testing above and beyond the current 300,000-a-day capacity that we have now achieved, which is one of the highest in the whole world, we will of course continue to expand that effort.

Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

That was a long list of asks. I am sure the hon. Gentleman appreciates that we received the report yesterday, and it is a detailed, in-depth and complex report. He is pushing on an open door, with almost everything he asks—patients absolutely have to be at the heart of this. The report is titled, “First Do No Harm”. Our response has to be to do good. We are listening; I am in listening mode. I have listened to what he has said. I will listen to what everybody here has to say today, and to what all the groups have to say, to the details of the report. We will take it away.

The hon. Gentleman asks how long; I am sure he appreciates that work needs to be done to formulate a response. The response will come as soon as possible, as soon as the work has been done. He is quite right about the role of women, which he referred to at the start of his comments. Whether it is Shipman or Paterson or maternity issues or the Cumberlege report, more often than not women are at the heart of these—for want of a better word—scandals. He is absolutely right and I feel very passionately about making sure we come back with a really positive and robust response to this report as soon as possible.

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

I thank the Minister for the compassion and the anger in her response. She is a fantastic champion of patient safety. I also thank the many hon. Members, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) and for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), who persuaded me to commission the report. I, too, would like to thank the brave campaigners who have not stopped until they got justice. I particularly thank Baroness Cumberlege, Sir Cyril Chantler and their team, who did a painstaking amount of work to get to where we are today.

I commissioned this report because I knew that many lives had been ruined because we did not act quickly enough to deal with problems in these three areas, but the results are far more shocking and disturbing than I ever imagined at the time. Thousands of lives have been blighted by what went wrong in the most terrible way. Does the Minister agree that the central issue is not about the three areas alone, but about all medicines and devices where there is no one for patients and people who are suffering to go to with the confidence that they will be listened to? That is why the suggestion of a patient safety commissioner is so important. It is not a tsar or a quango; they would be a person who would listen to people whose voices were not heard. I hope the Government take that recommendation seriously.

Will my hon. Friend give a commitment that the Government will come back to this House before the end of September with their recommendations? We completely understand her tremendous commitment to patient safety, but does she agree that the gravity of this issue is such that it should be the Health Secretary, who made a very important apology yesterday, who comes back before the end of September and tells the House what the Government are going to do?

[Ms Dorries]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who commissioned the review in 2018. Thank goodness he did, because without it, these voices would still be struggling to be heard.

On my right hon. Friend’s question about the patient safety commissioner, as that is a recommendation, it will be considered, as will every other recommendation. It is important to mention that we have Aiden Fowler, whom my right hon. Friend appointed to NHS Improvement to take on the head of patient safety role on behalf of NHS England. That does not mean that we will not consider the recommendation thoroughly; we will do so.

Obviously, I cannot speak for the Secretary of State, but I am sure he is aware of my right hon. Friend’s comments. I cannot commit to coming back by the end of September; what I can give the House is my absolute assurance that I will chase this daily. The work commenced when the report became available to us, and a huge amount of work has been done overnight on assessing the recommendations made in the report. I or the Secretary of State will be back here as soon as possible with our recommendations.

Coronavirus

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

First, the hon. Gentleman rightly asks about the process needed to bring Leicester out of lockdown and back to the level of freedom enjoyed in the rest of the country. What we said, when we took the measures just over a week ago, is that we needed to see 14 days of data, so we propose to make announcements on the next steps on 18 July. Of course, if further measures are needed in the meantime to tighten up we would take them immediately, but, as I said in my statement, the good news is that the data are currently moving in the right direction.

The hon. Gentleman asks specifically about a figure for the point at which such a local lockdown might be lifted. We are not going to use or give a specific figure, because both the level and the rate of change matters. If the level were lower but going up, that could be a worse situation than a higher level that is under control and falling. We have to look at both the level and the rate of change.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman said that data are being delivered. He mentioned some more detailed data and I am very happy to look into those proposals.

The hon. Gentleman mentions asymptomatic testing and the asymptomatic testing of NHS staff. As this House debated 10 days ago now, we have worked with clinicians to come forward with a scheme that is supported by those clinicians for the regular testing of NHS staff. That scheme is now agreed and in place. Of course, we constantly monitor it and we monitor the number of cases among NHS staff. I am content with that scheme, which was set out almost two weeks ago.

The hon. Gentleman also asks about care homes. Throughout the crisis, care homes have done amazing work. The Prime Minister was explaining that because asymptomatic transmission was not known about, the correct procedures were therefore not known. We have been constantly learning about the virus from the start and improving procedures all the way through. I pay tribute to the care homes of this country, which have done so much to care for the most vulnerable throughout the crisis.

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

Last week, the Regius Chair of Medicine at Oxford University, Professor Sir John Bell, told the Science and Technology Committee that saturation testing of NHS hospital staff was an absolute requirement, and should have happened from the get-go. Last week, the Secretary of State delighted the social care sector by announcing that care home staff would be tested weekly. Now is his chance to delight not just Sir John Bell, but 1.4 million people in the NHS, by saying that from the start of next month, they too can have weekly testing. Will he do that?

[Matt Hancock]

As I mentioned, we have put in place the procedures for regular testing of NHS staff, and those procedures are underlined by the clinical analysis. There is a difference between social care and NHS staff, not least because the impact of coronavirus, in terms of its prevalence, has been higher among social care staff in care homes. We must ensure that such decisions are clinically led, but of course I keep the issue under review and take the comments from the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee very seriously.

Covid-19 Update

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I want to put on record my gratitude to the shadow Secretary of State and his Leicestershire colleagues in this House, who have all worked in a constructive manner to try to make sure that we get the right answers here and then we communicate them in the right way to the people of Leicester. He, after all, is both a Leicester MP and the shadow Secretary of State.,

I set out in my speech the action that we have already taken over the past fortnight to support Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council to tackle this outbreak. We have been acting on it since it first came to our attention. It is clear now that further action is necessary. He talks about the debate that has been in the media. All I can say is that, within two hours of the final decisions being taken, I have come to this House. I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to come to the House at this unusually late hour in order to set out the decisions immediately.



The hon. Gentleman rightly asked about the powers that will underpin the decisions that I have taken. They will be brought forward with a statutory instrument very shortly, and I commit to keeping the House updated on the two-week review of whether we can lift some of the measures.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to talk about the proud diversity of the city of Leicester. It is very important that that diversity is taken into account in communicating these decisions and undertaking the public health measures in Leicester. That includes, for instance, the financial support that we put in place for the translation of the messages.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the testing units can be there for the long term. They will absolutely be there for as long as they are needed. He asked for the provision of home testing kits. I will take that away, but I commit to him that we will increase the number of home testing kits that are available for Leicester. He asked about accommodation for those who are required to self-isolate but whose accommodation does not allow for that in practice. We are working with the city council to put in place availability, on a discretionary and exceptional basis, for accommodation for those who are required to self-isolate by public health officials.

The hon. Gentleman asked about childcare. I appreciate that these decisions—especially the closure of schools—will have an impact on working parents. Childcare is, of course, a reason for essential travel, and I hope that, as during the broader lockdown across the country, people will be able to make arrangements for it.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about other areas that have high intensity. We are of course looking across the country at the cities where cases of this virus remain higher than elsewhere. However, the number of cases in Leicester is three times higher than the next highest city. That is not due to the fact that there is now more testing in Leicester. If it were, the proportion of people who test positive would be falling. Actually, that proportion has remained static, which is one of the reasons why we are specifically concerned about Leicester. It is not just that there is increased testing; it is that there is a higher prevalence in Leicester. That is why we have taken the actions that we have.

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

I support the actions being taken in Leicester, but, like the whole House, I feel for the people of Leicester at this particularly anxious time.

I want to ask the Health Secretary about the broader matter of testing NHS staff. He has said many times that he supports the routine testing of NHS staff, but last Wednesday—the day we debated this issue in the House—a letter went out to the NHS saying that testing NHS staff will be based on the PHE SIREN study, which is the antibody testing programme. Given that it takes up to three weeks for an antibody to show, how can a regime that is meant to stop the asymptomatic transmission of the virus to patients and colleagues possibly work?

[Matt Hancock]

The regime for testing NHS staff, which will apply in Leicester and right across the board, is the one recommended by clinicians. The SIREN study starts with an antibody test, but then has regular swab testing, including at weekly frequency. There is regular testing to find out if people have the virus, and also a test at the start to find out if they have had it. That not only ensures that they are kept safe and finds out if they have the virus, but supports the immunology research to find out if people who have antibodies can catch the virus a second time. We are doing it that way in order to get the practical benefits and the research benefits.

Testing of NHS and Social Care Staff

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point, which affects the debate more broadly: those who test positive or are asked to isolate need to be given the financial support to do it, and statutory sick pay in many circumstances will not be enough. There are millions of workers—2 million in this country—who do not qualify for statutory sick pay, and just saying that they can apply online for universal credit is not going to be enough.

We need more radical thinking from the Government. Other countries offer greater financial support to those who are asked to isolate. Other countries even offer hotel rooms to those who are asked to isolate if it is not appropriate for them to isolate at home because of the nature of their housing situation. The Government should be looking into those sorts of things, and I hope the Minister can respond to that.

The point I was making is that regular testing of staff, whether asymptomatic or not, is so important not only for the safety of those staff and patients, but for building confidence in the NHS more generally. The study from Imperial suggested that it would reduce transmission of covid in healthcare settings by up to a third. We believe that this is a constructive suggestion that we are putting to the Government, which they should take on board and explore. It is disappointing that they are seeking to amend the motion to completely strip that out. They are not even prepared to take it away and look into it. They just want to pass a motion congratulating themselves on their handling of the pandemic.

A testing strategy for staff and patients, as we are proposing today, is a demand supported by many across the NHS as key to restarting that NHS work.

“A clear testing strategy is now more important than ever”—

says Chris Hopson from NHS Providers.

We

“need rapid testing available for all staff and patients, whether showing symptoms of COVID-19 or not”—

says Cancer Research UK.

“It’s absolutely essential to regain public confidence that we are able to test our staff regularly”—says Derek Alderson of the Royal College of Surgeons. And, of course—the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) will not be surprised that I am going to quote him in this debate—it is a position shared by the former Health Secretary, now the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, who in today’s Telegraph makes the case with far greater eloquence than I could ever muster:

“Until we minimise the risk of asymptomatic transmission by introducing weekly testing for all NHS and care staff, we are failing in a basic duty of care to the people most likely to die if they get the virus.”

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

May I put on record my thanks to the hon. Gentleman for praising me in this House for the very first time that I can remember on record?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I praised him plenty of times from this Dispatch Box. The point is that this is a constructive proposal, which is not a party political point. There are clearly many people across the House who support this proposal. The right hon. Member, the former Health Secretary, also prays in aid in his article—I have it here for Members, if they have not had chance to peruse it—both Tony Blair and William Hague. So we now have a Front Bencher praising Tony Blair from the Dispatch Box—that is probably the first time it has happened on the Labour Front Bench for about 10 years.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). It is the first time I have heard him speak from the Front Bench and it was a very thoughtful contribution. I hope we hear more from him.

I thank the shadow Health Secretary for having this debate and, indeed, for mentioning my article in The Daily Telegraph. If I ever was on the Prime Minister’s Christmas card list, that mention will be sure to get me taken off it—[Laughter.]

I particularly want to congratulate the Minister of State on leading this debate for the Government. As a veteran of many Opposition day health debates, I can say that she elicited a much calmer response from the Opposition than I ever did, and she deserves many congratulations for that.

We need to start this important debate by recognising that, as a country, we are in a transformed position because of recent changes to our response to the pandemic. We are now contacting around three quarters of the people we identify as testing positive for coronavirus and 90% of their contacts are being asked to isolate. That is the basis of South Korean test and trace, and it is incredibly important that we are in that position. I am sad in this respect that the Health Secretary is not here himself, because that would not have been possible if he had not taken the courageous decision to set the target of 100,000 tests a day at the start of April. Indeed, yesterday’s announcement about the gradual easing of our national hibernation would itself not have been possible if that had not been in place, and we need to recognise that.

The challenge we now have is that we do not know where about two thirds of new infections are happening, so we cannot feed them into the test and trace process. That is a challenge, because SAGE’s advice is that we ask about 80% of potential coronavirus contacts to isolate, and we are still some way off that. In fact, we are contacting about 700 people a day to get their contacts and there are about 2,500 daily new infections. If we do the maths, assuming that each person with coronavirus has about nine contacts, which is the current figure, that is up to a quarter of million people since the process started whom we would have liked to have asked to isolate but we have not been able to do so.

How do we meet that challenge? Well, the answer is to do something that the Government have already shown they are very good at, which is a dramatic expansion of testing capacity. The city of Beijing has about a third of the population of the United Kingdom, but its daily testing capacity is nearly double ours at around 400,000 a day, and many of those tests come back within 24 hours. We look forward to the triumphant announcement next week that we are meeting the Prime Minister’s target for all non-postal tests to come back within 24 hours by the end of this month, because speed matters.

If we expand our testing capacity dramatically, we can use it, for example, to deal with localised outbreaks, such as the one we have had in Ynys Môn, where my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) is doing such a fantastic job in supporting her affected constituents. We can use it at airports instead of the quarantine policy, by testing people on arrival. We can use it for high-risk groups such as taxi drivers, who are particularly at risk. Most of all, we can use it for our frontline health and care staff. If we had Beijing levels of testing in this country, we would, in addition to the testing we are currently doing, be able to test every NHS frontline worker once a week. If we got it up another 200,000, we would be able to test every frontline care worker once a week as well.

Why does that matter? It matters because, according to the evidence submitted to SAGE on 20 April, up to 25% of the coronavirus patients in our hospitals caught coronavirus in the hospital. When we add on the people who catch their infection in care homes, what we end up with is that about a third of new infections are likely to be in healthcare settings—so-called nosocomial infections, which is one of the many new words we have learned over the course of this crisis.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a superb speech, and I agree with every word. I was struck by the Minister’s response to me when she made the point that the Government’s position is based on the advice of the chief medical officer. I would entirely understand if the Government said, “The resources are not quite there yet. We have not quite got capacity there. We need to build up capacity before we can test all the millions of NHS staff.” I think everyone would have thought that a reasonable position, and we would be urging the Government to go further. However, if the advice to the Government from the CMO is not the correct clinical approach, will the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps through his chairmanship of the Health and Social Care Committee, ask the CMO whether they will provide the Committee with that advice, and could that advice be shared across the House?

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is a reasonable question. I will certainly take that away. In fact, the CMO is coming before the Health and Social Care Committee in a few weeks’ time, and I am sure we will ask that question. My understanding is that the concern in the clinical advice is the question of false positives—people who get told that they have coronavirus when they have not. Those people might be in a very important frontline clinical role and be asked to isolate, and that might take them off very important work. To me the obvious answer is to give them a second, confirmatory test to establish whether they really do have the virus.

Weekly testing matters and is so important not only because, with around a third of new infections happening in healthcare settings, it will save a lot of patients’ lives and save the lives of frontline healthcare workers, but because it is the critical thing stopping the NHS getting back to its normal levels of activity.

Last week, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, whom the shadow Secretary of State quoted, talked about the mountainous backlog we face in, for example, orthopaedic surgery. He said that the thing holding the NHS back is the time it is taking to set up what he calls “covid-lite” facilities, where there is a low risk of people having coronavirus. That is why testing is essential.

I do not want to take up any more time than I need to, but I want to make this point. Korea, Taiwan and Germany are all held up as examples of places that have been particularly effective in tackling coronavirus. All of them introduced test and trace, but they all did it when the virus was at an earlier stage with much lower levels of community transmission. If we want test and trace to be effective here, we need to introduce mass testing, starting with health and care staff, and we must not delay.