Covid-19

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I wish to make a few quick points. First, I wish to welcome the Chancellor’s statement today, because this is an area where a lot of us have been pushing him to give some security to businesses as they go forward. The idea of the furloughing scheme going on and, we hope, reducing as it does, as businesses go back to work, is an important one. However, we must bear in mind that there is a huge cost to it, at some £13 billion every month. He is right to say that he is prepared to extend the scheme, but we must be careful that we do not end up spending so much money that it makes it difficult for the economy to thrive.

I also wish to raise with the Government a few areas where I have concerns. The work they have done so far has been remarkable, and they have rightly received the full support of people in this House and, I believe, in the country at large, but I wish briefly to raise some issues with them. They say they have been guided by the science, but a number of people have concerns that this is not just about the science alone; there needs to be a much broader sense of where we are—the balance between the economy and covid. Some of the language has been loose on that, with the idea that it has been a choice—this is a false choice—between saving lives and saving the economy. Both are about saving lives; the point is when one becomes so big that we need to deal with it. I think we are at that moment now, and have been for a little while, in terms of the economy.

My concern is that we seem to have been wedded in the early days to the Imperial College model, which has had some quite significant criticisms and a poor record in the past of forecasting in these areas. I am glad that the Government have now widened this out. I note that Sweden ran the figures on the Imperial model and found that it was wrong by about 15 times, overestimating the number of deaths as against what they had witnessed—the same applies in respect of what Edinburgh University and others had managed to do. I am therefore concerned that there is a deal of pressure on that, but I am also glad the Government have moved on from there.

Another point to make is about testing, where the Government have had to shoulder a lot of difficulty and blame, but quite a lot of that should also be targeted, in due course, at Public Health England. The big mistake they made early on was the decision not just on having more testing, which they should have done from day one, but the decision not to include all the private laboratories. They should have done that straightaway; even though they were building their own and getting their own, we should have maximised and gone out to the private laboratories, which would have helped enormously.

The other thing I do not understand at the moment is that at the beginning of lockdown we did not close the airports but now we are looking to make coming into the airports more difficult as we come out of lockdown. It is a puzzle why it was not right at the beginning but it is now right as we try to open the economy. I am particularly concerned about that.

I just want to say to the Government that for four weeks I have been arguing that they need to open the economy and be talking to the public to bring them with them and give them a sense of what is coming. The paper produced yesterday and the statements that have been made at last are the right indication. I am with the Government: people should use their common sense. There are going to be areas and times when we cannot always meet that argument and that deal about social distancing. I want to ask one question: why does every other country have a lesser distance than we do? That makes a big difference on things such as public transport. Ours is the only country that has a 2-metre rule—Germany’s rule is 1.5 metres, some countries use 1 metre and the World Health Organisation says that 1 metre is enough. Such an approach would help enormously with public transport—on the tube and so on—where there is a great problem. I urge the Government to get on with opening the economy and with giving people the opportunity to get back to their livelihoods. We should trust them, with their common sense, to be able to implement these sets of guidance and to make sure they do the right thing as they go back to work.

NHS Staff Pay

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The majority of NHS staff will see that their pay is protected against the cost of living, but many NHS staff, including the lowest-paid, will see increases that are substantially higher than inflation rates, because, first, that is the kind of society that we believe in. Conservative Members want everyone to be given decent rates of pay, and there are many parts of the country where the cost of living is very high and this will make a very big difference. We also recognise that there will be 1 million more over-75s in 10 years’ time, so we need to expand the number of staff in the NHS and its capacity to deal with those pressures. We therefore need to attract more people into working for the NHS and social care systems.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend; I know of his huge personal commitment to the NHS and how he has battled for it over the years—I have seen that personally. I unashamedly, absolutely agree that this is a very good deal, and I congratulate nurses and others on this pay rise, which they deserve and for which they have worked very hard. Is it not also right to recognise and remember that back in 2008-09, Labour’s great depression plunged the economy into the biggest and most difficult economic trench that it has faced? As a result of our stewardship and our support of the NHS through that period, unlike many other countries that cut their health spending, we secured 200,000 jobs in the NHS, and now we can start rewarding staff for their hard work.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend and commend him on his courage in putting through some incredibly challenging and important reforms to our welfare state, when many people said that it was nigh on impossible. He is right: the biggest and most misleading thing that we hear is the charge that in austerity Britain, the NHS budget has been cut. In fact, the countries that cut their health budgets were Portugal and Greece—countries that are following precisely the policies that are advocated by the Opposition. In this country—so-called austerity Britain—NHS spending has gone up by 9%.

 Orkambi and Cystic Fibrosis

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Evans, for your chairmanship today. As you suggested, I will be brief.

So much has been said already about this drug that I want to make only two points about it at the end of my speech. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) and hon. Members from both sides of the House on having been responsible for the assistance and support that has been provided—both the roundtable that took place earlier, which I was not able to attend, and the e-petition—and on representing the sufferers and their families so well. I congratulate them, and I am pleased and grateful that they have managed to secure this debate.

I am really here because one of my constituents is standing outside hoping that there may be some resolution as a result of this for her daughter, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. I have known the family and the daughter for a little while. The contrast is interesting between two children of my constituents. On the one hand, Megan Bridge is a cystic fibrosis sufferer—her mother, Gill, as I said, is outside just now— and she has made the point to me that at the moment she is old enough to study law. Like any of our children of that age, she should have great prospects, hopes and aspirations, but hers are limited because the prognosis is that she probably does not have more than another two years if things carry on as they are.

If a decision is not taken about this drug soon and agreement is not reached, it is at Megan’s end of the spectrum that that becomes very difficult, because not only will further damage set in, as was said by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam earlier, but a decision might not be made within a year or two, in which case the prognosis for her and for her family is incredibly poor. She begs that we and the Minister—I will come back to this point shortly—make a clear decision with the drugs company as soon as possible.

At the other end of the spectrum is somebody called Amelia, who is only five years old. Her mother, Lucie, came to see me in my surgery to talk about her condition and about how the family copes with it. This poor girl, like so many others who have been mentioned, has to take 40 tablets a day, and has huge amounts of physiotherapy, including three nebulizer treatments, every single day. She is not yet on a feeding tube, but her mother has been told that if the current situation goes on for much longer then she will be.

My point is that these accounts are two ends of the spectrum. In a sense, they are not representative; although they are representative of sufferers, they are not representative of a vast number of people out in the country, because this is such a peculiar genetic condition that, as has been said time and again, not a huge number of people have it. That is where this place and Governments of whatever persuasion—this is not party political—sometimes have to recognise that the common good is not always about majorities and large numbers. It is more often the case that this place is set up to deal with those who are so small in number that they are unable to make the case for themselves. They are unable to drive the point home; they are unable to muster the vast number of votes that it might take a matter to the point where MPs listen very carefully.

What we have seen today is of enormous credit to the humanity of my colleagues on both sides of the House. These people are not likely to change the vote in my colleagues’ constituencies, but they care enough about the idea that these people’s lives matter that we might be able to do something for them.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am listening carefully to what he is saying, and he is saying exactly what I was just about to point out, namely that this is why we are here. This is why we are sent to this place, to speak up for the people who cannot speak up for themselves. My constituent, John Bacon, who is in his twenties, sent me a very simple email that said, “Please help me. Please speak for me and advocate for me. And not just for me, but for all those with cystic fibrosis, and remove the price that has been placed on our lives. We are worth it.” They are—and if we do not speak for those who cannot speak loudly, we should not be here.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady, and that is really the point that not just me but pretty much everyone who has spoken has been making.

I do not know what detailed conversations and discussions are going on about this drug. I sat in government, so I know how complex these things are sometimes. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that “frustrating” was the word I often used when bodies are set up and fall back on their rules because they are not so exposed to public scrutiny.

The latest evidence—I understand that it comes from the company—shows that there is stronger data and that this drug is even more vital than it was before. It now slows lung decline by 42% and it might turn out that it is even more effective than that, which would give somebody like Megan, who I mentioned earlier, the possibility of longer. What is that delay about? The possibility of transplant, and even further down the road the genetic changes that may well be able to be introduced. So, buying time matters dramatically for this group, in the hope that things will improve for them.

When I was in Government, I know that we spent a lot of time on social impact bonds. One area we worked hard on—the Government have incredibly good data on it because we made a number of case studies—is the cost-benefit analysis, to allow us to say that local authorities and so on could set up social bonds to change the number of people going into prison, or to affect the number of people who fail at school. So it was possible to forecast how a cost-benefit analysis would work; it exists.

Right now, I am not certain that NHS England and for that matter NICE are employing that system. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to go to the Cabinet Office and say, “We have done the work on a proper cost-benefit analysis of this drug, and once it is tied in with future developments of other drugs and balanced with health treatments in hospital, constant work with physiotherapy and all the rest of it, I am certain that this group will not only to be able to have this drug, but we will ask ourselves why that didn’t happen before when it so mattered and it benefits them. It also benefits us because instead of their being in hospital, others may be able to use that hospital treatment.” That is a good cost-benefit analysis and I urge my hon. Friend to look at it.