Meningitis Outbreak

Layla Moran Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I share my condolences with those families and communities affected by this outbreak. I cannot begin, as the Secretary of State said, to imagine what they must be thinking and feeling during this time. I also thank those staff who have been involved in the response. I echo the Secretary of State’s hope that from this tragedy will come greater public awareness, but may I add that there should be an increased laser-like focus on vaccination and immunisation from the highest levels of Government? He may be aware that the Select Committee did a one-off inquiry into vaccination and immunisation. I have to be honest with him: our letter to the Department is one of the strongest we have ever sent. We have deep concerns. We use words such as “complacent”, although I do not think that applies to this specific case. I believe that UKHSA has taken this matter incredibly seriously and the mobilisation has happened, although that is despite, not because of, the level of underlying resilience in the system. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look at what we have sent him and his Department? Will he undertake to lead the response himself, not just on this incident but on all vaccination trends in this country from now on?

[Wes Streeting]

May I first welcome what the Chair of the Select Committee has said about the response to this incident? She is right to press more broadly on vaccination. The winter campaign that we have just run was more successful than last winter’s, but on her point about complacency, I would be the first to say that even with that improvement, we are still not doing well enough as a country on vaccination rates. I am particularly concerned about childhood vaccination. I can give her the assurance that I and our new public health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson)—I welcome her to the Front Bench—will look at that issue carefully. We take it seriously, and we will reply directly to the Committee with actions and with the seriousness that the letter warrants. To reassure the Chair of the Select Committee, I am already talking to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education about what more the Department for Education, the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care can do together to ensure that we improve childhood immunisation as well as wider vaccine uptake across the population.