Oral Answers to Questions

Steven Bonnar Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Lady may well have misunderstood what I said at the conference; I am not sure she listened to the whole session. It is worth repeating that the Government are absolutely committed to coming forward with a sustainable plan for adult social care and to bringing forward that plan to make sure that every person when they reach old age in our country can have the dignity they deserve. We will bring forward full proposals—a full plan—this year.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s response to the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)]

Since the start of the pandemic, we have acted swiftly to reduce the spread of the virus and to keep the public safe. As our vaccine programme progresses, links between cases and hospitalisations weaken, and that means that we are confident we can move forward with step 4, as I set out in the House yesterday.

[Steven Bonnar]

I thank the Health Secretary for that answer. After the planned changes next week, the Health Secretary is predicting that covid cases will reach 100,000 a day. Research is suggesting that that could result in 3,000 hospital admissions and again put our health services under pressure. What is his response to Dr Mike Ryan of the World Health Organisation, who described the proposals to remove all covid measures and simply let people get infected as “epidemiological stupidity”?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman talks, understandably, about pressure on the NHS, and he will know that the restrictions we have necessarily had in place during the course of this pandemic so far have also led to considerable pressure on the NHS, especially when it comes to non-covid health problems. He may be aware, perhaps for his own constituents, that mental health problems are up, there are many undiagnosed cancer cases, domestic violence is up and child abuse is up. I hope he will agree with me that one of the things we can look forward to as we gradually start removing restrictions is helping people with their many non-covid health problems too.