Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely I am. GP access, in particular, is very important. This morning, I met the British Medical Association and the BMA GP leadership to talk about what more we can do to strengthen access to GPs. These are the sorts of things that matter to our constituents, as does the new hospital that we are going to build in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It was a wonderful visit to Devon on Tuesday, and it has been great going around the country to look at what we can do to invest further in the NHS, strengthen it and support it to deliver better care. North Devon does not have a better champion than my hon. Friend. As for what she said about the Opposition, all I can say is that sometimes the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) offers constructive criticism, he has generally had a good crisis and perhaps he will return to that approach soon.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

In the words of the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser:

“Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with covid back to the care homes.”

If that is true, this is one of the biggest scandals and tragedies of the pandemic. Can the Secretary of State please confirm when testing on discharge from hospitals into care homes was routinely offered? Will he apologise to the tens of thousands of bereaved family members whose relatives died in care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

It has been an incredibly difficult time for those who have worked in and lived in care homes throughout this pandemic. That has been true across the world, and I pay tribute to the staff in social care who have done so much. It was, of course, a difficult challenge, especially at the start when many characteristics of this virus were unknown. As I have answered many times in this House, we have published full details of the approach that we are taking and that we have taken. We have worked with the care home sector as much as possible to keep people safe and followed the clinical advice on the appropriate way forward.

Covid-19

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will absolutely look at what the issue is. The good news we have had recently from our regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, is that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can now be stored for up to a month—it used to be only five days from once it was thawed from minus 70° C—which means it is much more versatile and less challenging than it used to be. So I will absolutely look at that and contact my hon. Friend.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

One area of concern for which new restrictions have been published but no advice has been communicated is the London Borough of Hounslow, which shares a boundary with Whitton, Hampton and St Margarets in my constituency. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people go back and forth every day, for school, for work, to get food and other essential supplies and for medical appointments. So, first, could the Minister advise my constituents whether they should be getting on buses and trains that cross the borough boundary and whether they should be going to supermarkets and accessing medical services over the borough boundary? Secondly, will he consider vaccinating, as a priority, people, such as teachers, key workers and airport staff, who have to go to work in Hounslow but live outside the borough?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question and I discussed this with the Mayor of London this morning. Of course Hounslow is on the list of affected areas and we are turbocharging the vaccination programme, as well as doing the surge testing and the sequencing and isolation. But as I have outlined in response to others, people need to exercise caution and common sense, and travel outside of the area only if it is essential. That is important. The right thing to do is for us to work together to make sure we deliver that message, as I did this morning with the Mayor of London.

A Plan for the NHS and Social Care

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

This Government, with their 80-seat majority, are in an enviable position. They could put forward an ambitious and visionary plan to improve the country’s health and wellbeing and put social care at the forefront of their agenda. Yet here we are, following the biggest health crisis in 100 years, at a watershed moment, and the Queen’s Speech presents us with a Government who prioritise unnecessary and discriminatory legislation to introduce voter ID over ensuring that people can get the care that they need and over ensuring that we have a plan to train the next generation of doctors and nurses whom we will all rely on. What a waste of a precious opportunity of a mandate to bring about transformational change to the quality of British citizens’ lives.

Just nine words in the Queen’s Speech were devoted to social care, despite the Prime Minister’s promise on the steps of Downing Street 22 months ago to

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all”,

and there is still nothing on unpaid carers. Instead, reform keeps being kicked into the long grass for this overlooked and critically important sector. Although it is welcome that the health and care Bill seeks to improve integration between health and social care, it does not address the fundamental issues facing our care system in terms of structure, workforce and funding—problems that were highlighted so tragically through the pandemic. Ministers need urgently to commit to cross-party talks. They have a clear choice: to leave a lasting legacy or be responsible for an abject moral and political failure on one of the biggest public policy challenges that this country faces.

If the Prime Minister really wants us to believe that the NHS is safe in Conservative hands and that he genuinely cares about social care, then we need urgent action to ensure that we have enough doctors, nurses, carers, physios and other healthcare professionals both in the short and the long term. In 2019, there were about 100,000 full-time-equivalent vacancies in the NHS, and after a gruelling year, as we saw only yesterday with the nurse who treated the Prime Minister when he was in intensive care, many are needed. They are burnt-out, stressed and fed up of their good will being taken for granted.

With record waiting lists for both physical and mental health treatment, we clearly need some short-term solutions, but we must not shirk the long-term challenges. These shortages predate the pandemic. The Liberal Democrats support calls from the Health and Social Care Committee for a transparent and independent annual workforce report, with requirements for future staffing that cover the next five, 10 and 20 years and regular updates to Parliament on progress and resourcing. I implore the Minister to think big and not to squander this unique opportunity to bring about lasting, positive and long-term change in our health and care services and to improve the wellbeing of the British people.

Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Typically my right hon. Friend asks the most pertinent question, to which we do not know the answer. The level of vaccination that we need in order to withstand the incursion of new variants, even those that the vaccine will work against, depends on their level of transmissibility, and we do not know the increased level of transmissibility over and above that of B117, the previous main variant here in the UK, which was first discovered in Kent. This is an absolutely critical question, but unfortunately we do not know the answer to it yet.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Having reached this tremendous milestone today, and given the sacrifices that the British people have made through lockdown and the fantastic successes of the vaccination programme, will the Secretary of State listen to his own colleague, the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who said last week that, with the new variant, we must “isolate, isolate, isolate” every single case and its contacts? Will he finally commit to paying people’s wages to stay at home to self-isolate, and provide practical support in terms of accommodation and support for dependants if necessary? Otherwise, we will only go backwards.

[Matt Hancock]

I am afraid I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s characterisation of the situation, not least because the approach we are taking in Bolton did work effectively in south London. We are piloting new approaches to ensuring that we can support people to isolate, and some of those pilots are taking place in areas where we can see cases of B1617.2. We keep this under close scrutiny and review to see what works effectively.

Elective Surgical Operations: Waiting Lists

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) on securing this very important debate. I fear many of us will end up repeating some of his points, but hopefully I shall be digging into one or two of those points in a bit more depth.

I start by paying tribute to and thanking our incredible NHS staff up and down the country—not least in my constituency—for their incredible commitment, resilience and hard work. Frankly, they have all gone well above and beyond what they are paid to do and what they signed up for throughout this pandemic, both in treating those with coronavirus and in rolling out the phenomenal vaccination programme. Also, despite what we are discussing today, we must not forget that urgent treatment, urgent surgery and A&E visits were still taking place throughout the pandemic. We must not forget that, so a heartfelt thanks to them.

We often hear that the NHS has coped throughout the pandemic. Indeed, we did not see those awful scenes that we saw in Italy of people being treated in corridors and makeshift tents. I would say, though, that the NHS has coped, but at what cost? We have heard the startling figures of 4.7 million people waiting for treatment. We know that about 2.3 million of those are for elective surgery, and there are all sorts of estimates, of anywhere between 4 million and 6 million or 7 million hidden patients, or those who have not yet necessarily presented. There is that pent-up demand for treatment. We know that two thirds of those waiting for treatment have been waiting for more than 18 weeks, and just shy of 400,000 have now been waiting for over a year. As has already been outlined, the impact on patients’ quality of life, in terms of mental health and excess deaths, cannot be overstated, but I would also like to touch on the workforce impact, before moving to solutions and finance.

As the hon. Member for Bootle has stated, it is estimated that approximately half of those with cancer did not contact their GP in the first wave. In fact, I heard a story the other day, via a friend of a friend, about somebody whose cervical smear test was cancelled last year. She was trying to contact her GP with symptoms earlier this year, and was fobbed off. She has now been discovered with stage 4 cervical cancer. I suspect that those stories will be replicated up and down the country. Macmillan Cancer Support has estimated that there are 15,000 missing diagnoses. We all know the importance of early diagnosis. I used to work for a cancer charity and in a pharmaceutical sector that had a big interest in oncology. We all know that surgery, often combined with early chemotherapy and radiotherapy, is absolutely critical in improving life chances and sometimes in being curative.

On the subject of hip and knee replacements, we know that the second and third most common operations are hip and knee replacements. The vast majority of patients needing that kind of surgery have osteoarthritis. Again, waiting lists in those areas have gone up exponentially. It is clear from talking to health service leaders on the ground that these cases are not necessarily in the priority category, which is understandably where cancer resides. As we have heard, though, there is an impact on quality of life, in terms of pain and reduced mobility. A survey by Versus Arthritis found that over 50% of those waiting had increased pain and reduced mobility, and more than three quarters experienced a deterioration in mental health and wellbeing. The longer-term impacts on the NHS and, critically, the social care sector, which was already struggling and on its knees, will be huge. The direct and indirect cost implications, therefore, will be huge, not to mention further complexity from late surgery.

Although this debate is about surgery, it would be remiss of me not to mention mental health. The Minister knows that I have a personal interest in and passion for mental health. We all know that mental health waiting times were pretty dire before the pandemic, particularly for children and young people. Now they are worse still. I am hearing from parents week in week out about not just children, but young people—often those who have crossed from the CAMHS age to being young adults—who cannot access services and are waiting a year or more for treatment. Again, without early intervention and action on these problems now, we are storing up problems further down the line. We know from the Royal College of Psychiatrists survey that two fifths of those waiting for treatment have ended up contacting crisis services. That is not the best way to treat people with mental health conditions. The hon. Member for Bootle mentioned excess deaths, and modelling from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies suggests that we could have 18,200 or so excess deaths that are not covid-related. I implore the Minister to make sure that we start to count excess deaths that are not covid-related. At the moment they are hidden by the covid figures, but I suspect that these delays to treatment are causing a huge number of excess deaths.

The other big issue that I want to talk about is the workplace impact. We know that staff morale is through the floor at the moment. I recently had a meeting in south-west London with other south-west London MPs, organised by the local Royal College of Nursing branch, at which we talked to nurses. I heard from one after the other about how they are struggling in terms of their mental wellbeing and morale. We know from an RCN survey that a third of its members are considering leaving. We already had huge numbers of vacancies in nursing and other parts of the NHS before this pandemic, and the turnover will increase. I have made the case, as have many Opposition Members, for a better pay settlement for our NHS workers—1% is frankly an insult and a pay cut, as we keep hearing again and again. I implore the Minister once again: pay is important, but so is greater support for NHS workers’ mental health and wellbeing. I know that local NHS leaders are trying to do what they can, but further support and a commitment from the Minister would be welcome.

Finally on the impacts, I want to touch on health inequalities. Covid has massively exposed the health inequalities in our country. The thing that I fear most is that those who know how to shout the loudest and navigate the system, and have access to the sort of remote technology that is being increasingly used, will be able to access the treatment they need. I say that as the MP for a relatively affluent part of London, where I suspect a higher than average number of people have access to private healthcare and health insurance, and will be able to get treated through that route. Those who have been worst hit by covid will be worst hit by these waiting lists.

On solutions, I have touched on the need to treat our staff better in terms of pay and mental health support, and reduce the turnover. Importantly, we need to give staff time to recover. That is what I keep hearing from the chief executives of hospital trusts and community trusts on the ground: they need time to recover.

That leads me to my second point on the solutions. I would love to hear the Minister explain why the block contracts with the independent sector ended at the end of March. I would have thought that continuing to use independent sector capacity in the short term would help. A number of the stakeholders who briefed us for today’s debate have raised concerns about the fact that independent sector provision is largely concentrated in the south-east, London, the south-west and the east of England. That is not ideal and could exacerbate the inequalities that I have talked about, but something is better than nothing. If it helps to reduce the pressure on the NHS, it is important that it is looked at as a solution.

Thirdly, I would like to talk about transparency. We need an honest discussion with the public about these waiting lists, and clear reporting about the waiting times for the different waiting lists. We have talked about support for patients who are waiting for treatment, and good, clear, regular communication is an important part of that. I mentioned the need for transparency about excess deaths as a result of people waiting for treatment. The Government need to level with the public if there are tough choices to be made around the prioritisation of what treatment people will get within a certain period of time, or if they will have to travel for treatment. They need to be up front and honest with the public, because that is the only way we will maintain public trust.

That relates to a point that I want to make about communication. We must continue to communicate with the public about whether it is safe to go to hospital for treatment, and we must look at how we engage hard-to-reach groups that might not be embracing some of the digital technology that is increasingly being used to improve efficiency, not just because of infection control measures.

There must be better local collaboration. I want to thank the two acute hospitals that serve my constituency: Kingston Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital, which are part of South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust respectively. I know they are working incredibly hard on community diagnostic hubs and the surgical hubs that we have talked about, and they are ensuring we have covid-light sites, and so on, in line with the NHS operational guidance. That is to be welcomed, championed and supported. We have touched on having greater support for patients waiting for treatment.

NHS providers have said that we need a bold, transformative approach to tackle these waiting lists, and ultimately that will need to be supported by cash. I will pre-empt the Minister, who will stand up and say, “We have committed £4 billion”—I am sorry to steal his lines. Yes, that is fantastic and to be welcomed, but last autumn the Health Foundation estimated that we will need about £10 billion to deal with the backlog.

We saw in the late 1990s and the early 2000s that the way to bring down waiting lists is huge injections of cash. The Chancellor said he would give the NHS whatever is needed. We know that a lot of these problems come from an underlying lack of funding in the NHS over the long term and that, for four years, the NHS has not met the target in the NHS constitution that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks to start elective treatment. That was an underlying problem pre-pandemic, but it has been exacerbated. That is why at the last general election the Liberal Democrats suggested that we should raise income tax by a penny in the pound specifically for the NHS and social care.

I am sure that the Minister has the Chancellor on speed dial, just like the former Prime Minister does, and I know that the Secretary of State has the Chancellor on speed dial. I implore him to make the case for the cash injection needed to tackle waiting times and improve the health of the nation. I am sure he does not need my help, but I and the Liberal Democrats stand ready to help him to make the case, just as the hon. Member for Bootle has already offered.

Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

May I add my praise for those at the vaccination centre at Harlow Leisurezone? They have been working incredibly hard and we are all very grateful. I would add Essex County Council to my right hon. Friend’s long list, which I fully endorse. The council has leaned into the vaccination effort right across Essex. I am always happy to meet him, and with the recent announcement on the UK Health Security Agency, I think now is a good time to have a discussion on this topic.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

I have been contacted by several constituents who ordered very expensive tests from companies recommended on the Government’s website as part of the test to release scheme. Some never received their tests, some never received their results, and some received their tests late and feared being in breach of the rules. They have had to battle for refunds, and we have heard of others having to leave home to get their tests, which undermines the whole scheme. What vetting, if any, does the Department undertake before listing these companies, especially as demand will no doubt increase, given that the Government are so keen to open up international travel again?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady is quite right to raise this. We have kicked two suppliers off the list of approved suppliers for testing for international travel, and we are quite prepared to do more if suppliers do not meet the service obligations that they sign up to. If she wants to send in the individual evidence, we will absolutely look at it. We keep this constantly and vigilantly under review. The companies that provide tests must meet their obligations in terms of timeliness and of treating their customers fairly and reasonably. As I say, two of them did not continue to meet those specifications, so we took them off the list of available testing suppliers. We are quite prepared to do more if that is what it takes.

Coronavirus

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. The main provisions under which we put in place the lockdown come from the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, not the Coronavirus Act. The mainstay in terms of the Coronavirus Act is to allow us to support people and public services. For instance, furlough is in the Coronavirus Act; that is not up for renewal, because it is a permanent part—it is for the full period of the Act. Nevertheless, in terms of being able to pay statutory sick pay to people when they are self-isolating, I am asking the House today to renew that provision, and I think that we must.

I want to stress this point to those who are understandably concerned about the extent of powers in the Coronavirus Act. Although the Act remains essential and we are seeking the renewal of elements of it, we have always said that we will only retain powers as long as they are necessary. They are exceptional powers. They are approved by the House for use in the most extreme of situations and they must be seen in that light. Because of the progress we have made, we are now able to expire and suspend a whole raft of measures in the Act, just as we expired provisions after the previous review six months ago.

We propose to expire 12 provisions in the Act: section 15, which allowed local authorities to ease some responsibilities around social care; section 24, which allowed biometric data held for national security purposes to be retained for an extra six months; five provisions that required information for businesses and people involved in the food supply chain; section 71, which allowed a single Treasury Minister to sign on behalf of all Treasury Commissioners—I know the Whips Office is looking forward to getting its signatures out again. There are two provisions that created a new form of emergency volunteering leave, which we have not needed and are retiring. Section 79 extended arrangements for business improvement districts and section 84 allowed for the postponement of General Synod elections. Those are not needed anymore and we are therefore not seeking to extend them. We only extend that which we think is necessary.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I welcome the expiry of some measures, particularly the social care easements, which were discriminatory against the most vulnerable in our society. Will the Secretary of State accept that under the Coronavirus Act we have had 250 people wrongfully charged? The Act is full of far-reaching powers that are not needed. The practical measures he talked about can be brought forward in the next 21 days. As he suggested, the fake news that furlough cannot go on without renewing the Act is just untrue, because that is a permanent provision.

[Matt Hancock]

Furlough is provided for under the Act. As I just said, it is a permanent provision of the Act, but the statutory sick pay is not and I think we should be giving people statutory sick pay to help them to self-isolate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

We could scarcely have imagined that, a whole year after a strange virus that we knew very little about arrived on our shores and Ministers were able to railroad a 348-page Bill through Parliament in three days, taking away individuals’ rights and freedoms on an unprecedented scale, we would be here being asked to renew those powers yet further still. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) made very clear, the Liberal Democrats will not and cannot support the renewal of the Coronavirus Act today. We will absolutely not give a blank cheque to Ministers to continue those draconian powers.

I turn my attention to the road map regulations. In the main, I welcome the fact that the Government have finally learned the hard way, after three lockdowns, 126,000 deaths, of which 84,000 were in the past six months alone, and untold damage to people’s lives and livelihoods, that “steady as she goes”, as opposed to what happened last summer, is the key to unlocking safely. However, as the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) has already pointed out, vaccination alone will not keep the virus under control as we open up, especially given the third wave that we are seeing surging in so many European countries. That is a huge threat to us, so tough public health measures at our borders are critical, yet the travel ban in the regulations is simply not fit for purpose.

I am appalled that Ministers wish to criminalise people for visiting loved ones overseas, yet the Prime Minister’s father and friends get a free pass to go and take care of their second homes abroad—because of course second home owners cannot possibly bring the virus back into this country, can they? Despite clear scientific advice and international best practice in support of a blanket quarantine for arrivals from all countries, our system was implemented far too late and is far too leaky to properly protect against new variants being imported that could potentially be vaccine resistant. Criminalising international travel with a £5,000 fine and an exemption for second home owners exemplifies the Government’s approach to so many aspects of the pandemic: half-baked, authoritarian, and one rule for them and one rule for us.

Alongside vaccination and tougher restrictions at our borders as we embark on this road map out of lockdown, with virus rates inevitably jumping again, breaking chains of transmission will be critical, as the Health Secretary himself said earlier, yet the regulations do nothing to improve the rate of self-isolation. With as many as 20,000 people a day not self-isolating, when will Ministers realise that paying people to stay at home, and providing practical support for those with dependants and accommodation for those in overcrowded homes, is key to boosting self-isolation?

Robust quarantine measures at our borders and far better self-isolation must go hand in hand with vaccination in order gradually and safely to open up our economy and society. Neither the far-reaching, draconian powers in the Coronavirus Act, nor vaccine passports for domestic use, which would create a two-tier society and an extra burden for struggling businesses, will achieve that aim. Our constituents have sacrificed far too much, and our scientists, NHS staff and volunteers have achieved wonders through the vaccine programme, so I implore Ministers: let us not squander these gains.

Social Care Reform

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Social care is and has long been the poor relation of healthcare that successive Conservative Governments have promised to fix yet taken no action on. Here we are, eight years on from when the coalition Government announced and subsequently put into law a new model of social care funding based on Andrew Dilnot’s recommendations, but the Conservatives refused to implement it.

Instead, we had real-terms cuts in social care funding, and now we have yet another top-down reorganisation of the NHS that promises integration, but will do nothing to address the structural or funding reform needed in social care. The Budget, at the start of this month, did not even mention social care. Is it any wonder that most people feel that 1.5 million people with unmet care needs are just not a priority for the Government? Thank goodness for our 9 million unpaid carers, who daily pick up the slack and pay an enormous price, both financially and in their own physical and mental wellbeing, without any recognition. Where would we be without them?

Our care system, as many have already said, was already in peril pre pandemic and is even more so now. Adult social care has consistently been an afterthought for Ministers throughout this pandemic, with more than 25,000 lives lost in care homes to coronavirus and delays in securing PPE and testing for the care sector during the first wave. Many care homes are now teetering on the brink financially. The sector is crying out—with one voice, loud and clear—for a proper, joined-up workforce strategy. We have a staggering 112,000 vacancies, and one in six of the workforce are migrant workers, yet the vast majority of social care roles do not qualify under the new points-based immigration system, even after recent changes.

With 1.6 million social care workers earning less than the living wage, a quarter of the workforce on zero-hours contracts and limited career prospects, how on earth can we expect to provide decent, sustainable care for the most vulnerable adults in our country? The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) referred to our mums and dads. It is not only our mums and dads but our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters; a large number of those needing care are actually working-age adults—almost half.

It is time for urgent cross-party action. The letter from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to all MPs last March inviting suggestions for social care really does not cut it. Over the last year, the Liberal Democrats have twice formally requested that the Government initiate cross-party discussions. As the Health Foundation says:

“These problems are not intractable but solving them requires political will and government spending.”

Given the monumental challenge before us, when will Ministers make good on the Prime Minister’s promise to fix social care and invite others to the table to help develop those solutions?

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

The good news is that Members have been very good at sticking to time, so we actually have a little bit of extra time to play with. If the three Front Benchers all stick to 11 minutes, that will give the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) time to wind up the debate. First of all, we are off to bonny Scotland and Dr Philippa Whitford for the SNP.

Health and Social Care Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

If I may say so, Madam Deputy Speaker, I think my right hon. Friend would wear that tie if he were in the Chamber as well. He makes an important point about the future of investment of public health. He is a great champion for Harlow, and he and I have spoken about the Harlow project many times. As he knows, we are reforming the way we deliver public health, to make sure that the delivery of health security, especially against contagious diseases, gets its own special focus, and the vital work of health improvement, to improve public health in non-contagious diseases, such as by tackling obesity. The Harlow project has been worked on for some time and I look forward to working with him on the next steps in that programme.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

The Secretary of State rightly paid tribute to the service and sacrifice of NHS staff over the past year. Several Conservative Members joined me in speaking to nurses and Royal College of Nursing representatives from across south-west London last week. The message to us was clear: they are traumatised and exhausted after treating thousands of severely ill covid patients, and they are insulted by the proposed 1% pay rise. Will he therefore follow the example of the Welsh Government and offer NHS workers a £500 tax-free bonus as well as a real-terms pay increase?

[Matt Hancock]

As the hon. Lady knows, we are in a difficult economic situation due to the pandemic, and about 700,000 people have lost their jobs. As a result, we have implemented a pay freeze across the public sector, for all but the lowest-paid workers and NHS staff. As she knows, the independent pay review body is looking at this point, but, like her, I bow to no one in my admiration for the work of staff across the NHS. They have worked incredibly hard and have done a huge amount to help people through this pandemic. She is absolutely right to say that we must support them, especially in getting rest and recuperation after this latest peak, because we also have work ahead of us to make sure we can deal with the consequences of covid, including the backlogs for which I announced the financial support to crack through today.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I am happy to say he is absolutely right. He has a lot of experience in government and in this space. All those contracts and all assessments of contracts, whichever route they came via, went through the eight-stage process of assessment by independent civil servants who know commerce and know procurement. I would not for a moment cast aspersions on their judgment, and Ministers did not determine which contracts were or were not awarded in that context.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

Given the number of fast-track VIP covid contracts that have resulted in unusable protective equipment, will the Minister commit to recovering public money from the companies that did not meet their contractual obligations? Does he agree that those hundreds of millions of pounds might have been better spent on a decent pay rise for the NHS workforce?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about contracts that either failed to deliver or where PPE, for example, did not meet the required standards. I can reassure her that we are undertaking a stocktake—an audit—of exactly that, and we are already pursuing a number of cases where, if PPE was either not to the required standard or was not delivered, we will recoup the money from that.