Covid-19 Update

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s important and thoughtful question, and for his words of encouragement as well.

Let us look at what the vaccines have achieved. We have achieved a situation in which we have weakened—severely weakened—the link between cases going up rapidly, serious infection, hospitalisation and death. We are in a very different place today. This new equilibrium is where we want to be able to head to in steady state. The challenge that will come over the next few weeks and months is that there will be upward pressure on that equilibrium. We may break it in the wrong way because schools are reopening, there will be a higher number of infections, and those infections could seep through to the older age groups who are much more vulnerable. The booster campaign would help to push it the right way, with the infection rates being forced up but not leaking into the most vulnerable. That is why the JCVI stressed that we should boost the most vulnerable first.

I hope that this next challenge will enable us to demonstrate to the world that we are one of the first major economies in the world to bring about the transition of this virus from pandemic to endemic and then live with it over the years to come, through an annual vaccination or inoculation programme.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is interesting to note that the Minister has a short-term job in some respects, as the vaccines Minister. He should perhaps recognise that some of us are in favour of covid passports because they should also be a short-term measure, and it will probably be a sign of his success if they are.

My main point, however, is that the Minister dangled in front of us—although I know that this is not in the written statement that was circulated—the extra money going into the NHS. I have mentioned the short-term nature of the Minister’s job in some respects, but it is long-term funding that is needed. We know that money injected at short notice in large amounts is not always spent very well, even by our beloved health service, and I have direct experience of recruitment processes whereby posts have become pretty much redundant by the time people have been recruited to them. What is the Minister’s Department doing—and what is he doing personally if he has some responsibility in this regard—to ensure that the money will be spent well, and that there is a long-term financial plan for recovery?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I have grateful for the hon. Lady’s words, including those about the issue of vaccine certification, on which I agree with her. No one in this Government, and certainly not this Prime Minister—as I said at the weekend, it goes against his DNA—wants to curtail people’s freedoms, so we will not do this lightly at the end of September. As for her question about the funding, let me try and give her some more details.

The £5.4 billion cash injection over the next six months in response to covid-19 includes £1 billion to help tackle the backlog, delivering routine surgery and treatments for patients. As I said in my statement, the total Government support for the health service is £34 billion in this year alone. The funding will go towards helping the NHS to manage the immediate pressure of the pandemic. As I have said, it includes an extra £1 billion to help tackle the backlog, along with £2.8 billion to cover related costs such as those of the enhanced infection control measures that are so important to keep staff and patients safe from the virus, and £478 million to continue the hospital discharge programme, freeing up beds.