Covid-19 Vaccine Roll-out

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The UK has put more money into the international search for a vaccine, and the distribution of a vaccine to the countries that otherwise would not be able to afford it, than any other state of any size, and we should be very proud of that. The way that we have managed the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is to ensure that it is available on a not-for-profit basis, essentially, worldwide. We have taken this approach because, to put it exactly as my hon. Friend did, nobody is safe until everybody is safe. This is a global pandemic and we need to address it globally. That is the only fundamental way to solve this for the long term. In the short term, what we all need to do is keep following the rules.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The vaccine is indeed welcome news, but until it is fully rolled out, the north-east will continue to be harmed by the lack of economic support that accompanies tier 3 restrictions. The Health Secretary stated that the restrictions were based on

“cases among the over-60s; the rate at which cases are rising or falling; the positivity rate; and the pressures on the local NHS.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 1000.]

Can he therefore tell me precisely what level these figures will have to be at for the north-east to be moved into tier 2?

[Matt Hancock]

We consider all those figures, and because we consider them alongside special factors such as whether there is an outbreak, we do not put a specific figure on that, as the hon. Lady well knows. But what we have done is put in more economic support than almost any other country in the world, as the International Monetary Fund has recognised. We have tried as best we possibly can to support people through what has been an incredibly difficult year. We have not been able to save every job, but with the economic measures of support for business and the furlough scheme in place, we have put in very significant support. But the best support that people in the north-east, and elsewhere in the country, can have until this vaccine is rolled out is to continue to follow the restrictions that are necessary and then, if they get the call from the NHS, take that vaccine.

Smokefree England: Covid-19 and PHE Abolition

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Government’s ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030; notes the increasing disparities in smoking rates between the richest and poorest in society; further notes the effect of the covid-19 outbreak and the opportunities and risks provided by the reorganisation of public health on the UK’s ability to achieve this ambition; and calls on the Government to set out the further steps it plans to take to deliver a smokefree England by 2030.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. I am also grateful to every Member who has given up their time to speak, especially the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who I believe has already had two questions and a speech today—and I suspect that he still has an Adjournment debate ahead of him.

This debate is on an issue that is close to my heart. I must declare an interest as a former chair of the Gateshead tobacco control alliance. As the prevention Green Paper acknowledged, achieving the smokefree 2030 ambition will be challenging, especially in deprived communities where smoking rates are higher. On current progress, Cancer Research UK estimates that these communities will not reach the 5% ambition until the mid-2040s. This is simply not acceptable. Indeed, in County Durham, adult smoking prevalence is 17% compared with 13.9% nationally. This rises to 27% among people in routine and manual occupations. On top of that, 16.8% of mothers smoked during pregnancy compared with 10.4% in England.

Smokers in the north-east lose around £600 million because of unemployment and reduced income due to smoking. For working smokers, weekly earnings are on average 6.8% lower than for non-smokers, equivalent to £1,424 less per smoker annually—and this, of course, was prior to covid-19, which is disproportionately harming the health of local economies of already disadvantaged areas. Helping smokers to quit will benefit not just their health and wellbeing but their incomes, helping to level up disadvantaged communities. Smoking is also responsible for half the difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. For every person who dies from smoking, another 30 are suffering from serious smoking-related diseases. Disturbingly, every week in England, almost 2,000 children take up smoking, two thirds of whom will go on to become regular smokers.

With 1,500 people dying from smoking-related diseases every week, there is no time to waste. The tobacco control plan published in 2017 was for five years, which comes to an end in 2022. It has already been overtaken by events and is no longer fit for purpose in the light of the ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030, the decision to abolish Public Health England, and the Government’s manifesto commitments to increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 while narrowing inequalities. If a new tobacco control plan is to be put in place in a timely manner, it needs to be in development now. The Minister may remember that the last plan was published two years after its predecessor ran out of time. We need bold announcements from the Government on tough new measures, along the lines set out in the “Roadmap to a smokefree 2030”, which has been endorsed by the all-party group on smoking and health, if we are to achieve a smokefree 2030. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government are developing a new tobacco control plan, and if not consider doing so urgently? Will he further commit to publishing a new tobacco control plan in 2021, setting out concrete measures for delivering on the smokefree 2030 ambition?

Britain is a world leader in tobacco control, having driven down smoking rates by 60% since the start of this century. However, the Government’s decision to abolish Public Health England without a clear plan for the future risks undermining this hard-won progress. The success in tobacco control has been driven by combining national population level interventions with comprehensive actions at regional and local levels.

The national function is currently provided by a combination of the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England; what is crucial is not where the function sits, but that it has protected funding and continues to exist. Furthermore, while inequalities in smoking rates remain, where regional tobacco control programmes have been in place there has been a significantly higher rate of decline. Regional programmes, such as those led by Fresh in the north-east, provide an effective bridge between national and local activity and between local authorities and the NHS. The Government must publish a clear plan setting out the future of Public Health England’s health improvement and wider functions; that is crucial if we are to achieve the Government’s interlocking pledges not just to achieve a smokefree 2030, but to increase disability-free life years, reduce inequalities, improve mental health and reduce obesity and alcohol harm.

The covid-19 pandemic makes action to reduce smoking prevalence all the more urgent. Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases and diabetes account for about 89% of all deaths in the UK and are also linked to higher rates of mortality from covid-19. A robust and sustainable approach to health improvement is vital if we are to tackle the leading causes of chronic diseases, namely smoking, obesity and alcohol and drug abuse.

However, the impact of smoking is not limited to the UK. It is estimated that at least 8 million deaths around the world every year are linked to tobacco, more than for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Over 80% of the more than 1 billion smokers in the world live in low and middle-income countries. In addition to the human cost, the impact on already overstretched health care systems puts a heavy economic burden on those countries, adding to the difficulties LMICs face in recovering from the global pandemic.

That is why we can all be proud that the UK, as a global leader in tobacco control, is providing funding via Official Development Assistance to support implementation of the framework convention on tobacco control in low and middle-income countries. The funding was £15 million over five years for the World Health Organisation’s FCTC 2030 project to support low and middle-income countries to implement tobacco control measures. The FCTC 2030 project has been very well regarded; however, funding is due to come to an end. Extending this funding will accelerate progress in ending the global tobacco epidemic, support FCTC 2030 beneficiary countries to recover from covid-19 domestically, and as the UK leaves the EU maintain our position and as a global leader on tobacco control.

This is a matter of development funding so it requires broader support than just from the Department of Health and Social Care, but the Minister’s support for the proposal would greatly facilitate the likelihood of success. Will the Minister therefore commit to supporting extending the UK’s funding for the FCTC 2030 project beyond 2021?

Aside from our international commitments, it is important that there is a focus within the UK at regional and local authority level. Smokers from deprived communities with higher smoking rates tend to be more heavily addicted than those from more affluent communities. Deprived smokers are just as motivated to quit as other smokers, but it is harder to succeed when people are more addicted, when smoking is more commonplace and when cheap, illicit tobacco is widely available.

Regional tobacco control programmes have been effective in tackling these disparities, as shown most clearly by the example of Fresh in the north-east, which is the longest-running and only surviving regional office for tobacco control. When Fresh was founded in 2005, smoking prevalence in the north-east was much higher than the average for England, at 29% compared with 24%, and the disparity was growing. Since then, the north-east has seen the greatest decline in smoking prevalence of any region, and smoking prevalence is now only a little higher than the England average. Smoking rates have also fallen faster among routine and manual workers in the north-east compared with in England as a whole. As a result, although the differential between routine and manual and professional workers declined in the north-east between 2012 and 2017, it has increased in England as a whole. The success and value of Fresh’s work is clear, and I commend it for its vital work in the region.

After the public health grant to local authorities was cut in 2015-16, the funding provided by local authorities for regional offices in the north-west and south-west was cut completely. Even in the north-east, funding has been significantly reduced. New funding streams are therefore needed. In addition, there are stop smoking services that act as a highly effective and cost-effective way of supporting smokers to quit. However, there is a stark inequity in the local authority offer to smokers across England. In some areas, stop smoking services have been scaled down or decommissioned altogether, whereas elsewhere local authorities have sustained or developed their services.

An Action on Smoking and Health and Cancer Research UK report published in January looked at the state of local stop smoking support and found that among the local authorities that still had a budget for stop smoking services, 35% had cut that budget between 2018-19 and 2019-20. That was the fifth successive year in which more than a third of local authorities had cut their stop smoking service budgets. Financial pressures caused by the cuts to public health funding and the wider pressures on local government finances are the major reason for that. The public health grant, which funds local authority tobacco control, has been cut by around a fifth in real terms since 2015-16, falling from £4 billion in ’15-16 to £3.2 billion now.

Analysis by the King’s Fund in 2018 found that wider tobacco control and stop smoking services were among the biggest losers in planned budget cuts and that these cuts have been accompanied by a 38% decline in the number of smokers setting quit dates at stop smoking services since 2015. Among pregnant women, the number setting quit dates has fallen by a fifth. This is one of the many failures of austerity, so will the Minister confirm that the Government will reverse the cuts made to local public health budgets to ensure that local authorities can play their part in delivering a smokefree 2030?

We must also recognise the value of social marketing campaigns, which have immediate impact, can be targeted with precision at disadvantaged smokers and can be highly cost-effective if carried out at a regional and national level. Such campaigns play a particularly important role in motivating smokers to try to quit. In 2016, Fresh worked with Smoke Free Yorkshire and the Humber to implement a hard-hitting quit smoking campaign aimed at raising smokers’ awareness of the links between smoking and 16 types of cancer and to trigger quit attempts, reaching millions of people. It is now thought to have been among the most successful quit campaigns to have ever been run in England in terms of awareness, attitudes and actions taken, with around 10% of people who saw it making a quit attempt—that is around 72,000 smokers. However, this regional activity is threatened by local authority budget cuts, which led to the decommissioning of the regional offices in the north-west and south-west. A smokefree 2030 fund imposed on the tobacco industry, as proposed in the Green Paper consultation, would provide vital funding for national and regional anti-smoking mass media campaigns.

Another important regional issue is the impact of illicit tobacco, which is concentrated in poorer communities. Cheap and illicit tobacco provides easier access to tobacco for children and reduces the incentive for adults to quit. In 2009, Fresh, along with colleagues in the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber, established the North of England Tackling Illicit Tobacco for Better Health programme, originally with pump priming from a Department of Health grant. The aim was to increase the health of the population by reducing smoking prevalence; reducing the availability of illicit tobacco, therefore keeping real tobacco prices high; developing infrastructure to aid information sharing, identification of illicit markets and enforcement action; reducing the demand for illicit tobacco through campaigns raising awareness of the issue; engaging with relevant health and community workers; and finally, regularly monitoring smokers’ attitudes and behaviour to measure the effectiveness of the programme.

Between 2009 and 2019, the illicit market share declined by a third in the north-east from 15% to 10%, and enforcement was enhanced. That compares with the national market share of illicit tobacco in 2018-19 and of manufactured cigarettes, with a share of 34% for hand-rolled tobacco. Elements of the original north of England programme have been sustained by Fresh in the north-east, including insight-led demand reduction programmes. Fresh now leads the national Illicit Tobacco Partnership, supported by ASH and other partners. However, the 2013 National Audit Office recommendation that this approach be rolled out nationally has not yet been adopted, while essential regional activity to tackle illicit tobacco and reduce smoking among children and young people has been put at risk by cuts to public health grants since 2015-16. Does the Minister agree that regional activity to get illicit tobacco off our streets should be sustainably funded?

Finally, I would like to raise the regulation review. While we await the Government’s response to the prevention Green Paper consultation, I hope the Minister can tell us what has happened to the Government’s response to the consultation on the Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015, which closed in September last year. A response to that consultation was due last December, and almost a year on, there has been no word from the Government about when it will be published. The Government are also required to review the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 and the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 by May 2021. They should set out the timetable for the consultation process for both sets of regulations as soon as possible. We are therefore awaiting the Government’s response to two consultations and the launch of two more, which need to be reported by the end of the financial year. Can the Minister confirm when the Government will deliver on all four of those?

I recognise that I have posed a lot of questions, and I thank the Minister and the House for their time. However, those are questions that need to be asked and answered if we are to achieve the smokefree 2030 ambition that is shared right across the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I thank every Member for their contribution to this important debate: my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the hon. Members for Winchester (Steve Brine) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and the Minister. I am glad that there is consensus across the House on the need to reach the target of a smokefree England by 2030. If I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank Deborah Arnott from ASH and Ailsa Rutter from Fresh who have been a continued source of support and knowledge in all things smoking-harm related.

I am aware that, at the minute, a significant amount of public health focus is directed at tackling the coronavirus pandemic, and rightly so. However, I hope that this debate serves as a reminder that there remain significant health inequalities in society. In our most deprived communities, these inequalities pose a grave risk to the health of countless people. While this has been exacerbated by the pandemic, without action the threat to our most vulnerable communities will only become more grave. It is vital, therefore, that the issues raised today are addressed. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted, tackling and addressing health inequalities is a matter of urgency.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the Government’s ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030; notes the increasing disparities in smoking rates between the richest and poorest in society; further notes the effect of the covid-19 outbreak and the opportunities and risks provided by the reorganisation of public health on the UK’s ability to achieve this ambition; and calls on the Government to set out the further steps it plans to take to deliver a smokefree England by 2030.

Covid-19 Update

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

We know that those in the most deprived areas are around twice as likely to die from covid-19 as those in the least deprived areas. We also know that the most deprived people in society are less likely to take up the vaccine and health services, so will the Secretary of State tell me what plans he has made to ensure a high take-up of any covid-19 vaccine among the most deprived and if he will consider setting an inequalities target for this?

[Matt Hancock]

We are of course concerned about that and will put in enormous efforts to try to ensure that the take-up of the vaccine is as equal as possible. The starting principle is that we will roll out the vaccine according to clinical need across the whole UK, across all four nations, working of course through the devolved NHSs, which are going to be critical to actually delivering the vaccine in the devolved nations. But the procurement of this vaccine is a UK programme—we have been working very closely together—and in terms of the roll-out among deprived communities and harder-to-reach communities, we have a particular emphasis on trying to make sure that we get as equal a roll-out as possible. The starting point must be clinical need.

Covid-19

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The situation we are facing is farcical, quite frankly. Before recess, the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and mocked the Leader of the Opposition for calling for a two-week circuit-break lockdown over half term, yet, because of the Prime Minister’s usual dither and delay, we now face a lockdown that will last at least a month. It is not good enough. Although every community must do their bit, the blame for this lockdown must lie squarely at the feet of the Government.

I want to raise a number of crucial points that my constituents have contacted me about. The first is the way the Government have approached this pandemic geographically. When the tier system was introduced to try to slow the spread of the virus, the north was hit the hardest. In Durham and the wider north-east, communities responded to the threat of greater restrictions by working together and following the rules, which resulted in a steady drop in cases, yet now that the infection rate is rising in the south, the Prime Minister has announced a national lockdown. It betrays the Government’s attitude to those in the north that a regionalised approach was taken only when it did not impact the south.

On top of that, when large parts of the north were placed in tier 3, we were told that furloughed workers deserved only 67% of their wage, yet now that the south is in lockdown, that has risen to 80%. Although, obviously, I support that rise, it certainly reveals a lot about this Government’s attitude to the north: out of sight, out of mind.

Secondly, given the concerns of education unions, it would be wrong if I did not touch on the issue of schools. Today, a constituent contacted me to say that her child is 16 and lives with heart failure. If she were an adult, she would be able to work from home, as someone who is extremely vulnerable. Instead, she must go to school, where coronavirus infections are common. Countless pupils and educational staff will be in similar positions. Every teacher, child and parent wants schools to remain open if possible, yet the National Education Union and the University and College Union tell us that schools and colleges are not fully safe right now. The Government must urgently make the necessary changes to fix that. Schools need to stay open, but only if they are safe. No one should have to go into a workplace that is not safe.

Finally, I feel it necessary to mention the impact of gym closures, especially for women. Gyms act as relatively safe spaces for women to exercise, and many simply cannot do so outdoors in the dark with the same confidence or security. As we all know, exercise plays a vital role in people’s mental and physical wellbeing. While people will accept the closure of gyms, sports facilities and grassroots sport in the short term, the Government must urgently detail how such environments can be covid-secure, and must support them in their efforts to operate safely and stay open.

It frustrates me to have to give this speech today. This Government have had seven months to respond to the pandemic. They have failed on testing, failed on track and trace, and failed to support workers and businesses properly. Because of the Government’s incompetence, we are virtually back to where we were in March. No one has demanded perfection, and I understand the complications, but it is not unrealistic to call for competence and to expect the Government to learn from their mistakes. I urge the Government to use this month to get a grip on the virus. It is time to stop handing out jobs and contracts to their pals, and focus instead on their actual duty—protecting public health and reviving the economy—because the public and this House are fast losing patience.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Test and Trace service.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Test and Trace service.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Test and Trace service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Member for her question and for the work that she does with the APPG, which I joined recently for a very valuable conversation. Supporting care homes through the pandemic and in the months ahead is absolutely our, and my, priority. One part of that is ensuring that they have the testing that they need. We are getting regular repeat testing to care homes. I acknowledge that the turnaround times have not been what we would have liked them to be, but those turnaround times are coming down and we are seeing a rapid improvement in performance.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

This week, the president of the Association of Directors of Public Health said that the funding is just not there for local authorities to effectively run local contact tracing. Where it has been done, at a cost to the local authority, evidence shows that local teams were more likely to be successful in contacting people compared with the national tiers 2 and 3. Can the Minister tell me why the Government keep insisting that the current track and trace system is working when public health professionals are telling them the opposite?

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. I am sure she will know that local authorities received £400 million to support them with local outbreak management. It is really important to have this coming together of the national system and the local system, where local authorities are indeed playing an important part, using their local knowledge to follow up with contact tracing, particularly for some of the contacts that are proving harder to reach.

Covid-19

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I welcome the debate as it allows me to raise a number of issues of concern relating to the City of Durham, although I suspect that they are shared by constituencies across the country. County Durham, like many areas, has been subject to greater coronavirus restrictions to reduce the spread of the virus. While I support measures that protect public health, it is important to remember that it is the incompetence of Government that has made them necessary.

We have all witnessed the testing shambles and the shortcomings of the privatised track and trace system. We have a dodgy app and testing delays while important Government contracts are being handed out to private companies like confetti, yet the calls from public health for localised test and trace systems fall on deaf ears. How on earth do the Government plan to stop the virus if they do not know where it is?

As I said in my maiden speech, the policies of Government greatly affect the lives of ordinary people. We can see that illustrated during the pandemic. The continued failure to sort out test, track and trace has made the coronavirus crisis worse; that is undeniable. To add to that, many of my constituents are concerned about how the Government’s botched approach to the reopening of universities will affect them in Durham. Currently, thousands of students are returning to Durham, an area in local lockdown. People are worried about the impact that will have on the infection rate in the region as a whole, while students fear that once again they are being forgotten by Government. Given that the Government failed on exam results and failed on reopening schools safely, it is incredible yet unsurprising that the return of students was not properly planned for in order to protect them and the communities in which they study. What on earth has the Education Secretary been doing for the last six months? Clearly, not his job.

Finally, we have the economic impact on Durham. Businesses have closed and shops shut while jobs have been lost and hours cut for many who rely on that income just to get by. The measures put in place have been welcome, and I thank Durham County Council for its speedy and efficient response to businesses in need, but it is a fact that for millions there has been no support at all. Sectors that need specific intervention have been largely ignored and job losses that could have been avoided are now almost inevitable. Protections for renters have been withdrawn, while our welfare system, after years of Government cuts, can no longer be described as a safety net. Incredibly, extra support has had to be dragged from the Government by the Labour party and trade unions, although those concessions have repeatedly been too little too late.

It is time for the Government to stop ruling by U-turn and get a grip. They need to sort out testing, fix care, address the education crisis and stop our economy falling apart. A second wave is not inevitable, but the incompetence of this Government is making it more likely by the day.

Covid-19 Update

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State think that a £10,000 fine will act as a disincentive to poorer people getting a test?

[Matt Hancock]

We have put in place the extra £500, in addition to other income that people are getting, to support people on low incomes to self-isolate. If someone who is on a low income has symptoms and wants to know whether they have the virus, the result of having a positive test is that they will get the extra £500, and then of course they have to self-isolate. I am confident that people will come forward and do not only the right thing for society but the right thing for them, to find out the cause of their illness if they have symptoms.

Coronavirus Update

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. I want to reassure people in Dudley and beyond that the NHS is open. If people need NHS treatment, they should go to the NHS. In the first instance, they should go to their GP by phone or telemedicine, or call 111 or go to NHS 111 online. If people are asked to go to hospital or into a surgery, they absolutely should, and it is safe for them to do so.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The only way that directors of public health can properly tackle covid-19 is through an integrated approach to testing, tracing and outbreak management. Currently, the Government are treating each of those separately, with little regard to how they are interconnected. Does the Secretary of State accept the limitations of this system, and will he reallocate resources so that regions can develop integrated approaches for coronavirus test, trace and management?

[Matt Hancock]

It is vital that all those things are brought together at both a national and local level, and they are. The actions that have been taken under the NHS test and trace programme, whether national or local, and the interaction of the two, are testament to the fact that we are increasingly integrating national and local work and ensuring that the best high-quality data available is shared.

Covid-19: R Rate and Lockdown Measures

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Of course it is important to ensure that people are fully informed about the reasons why we may need to take action in a particular local area, and that is an important part of the consideration. Ensuring that local bodies—for instance local directors of public health—are fully engaged, is an important way of doing that. In Wales, where my right hon. Friend has his constituency, that is done through the devolved nations, with their responsibilities locally for public health.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The R number is one indicator of infection, but it is only reliable at regional level. Currently, directors of public health tell me that they receive only high-level reports, and that they need more localised information, with data that relate to the number and location of cases, and state when infection occurred. That information is vital to stopping transmission, especially as restrictions are lifted. By what date will that information be made available to local authorities, so as to inform their local outbreak plans?

[Matt Hancock]

As soon as is practical.

Covid-19 Response

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That is an incredibly important point, because there has been a disproportionate impact on transport workers, particularly those who, by the nature of their work, have to be in close contact with others, for example taxi drivers. That factor was not taken into account in the Public Health England analysis. It is exactly what we mean when we say that we must understand the different causes of the disparities in the data on the impacts according to people’s ethnic background. Disentangling how much is due to occupation and how much is due to other factors is an important part of the analysis that we need to undertake to be able to take action such as protecting those who work in the transport sector.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Public health professionals I have spoken to tell me that the success of the Government’s track and trace system is limited by the turnaround of up to five days for coronavirus test results. That delay severely impacts the ability of public health teams to prevent onward transmission and protect the population from the virus. Does the Secretary of State recognise that problem? If so, how does he plan to achieve a 24-hour turnaround for every test? When will that be achieved?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is quite right to report the views of local public health staff, who are right to raise the question. I am pleased to say that the turnaround speed has significantly improved in the past couple of weeks, and now 83% of tests are returned from the drive-through centres within 24 hours. There is continued work to speed that up and get the proportion even higher, and the Prime Minister has very kindly set me a goal of ensuring that all tests from the drive-through centres are returned within 24 hours.