Coronavirus

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

When the demand for PPE shot up, as it did not only here, but around the world, we worked with so many companies to deliver extra PPE, and we have managed to deliver on what was needed. That is why we have now the medium-term supply chains in prospect. I pay tribute to all my commercial team, who did extraordinary and sometimes innovative things in order to make that happen, and that is what they did.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

From the very beginning, clinicians in every developed country in the world have thrown the entire contents of the medical cabinet at this disease in the hope of finding something that works. To what does the Health Secretary attribute the success that he has reported today?

[Matt Hancock]

I attribute the success to great British science, Government-supported funding, the NHS, and the three working together. I put it down to British ingenuity in our brilliant university base, combined with the funding that we put in right at the start and with the fact that with the NHS we can get easy access to a very large patient base, which means we have the biggest clinical trials in the world. In addition, crucially, when we were under pressure and others around were saying, “Hydroxychloroquine is going to solve all your problems”, we stuck with the clinical trials and with the science, and we have successfully delivered this one treatment. It is not a cure, it is a treatment, but it is a good stride down the road.