DHSC Answers to Written Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am always pleased to receive messages and inquiries from the hon. Gentleman. He raises two important points. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) is working on the national cancer recovery plan at pace. I am happy to revert to the hon. Gentleman when I have had an opportunity to speak to her. On his broader point, he is right that it is important that we in this House recognise that, in our democracy, people consent and comply because they are persuaded. It is important that we use this House and all the mechanisms within it to persuade and bring the public with us.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]]

We have all had enormous increases in constituency correspondence during the pandemic, so I can only imagine what it must be like at the Minister’s Department. However, in looking at how his Department responds to MPs’ questions, will my hon. Friend reassure the House that any changes will not come at the expense of his Department’s excellent parliamentary engagement and briefings for Members with Ministers and scientific experts that allow us to question advisers on detailed scientific and medical matters?

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The good news is that we are managing to continue to drive through the backlog that understandably built up in the first peak. Instead of attacking the NHS, the hon. Gentleman should be backing the NHS and thanking it for the incredible hard work that it is doing right now and will be doing this winter.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase NHS capacity for winter 2020-21.

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

The Prime Minister has announced £3 billion to support NHS capacity this winter. Among other things, that money funds our Nightingale hospitals, so that surge capacity is available, and the NHS’s ongoing access to additional independent sector capacity. It also supports the safe discharge of patients, helping to reduce pressure on beds. In addition, £450 million of capital funding has been announced to upgrade and expand A&Es across the country, to help prepare the NHS for winter, and that money is already being spent.

[Mike Wood [V]]

The £3 million announced to increase winter capacity in Dudley is hugely welcome, but will my hon. Friend also look at Dudley’s bids for capital funding for a hybrid theatre and reconfiguration of critical care? Will he join me on a visit to Russells Hall, so that he can see the transformative effect that those projects would have on care for patients in Dudley South?

[Edward Argar]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend’s constituents will benefit from £3 million to increase capacity at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley as part of the investment to upgrade A&Es ahead of winter. Future NHS capital spending will, of course, be determined at the upcoming spending review, but once our settlement has been confirmed with the Treasury, we will consider carefully how projects are prioritised within it. In the meantime, I encourage the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust to discuss its proposals with NHS England and NHS Improvement. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this, because I know how hard he campaigns on this issue, and I would be delighted to take him up on the offer of a visit when I am able to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s tenacity and doggedness in making the case for Epsom. I am a big supporter of the decision that has been made, and I am afraid, from his point of view, that the final decision on the location of the new hospital—in Sutton—has now been made. However, I am always open-minded to what further health services can be deployed in Epsom itself, and I suggest that my right hon. Friend and I work together on that.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]]

Rising infection rates in Dudley are extremely worrying. The launch of the third covid vaccine trial in the UK this week is excellent news and I pay tribute to the volunteers and researchers involved in the trials, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is still early days, so it is vital that all of us continue to play our part in doing everything possible to bring down that infection rate, particularly in areas, like Dudley, where it continues to rise?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. Vaccines could not be approved if there were not volunteers who were willing to take them and play their part. I want to end this session, if I may, with a tribute to my PPS, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who, along with some other Members of the House, is taking part in a vaccine trial, and therefore doing his bit to make vaccines available to help everybody across this country.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend feels strongly about this point. That is understandable, because the strategy that we have pursued has been to suppress the virus while we work on the vaccine. We are not there yet, but this progress towards a vaccine demonstrates why we followed the strategy of protecting life even though we know that there are challenging consequences for businesses and other parts of society. We have done so because we have a good degree of confidence that a vaccine will come and will make a significant contribution to solving this problem without the huge risk of its impact on taking people’s lives, especially the most vulnerable, that would be incurred if we did not suppress the virus.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]]

It is fantastic news that 10,000 rapid lateral flow tests will be going to Dudley this week and that about 30,000 more will be in use locally subsequently. What guidance will be issued to directors of public health on how those rapid tests should be targeted?

[Matt Hancock]

Guidance will be given and we are engaging directly with directors of public health. I will ensure that the teams from Stoke and Liverpool, who have been piloting this, will talk to other directors of public health, including in Dudley. We are not putting stringent rules around the use of these tests, because we want directors of public health to use them in ways in which they think will work and are important locally and then to feed back on the effectiveness of their use so that we can keep learning about the roll-out. We are sending the tests out with guidelines and instructions on how to use them, as well as logistics, but also saying to directors of public health, “Use your professional expertise and tell us how you did it, what worked and what did not and we can all learn from each other.”

Covid-19

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I appreciate that there are Members who applied for the previous debate and could not get in, so if Members will forgive me, I will take very few interventions. It would be a shame if Members could not get into this debate, as happened last time.

On 21 September, SAGE advised the Prime Minister to adopt a time-limited circuit breaker, and warned that

“not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences”.

On 13 October, when we debated the tiered approach, I warned that

“the embers are burning brightly”

nationwide, and that

“further action is going to be needed.”—[Official Report, 13 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 205.]

Later that day, the Leader of the Opposition proposed to work with the Prime Minister in the national interest and help to introduce a time-limited, two-week circuit break across the school half term.

What was Downing Street’s response to our offer to work together? Downing Street branded us opportunistic. The Chancellor criticised us, describing the proposal as

“a damaging, blunt, national lockdown”

that would cause

“unnecessary pain and suffering”.—[Official Report, 22 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 1252.].

Even though this morning he defended the decision to go into lockdown, there are now briefings—I am sure the whole House will be shocked by this—that the Chancellor does not really support this lockdown after all. I have been around for a long time, and I know that when a Chancellor tells a Prime Minister that he supports him, while simultaneously letting Tory Back Benchers think that he backs them, that is definitely a man on manoeuvres.

Then we have the Foreign Secretary, who said that

“the idea of a short, sharp circuit breaker is, frankly, something of an enigma. No one can say, if you go into a national lockdown at what point you get out of it.”

Well, quite.

That brings me to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office—a man renowned for his long-standing loyalty to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—who, in recent days, performed a pirouette with great panache. Two weeks ago on “Sophie Ridge on Sunday”, when asked whether a circuit break could be introduced, he gave an emphatic “No!” But yesterday, when asked on “Sophie Ridge on Sunday” whether the Prime Minister’s lockdown could extend beyond four weeks, he said yes. No wonder the Foreign Secretary is confused with that level of consistency from his Cabinet colleagues.

Then, of course, we have the Prime Minister. Two weeks ago, he said a lockdown would be the “height of absurdity” and he said that a lockdown would “turn the lights out”, yet here we are on the eve of a longer, deeper and more restrictive lockdown than we proposed. Fundamentally, this is about the Prime Minister’s judgment. Since SAGE advised a lockdown in September, over 4,000 lives have been lost. Infections have increased from 4,000 a day to over 20,000 a day. The numbers in critical care on ventilation have increased from 154 to 815. Deaths have been doubling roughly every two weeks since the beginning of September.

Thousands more, sadly, are likely to die over the next fortnight. Tragically, this lockdown is too late for them. Andrew Hayward from SAGE said earlier today on the radio that

“if we had chosen a two-week circuit break…we would definitely have saved thousands of lives and we would clearly have inflicted substantially less damage on our economy than the proposed four-week lockdown will do.”

On Wednesday, Labour Members will, in the national interest, vote in support of the necessary measures, but the House should be clear that this lockdown will be longer and more damaging because the warnings from SAGE in September and then from the Opposition in October were dismissed by the Prime Minister. There is a sorry pattern to this Prime Minister’s handling of the crisis.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The shadow Health Secretary risks inadvertently misleading the House in suggesting that SAGE was recommending a two-week circuit-breaking lockdown. As he knows, it has strongly suggested that what it was talking about was a series of lockdowns. Is that still Labour’s position?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is familiar with the minutes from SAGE, which read:

“The shortlist of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that should be considered for immediate introduction includes:...A circuit-breaker (short period of lockdown) to return incidence to low levels.”

That is the proposal that we endorsed, and it is the proposal that was rejected on 21 September by the Prime Minister. Now the Prime Minister is putting the country into a four-week lockdown, which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster conceded yesterday could last beyond four weeks. This is fundamentally about the judgment of the Prime Minister, and indeed the Chancellor, who, we know from briefings, blocked the Government from making the choice to go for lockdown earlier.

Throughout this crisis, we have seen mistake after mistake. The preparations for this pandemic were poor and insufficient. The lessons of Exercise Cygnus were not taken on board. The country’s stockpile of PPE was allowed to dwindle, leaving frontline health and care workers unprotected and placed in harm’s way. I hope we can get a cast-iron guarantee that the same will not happen again this winter. Instead of putting the public health teams in charge of tracing, Ministers turned to outsourcing companies, with management consultants paid more in one day than care workers would be paid over four months. Week by week, the numbers followed up by the test and trace system fall. Directors of public health, who want to get on with contact tracing, complain that it takes days for them to receive the information on cases.

The app was months too late, and yesterday we learned that it has an not even been alerting people properly. The Secretary of State is supposed to be the digital whizz kid, and he could not deliver the app on time, and it has not been working sufficiently. Far too many test results are still not turned around in 24 hours, even though we know that we need speed when dealing with a virus that spreads with such severity. There have been 1,300 outbreaks in care homes since the end of August, and care staff still wait more than two days for results.

As we have heard, there is still inadequate financial support for people who need to isolate. It should be no surprise that there were reports of less than 20% of people isolating, given that they are expected to make a choice between feeding their families and their health. Rather than giving people proper, decent sick pay, the Chancellor spent hundreds of millions subsidising meals in restaurants through the summer. There is now evidence from academics to suggest that that led to the spread of the virus and seeded the virus in the early stages of this second wave. We welcome the announcement of the 80% furlough, but furloughed workers in the midlands and the north will conclude that their jobs were worth 13% less than those elsewhere.

The experiences of other countries were needlessly ignored, warnings were downplayed, and the precious advantage of time was squandered. Tragically, that has been as true in September and October as it was in February and March. The Government did not learn. It does not require a crystal ball to listen to scientists and make timely decisions in the national interest, so lessons must be learned, and this lockdown must be used wisely.

I welcome what the Secretary of State said about expanding testing capacity, but we also need to turn around the PCR—polymerase chain reaction—tests quickly for those with symptoms. They are still not turned around in 24 hours. If we are going to have extra capacity in the system, I hope there will be a commitment to turn those tests around in 24 hours for those who need them. We need to expand access to testing to more people, to rebuild confidence across society. UK universities are leading the way in piloting regular saliva testing for students, and some have extended that to the wider community. Rolling out these saliva tests across communities paves the way for weekly testing of key workers such as transport staff, care staff and, especially, NHS staff.

We have been calling for months for the Government to roll out a programme of regular, routine testing of frontline NHS staff. Surely, as we move into winter, that should be a priority. The saliva testing innovation should be brought on stream quickly to do that routine testing of all frontline NHS staff. If we could roll that out—I know that the Secretary of State agrees with me on this, and I do not disagree with him on the objective; I am urging him to use these four weeks to get a move on with it—it would allow us to identify asymptomatic carriers and protect the most vulnerable in society. Will he come forward with a plan to work with our universities on saliva testing, which he knows is very exciting and could make a huge difference?

Contact tracing has to be fixed. It has not been working properly through the call centre approach. The local directors of public health would do a more effective job, but they need to get the contacts within 24 hours, not within days. If they get those contacts within 24 hours, they can introduce as a matter of routine retrospective contact tracing, which finds where people got the virus from and identifies super-spreading cluster events. That approach has been taken in countries such as Japan, and we know that it is more effective. I know that it is happening in some hotspots, but it should be routine across the country.

As I said, we need reassurance that people will get support for isolation. In this lockdown, we will have a spending review, and the test of that spending review is how it will support our national health service and social care sector for the rest of this covid period. We entered this crisis after years of underfunding in the national health service, with capital budgets repeatedly raided—[Interruption.] There were years of underfunding in the national health service—of course there were. The national health service used to get a funding increase of around 4% to 5%. It got something like 6% to 7% a year under Labour Governments. Under this Government, for 10 years, it has got around 1%. Everybody knows that the NHS went into this crisis after years of underfunding. Everybody knows that the NHS went into this crisis with capital budgets having been repeatedly raided, which has left hospitals with a £6 billion repair bill. The NHS entered this crisis with around 15,000 beds having been cut since 2010.

Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill

Mike Wood Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

It is nice to be able to start a speech in a debate on a private Member’s Bill without having to declare an interest, although my children suggest I should perhaps reconsider. As the next piece of business is on drugs testing in prison, I should say that the same applies to that debate.

Shortly after I was elected in 2015, a constituent came to one of my surgeries with a case that was later taken up by Save Face. It concerned a cosmetic surgeon who was conducting procedures from his home in my constituency, claiming to be a nurse consultant and describing himself as on the same level as a doctor. The truth was that he had been struck off for failing to disclose a serious assault conviction related to domestic abuse.

The lack of safeguards around these procedures is shocking, as is the lack of accountability of many of those carrying them out. That is a huge problem for the population as a whole. Fortunately, my constituent’s daughter’s procedure was not botched, but too many are. When they are, they too often have life-changing impacts. That is a terrible scar—quite literally—for many adults, but when it affects children and young people we have a particular responsibility to act.

The growth in botox, fillers and other similar cosmetic procedures is of great regret to Members on both sides of the House, because it reflects a deeper problem in society and the way that people feel about themselves and value themselves. A large part of it is down to the effect of celebrities and influencers in making treatments popular, particularly among young people who see Kylie Jenner in TV shows such as “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”, to give just one example, as a way of measuring their own worth, yet nothing could be further from the truth. That is damaging enough when the actions taken amount only to a filter on Snapchat to alter appearance into some idealised version, but it cannot be right to leave unregulated such permanent life-changing surgery on people who are not yet at the age of majority. There is a responsibility to act in law.

I am pleased by the work that Girlguiding has done to promote body confidence through its Free Being Me programme, helping to address some of the root causes of this trend. There is a clear need for the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) has rightly introduced to restrict the use of such procedures on children for aesthetic purposes when it is not medically necessary.

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Wood]

Very briefly, and then I must move on.

[Bob Stewart]

I am absolutely shocked that anyone who is not medically trained could wield a syringe, particularly on someone who is under 18. That is what I have learned this morning, and I suspect my hon. Friend agrees with me.

[Mike Wood]

I absolutely agree. When people are unqualified and also uninsured, there is a lack of accountability and recourse when things go wrong.

Too often people focus on the cosmetic part of cosmetic surgery, and imagine that it is a development of putting on make-up, whereas of course it is surgery in every sense of the word. Like all surgery, it has real risks. When it is being used for aesthetic purposes, it is one thing for adults to be allowed to make their choices while being aware of the risks, but we cannot allow that for children and young people. We rightly legislate to protect our young people. We rightly say that under-18s cannot use sunbeds or get tattoos because of the risks and the long-term impacts, but the acute risk that comes with Botox and similar procedures is far more immediate and drastic. As other Members have said, it is an outrage that this is not yet illegal, so I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks on bringing forward the Bill. In doing so, she has done a great service to our nation, and I am proud to support it this afternoon.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The turnaround times for tests have come down very significantly, including for care homes, over the past few weeks, and we work incredibly hard to get them down. Even while there was the most acute pressure on testing capacity, we kept the weekly testing for care staff, and I think the whole House can unite behind that.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

While it is clear that the measures taken in the spring helped to slow the spread of the first outbreak, at the end of what was supposed then to be a three-week lockdown, daily cases had trebled and daily deaths were up 750%. If there were to be a so-called circuit-breaker national lockdown, how would it be possible to judge after two or three weeks whether it was safe to lift those restrictions?

[Matt Hancock]

We are trying to have as local an approach as possible, partly because we have to ensure that we take measures that are proportionate. There are some areas of the country, including Dudley, where case numbers are lower than even their close neighbours—in my hon. Friend’s case, across the west midlands. That is the reason, as the Prime Minister set out on Monday, that we are taking the tiers approach, which I think helps public understanding, because it is really simple but allows us to take action where that is necessary.

Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

This global pandemic has had a horrific impact—not only a huge human cost but a tremendous economic and social cost, caused by the measures that have had to be taken to contain the spread of the virus. None of us would want to be in the position of having to take these decisions, and I certainly do not envy the Minister for Health and other members of the Government who have to balance the need to safeguard both lives and livelihoods. It demands a combination of the judgment of Solomon and the navigational skills of Thetis to reach what is often the least bad outcome, in a situation where there are no right decisions and no good outcomes.

If we are to reassure not only the residents but the businesses in our constituencies, many of which provide the jobs, livelihoods and prosperity on which they rely, we need to be clear about the basis on which decisions are taken. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the openness with which he has approached this, making himself, his ministerial colleagues, scientific and medical advisers and officials available for a wide range of briefings on that evidence.

In the minute I have left, I want to speak briefly about the obligations on the hospitality sector. Clearly these measures have a hugely detrimental impact on pubs, bars, restaurants and the many small businesses that rely on them, whether in the brewing, events or wedding industries. We need to be clear about the evidence on the extent of transmission in hospitality and similar settings and what has led officials’ and advisers’ clear confidence that the measures being taken will make a meaningful difference. At the briefing last Friday, the chief medical officer said it was too early to be sure about the extent to which the restricted opening times in the last three weeks had made a difference, but he was sure that it had made a difference. As that data becomes available, it needs to be shared with Members of Parliament and with our constituents.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We put in money, including into the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, to do exactly that—to make sure that there is local support. He says we should follow a localised approach. That is exactly what we did in the north-east: when the seven north-east councils came to national Government, they asked for a set of interventions to be put in place, and we did that. That is exactly the sort of approach that we ought to be taking, and we will continue to do so.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The number of people in Dudley who have been triaged for coronavirus testing has halved in the past couple of weeks. It is hard to believe that this is down to reduced demand. What progress is my right hon. Friend making in expanding capacity, so that my constituents can get testing readily when they need it?

[Matt Hancock]

We are expanding testing. However, I would add that in this House two or three weeks ago, the big item of discussion was excess demand for testing. We put out public health messaging to explain that people should come forward for a test if they have symptoms of coronavirus, but not if they do not, and the number of people without symptoms coming forward has fallen since then. As a result, we can get the testing capacity we have to the people who need it. That has been a success, and I thank everyone in the country who listened to those messages. We have worked hard to increase communications about it, and the demand has been moving in the right direction.

Covid-19 Update and Hospitality Curfew

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The scientific advice is that the people who are closer together are more likely to spread the virus and that, later at night, social distancing becomes harder. We have all seen the pictures of people leaving pubs at 10 o’clock, but otherwise they would be inside the establishments, and we all know that outside is safer, or they would be leaving later. Of course we keep this under review and of course we are constantly looking at how we can improve these policies, but I think that we have to look at both sides of the evidence to try to get this right.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

People will only believe that the 10 pm curfew is the least bad option if they understand the basis on which the decision was taken. The figures for the number of infections linked to hospitality range from the 3% that Public Health England has put for outbreaks, up to nearly a quarter that the deputy chief medical officer has suggested. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that the evidence as to how many transmissions are linked to pubs and hospitality based on test and trace data is available, so that people can reach their own conclusions?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, and the updated evidence that we are publishing today shows that the just under a quarter figure is correct. It is the highest single identified area. The figures on outbreaks, which were also mentioned by the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), are measuring something completely different and are not a measure of how many cases are caught there. The 25% figure is, of course, for those who catch it outside the household. The single biggest place we can catch coronavirus is from somebody else inside your own household, but that is, in a sense, inevitable and very, very difficult to prevent.

Covid-19 Update

Mike Wood Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Across the country, the average distance people have to travel is 6.4 miles. It is really important that the messages from all those who are responsible public servants and those who have strong public voices, as the hon. Member does, in South Shields, across South Tyneside, in the north-east and, indeed, across the country—and it is incumbent on us all to repeat these critical public health messages—are, “If you have symptoms, get a test, but if you are not eligible, then please don’t use up the tests that are needed for other people.”

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Youth organisations, such as scouting and guiding, and sports training clubs are vital for the social development of young people in Dudley South. Will my right hon. Friend do everything he can to make sure that such youth organisations and sports coaching can continue for as long as it is safe to do so?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. My hon. Friend, who speaks so clearly for his constituents and for the young people who enjoy those facilities, will I am sure be pleased to know that youth groups are exempt from the rule of six, because they have their own covid-secure guidelines, in the same way that schools do and in the same way that organised sport is exempt.