Covid-19 Update

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady started off well, but her contribution completely degenerated into political point-scoring. She should know much better than to engage in scaremongering among the Scottish people and the British people. She has no respect for what is happening, as we try to treat this whole issue with a degree of respect and seriousness. She used the phrase, “Let it rip”. If anything, the only part of the UK where cases could be described as “ripping” is in Scotland where the case rate is higher than in any other part of the UK. In fact, it has seven of the 10 highest hotspots in Europe in terms of its number of cases, and she should reflect on that.

The hon. Lady claimed that I had suggested that covid is like flu. I have never said that. It would be complete nonsense for anyone to suggest that covid is like flu. She should think about the millions of people across the world affected by this and the thousands of people who have died in the UK. How dare she even raise that—it is as if she is suggesting that it is like flu. In the same way that we have had to learn to live with flu, even though, sadly, in some years, we have had 20,000 deaths from flu, we will have to learn to live with covid. The hon. Lady should reflect on what she has said and stop playing political football with this serious issue.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his role and say to him in public—I hope that I have also said it to him in private—that, when he was Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, he was one of the few Ministers who understood the plight of residential leaseholders, and I thank him for that, and I hope that he will do as well in this job. May I put it to him that, as well as the recognition of the National Health Service, it would be a good idea if we found some way of recognising the role of teachers and their assistants in schools who have done so much to keep the young people of this country in education and occupied, even though remotely. Many people have contributed to that. May I also say to him that, despite the occasional political remarks that any of us may make, I hope he will work with the other nations of the United Kingdom and around the world so that we can defeat the impact of this condition together.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the Father of the House for his kind comments. He may have heard me say earlier that the Education Secretary will talk much more tomorrow about the action we will be taking around schools and educational settings, including the removal of the bubble requirement from 19 July. He made an excellent point about working not just across the United Kingdom—despite what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said a moment ago there is great co-operation between us, which will continue—but internationally, both through our leadership of the G7 and the COVAX alliance.

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

Notwithstanding the circumstances and the approach adopted by the hon. Lady, it is a pleasure to appear opposite her at the Dispatch Box for the first time. She raised a number of specific points, but before I turn to them, I have to reiterate what the judgment did and did not do. The judgment focused on timely publication of contract notices; it did not make any judgment on, or consider in any way, the appropriateness of the contracting process or any of the individual processes.

The hon. Lady alleges impropriety and inappropriate behaviour—wrong. The National Audit Office report was absolutely clear that there was no evidence of any inappropriate behaviour, and indeed no court has found this. I highlight to her that the judgment was a declaratory judgment, and it stated that there had been a breach of the regulation 50 requirements. The judge subsequently highlighted, in paragraph 149:

“But the overall picture shows the Secretary of State moving close to complete compliance. The evidence as a whole suggests that the backlog arose largely in the first few months of the pandemic and that officials began to bear down on it during the autumn of 2020.”

I remind the House, and indeed the hon. Lady, of the situation we faced back in April. There were 3,301 people in mechanical ventilation beds, 21,307 people in hospital with covid, and at the beginning of April, according to our best understanding of positive cases at the time, the average number of positive cases and patients in hospital was doubling every seven days. In those circumstances, I make no apologies for the Government doing everything in our power to ensure that the NHS and frontline workers did not run out of PPE. As the National Audit Office has acknowledged, there was no national shortage of PPE at the time and throughout the pandemic.

The hon. Lady asked a number of questions. She talked about the current situation regarding publication, compliance and costs. As I have mentioned to her briefly before, there is an element of this case that is yet to be concluded, as some information is due to be provided to the judge on Friday. We will do exactly that, and the information will be made public when it goes to the court. We respect the court’s role in the process, but I expect the judge to have that published in a couple of days’ time.

On the priority route, if I recall correctly, many Members on both sides of the House requested expeditious consideration of offers of help, and I am grateful to all who made those offers. Every one of those went through an eight-stage process, run by civil servants, entirely appropriately. They checked the appropriateness of the PPE and the organisation supplying it, and conducted due diligence. Indeed, as I recall, the hon. Lady herself, on 22 April, published a letter that she had sent to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—it was helpfully analysed at the time by the Guido Fawkes website—sharing some of her suggestions of companies or individuals that should be put through rapid assessment. I acknowledge that she said that there should be assessment and due diligence, but she asked that they be assessed rapidly. I believe that many Members of the House took the same approach. In that letter, she concluded:

“We need Government to strain every sinew and utilise untapped resources in UK manufacturing, to deliver essential equipment to frontline workers. This must be a national effort which leaves no stone unturned.”

She was right. I agreed with her sentiment then, and I still do, but she no longer appears to agree with herself.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I think we understand the point that the judgment was about the timescale, and not all the contracts meeting the regulation. It would be good for the House to hear how much of the supply of PPE now comes from this country, rather than from abroad. If I was Minister at the time, and officials told me that we could either get more ventilators and PPE, or ensure that we did not fail to meet any of the regulation timescales, I would have said, “As Minister, I will take responsibility for the failure on the timescales; you can take responsibility for getting the equipment that people need.”

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In answer to his first question, at the start of the pandemic, roughly 1% of the PPE used in these settings was produced in this country. Due to the incredible efforts of businesses and individuals across the country—and, I must say, of civil servants and officials in Government, who are often the unsung heroes of the pandemic—up to 70% is now being supplied by this country. He is absolutely right that transparency is important. It is hugely important, and we respect it and take it very seriously, but I make no apologies for what I and the Secretary of State consider to be the most important thing, which is doing whatever is necessary to save lives in the course of this pandemic.

Vaccine Roll-out

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head to the Father of the House in Worthing, Sir Peter Bottomley.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]]

May I add to the good questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman)? My question was raised, in effect, by Shelagh Fogarty of LBC in The Daily Telegraph today, who wrote about confusion regarding the housebound as well as the homebound. We know that people are going to be vaccinated in mass centres—I had the chance to see one yesterday—and in local hubs and at home, but too often people are sitting at home wondering which it is likely to be. Could the Secretary of State get the partnerships for integrated care—the sustainability and transformation partnerships—to make public how soon they expect to get to most of those who are over 80, especially in semi-rural constituencies?

[Matt Hancock]

I can answer my hon. Friend’s question: we will offer vaccination to everybody in the top four categories—the over-70s, the clinically extremely vulnerable and health and social care workers, including the residents in older people’s care homes—by 15 February. I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me and like many of us in this House, gets asked by constituents all the time, “When will the call come for me?” The answer is that we are working through that list and we will reach all those groups with an offer to be vaccinated on or before 15 February.

The exact order within that queue is for a local area to decide, and sometimes people might get invited to two different methods of vaccination, such as at one of the big sites and by their local GP, and for people who are housebound there are roving teams led by the local primary care networks to get out and vaccinate them. So the offer will come, and people should be assured that while, as of today, around two thirds of all over-80s have been vaccinated—which is very, very good progress—that means there is a third still to go, and we will get to everyone and make sure everyone gets that offer to be vaccinated by 15 Feb.

Covid-19

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) for her response to the Minister’s introduction to this important debate. I take as the theme words from the annex to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice, which said that we had to

“maximise benefit and reduce harm”.

Before I make some suggestions that are intended to be helpful to the Government and to the JCVI, I wish to read out a few words that have arrived just now from one of my mature constituents:

“My husband and I were advised on Saturday evening…that the vaccination was available to us on Sunday”—

late afternoon—

“We attended the…Health Centre at that time.

We are writing to say how pleased we were to be offered the jab so quickly and by the way we were looked after at the centre…The staff were very efficient and helpful and made the whole event as stress free as possible.

All credit to all concerned especially those at the Barn Surgery.”

That has been typical for many of the 2 million or so who have already been vaccinated or had their first jab, and we hope it will be true for many, many more.

Let me discuss the problems. I was disappointed to hear that dental staff were not originally allowed to get the vaccination, as they were not directly employed by the NHS, even though they were NHS service providers. I hope that situation has been changed. I feel strongly about another small group, those with motor neurone disease, because of friends of mine who have had the condition. In Northern Ireland, people with that condition were immediately regarded as extremely vulnerable, although that was not necessarily so in England. Perhaps the Minister will say, either in this debate or at some other stage, whether or not that is so.

There are those whose absence from work makes a big difference to the service for the rest of us, and I would argue that reasonably healthy people in their 70s, such as me, can delay our vaccination so that younger people who are not critically vulnerable but whose work is critical to those who are vulnerable, such as the police and education staff—teachers and their support staff—can be vaccinated early. That will mean that they do not have to stay off work when there is some sort of threat around. I hope that the JCVI will find some way of bringing vaccinations for them forward as fast as possible.

There are other issues that I can go back over when an inquiry is held, but now is not the time to go into them in detail. However, I commend the wise family doctors and wise hospital doctors who from January a year ago were telling me things that would have made a significant beneficial difference had the Government picked them up earlier—or the NHS had picked them up earlier, because this is not all about the Government.

I want to talk about the excluded—those who do not have regular jobs, those who were properly paid income as directors. They have been excluded for too long—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The time limit has gone. I am terribly sorry, Sir Peter, but we have to move on. The clock is not on the next speaker, the Front-Bench spokesperson for the Scottish National party, Dr Philippa Whitford.

Covid-19 Update

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I regret that the hon. Member, who so often is so reasonable, is choosing to play political games with political rhetoric tonight. As I said in my statement, the offer of support is on the table. To the people of Greater Manchester, I say that the offer of the same support as was agreed with the Labour leadership of the Liverpool city region, and I commend them for their work, and the leadership of Lancashire, and I commend them for their work, is and remains on the table. I look forward in the coming days to working with the local councils right across Greater Manchester and, of course, the Mayor, if he is willing to come back to the table, to make sure we have that package of support for businesses in place.

Crucially, it is incumbent on us all to send the same public health messages to our constituents, wherever we represent around the country, but in particular in areas where cases are rising, as in Greater Manchester, to ensure that we are clear about the part that everybody needs to play to keep this virus under control. The public are looking for that sort of public health messaging, rather than political games, in these difficult times.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I think it is fair to say that the shadow Secretary of State has been moderate. He has not repeated his party leader’s call for a national lockdown, and people in areas where the virus has not jumped up very high will be grateful for that.

My father’s family came from Greater Manchester, and were they there now I think they would ask that the Mayor make an agreement with the Government, because public help and public health go together. If it is a proportionate offer, we have not heard the reason why it is inadequate in one place. If we want employment in the future, we need to have employers, and help is going to be needed for those who need and are struggling to keep their businesses going.

I want to make one more point to my right hon. Friend. Down in Worthing, we are not getting our test results back all the time very fast. It is important that we do, because a father or mother who has a child who may have symptoms may not be able to go to work as a teacher, and that ends up penalising all the children in the class. I hope my right hon. Friend will be able to say what is happening.

[Matt Hancock]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, who puts it very clearly: the people of Greater Manchester would expect their local leaders to come to the table. That offer of support for local businesses remains there, alongside the support for strengthening test and trace and enforcement in Greater Manchester. I urge all the leaders of the nine boroughs of Greater Manchester to pick up the phone and work with us to make sure we can deliver this. Of course, that offer remains open for the Mayor if he wants to return to the table.

On the point about the testing in Worthing, I will absolutely look into whether there was a specific problem. The test turnaround times have come down as the capacity has rapidly expanded, and I will make sure I get back to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

Covid-19 Update

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the comments from the Secretary of State. We now go over to Sir Peter Bottomley.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con) [V]]

I ask if we can all recognise the loving care by social services staff and NHS staff,  especially those who have to go on hot or cold visits to people’s homes—not only the community nurses, dementia nurses and those who go to people with special needs, but the GPs and paramedics. Will the Secretary of State consider safer ways for those home visits, possibly using some of the offers of London black cabs, which can have a division between the driver and the clinician and also are much easier to clean down when necessary?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I am happy to look into all different ways of having safe working practices within the NHS and more broadly. Within the NHS, infection control is a critical piece of work. My hon. Friend is right to raise the point that this is a matter not just for acute hospitals—where, of course, it is mission critical—but for all parts of the NHS, including pharmacies, which increasingly have screens to make sure that there is a lower impact of transmission from customers to staff.

Covid-19

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I commend the shadow Secretary of State for the tone he has taken throughout this crisis. He rightly asks questions; I will seek to address each and every one of them, but before I do, I repeat something that I have said to the House a few times. We welcome questioning of the approach, because we are constantly looking for the very best solution for this nation, and the very best way through this, in order to protect life. I would rather have questions from all around the House, asked in the tone in which he has asked them, so that we can ensure that we are constantly doing the best we possibly can. That goes for publishing the science and the modelling, which we absolutely will do, because the very best science is done in the open.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the NHS being prepared. I am thankful that we have the NHS all the time, but in a crisis like this, I am doubly thankful, because we are reliant on those who work in the NHS. Thanks to the NHS, we are as well prepared as any nation can be. We are, by some measures, the best prepared for this stage of the spread of the virus, but what matters is giving the NHS all the support that it needs, and especially having regard to the capacity of the NHS, so that it can address the symptoms and consequences of this particular virus. The issues are around ventilation and oxygen supply, as he says. We are increasing the number of ventilators. We have been buying ventilators for several weeks now, but we also need to manufacture more. As we have discussed in the House, there is no limit to our appetite to buy ventilators, and there should be no limit to the appetite of industry to make them, because around the world, everybody is trying to increase their ventilator capacity.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have ensured that we can use all hospital capability in this country, public or private, and bring it to the task. We are expanding the use and production of personal protective equipment. Making sure we get PPE to every single part of the NHS is absolutely vital. We will be cancelling or postponing non-time-sensitive elective surgery; the NHS will make a statement about that later today. We are increasing ICU bed capacity, but I want to make sure that the House understands that we do not need a generic type of intensive care capacity. Of course we need intensive care capacity, but we need very specific intensive care capacity with the ventilation that is needed in many of these cases.

I turn to the other questions asked by the hon. Gentleman. He asked, “What if you can’t work from home?”. The answer is that if you are healthy, and if you are not being asked to isolate because a member of your household or you have symptoms of the virus, then of course you should still go to work. It is important that this country keeps moving as much as we possibly can, within the limits of the advice that we have given.

The hon. Gentleman asked about shielding, and about the elderly. The policy of shielding is specifically about reducing contact for the most vulnerable. For those who have significant health conditions, the NHS will be in contact with you over the next week. We will publish a list of those conditions, and if you think you should have been contacted and you have not been by next week, get in contact with the NHS. The shielding policy starts later than the general household isolation policy and the general advice to reduce social contact, because the reduction in contact that we need to see among those whom we are shielding is much more significant, and we need to see it last for a significant period of about 12 weeks.

The hon. Gentleman asked about those who refuse to follow advice. I do not think that many people will refuse to follow advice. Of course we have powers, and powers are proposed in the Bill, should we need to take further action, but I hope and expect that that will not be necessary.

The hon. Gentleman asked about schools. The scientific advice is not only that closing schools has a significant impact on people’s ability to work in, for instance, key areas such as the health service, but also that if we get it wrong, children may stay with elderly grandparents instead of going to school, and thus increase the risk. We keep this matter under review and we are in constant discussion about it, but we have not changed the advice on schools today.

The hon. Gentleman asked about other countries. Of course we are constantly looking to all other countries around the world—including South Korea and Singapore, which he mentioned—to see what we can learn about how we can do things better. We are taking these measures at a different time from other European countries because we are behind them in terms of the progress of the virus, which is a good thing. In fact, as the chief scientific adviser has said, we are taking these actions earlier in the curve than, for instance, France and Germany did, but behind in time, because the progress of the virus is further advanced in those countries.

The hon. Gentleman asked about testing. That is very important, because of course people want to know their covid-19 status, and we are expanding testing as fast as we possibly can. The test that the world is looking for is the test that can check whether people have the antibodies because they have had coronavirus, because then we can find that out not just by testing people while they have it but afterwards, if they have had it, and therefore have the antibodies with the immunity that comes from that. That test does not yet exist, but we are putting an enormous amount of effort into creating it. We also need testing that can be done at the bedside rather than in the lab, and a huge amount of work is under way to bring that about. The same goes for vaccines and antivirals, on which the hon. Gentleman asked for a written ministerial statement, and I will of course ensure that the House is provided with one.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about a package of financial support. We established a significant package in the Budget last week, and I had a meeting with the hon. Gentleman earlier today to discuss what further amounts might be needed.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

There are many young people in my constituency, but when I was first elected it had the highest proportion of people above retirement age in the country. Most of those people are economically active, and many of those who are not are volunteers. I pay tribute to those over 70 who are helping people even older than themselves.

I welcome all the points that the Secretary of State has made so far, but may I put three quick points to him? He does not need to answer them in detail now. First, senior general practitioners are worried that some medicines—controlled drugs, which are safe—are being destroyed because the patient for whom they were first ordered may have died. If a shortage of morphine and the like happens, it will lead to distress and agony for people unnecessarily. Will the Secretary of State look into that, and see whether, whatever the requirements are, they might be lifted during this period?

Secondly, the advice to reduce social contact may be right and important, but if people are fit and healthy and are running a business, it is not necessarily right for that business to be closed down just because they have hit a certain age.

Thirdly, may I add to a sensible point made by the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth)? There is some help for people with mortgages, but many people who will lose their jobs are paying rent. Will the Secretary of State also ensure that no one is unnecessarily evicted or threatened during a short-term period of shortage of money?

[Matt Hancock]

The measures on shielding are specifically for those who have significant health conditions and will be contacted by the NHS. They are not for the generality of over-70s who are healthy, for whom the guidance is the same as that for people of working age, except that we strongly advise, as opposed to advising. That is for their own protection, because the over-70s, and especially the over-80s, are at significantly higher risk of mortality—of dying from this virus.

The other points made by my hon. Friend are welcome. He made a very important point about rent, which featured in the discussions that we had earlier today. I have been talking about it to those at the Treasury and to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Many banks have already taken action on mortgages.

My hon. Friend’s point about the availability of drugs is, of course, critical. We have a very comprehensive drug supply chain system that we understand well, thanks to the planning that we have done over the last couple of years. Thus far we have not seen shortages beyond those that already existed before the virus, such as the one that we debated in the autumn in the context of HRT, but of course we keep the position under constant review.