Public Health

Debate between Wes Streeting and Bob Seely

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This comes back to the point I made about the Government engaging with the staff trade unions and the royal colleges. Whatever their policy position on having mandatory vaccination, the Secretary of State will find in them willing allies who want to help the Government to persuade colleagues to engage with them and to deal with some of these dangerous conspiracy theories that are knocking public confidence, and creating real fear and anxiety entirely without basis. When the Minister for the Cabinet Office concludes later, I hope that he will set out how the Government plan to engage and that he will give an undertaking to work with the staff trade unions and the royal colleges, because that would do so much to achieve the objectives that we all share, but also to raise morale in the workforce, who often feel that they are slogging their guts out for the Government, but do not get the hearing they deserve.

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech, and I apologise for interrupting him, but on a point of science, will he just accept that he has got it a little bit wrong? Someone having the vaccine does not stop them spreading it; it just makes it much less likely that it will harm them badly. Someone can have the vaccine and still spread it, and to imply otherwise is just wrong.

[Wes Streeting]

The hon. Gentleman has called repeatedly from a sedentary position that I do not know the science, but I have said nothing of any sort to contradict the points he has just made.

With respect to Conservative Members, particularly those who oppose these measures, what they are missing is that it is indisputable that the booster does provide greater protection than the first and second jabs, that vaccination—full stop—provides better protection, and that if we are talking about NHS pressures and workforce pressures, the biggest danger is that the virus sweeps through the health and social care workforce, knocks a load of people out in the middle of the busiest period for the NHS, and then the system topples over. I do not know why it has to be explained again and again to Conservative Members that the objective is to protect the NHS and to stop it toppling over at a critical time. The points about the severity of the virus and the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing transmission or serious illness are largely secondary. We know that the virus is spreading, and doing so rapidly, and we know that if it rips through the health and social care workforce, that is the biggest risk to the NHS—that is what will topple it over. Conservative Members’ constituents will not thank them one bit if they allow that to happen.