National Security and Investment Bill

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

First, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who has spoken very kindly about the work of the Committee that I am privileged to chair. I also pay huge tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). He has been tireless—that word has been overused in this place, but he has been tireless—in reaching out to all Members to speak to them about the Bill and ensure that the amendments tabled are helpful and conducive to not only the public good but the national good. He has been doing that at the same time as he has been running a vaccination programme. I have to say that the Minister’s wife’s loss is the nation’s gain: she has been selfless in allowing him to slave away for our country on two very important subjects.

The reality is that this is a hugely important Bill, and because it is so important and such a big change for the United Kingdom, it raises huge questions that are very difficult to answer. The way that the Minister has approached this is exactly right. He started off by speaking to businesses, to our intelligence services and to our regulators to understand what exactly the threat is, how it is affecting our businesses and how it can be addressed. He has had, I hope, as much help as he possibly can from them, and I hope that the help being offered from the Select Committee that I am privileged to chair and the Committee that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is privileged to chair is helpful.

We are trying to improve what is already a good Bill and make it into an excellent one. We have had various conversations with not only the Minister but his Whips, who have been extremely helpful—I know that this is a very odd thing to say in the House—in ensuring that he is informed about the way in which we have conducted this discussion. It would not be right for me not to also thank Alice Lynch of our Committee and Nicole Kar of Linklaters, our specialist witness who has helped us through the process of writing this report.

I rise to speak to new clause 4, which is in my name and the names of fellow members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We looked carefully at the Bill because, over the last two to three years that I have been chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee, much of our work has been on the threat of foreign interference in the UK. One of our earlier reports in May 2018 was entitled “Moscow’s Gold: Russian Corruption in the UK”; I believe the Minister was still on the Committee when we started that report, though he had already been promoted to greater things by the time we published it. The report touched on the way that dirty money plays into our systems and the way in which we must protect those systems.

Since then, we have looked at various aspects of how our foreign policy is fundamentally about keeping the British people safe. We have always focused on the interests of the UK and the interests of the people we are lucky enough to represent. We sit here representing our communities—not other communities, not business and not anybody else, but our communities and what is fundamentally in their interests. We built up, from that early report, into looking at the various ways in which money has moved around, influencing academic freedoms and changing the way in which businesses have acted. As the Minister knows, we have called out those who we feel needed to be called out. That is why I am so pleased that he is in his place and has produced this Bill, because it finally sets a process by which this Government—any Government—can look at decisions that are being taken and assess them properly.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman and his Committee on the excellent report they have produced, but this is about the scrutiny of decisions of mainly private companies and others. Does he share my concerns about some decisions taken by Departments, particularly in the light of the Ministry of Defence’s decision to buy E-7 Wedgetail aircraft from Boeing, which results in two of them coming from China?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me, but I am not going to get drawn on the Wedgetail discussion, as that is a slightly separate conversation. He is right to say that this Bill affects not just private business, but the way in which the Government will also conduct their procurement, so it is absolutely right that in future decisions may be looked at in different ways. This Bill, however, is slightly different, because it looks at the purchase of British business and not at the UK purchasing others.

Let me come back to where I was before the right hon. Gentleman cunningly got in his complaint about an MOD decision. This Bill goes a long way to making sure that we are in the right place, but it raises a few concerns, which I will touch on. That is why we have introduced new clause 4, which is not supposed to be a definition of national security, because that would, as the Minister knows, constrain the ability of a Government to adapt this law as national security changes. It would in effect tie concepts from 2021 into the law as it progressed. Given the change we have seen in the past 10 or 15 years, that would frankly be unwise. After all, who could have known that some of the decisions we have taken, perfectly innocently and rationally, over the past decade are some of the worst that a Government have made?

I am referring to two decisions. First, the sale of DeepMind to Google was one of the worst strategic moves a UK Government have taken. I am not blaming anybody for it; it was a decision taken rationally at the time, without understanding the future power of artificial intelligence and the extraordinary strength of DeepMind. That is a huge credit to the team at DeepMind and to much of the investment Google has put in, but it is also a recognition that a change of ownership and geographic basing—even though the people do not change, the ownership changes—has undermined the UK. The second is the sale of Arm to SoftBank. Again, this is one friendly company being sold to a company of another friendly nation. These are not geographically specific points; they are entirely geographically neutral. My guess is that one of Arm’s products is in everybody’s pocket, because they are in 95% of computer products and so will be in almost everybody’s phone. This is one of those moments where we risked losing control of an absolutely fundamental technology that could in future promote Britain’s interests greatly. That moves us into a question about Nvidia that I will not get drawn into now; I am just putting into historical context decisions we made that we will live to regret.

This Bill allows us to look at those things and update with the times, which is why I agree that we should not have a fixed definition of national security—we should have a framework for it. Here I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and others on the Committee, who came up with this proposal and were extremely rigorous in doing so. I pay particular tribute to Nicole Kar of Linklaters, who helped us with the drafting of it and to the Committee Clerks who got us through it. There is a real opportunity here to enable this framework to defend us.

Governments throughout the European Union and, indeed, around the world have already started to look at how their laws that are similar to ours will apply. If we do not give enough strength to our Government, there is a danger that we will be the only ones found to be naked when the day comes and the choices have to be made. That would be a huge mistake, because the world is changing; there is a lot more cash from state-owned enterprises going around than there has been for many years. Sadly, there is likely to be a prolonged period of economic difficulty as we come out of covid; those companies and countries that are willing to underwrite companies will have an advantage when they start to snap up businesses around the world. That is why we need this legislation now.

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For me, protecting the realm and all of our people—all of them—requires flexibility as well as strong oversight and that is in no doubt, so I will not be supporting new clause 5 today.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I supported the Bill on Second Reading and continue to do so, because, of course, in terms of putting on the statute book the protection that we need, it is a vital piece of legislation, but, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, it is possibly some seven years late. That highlights the conflict that takes place within not just this Government, but all Governments, between wanting national prosperity and national security. We had this during the coalition Government—the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), I think, referred to it as the “golden age”, or, as the Australians would call it “a Government full of panda huggers”—but that has clearly changed. What has also changed since even 2013 is that we have a better understanding of how states are using their economic power not only for defence purposes, but to project their power to change the international world order.

It has come as a great shock to many people that, in the past few years, the international rules-based order, which we have all accepted since the second world war, has come under threat not only from hostile states, but from individuals who basically want to throw everything up in the air and see what lands.

Clearly, when it comes to China, to mention one nation, its investment strategy, including belt and road and other initiatives, is clearly being used not just in terms of projecting its economic power, but for geopolitical reasons. If we look at the long list of Chinese individuals on various standard-raising bodies—whether it be UN bodies or standard setters in the telecoms industry—we can see which areas they want to influence. The Bill is very important in ensuring that we protect that critical national infrastructure. There will be that debate—as Members will see if they read the ISC’s report, in 2013—between prosperity and security. For me, security has got to be the key cornerstone of this legislation, but it will, I think, lead to some very difficult decisions having to be taken.

As I say, I broadly welcome what is being put forward in this Bill, and I will come on to some of the new clauses in a minute, but can I first refer to new clause 7? It has already been spoken to by the Chair of the ISC, the right hon. Member for New Forest East, in terms of oversight. The ISC is not looking for work, I can tell hon. Members that. I have been a member of it for a few years now, and we have a lot on our plate. We do not actually want to be a regulator or in any way to have to decide what should go ahead and what should not—that is the role of Government—but I think it is crucial that those decisions, some of which will be very controversial but taken for perfectly good security reasons, do need to have oversight from outside the Executive.

As the right hon. Gentleman has outlined, that cannot be done by the BEIS Committee. Again, I would not want to take away from any of the work it is doing, but we are the only Committee of all the Committees we have that has the levels of security clearance—it has STRAP clearance—to look at the evidence that will have to be put forward for taking these decisions. I think this would give the public confidence in the Bill, and when such decisions are being taken in future, the public can actually have confidence that there is some oversight of the reasons why they are being taken. So I do support new clause 7, but I accept what my Chairman says about wanting some indication of the Government wishing to take this on board. May I also raise the fact that this is not just for this Bill? I am also serving currently on the Telecommunications (Security) Bill Committee, and it is an issue—exactly the same issue—there as well.

I think the Minister is sympathetic to this, but I can tell him now—and I do not want him to admit it—that he will be getting a lot of pushback from the Cabinet Office, because the Cabinet Office somehow sees it as its role to prevent the ISC from seeing anything. As the right hon. Member for New Forest East said, it hides behind the Justice and Security Act 2013, but as he very eloquently outlined, there is already a mechanism to allow us to look at this. This is going to be an increasing problem. If hon. Members read the Act, they will see that it does not actually say that it is about actual Departments; it is about access to sensitive and secure information. That is going to be an increasing issue, whether for this Government or future Governments, because, as that is used by more Departments, it is important that Parliament and the public at least have some oversight of it.

I do not want to bash the Cabinet Office, but hon. Members will remember, if they look at the 2013 ISC report, that it is the same Department that, even though it was told by BT that BT was going to contract with Huawei, somehow conveniently forgot even to tell Ministers until much later. So, I think it is important to ensure that we have robust oversight. I look forward to the Minister’s response on whether he is going to agree to this letter. If he can give such an indication today, or even when it goes to the other place, that would be welcome, and if that is the case, I think it would be quite right not to press new clause 7. I think this is something that is missing from the Bill.

May I now refer to other new clauses? New clause 4 stands in the name of the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling and others, and I congratulate his Committee on its report. I accept what the hon. Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) has just said about defining national security. Putting that on the face of the Bill, as new clause 5 does, limits what can be done, although it is good to have a debate on this. New clause 4 is slightly different, however, because it sets out a framework within which these decisions can be taken.

The Bill does not define national security or the list, and I understand why: because we cannot list the entities, and, as the hon. Lady said, something might come up in the future that is critical national infrastructure but that we have not yet thought about. We need sufficient flexibility to be able to address such situations.

New clause 4 also covers the following important area:

“(g) the potential of the trigger event to involve or facilitate significant illicit or subversive activities, including terrorism, organised crime, money laundering and tax evasion; and

(h) whether the trigger event may adversely impact the safety and security of UK citizens or the UK.”

We see good examples of states that are making strategic investments for geopolitical or security reasons or in order to acquire technologies, but, as came out in the ISC Russia report, many states are increasingly using fronts and other individuals to acquire such assets, and, having not an exhaustive list, but a framework that covers this would also flag up such matters to the Department.

We talk about critical national infrastructure being things such as power stations, electricity grids, gas mains and telecoms, but might we also say that our food distribution network, for instance, is a part of critical national infrastructure? In the early 2000s we had the fuel delivery lorry drivers’ strike, which led to a critical situation, and control of such events could fall under this. These things might be done not by a state, but by individuals related to it, perhaps acquiring large property portfolios in certain areas. Although new clause 4 is not perfect, it covers these matters.

I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) is trying to achieve in amendment 7. She wants this unit to have the resources to ensure that it can do its job, and that is very important. However, we also need to ensure that there are no untimely delays, because we do not want this to be a hindrance to business.

Amendment 7 also raises the issue of the personnel who are going to perform this task. I have a huge concern, which I have raised already in terms of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, about the type of individuals we are going to get in that unit. It is vital that we have people with not only the necessary security clearances but also the right security mindset. Some reassurance on that from the Minister would be welcome.

Overall, however, I welcome this Bill. It takes a huge step in the right direction. As my Chairman, the right hon. Member for New Forest East said, it is strange that we wait for seven years and then get two Bills very quickly, and I also look forward—I hope in the near future—to a further Bill, the hostile state actors Bill, which is another recommendation from our Russia report.

I thank the Minister for the constructive way he has taken this Bill forward—and I will be cheeky and just say to him that if he can deliver extra vaccines in Chester-le-Street this week, that will be very welcome.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now go over to Sam Tarry—oh no, he’s here!

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

I have no doubt that the Minister will aim to recruit the brightest and best. However, what assurance can he give that those individuals will have not only the necessary security clearance but the culture of thinking about security, as opposed to business and regulation?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

They will be able to draw on all the experience, culture and, of course, resources of Government to be able to do their job properly, I assure the right hon. Member of that.

The report sets out a fear, as we have heard elsewhere, that without a definition of national security in the Bill, interventions under the NSI regime will be politicised. I wholeheartedly agree that it is crucial for the success of the regime that decisions made are not political but rather technocratic, dispassionate and well judged. I repeat the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), the former Business Secretary, who on Second Reading assured the House that:

“The Government will not be able to use these powers to intervene in business transactions for broader economic or public interest reasons, and we will not seek to interfere in deals on political grounds.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 210.]

Indeed, if the Secretary of State took into account political factors outside the remit of national security, the decision could not be upheld on judicial review. It is with this in mind, and our focus on protecting foreign direct investment, which so many colleagues are concerned about, especially as we come out of the covid challenge, that politicised decisions will not be possible under the NSI regime. I hope right hon. and hon. Members feel I have sufficiently explained the Government’s approach. We have sought to deliver what the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Opposition recommend.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention. What I was saying is that there are no restrictions. His Committee will be able to invite the Secretary of State to give evidence to it, and it will also be able to ask for further information, which the unit will be able to provide.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The Minister is wrong when he talks about asking the Secretary of State, because his is not one of the Departments that we overlook, but it is already there that this information be provided. I do not know why he and the Government are resisting this, because it will give certain confidence in terms of ensuring that decisions are taken on national security grounds. If he thinks for one minute that the Cabinet Office will divulge information easily to us, I can assure him that it will not. It does not do so. We have to drag it out of them kicking and screaming every time. I am sorry, but this is very disappointing.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Let me repeat again: there are no restrictions on the Committee requesting further information from the unit or from the Secretary of State.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention and his powerful argument, but I just repeat that there are no restrictions on his Committee requesting that information.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will not give way. There is a lot to get through and time is short.

The Government will more generally monitor the operation of the regime and regularly review the contents of the annual reports, including in relation to academic research, spin-off enterprise or SMEs, and we will pay close attention to the resourcing and the timelines of the regime.

If, during any financial year, the assistance given under clause 30 totals £100 million or more, the Bill requires the Secretary of State to lay a report of the amount before the House. Requiring him to lay what would likely be a very similar report for every calendar year as well as for every financial year, which is in amendment 4, appears to be excessive in our view. He would likely have to give Parliament two very similar reports only a few months apart.

On amendment 5, I can reassure the House that, under clause 54, the Secretary of State would be subject to public law duties when deciding whether to share information with an overseas public authority. That includes a requirement to take all relevant considerations into account in making decisions. These are therefore considerations that the Secretary of State would already need to take into account in order to comply with public law duties.

Moving on to new clause 6, I want to be clear that we do not expect the regime to disproportionately affect SMEs, although we will of course closely monitor its impact. The Government have been happy to provide support to businesses both large and small through the contact address available on gov.uk. Furthermore, the factsheets make it clear what the measures in the proposed legislation are and to whom they apply, so there is real clarity on this. It would therefore not be necessary to provide the grace period for SMEs proposed under new clause 3 and neither would it be appropriate. Notifiable acquisitions by SMEs may well present national security concerns and this proposed new clause would, I am afraid, create a substantial loophole.

To conclude, although I am very grateful for the constructive and collegiate engagement from hon. and right hon. Members across the House, for the reasons that I have mentioned I cannot accept the amendments and new clauses tabled for this debate and therefore hope that they will agree to withdraw them.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I start by congratulating the Secretary of State on his appointment; I wish him well in the years to come. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), for how he has conducted himself during the Bill—I just say that Chester-le-Street would be a lot happier if extra vaccines arrived this week. I just wanted to get that plug in yet again.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who has led on this Bill for Her Majesty’s Opposition. Following the comments from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) about the scrutiny of this Act, once the Bill becomes one, I welcome the recognition that the ISC has a role. The Minister, in response to me and the right hon. Gentleman, said that there is nothing to stop the ISC asking the Business Secretary to come before it or asking for information on the Bill. I do not for one minute doubt the integrity of the two Ministers, but they—like me and us all—are, to use a Robin Day phrase, “here today, gone tomorrow” politicians. Legislation has to stand for a length of time in terms of different Ministers and people who will look at it. The only way to do that is to formalise this.

If we were asking, in terms of the ISC, for an overcomplicated system or something that was completely alien to the culture of scrutiny, I could accept that, but we are not. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the mechanism is there already. All we have to do is enact it. That means that when the two Ministers and I have moved on, and when even the Chair of the ISC has gone on to greater and better things, there will be a mechanism in place to ensure that there is parliamentary scrutiny of those decisions, because some will be very controversial. As I said on Report, there is no way in which the ISC wants to act as a regulator or to have some veto over decisions—it is for Ministers to do that—but it is important to ensure that Parliament has oversight of those decisions. The only Committee that can do that is the ISC, because of its security classification.

I join the Chair of the ISC in saying to the Secretary of State: this is about standing up to the Cabinet Office. On the idea that the ISC can ask for information, sometimes getting information that, actually, we are entitled to see, is like getting blood out of a stone. If we formalised that, as suggested by the Chair of the ISC, it would give oversight of the decisions taken, which would strengthen the decision-making process and ensure that we could at least see what intelligence is there; no one else could see it, apart from the Ministers taking the decisions obviously. That would strengthen the entire process, so I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the matter, as clearly it will come up again when the Bill goes to the other place.

There is a tendency, which I never liked when the Labour party was in government, for suggestions to be put forward in this place and the Government then to leave things to be changed in the other place, as though it is somehow a sign of failure on behalf of a governing party—I aim this not just at this Government but at any Government. It is as though, if a Bill is amended by a suggestion from the Opposition or anyone else, it is somehow, in this place, a sign of weakness and failure. It is not. That is what we are here to do. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said, this is a very important Bill, which has cross-party support. Anything that we can do to improve it is not being done from a point of criticism of the Government. We are trying to improve the Bill, and the suggestion from the right hon. Member for New Forest East would do that. It is simple, so I ask the Secretary of State seriously to reflect on it.

In conclusion, I finish where I began by welcoming the Secretary of State and wishing him well in the job that he has before him.

Mental Health Act Reform

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Ensuring that that sort of link-up is standard practice across the criminal justice system is critical, and that is one area that the Lord Chancellor and I are working on. Ultimately, so too is the provision of enough places, because we can only send somebody to a place if the place exists. That consists of two pieces of work. The first is building more mental health hospitals, and the second is ensuring that people leave mental health hospitals when they can be better cared for in the community. Often it is cheaper and better for a patient to be treated in the community, but provision of community services must be in place so that that discharge can take place. A significant amount of work is going on to try to improve that process.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab) [V]]

May I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and welcome the publication of the White Paper? It is important in these reforms that the patient is at the centre of their treatment. The provision in the review to have mental health advocates for mental health patients is welcome, but may I suggest that the Secretary of State works closely with the community and voluntary sectors, and considers funding for those sectors so that they can provide the advocates that will be needed if the reforms go forward?

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to do that. One of the most striking and out-of-date things about the current legislation is that if somebody who is unmarried is incapacitated through illness, decisions on their behalf are automatically, in the first instance, taken by their father, rather than by their choice of who might take those decisions. That is one of the things we want to change, along with the wider point about support for the community and voluntary services that the right hon. Gentleman rightly suggests.

Covid-19 Update

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am absolutely delighted to be able to agree with every single word that my right hon. Friend says. He and I have not always agreed on every dot and cross of the policy on how to handle this pandemic but, regarding how we get out of it from here, it sounds like we are aligned on needing to roll out this vaccine as fast as possible.

The NHS can deliver at the pace my right hon. Friend mentions if we can get the manufacturing up to that speed. Of course, we are working with AstraZeneca to make that happen. I was on the radio at the same time as the chief executive this morning, and I was delighted to hear his commitments. AstraZeneca has worked so hard to make this happen and, crucially, we have to protect the most vulnerable. The fact that only one dose is needed to give protection is incredibly helpful, and that way we can get rid of these blasted restrictions as soon as possible.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab) [V]]

It is very welcome news that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved, but many of my elderly North Durham constituents, such as 94-year-old Joyce Ridley from Tanfield who contacted me yesterday, are still waiting for the vaccine. The Government promised before Christmas that they would prioritise those aged 80-plus to get the vaccine. Can I ask the Secretary of State, as I did when he made his statement before Christmas, when my elderly residents in North Durham will receive the vaccine? I do not want spin or flannel; a straight answer will do. If he does not know the answer, could he at least write to me so that I can reassure those who are worried that they have been forgotten?

[Matt Hancock]

I will absolutely arrange a meeting between the vaccine roll-out Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), and the right hon. Gentleman to look into that case in particular. Around seven in 10 of the vaccines deployed so far have gone to those over 80. The rest have gone to NHS and care home staff, and to some residents in older persons’ care homes who are under the age of 80. We are deploying the Pfizer jab to older people right now, and we have to do that as fast as possible to make sure that, when there are cases such as the one he raises, we get it sorted.

Covid-19 Update

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course I will talk to the Chancellor about the point that my right hon. Friend raises. Of course, we do already have a significant amount of support for hospitality businesses, but I understand how difficult this is.

On the point about looking at local areas, we will absolutely do so, as we have demonstrated in the decisions taken today. For instance, just over the border in East Sussex, we have unfortunately had to put Hastings and Rother into tier 3. Tunbridge Wells today has a case rate of 288 per 100,000, and I would say to everybody right across Kent that we really need to act with serious responsibility. No matter which part of Kent a person is in, we have a very serious problem in Kent, and the only way in which we can get it under control is for people in Kent to essentially behave as if they have the virus and are trying not to pass it on to somebody else. Be really cautious in Kent: it is the area of the country that has the biggest problem in terms case rates, and therefore there are huge pressures on the NHS in Kent. I thank everyone who works in the NHS in Kent for what they are doing.

We are putting in as much support as we can, and I look forward to working with my right hon. Friend, all colleagues from across Kent and of course the county council and district councils to try to get this under control. Other parts of the country have done it and brought the case rate down, and we have been able to take some into tier 2. I am sure that we can get there in Kent, but we have to work hard to make that happen.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

On Monday, I asked the Secretary of State when care home residents in County Durham would get the vaccine and he did not answer the question. I have now been contacted by GPs in Chester-le-Street in my constituency who were first promised the vaccine on 16 December. That was put back to 21 December. Having done all the work to set up the hub, they have now been told that the vaccine will not be available till the new year. So when will residents in Chester-le-Street get the vaccine? I do not want hype or generalisations; I just want a straightforward answer for those constituents.

[Matt Hancock]

We are opening more and more GP vaccination hubs each day. The answer specifically on Chester-le-Street is as soon as we practically can, but it has to be done in a safe way. That is out my hands and out of the right hon. Gentleman’s hands. An important operational set of procedures needs to be gone through to open the hubs. It is complicated. I will look into the right hon. Gentleman’s example and write to him with details, but he will understand, as I am sure the people of Chester-le-Street will, that we are trying to get the vaccine rolled out as quickly and as safely as possible, but “safely” is an important part of that.

Covid-19 Update

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend makes the case strongly not only for him but for the Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who as a Whip cannot speak. However, believe me, behind the scenes he makes the case for Pudsey more strongly than anyone in this House makes the case for anywhere—almost. [Laughter.] It is a team effort. The specific answer to his question is that the decision made on Wednesday will be published on Thursday and come into effect in the early hours of Saturday morning.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The announcement of the vaccine was very welcome, but like a lot of things with the Government, there is a big difference between what has been promised and spun and what is actually happening on the ground. I was contacted this morning by Mrs Lesley Rhodes from Chester-le-Street in my constituency concerning her mother, Mrs Gowland, who is a resident of the Picktree care home in Chester-le-Street. She has been told that the vaccine will not be available to them and other care homes in County Durham until into the new year. Can the Secretary of State tell her and other residents of care homes in County Durham when they will start receiving the vaccine?

[Matt Hancock]

The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. We have been very clear with the roll-out of the vaccine on the pace at which we can start it—in fact, we started it ahead of when we committed to—and the uncertainties over the timing of the roll-out, as he will have seen from my answer to the previous but one question. When it comes to the care home roll-out, I have been absolutely clear that we aim to have it started in England before Christmas, and I am delighted it has been able to be started in Scotland today.

Coronavirus Vaccine

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State talks a lot about partnership at local level. Two weeks ago, his Department contacted the local public health directors and asked them to draw up plans for care home testing. Last week, his Department sent out a letter directly to care homes, bypassing those local directors of public health, to introduce testing in those care homes. Why was the approach changed? How will the data from that testing in local care homes be fed through to local directors of public health to do local tracing?

[Matt Hancock]

It is very important that tracing happens, and the data, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, is fed through to councils where that data agreement has been put in place. The best approach is for councils and the national system to work well together.

Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 25th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 21, after “practitioner” insert “who deemed the procedure to be medically necessary”.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I broadly support the amendments, which I understand are of a probing nature. When we have the stand part debate, I will raise other concerns with clause 1, but I should start by congratulating the hon. Member for Sevenoaks for bringing the Bill forward.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East is really about medical practitioners. We all want to think that medical practitioners are of the highest quality and abide by the law, but in this area that is not always the case—even in cases that are medically necessary. For a number of years, I have been involved in highlighting the lack of regulation when it comes to botox and fillers and the cosmetic surgery industry more broadly. The good thing about this Bill, although it is quite small in terms of changing the law, is that it is a welcome first step. There is cause for a lot more regulation in the area generally.

At the moment, the prescription of botox for cosmetic procedures is controlled, but there is clear evidence that medical practitioners are prescribing it in a way that leads to queries over the medical supervision. I would like to put my trust in the General Medical Council, but I have to say that my experience is that it is woefully inadequate in protecting the patient. A number of Members have met my constituent Dawn Knight, whose medical negligence case against her doctor took nearly five years to conclude.

I accept that there are situations where the prescription of botox, even for under-18s, is medically needed, but that needs to be explicitly in the Bill—that would then provide protection. I accept that there is then going to be an argument about the courts having one description and the GMC another. The problem is, however, that the GMC is failing. We need the law to be very clear that medical practitioners need a medical reason for prescribing botox for under-18s. Without having the wording in the Bill, people might somehow argue that because they are a medical practitioner, they can prescribe it whatever. The idea being advanced through these amendments, arguing about the medical necessity, would make the Bill stronger.

I accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East has tabled probing amendments, but we need to look at the issue as the Bill progresses. I will raise some of the broader issues, including my concerns about medical practitioners, in the clause stand part debate.

[The Chair]

Do any Front Benchers wish to speak at this stage? No? In that case, I bring in Carolyn Harris.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I welcome the Bill, but there are issues with it and those need to be improved.

Clause 1 goes to the heart of trying to stop the wild west that we have in this sector, but my concern is with the get-out-of-jail card for medical practitioners. Again, while most will follow the rules, there is clear evidence that we have medical practitioners signing prescriptions for botox and then selling them on. If we had a robust GMC or regulator that was clamping down on this, that would solve some of these problems, but I have seen no evidence of that at all.

The Bill will make a start on improving this situation, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks said. There are existing regulations, but they are toothless. Do they provide the powers to intervene? Yes, I think so, but that is not happening. Certainly, the situation with prescription botox needs to be tightened up.

The problem I have, as I said in my earlier contribution, is the allowing of medical practitioners to administer these products to under-18s. I understand that there are perfectly good medical reasons that they are needed, and it would be wrong for the Bill to block those altogether, but I believe that regulation on this could be strengthened, and I know the hon. Lady and the Minister said that they will look at that.

I do not know whether this is something that the Minister could talk to the GMC about or whether we could get it into the Bill, or indeed if it is in the regulations that go alongside the Bill, but before an under-18 is prescribed these treatments, there should be a written prognosis giving the reason that they are needed. There should also be a clinical treatment plan outlining how and why those will be administered over a certain period, as well as a written statement relating to the supporting evidence, the consent of the patient and their guardians, and an agreement with the patient in advance on the expected outcomes. That would strengthen the rules.

Most practitioners will abide by the rules, but I have been looking at the sector for five or six years, and frankly, my experience is that there are medical professionals out there who are just out to make money.

[Carolyn Harris]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the practice of remote prescription serves only to further damage the reputation of the industry? During a recent evidence session, a GP stated that they were offering a lifetime botox prescription for £50. That is a dangerous practice and it needs to be considered very deeply before we move forward on the issue.

[Mr Jones]

I agree. There are adverts on Amazon in this sector, and treatments offered include fillers, although certain other terms are used. People are not allowed to advertise botox, but they get around that by advertising consultations. In response to the question, many practitioners are not qualified at all and hold no medical qualifications, so how do they get access to botox? They do so because people are signing prescriptions. I fear that a situation may arise in which that practice continues, although it needs to stop.

Another issue is that under the definition the botox can be bought because this is basically a free market, as I see it. A practitioner could then administer the botox to a young person with no regard to that individual’s medical history. A medical practitioner, under the definition, could even be defined as a dentist. That needs tightening up. I do not think that would be onerous for doctors, who are quite rightly prescribing botox injections and other things for perfectly legitimate medical use. Doctors and patients are protected when those uses are laid out.

If I had more faith in the GMC to clamp down, I would be content to leave the situation as it is. I am sorry, but having seen the way the GMC operates, I see that the organisation is not friendly to the complainant or to the patient organisation. It protects the doctor. We took self-regulation away from solicitors, and I have concluded that self-regulation should be taken away from doctors. I did not start with that position, but have come to it.

The Minister promised a Bill on GMC reform in the last Parliament, and one is certainly needed, because frankly, the patient is at a disadvantage in a host of areas, not just this one. It cannot be right that it took my constituent’s case five years to reach the GMC, with huge hurdles to overcome to get there. I hear what the hon. Member for Sevenoaks says, but we should try to tighten things up a bit. The Bill will certainly be improved if we can.

[Ms Dorries]

Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. Many points have been made today and throughout the passage of the Bill that will give us plenty to consider and review.

The GMC publishes guidelines on the ethical obligations of doctors undertaking cosmetic procedures, including guidance on responsible advertising. There is no question as to the GMC’s performance and it being fit for purpose as an organisation. The GMC maintained its track record of meeting regulation standards last year, and it met those standards amid a surge in demand for registration.

The performance review of the GMC for 2018-19 by the Professional Standards Authority, the body that oversees the healthcare regulators, found that good practice was upheld in all 24 standards of good regulation across education, registration standards and fitness to practise. The review confirmed an effective approach to managing a rise in registration applications, progress with the credentialing framework and work to promote fairness in fitness to practise processes.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I hear all that, but I think what needs to happen—I offer this to the Minister—is for her to meet my constituent, Dawn Knight, so she can explain to the Minister the agony that she went through to get justice. The GMC is not user-friendly to patients. The fact of the matter is that, in her case, a doctor was allowed to remain on the register for five years, even though there was clear evidence from multiple women that he had undertaken operations that were, in some cases, life-threatening. Frankly, that is appalling.

[Ms Dorries]

The right hon. Gentleman does Dawn great credit by raising that case again, and his words have been noted. He is a tireless advocate. The GMC publishes guidance on ethical obligations for doctors undertaking cosmetic procedures, as it does with all procedures that doctors undertake, which includes guidance on responsible advertising, as I have said. There is another opportunity to continue to raise this matter: I will take his comments away and, as I have a patient safety meeting later today, I will raise them in that forum as well, since this is ultimately a patient safety issue.

[Ms Dorries]

The most I can say at this point—Dawn is a case in point—is that I will take away the comments made by the right hon. Member for North Durham, and I know my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks has also heard them. We will consider those comments. It might be that this matter cannot continue within the scope of the Bill, but we will look to continue it. This does not stop here: my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) is introducing the Digitally Altered Body Images Bill under the ten-minute rule, so there will be another opportunity to raise these points. Within the confines of patient safety, this is an issue that we need to continue reviewing.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the Minister look at prescriptions for botox as well? There is clearly a market out there and there are medical professionals signing prescriptions and then selling them on, fuelling this market and leading to people who are not qualified giving that botox. Could she look at that?

[Ms Dorries]

Of course. I heard that comment in the right hon. Gentleman’s initial remarks. This is a difficult market to police—it is regulated, but it is difficult to police and to know who those practitioners are and where they are selling prescriptions on to. If he knows of any practitioners who are doing that, or is aware of any practitioner who is writing out bulk prescriptions for botulinum toxin and selling them on to other, more ruthless practitioners, or to people who are not even registered to practise, I ask him to please let us know, then we can take that forward.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

May I suggest another way of doing this? If the Minister speaks to the prescription licensing body, it will know exactly who is signing huge amounts of botox prescriptions, and one possible way to investigate large numbers of botox prescriptions is to ask whether those people can justify what they are doing. If we go online, we see umpteen adverts for botox treatments, and those people who are doing this are not doctors, so where are they getting them from?

[Ms Dorries]

Again, the right hon. Gentleman has done his cause justice by raising those concerns and saying what he has in Committee. We will have a look at that.

[Laura Trott]

Thankfully, the future of the GMC is slightly wide of the scope of the Bill, so I will leave those matters to the Minister. However, the right hon. Member for North Durham made the point well that there is widespread abuse by doctors who prescribe botox for cosmetic purposes, particularly for under-18s. It is absolutely right that we are looking to fix that through the Bill, and we will talk further about the wording on it.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly made the case for wider reform of that area, which has not been regulated to the extent that it should have been over the years. The Bill will, I hope, be a first step in addressing that, as we discussed earlier.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Offence by persons carrying on a business

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 2, page 2, line 31, at end insert—

“(c) a person advertises or otherwise promotes the administration, in England, to another person (“A”)—

(i) botulinum toxin, or

(ii) a subcutaneous, submucous or intradermal injection of a filler for a cosmetic purpose, where A is under the age of 18;”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider new clause 1—Report on preventative measures—

“(1) The Secretary of State must prepare a report on steps that are being, and will be, taken to seek to prevent offences being committed under this Act.

(2) That report must include any steps to prevent the advertising or promotion of the cosmetic use of botulinum toxin and fillers on children.

(3) The report must be laid before Parliament no later than the end of the period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”

[Mr Jones]

Again, this is a probing amendment to get concerns on the record. These issues affect not only under-18s, but people in the wider sector. The amendment deals with the broader issue of the way that the industry has developed. The concern is that botox is a prescription medicine, but if someone were to look at online adverts, they would think it was something that they could just pick up on the street corner. In fact, it can be picked up on the street corner, because the individuals who advertise the injections are not regulated.

Online, people offer home injections, botox parties or injections on premises that are not regulated in any way to ensure that basic hygiene is in place. The other worrying point is that the individuals who carry out the injections are not qualified in any shape or form. There are clear instances when people ask, “Well, what’s the danger?” There are dangers to injecting anything into someone’s body, but particularly in some of the areas in which botox is injected, such as the eyes and other areas. Such injections can lead to nerve damage and quite severe problems, and a medical professional would obviously know not to do them. With someone who is completely unqualified, there is a huge danger that under-18s, and even older age groups, could be affected by those problems.

[Judith Cummins]

Would my right hon. Friend’s amendment cover the eventuality that I described? That was related to me by the APPG’s most in-touch consultant, my daughter, who told us about her friend who, for her 16th birthday, had a lip filler injected by her cousin.

[Mr Jones]

That is the point. Part of this is about a process of education to teach people what the dangers are. These products are marketed and sold to people—especially young people—as if they are just like make-up.

Well, they are not make-up—this is a medical procedure that can have life-threatening consequences if it goes wrong. It is clear that some of the advertising on Facebook and other sites is directed at under-18s. The Minister mentioned body image, and the Mental Health Foundation’s report from last year on that issue shows that the marketing is for young people.

This is a probing amendment to get this issue on the record. We need to look at ways to ensure that young people are protected from advertising. It is not newspaper advertising; that is for old-fashioned people like me. It is advertising on Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere. I have raised this issue with Facebook. Of course, we get the usual guff from Facebook: “Oh well, we take them down.” I have even written to Sir Nick Clegg asking whether he will do anything about it. Getting an audience with or response from the Pope would be easier than getting a response from him. Those platforms are making money out of this, and they are targeting their adverts at young people, not older people.

Do not get me started on the Advertising Standards Authority, which is a completely toothless, useless tiger, frankly. It takes down some adverts, but they keep proliferating. The social media companies need to do something about it, because young people are being put at risk and because there is a market. Botox is supposed to be a medically controlled substance, but it is not; it is advertised. The way the companies get around that is that, although they cannot advertise botox, they can advertise a consultation, which just happens to be for botox. Facebook, Instagram and others could take down those adverts overnight and just stop them, but they are not doing that because there is clearly money to be made in this sector. Some of those issues will come out in the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Bosworth on body image, but if we do not tackle them, this Bill could be enacted and the Facebooks of this world could still make money on the back of this sector.

The purpose of new clause 1 is to ensure some oversight over the effectiveness of the Bill. It calls for a report when it is under way so that we can assess whether it is effective. It also relates to advertising and promotion. By raising this issue with the Minister, I want to put on the record that there is an issue. I accept that advertising is not directly within her remit as Public Health Minister, but I want to see what more can we do not just on the targeting of under-18s, but on the broader issue of the way in which big business is trying to circumvent the law—advertising botox is supposed to be illegal.

There are two ways of doing that. The first is to stop the supply of botox from prescribers, and the second is to crack down on it very heavily. The Mental Health Foundation’s report on body image shows that, in this age of the internet and the internet of things, young people are in a terrible situation and are suffering due to their body image. That is reinforced by advertising. Botox is seen as a quick fix, but it is potentially dangerous. We need to try to stop this danger to our young people.

[Ms Dorries]

The right hon. Gentleman has made wide-ranging and important comments. I am not sure it was any easier to speak to the former right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam when he was in this place than it is now—there is not much change there—but I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham on all our behalf for his efforts to do so. Outside of the Committee and official channels, he still keeps batting away and trying to get results. We thank him for that.

I believe everyone has the right to make informed decisions about their bodies and our role in Government is to support young people in making safe, informed choices and, where necessary, to protect them from the potential harm that cosmetic procedures can do to their health. This Bill is a really important step on that path and in that process.

On indemnity, the Government passed legislation in July 2014 requiring all practising regulated healthcare professionals to have appropriate indemnity arrangements in place as a condition of registration with the regulatory body and, therefore, their ability to practise. For doctors, those regulations came into force in August 2015. Failure to comply may mean that they are dealt with under fitness-to-practise procedures. That means that all practising surgeons are affected by the legislation, including overseas surgeons practising in the UK. I hope that information helps.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am not against the cosmetics industry. I agree with what the Minister just said—it is about informed choice—but it has to be done safely. I welcome her comments on professionals. The big grey area, which this Bill cannot cover but which needs covering, is those who administer botox and fillers. Most of those people are not medical professionals. They have done “a course” in injections, which in some cases I have seen is just a tick-box exercise. That is the area we need to move on to next—not only who can prescribe, but who can inject these fillers and botox.

[Ms Dorries]

As the right hon. Gentleman notes, those matters are not within the scope of the Bill and the Bill will not seek to achieve the points he has made. As I have said before, I will take the comments away and will continue to work on them and review them.

[Laura Trott]

I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham for all his work in this area. On amendment 4, the pressure that young people are put under by social media is undoubtedly a motivating factor behind many of them seeking out these cosmetic treatments. That was discussed at length on Second Reading by the hon. Member for Clwyd South, among others. In many case studies that we have heard, discounts were one of the reasons that a young person went to have one of these treatments.

I note that there is a lot more work going on this area, which is welcome. In January, the Committee of Advertising Practice and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority issued an enforcement notice to the beauty and cosmetics industry and have started to use monitoring tools to take down posts on social media, which is a welcome development, although obviously we need more.

I completely agree that further work is needed in this area. However, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly notes, it is outside the scope of the Bill. I will be making those points in the debates on forthcoming online harms regulations. I imagine he will be doing the same.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

These were probing amendments. I took the opportunity to get them on the record, as it is important to ensure that we tackle this area. I welcome the Minister’s comments on this being an area that we need to look at further. I know the Department of Health and Social Care does not like to bring legislation forward because it is still suffering from the Care Act 2014—

[Ms Dorries]

Nonsense.

[Mr Jones]

Well, I was told that by a Minister in her Department. One simple thing we could do is to regulate those who administer these fillers and botox. That would be a huge step forward. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider clauses 3 to 6 stand part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Dorries]

My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks has said everything that needs to be said about these clauses.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Are we now debating whether the rest of the clauses stand part of the Bill?

[The Chair]

indicated assent.

[Mr Jones]

Right. I again put on the record my thanks to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks for bringing the Bill forward. Will the Bill solve all our problems in this sector? No, it will not, but as I say, it is a welcome first step. It also gives us an opportunity to put on the record other concerns, which I know the hon. Lady shares.

This industry—because it is a multibillion-pound industry—is very lightly regulated. When these fillers and botox procedures go wrong, they can cause damage to individuals and costs for the NHS. There are cases of people having to go through expensive procedures on the NHS to put things right before we even mention the cosmetic surgery industry, which costs this country an absolute fortune when operations go wrong and the cost of people’s life-changing conditions have to be met by the taxpayer.

Going right back to when I was chair of public health in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early ’90s, I am reminded a little bit of the same lack of regulation that there was around tattoo parlours. The Government changed that and gave local authorities clear powers. Now, largely, the rules on administering tattoos, for example, are clear. They are enforced by local authorities and the standards are high. To go back to what the Minister said, I agree: I do not want to close the industry down. It has to be about personal choice. If people want some type of what they consider necessary enhancements, that is entirely up to them; but it must be done in a safe and regulated way. I referred to the wild west, and it is like that: there is little control over what is happening.

I think it is five years since the Keogh review recommended increased regulation, and it is now time, with the Bill, which will be a first step forward, to try to get those recommendations put into law. I think that if that proposal came forward there would be no problems about getting cross-party support. I would be a huge champion of such regulations. The issue is not just with fillers and botox, but the broader cosmetic surgery industry. It is about people making informed choices and ensuring that work is done in a safe and effective way. At the moment, the system is in many ways completely unregulated, and regulations that exist are being ignored.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sevenoaks on bringing the Bill forward, and thank the Minister for how she has responded and taken the issues on board. I think that, although on occasions we have our disagreements, she believes at heart that in the sector in question things should change, and patient safety should come first and foremost for everyone.

[Laura Trott]

Many good points have been made today about the wider work that we need to do in this, but when the Bill goes through it will be the next step towards protecting children, in an area where at the moment they are open to physical and mental scarring for life. I thank everyone who is here today for their work in supporting the Bill, and I thank you, Ms Rees.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 to 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

10.23 am

Committee rose.

Covid-19 Update

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend puts the case very clearly, and she is right. We do not want businesses in Stockport to be disadvantaged, so an offer, proportionate to the support that we have put into Liverpool and Lancashire, is on the table. I will take away her proposal and talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who is engaged in those talks right now, about her suggestion of a borough-by-borough approach. We remain open to a GM-wide approach, but so far we have not been able to get the agreement of the Mayor for the support that is on the table for the businesses of Greater Manchester.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that he has no plans to move the north-east into tier 3. He is right that in County Durham covid numbers are plateauing, especially if students are taken out. Will he, though, address the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist)? When will he give the extra resources to local directors of public health to do local test and tracing? When will local directors of public health get timely information from national Test and Trace, so that they can chase up those cases? At the moment they are getting the information up to 48 hours after the case—

[Matt Hancock]

rose—

Covid-19 Update

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

At the weekend, Mrs Helen Perry, one of my constituents, contacted me to say her son and three of his flatmates at Northumbria university had tested positive for covid. They are all self-isolating, but despite that are being bombarded up to 10 times a day by NHS Test and Trace. It is the same story for Mr Brian Sayer and his family, who are self-isolating because a family member has tested positive. In Brian’s words, “We’re not stupid people; we don’t need pointless telephone calls every other day”, and Mrs Perry says, “What a waste of time and money.” When will the Secretary of State admit that the national system has failed, and when will he hand over testing and, more importantly, tracing to local directors of public health, who know their areas and their communities and know how to do test and trace properly?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong on two fronts. This has been a very consensual statement so far, and the hon. Gentleman—

[Mr Jones]

Right honourable.

[Matt Hancock]

The right hon. Gentleman has played a constructive part in getting the public health messages across in Northumberland, but he is wrong on two fronts. First, when NHS Test and Trace contacts people to remind them to self-isolate, that is based on the analysis we have done of what helps to ensure that people stay self-isolating.

[Mr Jones]

Ten times in one flat?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, repeatedly, absolutely; I make no bones about it.

[Mr Jones]

Ten times?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, because the isolation of people and their staying isolated is important. The right hon. Gentleman can complain that we are doing too much, but that is not normally the complaint I get from the Opposition.

The second point is that that must be, in the right hon. Gentleman’s words, handed over to local authorities. No, no, no; there has got to be teamwork with local authorities. It is teamwork that will help us get through this, not this attempt to separate people and say, “One side’s good, one side’s bad.” We are all on the same side in this fight against the virus.

Local Contact Tracing

Kevan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The only thing I agreed with in the coalition Government’s reform of the health service was the devolution of public health to local councils. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) says, that is because they know how to do it. They do it every week for sexually transmitted diseases, TB and other outbreaks.

The hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) and for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) accused those of us on the Opposition Benches of being ideological. Let me put it on the record: I have no ideological issues with using the private sector when it adds benefit. It is this Government who have been ideological. Their national test and trace system ignored local authorities. With the school meals vouchers, they did not give the money to local authorities to put systems in place; it was a national system. PPE was a disaster. Even the national volunteering programme, where people who signed up were unable to volunteer, was all done nationally. That national approach has been the biggest failure throughout this crisis. That has been the ideological mindset of the Government. The issue with getting test and trace in place has become all about the number of tests. No, it is not. It is what you do with those results afterwards. For example, in Cumbria test and trace is being done locally. It has lower rates and those rates are going down.

The system is broken. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that the Government have given local authorities £300 million. So what? They have put billions of pounds into the hands of private companies, which have then completely failed. If we were employing them ourselves directly, we would have sacked them a long time ago.

The Government can bring in as many tiers and as much information as they want, but there are two things that have to be done with public health messages: make them clear and explain why they are being done. On those two things, the Government have failed completely by chopping and changing. They can bring in as many fines and restrictions as they like, but unless there is effective testing and, more importantly, tracing of individuals, they will not get on top of this crisis. Added to that, the national contract means that my constituents who work in care homes are waiting seven days to get a test result. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work.

It is no good the Government saying they are working with local authorities. They are not. They are basically throwing over to local authorities the positive test results they cannot trace themselves. In many cases, it is too late. My local director of public health says she is getting information 48 hours late. That is of absolutely no use. So, come on Government! Wake up! Get out of your ideological bubble and actually ensure you engage with local authorities.