Public Health

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I beg to move,

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 3) and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 8), dated 5 January 2021, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5 January, be approved.

The new variant of coronavirus presents us with a renewed challenge, here in Britain and around the world. Our strategy throughout has been to suppress the virus until a vaccine can make us safe, and while our collective efforts were working on the old variant, when faced with a new variant that is between 50% and 70% more transmissible, there has been no choice but to respond. I understand that these regulations have serious consequences, and I regret the huge costs they bring, but I know just as surely that these costs are far outweighed by the costs we would bear without action.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Do not viruses, especially when they become as widespread as this one, always mutate? Have the Government not planned for that?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course, we have been not only watching for mutations but, indeed, testing for mutations throughout, and it is partly because the UK has the biggest genomic testing capability of any country in the world that we have been able to pick this one up. There may be new mutations in other countries that do not have this scale of genomic testing, and just under 50% of all the sequenced genomes of covid-19 that are deposited with the World Health Organisation are deposited by the UK because of this capability.

That leads to a challenge, which is that it is the countries that have the genomic testing capability that spot the new variant and report it. There are countries that may have variations that are not known about and are not discovered in this way and cannot be reported, but that is the nature of the pandemic. My strong view is that we should be transparent and clear with our international friends when we find a new variant that is difficult to deal with.

When I have previously come to ask for the House’s support for national restrictions, we had to take it on trust that there would be an exit, because it was before a vaccine had been approved. Today I come to the House seeking approval of these regulations knowing, from the huge pressure on the NHS right now, that this action is necessary today, but also with the certain knowledge that we have a way out.

Before turning to the detail of the regulations, I want to set out the plan for how we get out of them, because that is critical. This country was the first in the world to deploy not one but two vaccines, and more than 1.3 million people have been vaccinated already, including a quarter of the over-80s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I will happily take that point away, but I can tell my right hon. Friend that that supply allows for delivery on the schedule and the target the Prime Minister set, to which my whole team is working.

[John Spellar]

The Secretary of State stressed that the problem is really in production of the vaccine. Presumably, the number of sites on which that is done is limited. Why have we not expanded the number of sites?

[Matt Hancock]

We have; we spent the summer working on that. The vaccine has sprung into prominence in the public debate over the past month or so, but we were working on that though the whole of last year, and I am glad to be able to assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is further expansion still to come.

I will end my speech by reiterating that we know that if we do not act now, eventually the NHS will not be able to cope. No Member of this House wants to witness the scenes that have been seen elsewhere in the world of hospitals overrun and doctors forced to choose who to treat and who to turn away. Although the winter weeks will be difficult, we now know what the way out looks like. Accelerating the deployment of covid vaccines, making the most vulnerable groups safe, and everyone playing their part on the way is the route out of this pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

In my experience, the Tories have never won elections because the public thought they cared but rather because they believed them to be competent. Black Wednesday did for John Major and I suspect that the covid crisis will deal with the Johnson regime.

No one believes that Governments get it right first time or indeed all of the time, but that does not excuse the criminal negligence of not dealing with pandemic planning, which seems to have gone by the board. It is the speed of reaction and the lessons learned that are important. The question is why do this Government keep making the same mistakes time and again. Who is in charge? Who is minding the shop? Who is dealing with the detail?

Ministers are surprised by predictable events. The Prime Minister seemed to be astonished to find out that viruses mutate. There is a timescale to when they mutate, but they very certainly do mutate. Every year, for example we have a different variant of influenza. We had already experienced a lack of capacity with personal protective equipment. At the time the crisis started, 1% of PPE used in the British health service came from this country. Stock handling was also appalling. When the crisis hit, British firms tried to make contact with the Department of Health and Social Care, but they just ran into a brick wall. They got no response and no help and yet the Government then poured money into grossly overpaid management consultants, middle men and pals at a huge cost to the public purse, causing a real crisis in the health service.

The vaccine programme has seen a magnificent effort from the scientists and their international partners, but, once again, we seem to be short of capacity. The Prime Minister’s response is to act almost like a Soviet planning Minister, setting a target of 13.5 million people to be vaccinated by Valentine’s day, but with no clear indication of how that will be achieved. The Secretary of State very helpfully told us today that filling the glass vials was not the problem, so is it manufacturing capacity? If it is, why have we not dealt with that in the past 12 months? We may ask whether it is MHRA testing, but the MHRA has a great record in validating the vaccines and of moving things along. Where is the problem in the system? What happens when we get a flow, as we will with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because that will be much easier to handle as it does not require the same degree of refrigeration? Why are we not talking to pharmacists and to retired doctors and nurses and getting them lined up now? Why force folk, especially older folk, to travel so far? What the public are asking is whether this lot really know what they are doing.