Health and Care Bill

Debate between Matt Western and Edward Argar

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I am afraid I will not, because I have only a couple of minutes in which to try to address these points, and I did give way a dozen or so times in my opening remarks.

Equally, I recognise, as always in this House, the strength and genuine sincerity of the views and the points put by hon. Members on both sides, genuinely highlighting and wishing to explore certain aspects of new clause 49 to understand exactly what it does and how it works. I have complete respect for the strength of those views.

I believe that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) set out very clearly, this is a significant step forward. It will make a huge difference, and it must be treated as part of a package of measures rather than in isolation. As he quite rightly highlighted, we must look at the floors as well as the cap, at the support that is available, and at the increases in those floors from £14,250 to £20,000 and up to £100,000.

[Matt Western]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I am afraid I will not, because I literally have only one minute, and I did give way multiple times in my opening remarks.

I believe that the measures in this Bill, which we have debated with these amendments today, give the NHS what it needs to further integrate to deliver the local services it needs and, crucially, move us a huge step forward in tackling the challenge posed by social care for future generations.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Debate between Matt Western and Edward Argar

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For our businesses to go from a capacity to produce this country’s PPE of 1% to 70% is an incredible achievement, but we must not rest on our laurels. We must continue to work with British business to allow it to continue to innovate and develop its ability to meet UK need. I pay tribute to the businesses in his constituency of Rother Valley for the work they did in helping out this country when it needed it most.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The simple truth is that businesses up and down the country feel as though they were misled by the Government. They were encouraged to get behind the PPE challenge, and they made capital investments to expand their capacity to manufacture, yet we know that Government middlemen mates were 10 times more likely than they were to win contracts. So can the Minister set out when he will publish the details of all the contracts, including when the principal businesses were established and what the duration of the contracts are?

[Edward Argar]

The Government will meet their legal obligations to publish contracts under regulation 50 and the requirements that that places on us for the information that needs to be published. Those that meet the criteria for a CAN—a contract award notice—under that, and that have been awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care directly, have been published. All contracts will be published—all details under CANs will be published—where that is required by the regulation, and the information specified as to what is published in a CAN notice is of a standard format. We will continue to meet that obligation.

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Debate between Matt Western and Edward Argar

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

Transparency is important. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and others have rightly made that point, but saving lives is important and, I would argue, in the height of the pandemic, more important. It was right that civil servants and others focused entirely on that purpose of getting the PPE to reduce the risk of loss of life, and as the judge acknowledged, they have worked very hard subsequently to catch up with the transparency requirements to ensure that the information is published and is available for interrogation.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

As they say, if it smells of fish, it is fish, but in this case it is like Billingsgate market. When it comes to Government contracts, someone is 10 times more likely to get one if they have a Government contact. The protocols are clear, as the Supreme Court confirmed, and the Health Secretary acted unlawfully in not revealing the details of contracts with his pub landlord, a hedge fund in Mauritius or the jeweller in Florida, yet there was insufficient PPE available in our social care system. As the NAO said, it was 10% of what was required. For our frontline health workers, there was just not enough FFP3. The Minister says that trust is vital, but is it not the truth that Ministers’ mates and their suppliers in China have been favoured in supplying PPE over UK companies such as Tecman and Contechs in my constituency?

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Debate between Matt Western and Edward Argar

Monday 21st September 2020 General Committees

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady, who is a very experienced parliamentarian, is encouraging me to nail my colours to the mast, and I will.  Yes, I believe we are. The Prime Minister has been very clear that there will be 500,000 tests across the pillars by the end of October. That is a very clear target, and it is one that he intends to meet, just as we met the 100,000-tests target. It was very difficult to do that, but we did it, and I am confident that we will meet this target. In this place, it is sometimes easier to set very low targets, because we know we will hit them. That is not the way of the Prime Minister or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who wants to set ambitious targets because he knows that if we meet them, we will be delivering what we need.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The Minister is making thorough points, but we are all keen to understand the capacity. Certain numbers are claimed, and perhaps, as he just said, there will be 500,000 at the end of October—we will see—but there is a difference between claimed capacity and real, delivered capacity. As I said in a previous Delegated Legislation Committee, yesterday I went to the testing centre in Coventry, which supplies Coventry and Warwickshire. It is a large facility; I do not know how many facilities there are of an equal size across the UK—perhaps the Minister would confirm that in writing to me in the next couple of days. Given that only 16 tests are done in one hour, over a 10-hour period that is 160 tests. If we factor that up, even if there were 100 testing centres of that size, that is not a huge quantity, compared with the 500,000 the Minister is claiming. Perhaps the Minister can respond in writing; it is unfair to ask him to give an answer now.

[Edward Argar]

I will respond briefly to the hon. Gentleman. I am happy to get back to him in writing, and I will try to get that number for him.

[Matt Western]

Related to that, on the capacity in the labs, would the Minister provide the figures that are available for real capacity on the ground, and the lab capacity, which I think probably is the bottleneck?

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Regardless of the capacity in car parks or testing centres, there is a limited value to doing multiple tests if they are not processed in the lab in a timely fashion because of the bottleneck of lab capacity. That is possibly why his test centre is seeing fewer people than it would have the physical capacity to process if the lab capacity were not a challenge.

My recollection, which is a couple of weeks out of date, is that the capacity to process the tests was about 165,000 for community testing across all pillars and all types of test—the swab test as well as the antibody test. In that 500,000, there are multiple pillars. The capacity to process tests and the tests done were the same, and were, I think, about 165,000 a few weeks ago. We are using the capacity that we have, but it is constrained in the labs. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to clarify that. I will check the exact question that he posed when I see the transcript of this debate, and I will try to give him as direct and detailed answer as I can to exactly what he said.

[Matt Western]

So 165,000?

[Edward Argar]

Yes.

The final thing that I was going to touch on before concluding was something raised by the shadow Minister. Again, I do not have the stats on a localised level to hand, but if I can get them I will write to her. She raised the fixed-penalty notices and offences within that area. I do not have up-to-date, detailed stats for that exact area, but if I can obtain them, I am of course happy to write to her. I reiterate my gratitude to all Committee members, local councillors, local authorities and the people in the affected areas for their forbearance with the challenging restrictions to protect people.

Health Infrastructure Plan

Debate between Matt Western and Edward Argar

Monday 30th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As I said to the hon. Members for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), I am happy to write detailing the process, and I am happy to include the hon. Gentleman and his hon. and right hon. Friends in that.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his new position and congratulate him. We have a mental health crisis, as everyone is well aware. I want to highlight the predicament in Warwickshire, where the suicide rate is significantly higher—25% higher —than the national average. St Michael’s Hospital in Warwick has a fantastic reputation but, despite that, it is losing all its acute mental health beds to Coventry. We need greater capacity, not reduced capacity. The Caludon Centre site in Coventry does not have the capacity and is not fit for purpose. Will the Minister meet me and visit St Michael’s Hospital, which is an excellent facility that needs investment?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights the importance of mental health care and services for those with mental health needs. I go back to the point that this Government have placed those needs and that care front and centre of our approach and have put investment in place to back up that commitment. In respect of his specific request for a visit and a meeting, it may take a little time, given the number of colleagues who have asked to see me, but of course I am happy to do so.