Public Health

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is on the importance of using measures to support people. Support is already there, but I recognise from the way in which he phrased his question that he thinks there should be more support. I understand that we have a difference of view on that, but it is something we keep under review.

When I announced our autumn and winter plan to the House in September, I explained that we would hold measures in reserve in case the NHS was likely to come under unsustainable pressure and stop being able to provide the treatment that we want all our constituents to receive. Yesterday NHS England announced that it would return to its highest level of emergency preparedness, incident level 4, and unfortunately there is now a real risk that the exponential rise in omicron cases will translate into a spike in hospital admissions and threaten to overwhelm the NHS.

We have done so much to boost the capacity of the NHS. Over the past year we have increased the number of doctors by 5,000 and the number of nurses by almost 10,000, and we have expanded the number of beds available, but we have also had to put in place measures for infection control which have limited that capacity, and there are already more than 6,000 covid-19 patients in hospital beds in England.

Despite the progress that we have made, the NHS will never have an unlimited number of beds, or an unlimited number of people to look after people in those beds. If we think that capacity risks being breached, we simply have to step in, because we know what that would mean in practice for both covid and non-covid care. It would mean one of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, maybe a child, is in a car crash and is in need of emergency care, and the NHS has to make difficult decisions about who deserves treatment and who does not. Now, I know that some hon. Members think that this is merely hypothetical, but it is not. We have seen health services around the world become overwhelmed by covid-19 and we cannot allow that to happen here.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the Health Secretary for mentioning frontline NHS staff. The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus had a hearing this morning where we heard that staff are suffering moral injury because they are having to make exactly the decisions he outlined. The other thing we heard is that there is a worrying suggestion that omicron may be worse for children than delta. What assessment has he made of that risk? What is his plan for children to protect them against this deadly new wave?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I very much agree with the hon. Lady about the phenomenal work everyone in the NHS has been doing at all times, but especially over the past two years during this pandemic. They could not have delivered more. On her question about children and omicron, I am afraid we do not have any evidence on that yet that I have seen. We take the impact of omicron very seriously—I hope she can see that—and we will keep that under review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The past week has been tumultuous. We are about to go off on our Christmas break. The only positive thing that has emerged from party-gate is that it took Boris Johnson—[Interruption.] I do apologise. It took the Prime Minister potentially being on the front pages of all the newspapers on Monday morning to come out in favour of a different approach to plan B. I can only say thank goodness for party-gate. Had that not happened, I wonder how much longer we would have waited for the Government to act. The reason why that matters is that, every single step of the way through this pandemic, the longer we have waited, the worse things have got. The sooner we act, the less we have to act and the better the benefits.

This morning, the all-party group on coronavirus heard from the experts, many of whom advise the Government, and from people who represent frontline NHS workers. We wanted them to answer simple questions: “What is going on?” “Tell us about omicron.” Also, “Is it enough?” On omicron itself, the news is startling. Two-day doubling is quite scary. Even if all the population had boosters today, because it takes 12 days, more or less, for a person to develop immunity and become protected, the numbers would increase by 60 times. That is why the two-day doubling matters. It is true that when we get that booster immunity in place, the time of doubling will increase, which is a good thing, because we want to reduce that peak. My concern is that we have not gone fast enough soon enough.

Let us look at evidence from places such as Denmark and South Africa. Much has been made of South Africa, but it is true to say that our populations are not directly comparable. There are some things of which we need to take heed. For example, just this morning, there has been new evidence to suggest that omicron affects young children more than delta. It takes tiny percentages of children getting sick for us to start seeing them following through into hospital admissions. We should remember that children are, as yet, unvaccinated; they have no protection at all. So the first plea I make to Ministers is where is the plan for children? It needs to go beyond hoping that they are going to be okay, because it would seem that this variant is potentially a threat. I will send Ministers the evidence I have seen, which is sincerely alarming, and I hope they take it seriously.

The other thing we see from Denmark is the shape of these curves. I know that this is hard to show when talking, but for the benefit of Hansard, the blue line is delta and the red line is omicron. This is data coming from Denmark, and I will post it on Twitter if people want to look at it. However, for the benefit of Hansard, the blue line looks like a gentle slope and the red line looks like a hockey stick, and that is deeply alarming. So what do the Government need to do? They have gone from plan A to plan B, and they are considering, once they get plan B through, moving from B to C. I was a teacher before, and if that was happening to a student of mine, I would get the parents in and get them to have a chat, because we need to go from B to B-plus.

What does B-plus mean? It is the booster—absolutely, it is the booster—but we have to recognise that between now and then it is not enough. We need to ventilate our public spaces. We need to provide support for social care, because unblocking those beds in the NHS requires extra support in social care. We need to ensure that test, trace and isolate works, which means allowing people to get tested—we have seen issues with that already—but we also need to help them to isolate. We need to limit mixing, and if people will not do it themselves, the Government need to act. We also need to bear in mind the effect of long covid in all of this. If there are huge numbers of people who already have it, many more are going to have that. So I urge the Government: do not hesitate, act quickly, please do not curb Christmas, and go from B to B-plus now so that we can enjoy the holiday ahead.