Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am always happy to take the opportunity, as I know the Opposition Front-Bench team and my colleagues are, to thank the amazing NHS workforce for the work they have done. I pay tribute to the work of the teams at Mount Vernon and Watford General and, in the context of the pandemic, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who volunteered to help out at the hospital.

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

The Minister highlighted the use of independent care providers. Last week, the Department announced that 150 hospitals would be on standby for three months to provide additional resource. Can the Minister tell the House when he or his Secretary of State asked NHS England to investigate standing up the 150 hospitals, which will receive a minimum income guarantee of £75 million to £90 million a month?

[Edward Argar]

I think I heard the hon. Lady correctly and she asked when those discussions began. That was last year, prior to the peak of this wave. We believe that the use of the independent sector to assist our NHS and provide additional capacity is absolutely the right thing to do. Thus far, during the course of the pandemic, it has provided, I believe, over 5 million procedures to patients. Therefore, we think this is a valuable and important addition to our capacity, and it is right that we have this surge capacity insurance policy in place to help to meet further demand.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Debate between Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the point he makes on behalf of his constituents. The overwhelming priority was to ensure that we got the PPE in the quantities we needed to our frontline, and we procured that in an incredibly challenging environment. I pay tribute to all the officials who worked flat out to do that. The Court judgment found that there was no policy of deprioritisation of meeting transparency requirements, but it also found as a matter of fact, which is clear in the judgment, that that bar was not met. That is something we have worked very hard on subsequently and continue to do so, to ensure that transparency requirements are met.

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

It feels a bit like groundhog day. Once again, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who has overall responsibility for procurement, is missing in action, and the Health Minister has come to the House to talk about how breathlessly urgent it all was at the beginning of the pandemic—I do not disagree with that, but it is not an excuse for not publishing these contracts in time. With contracts worth more than £10 billion awarded without tendering action between the beginning of the pandemic and July, seeing that paperwork urgently is more important, not less. If the paperwork is still not being published in time—and this goes back to the problems we discussed two weeks ago—can the Minister not just apologise and give a firm commitment that from now on, every contract will be published in time? It is either insouciance or incompetence that they were not published in the first place.

[Edward Argar]

I have known the hon. Lady since I came to this House, so I will not take it personally if she suggests that, as I am not the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the import of my answers is in some way diminished. I will endeavour to answer her specific questions. As I made clear, we have published 100% of the CANs that give the information on the contracts awarded—in the context of this case, the contracts awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

However, the hon. Lady asked a very fair question at the end about the future, and I can give her the reassurance that this Department is doing everything possible to ensure that it meets those transparency requirements. Officials are aware of them and officials are reminded of them. I recognise the vital importance of transparency, not least for building trust, which she mentioned last time in her question, but in allowing her, the NAO and other Members of this House to do their job, quite rightly, in scrutinising and challenging those contracts and Government decisions, where appropriate.

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Debate between Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We did take every step we could to ensure that trusts had the PPE they needed. The NAO report said:

“The NHS provider organisations we spoke to told us that, while they were concerned about the low stocks of PPE, they were always able to get what they needed in time.”

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

I will touch on that point first. Paragraph 18 of the summary says exactly what the Minister said, but it then goes on to say, however, that frontline workers reported shortages of PPE. It does not behove him well to come to this House clearly having had Back Benchers briefed about a partial element of the National Audit Office’s report that is inaccurate when taken in the round. He needs to deal with that point.

My bigger point is on the transparency of the contracts. The Minister has talked breathlessly about the urgency at the early stage of the pandemic. Let us be clear: by the end of the summer and the autumn, many of the contracts had still not been published. The civil service is usually good at record-keeping and transparency, but on this occasion there was a failure. He should have the guts to come to the House, apologise, and promise it will not happen again. More transparency, not less, is vital when billions of pounds are being spent, in haste in a pandemic.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who knows this issue exceptionally well and has investigated it over a number of months. Of course, as always, I listen to what she says carefully and with considerable respect. On her first point, she is right to say that the NAO reported that some frontline workers had told it that they had experienced shortages. We are reflecting what we were told by our trusts and by those running the delivery of PPE in those trusts, and what the NAO was told by them. She alluded to the key point—as I believe I said in response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—that we did not run out of PPE nationally, but there were challenges, which I acknowledged and do acknowledge, at some individual trusts and in some localities. That is why we worked at pace to make sure that they got what they needed and did not run out of PPE. That is exactly why officials in the Department were working so hard and pulling out all the stops to make sure we ordered more PPE and got more of it delivered.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch made a broader point about transparency, and of course it is a vital point. I believe it was the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) who highlighted trust. Trust is always the currency of politics; it is always the one thing that everyone requires, in government and in this House. It is important that that is fostered by as much transparency as possible. The judgment found that in a number of cases the Government did not meet the 30-day deadline. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asks for an assurance now, and I can give her the assurance that the Government are doing everything they can to ensure that regulation 50 is complied with, and complied with fully.

Covid-19 Restrictions: South Yorkshire

Debate between Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend highlights an important point, and we have been clear that people in tier 3 areas should not undertake travel in and out of that area. They should abide by the rules of the area in which they live, rather than travelling to another area and applying the rules in that area. The rules apply on the basis of the area in which someone lives.

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

One big concern about the local lockdowns in South Yorkshire and elsewhere is that if there is not enough money to support businesses to survive, there will be a longer-term impact on the economy and individual livelihoods if that is not put right. That will have a big impact on public health, and one of the biggest concerns is the loneliness of people living in single households, and the impact on their mental health. How is the Minister looking ahead—I hope that he will answer this point directly—to ensure that there is no long-term oncost to the health service from this misery for people who are left alone and are now unable to mix with households in South Yorkshire and other areas with hard lockdowns?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about loneliness and its impact on mental health. She will know that support bubbles still exist, but she alludes to a broader point about long-term mental health support. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), we have invested heavily in the NHS, which includes funding for mental health support services. The hon. Lady is right: this is not just about funding during this pandemic; this is about being aware of people’s long-term needs and the impact on them. I am happy to commit to considering that issue carefully in the months and years ahead.

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 Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Monday 21st September 2020 General Committees

[Edward Argar]

Multiple questions were asked. I will endeavour to answer as many as I can, but where a specific figure was asked for by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting, or the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, if I do not have it to hand, I will endeavour to write to them with any further information.

I am grateful, as always in these meetings, for the tone adopted by the shadow Minister: while challenging, it was reasonable and pragmatic. She is quite right to highlight the importance and the focus of all Members on keeping people safe. I particularly highlight the fact that she, in her other work, goes a little bit above and beyond most Members in doing that. I thank her for that. She raised a number of points and I will try to capture them all.

The hon. Lady’s first point was around social isolation: the mental health cost and the cost on people’s lives of the national lockdown restrictions—people have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, but then local restrictions have been imposed. It will not surprise her to know that, while some of my constituents were only caught up in the local lockdown in Leicester and Leicestershire for a few weeks, I still had casework and people writing to me raising exactly that issue.

Support bubbles, while not a solution to everything, have been a big step in helping to combat loneliness for those who are single and very isolated. It is not a panacea for all of those problems, but it was an important step forward. I know the investment the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) is making in this space, and I know that she and the hon. Lady have spoken about that, certainly across the Dispatch Box and I suspect probably in the corridors of this place. My hon. Friend shares the determination of the shadow Minister to make sure that we are able to do everything we can to tackle the mental health cost of the pandemic, and she is right to highlight the impact that that can have on particular groups.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool always makes thoughtful and compassionate contributions in this House and in Committees such as this one. He is right to highlight the impact on people of a lack of visits, often for very good reasons. Before I was a Minister, I was co-chair, with the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia. People with dementia are another group where you can see the rapid decline that a lack of human contact can bring about. That is something, in terms of mental health, that the Government are fully seized upon, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention takes that incredibly seriously.

The shadow Minister was also right to talk, as I did in my opening remarks, about the sacrifices that people have made throughout, and it is right that we remember all of those and are grateful to everyone for what they have done to protect their fellow citizens. I do not believe that the Department has the statistics that she asked for in respect of those giving birth alone within that particular area, but I will ask that question on her behalf. I know it is something that, again, my hon. Friend the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and others across the House have been raising—quite rightly. The guidance has been updated and clarified. It is important that trusts adhere to that guidance and follow the guidance set out by the Government.

The shadow Minister talked about partnership working, as did the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch. They know that I had a background in local government in London before becoming a Member of this House. As such, I am very clear that when we work in partnership with local authorities and local councils, we achieve a far better outcome, because we combine the scale and—for want of a better way of putting it—the clout of national Government with knowledge of individual communities and what works within them. In that way, we get a much better outcome than if we try to pursue one at the exclusion of the other.

The hon. Lady and the shadow Minister asked what the engagement meant in practice with regard to local authorities being consulted and engaged in the making of these regulations and the changes. Although I do not attend meetings of the Joint Biosecurity Centre or the gold meetings that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State chairs, the views of local council leaders and local public health leads all feed into his work and form a clear part of his decision making and the consultations that he undertakes. This does not mean he is bound to follow exactly what those people say, but they are consulted, and he takes it very seriously. I know this because I saw it from the other side of the fence, as it were, as a constituency MP in Leicestershire. I think that that is the only sensible way to approach this, and of course, local Members of Parliament also get to feed their views into the regular review periods and review sessions that the Secretary of State undertakes.

I will clarify the figures and write to hon. Members to make sure I have the right ones, but my recollection—it is only a recollection—is that across the four tranches of support for Blackburn and Darwen, for example, about £11 million of Government support has gone to the council. However, I commit to checking that that figure is accurate and writing to hon. Members to confirm it. There is financial support to help councils cope, just as we put in in Leicester, and that support is not only to help them cope with the additional work they have to do and the local public health work, exactly as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch said. Forgive me for coming back to my own city, but in Leicester, multiple languages are spoken, and one of the key things was to provide the councils there with funding to put out communications in a variety of languages and forms, to try to address the point that has been raised by all those who have spoken: it is not just about doing this work, but communicating it so that people know what is happening in a way that is accessible and clear to them. In my experience, people want to do the right thing, but it is up to us to make that as clear to them as possible. This is inevitably complex, because the regulations change, the circumstances change, and the scientific advice we receive and act on changes. However, it is incumbent on us to try to make all of those things as clear and intelligible to everyone as possible.

The shadow Minister raised the issue of test and trace. We have made it clear, as has the Prime Minister, that the UK has achieved a significant amount in terms of its testing system over the past six months. Per 1,000 people, we are testing at a higher rate than any large European country, including France, Spain, Italy and Germany. We are testing on average 2.3 people per 1,000; each of those countries is testing about 1.15 or 1 person per 1,000, so we have massively increased our testing capacity. However, it is absolutely right—the Prime Minister was very clear about this—that we are open with the British people about the fact that a lot more needs to be done, and at pace. Although we have scaled up capacity, we need to do more.

The shadow Minister asked what reassurance I could offer to suggest that we are making progress in that area. She will be aware of what the biggest bottleneck is: although demand has significantly increased, this is not about blaming people who are understandably anxious, worried or concerned, and go and get a test. Yes, it is the people who have symptoms who should get tests, but this is not about blaming people who are anxious and worried: it is just a reflection of the fact that demand has gone up significantly. The real bottleneck—the real challenge—is to make sure capacity keeps up with that demand. The lab capacity is the bottleneck that we have seen. A new lighthouse lab came on stream recently in Loughborough, near my own patch, and more are coming on stream on an almost weekly basis to meet significantly increased lab demand, with greater use of automation and machine analysis of the tests in those labs. I suspect that the shadow Minister has a greater sense of what that means in practice than I do as a non-scientist, but we are rapidly expanding lab capacity to meet that need.

[Meg Hillier]

The Government have committed to increase tests to 500,000 a day by the end of October. Are the Government still on target to deliver that?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Meg Hillier]

Noting the questions that I asked, does the Minister have any comment to make about the curfew—the 10 o’clock finish for licenced premises? It would be helpful to hear the Government’s view.

[Edward Argar]

Oh, yes. I mentioned this previously. The challenge is not pubs and hospitality venues, which are all doing a phenomenal job to keep their customers safe and try to ensure that they function as a business. They have had a very tough time, and I pay tribute to them for what they are doing, the measures they have put in place and how diligently they are working. Pubs in my constituency outside the lockdown area, when bits of it were in, went so far as to check, when they signed everyone in, whether the postcode came from within the lockdown area, and if it was they would very politely say, “You shouldn’t be here.” I pay tribute to landlords, restauranteurs and others.

We are anecdotally hearing that if people have been in a pub or out for dinner for two or three hours—how can I put this gently?—their adherence to or recollection of the regulations can lapse after a few drinks. The regulations try to strike a balance that addresses that and reduces the risk of those contacts through groups mingling while allowing those sectors to continue to operate in as a safe way as possible. We are cognisant of the health impact and the economic impact on them if restrictions were to be much tougher, so we are seeking to strike a scientifically advised balance in addressing those issues.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.822).

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.898)

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.898).—(Edward Argar.)

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.930)

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.930).—(Edward Argar.)

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.935)

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No.935).—(Edward Argar.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Edward Argar

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend, like his colleagues, has already proved himself to be a doughty champion for his constituency. The urgent care centre at Burnley General Hospital will continue to play an important role in meeting urgent care needs locally, but he is right to highlight the broader importance of Burnley as part of the health ecosystem in his area. I would be delighted to meet him.

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

There are real concerns in east London about the big delays in the breast cancer screening programme, meaning that many women are not getting their first screening until close to their 53rd birthday. Will the Minister meet me and other concerned east London MPs to ensure that we tackle that, to the benefit of our constituents?