Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)Department Debates - View all Lindsay Hoyle's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I recognise that these are difficult times and that he has to make difficult and, I hope, balanced choices, balancing the economic damage against the need to save our fellow citizens. In all this, one positive point that has barely been referred to is that the death rate has fallen from 3% in June to 0.6% at the moment, which has to be seen as possibly part of what the Government are trying to do.
The Government’s strategy, quite legitimately, is therefore to drive down the infection rate—I understand that—while searching for a vaccine, so I simply want to raise a point that others including the scientific advisers have raised. There is a lot of talk at the moment about the two antivirals that have now arrived, remdesivir and ivermectin. Given the Government’s objective of driving down the infection rate, and given that the average age of death at the moment is 82.4, should we not make those antivirals much more widely available at the earliest opportunity, through GPs and every other doctor, in order to get them to people to reduce the likelihood of their going into hospital and dying?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just try to help everybody? We need short, punchy answers and questions, as that will help us to get through everybody on the list.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is, of course, right to say that we have better treatments, but, alas, the death rate has risen many times over—six times over—in the past few weeks and we have no choice in these circumstances, with more people being admitted to hospital every day, in order to get the virus down.
The Prime Minister
On NHS Test and Trace, capacity has massively increased, to 312,000, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. He asked what steps we are taking. We are introducing new testing sites—I think it is 500 new testing sites—and we are introducing more labs for testing. He also asks what we can do to get the virus down and the measures we are taking. He is completely right that it depends on enforcement and on testing and tracing, but it also depends on each and every one of us following the guidance, working together to get the virus down. That is what I hope he will encourage everyone to do. On the excellent point he raises about support for businesses that are going to be affected by the latest measures, I would just stress that the Chancellor’s latest job support scheme, at 67%, is highly competitive with those of all other European countries and indeed it is more generous than many. We will continue to put our arms around every worker and every business in this country to the best of the ability of this country. On the right hon. Gentleman’s specific point about universal credit, the uplift will remain present for the rest of this financial year.
Mr Speaker
Just to help the House, I will finish the statement at 5.50 pm, so let us help each other.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
This morning, it was announced that the routine testing of asymptomatic NHS staff in hotspot areas would start. This has been long advocated by the Health and Social Care Committee, and I thank the Prime Minister for the progress on it.
We all want to avoid a second national lockdown, which would be devastating for jobs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the evidence from China, Korea and Italy is that the best way to avoid that is to have earlier, decisive, localised interventions, however difficult and unpalatable, and that today’s difficult decision is not, therefore, about a trade-off between jobs and health, but ultimately the best way to secure both?
The Prime Minister
I understand my right hon. Friend’s point and I have every sympathy with Bournemouth’s hospitality industry, which I have enjoyed many times in the past, as I am sure we all have. Alas, we have to make restrictions in the overall volume of transmission that is taking place in our society. That is an obvious place to make a difference, and that is what we are doing.