John Redwood
Main Page: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)Department Debates - View all John Redwood's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes, I do agree. I pay tribute to Marcus Rashford. The way he has conducted himself in making his argument has been absolutely brilliant. I was reading Harry Potter to my son last night, and it was clearly still stuck in my mind at 7 o’clock this morning, when I started on the TV. We all make errors sometimes, and I apologise to Marcus for getting his name wrong on one occasion. I had no reason to make that mistake, but what really matters is his brilliant campaign and the volunteering that he has done throughout this crisis.
It is great news that steroids can save some lives, and I pay tribute to those involved, but as the Secretary of State has said, many people will not get a treatment that works. He says that there are seven other treatments in tests, which presumably started at a similar time, using different groups and families of drugs with different impacts. When will we know the results of those?
As soon as possible. The trials will also look at whether, in combination with dexamethasone, which we now know is effective, these drugs save lives. The way the trials work is that we will keep the treatments in trial until we know, to a point of rigorous scientific proof, that they work. As soon as that point is reached, we will roll them out. That point was met on Monday; I was told on Monday night about this success. We had stockpiled in advance, so we could immediately make the announcement and make the change through the NHS. I do not have a date, because it is all driven by the science.