Covid-19 Update

Philippa Whitford Excerpts
Monday 19th April 2021

(2 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
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We will certainly consider that. I have seen the letter. We have discussed the question. I would add that we have a record number of doctors in this country, in part thanks to the work that my right hon. Friend put in place when he was in my shoes. We have a record number of nurses—more than 300,000 for the first time in the history of the NHS. We do need, of course, to look to the future and ensure that we are preparing for it, as the letter suggests. We also need to ensure that we keep driving the project of delivering 50,000 more nurses in the NHS over this Parliament. I look forward to giving him a more substantive response, but I hear his encouragement to ensure that we take steps in that direction.

Philippa Whitford Portrait Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]
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While the vaccine programmes across the UK are going well, vaccine-resistant variants remain a major threat. I welcome that the Prime Minister has now called off his visit to India due to its devastating surge in covid. Cases of the B1617 Indian variant in the UK are still very low, but they have been doubling every week, despite lockdown, suggesting that like the Kent variant it is much more infectious than the original virus. I therefore welcome India’s being added to the red list to reduce further importation.

Will the Secretary of State not now consider extending hotel quarantine to all arrivals, as travellers from red list countries can currently avoid it by coming via a third country? We have already seen increased numbers of the South African and Brazilian variants in European countries, from where travellers are not placed in hotel quarantine, and more infectious or vaccine-resistant variants could emerge in any country. We simply would not know about it until it was too late.

The pandemic is still accelerating, and as well as causing appalling suffering and death in other countries it clearly poses a threat to the people of the UK. Does the Secretary of State not recognise the need for a more co-operative, global response to covid if we are to bring the pandemic under control and allow a safer return to international travel and commerce?

Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
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I certainly agree with the hon. Lady on her final point, on international collaboration and working together, which, along with the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, we are working incredibly hard on. We are using the UK’s presidency of the G7 and the enthusiasm of the new Administration in Washington to try to drive international collaboration, in particular collaboration among like-minded democracies in favour of an open and transparent, science-led response to pandemics. I hope that she will concur with that approach.

On the new variants of concern, it is important when looking at the numbers to distinguish between community spread and spread connected to travel. By taking the action that I have just announced to put India on the red list, we are restricting yet further the likelihood of incursion from India of somebody with a new variant. However, the majority of the cases that we have seen already in this country have been picked up by the testing that we have in place now for every single passenger entering this country. That is a sign of the system working, and it is now being strengthened.