(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. He raises an interesting point. We are aware that some of the risk factors associated with poorer outcomes are more prevalent in certain groups of the population, and that does include people with learning disabilities, so he is right to raise that, and I will speak to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on that issue again.
All lives matter. They matter now and they mattered in March and April, when many of my constituents could not get a test when they needed one. Will the Minister talk to her colleagues about changing the attitude of Public Health England towards working with the private sector to mobilise testing capacity?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need all hands on deck on this issue, and we definitely do not want silo working where people believe that only the public sector will be able to help sort the issue. We want them to be working hand in hand with the private sector. For other key workers—in supermarkets, heavy goods vehicle drivers and so on—we have seen that the private sector has done a fantastic job in helping us weather this crisis, and I would like to see more of that happening within the health space.