Coronavirus Bill

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

It is already within NHS trusts’ power to pay those visa fees if it is necessary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State look at the immigration surcharge for doctors and nurses who are working in intensive care units? Will he also look personally at the issues relating to research trials for potential new drugs or treatments, or existing drugs or treatments that are being used? Concerns have been raised with me that those processes are all being delayed by the traditional randomised controlled trial processes, which may not be appropriate given the emergency we face.

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. The chief medical officer is personally looking into that issue to make sure that when there is a treatment, we can bring it to bear as soon as is safely possible. There is a challenge with a disease that has, thankfully, a mortality rate as a proportion of the overall population as low as this one, which is that we do not want to do more harm than good. Many of these drugs are safe, because they are licensed for another purpose. It is a question of repurposing them—this is for treatment, rather than vaccine—and that is something we are actively working on. If the right hon. Lady has examples of particular barriers that we need to crunch through I would like to know about them. If she could email me I will take that up with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Covid-19

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Indeed, technology has a huge role to play in helping people to get through this.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Everyone wants us all to pull together and support the same strategy, and the Health Secretary will be aware of the real unease about the differences between the UK’s approach and other approaches taken internationally. Can he reassure us that the Government’s objective is the same as the WHO’s, which said today that we should be testing everyone who has symptoms, not waiting for a future test that might work in different circumstances? Is that the objective: to test everyone who has symptoms now? What is his target for how many new tests a day he wants to be able to do and by when? I have been contacted by GPs who are self-isolating because they cannot get tests.

[Matt Hancock]

The answer is, yes, we want, of course, all the tests that we need.

Coronavirus

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. We are trying to take exactly the approach that he sets out. It builds on my answer to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) on getting the timing right as well as the decisions on the correct actions to take. We need to get both right. We will be guided by the science in supporting the public through what will be a difficult time.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Health Secretary will know that many people are caring for elderly relatives, sometimes just popping in every day to make sure they are fed or to get them up in the morning. If those people end up having to self- isolate or getting ill, what support will there be for them —they may not be getting any sick pay—and for the elderly relatives who depend on some urgent support and may not have any other relatives nearby to provide it?

[Matt Hancock]

We are very concerned about this issue. We will address precisely the issue that the right hon. Member raises in the communication that I indicated we will publish soon to social care providers. This is an important and difficult consideration for what we do in a reasonable worst-case scenario. Of course, all the time, we are working to avoid that scenario. One area that has been highlighted in public is making it much easier to onboard volunteers, but they are not the only part of the answer to this problem.