The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 28 June.
“I am honoured to have been asked to become Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. I understand the responsibility that comes with this job, especially at this critical moment. As someone who has sat on the Front Bench for many years, this past year has been a difficult one. I have been frustrated not to be able to play my part in helping to meet the greatest public health challenge that our country has ever faced, so I am especially proud to have been given this opportunity for public service.
Nothing embodies the spirit of public service more than our National Health Service and those who work in our social care. I have seen it in my own constituency; I saw it again just this morning at St Thomas’ Hospital, where I met doctors, nurses and volunteers who have moved mountains over this past year. Now, they are helping us vaccinate our way out of this pandemic. I pay tribute to them all, and I pledge to do everything I can to deliver for them and the people of this great country. I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides of the House on this vital mission.
We are making phenomenal progress with our vaccination programme. Vaccination is now open to every adult in the country, 84% of adults have got a jab and 61% of adults have had two doses. This progress has allowed us to safely take the first three steps out of the lockdown and towards the greater freedoms that we can enjoy today. We owe this strong position not only to the NHS but to everyone who has played their part.
I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor, my right honourable friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who has worked hard throughout all these testing times. He achieved a great amount in the work that he did, and I know that he will have more to offer in public life. I wish him the very best.
There remains a big task ahead of us to restore our freedoms—freedoms that, save in the gravest of circumstances, no Government should ever wish to curtail. My task is to help to return the economic and cultural life that makes this country so great, while, of course, protecting life and our NHS. That task has been made all the more difficult by the delta variant, which we now know makes up some 95% of new cases in the UK. Not only does it spread more easily but the evidence points to a higher risk of those who have not been vaccinated needing hospital treatment, compared with the previously dominant alpha variant.
This narrowing of the race between the virus and the vaccine led to this Government’s difficult decision to pause step 4 on our road map until 19 July. We are using this extra time to protect as many people as we can. When the Government took that decision on 14 June, more than 4.3 million over-40s had had a first dose but not a second. The figure is now down to 3.2 million people over 40. We can all be reassured by how many more people are getting the life-saving opportunity that a vaccine offers.
At this two-week review point, I want to update the House on our progress on our road map to freedom. Our aim is that around two-thirds of all adults in this country will have had both doses by 19 July. We are bringing forward second doses, and bringing forward our target for first doses too, so we can meet that 19 July goal. Vaccine uptake remains sky-high. We have seen that age is no barrier to enthusiasm for getting the jab: as of this weekend, more than half of adults under 30 have taken up the chance to be vaccinated—including, in the past couple of weeks, all three of my own adult children.
Our vaccines are working, including against the delta variant. The latest modelling from Public Health England shows that they have saved more than 27,000 lives and have prevented more than 7 million people getting Covid-19. We know that, after a single dose of vaccine, the effectiveness is lower against the new delta variant, at around a 33% reduction in symptomatic disease, but two doses of the vaccine are just as effective against hospital admission with the delta variant as with the alpha variant.
The jabs are making a difference in our hospitals, too. In January, people over 65 who were vaccinated earlier in our programme made up the vast majority of hospital admissions; the latest data shows that that group now makes up less than a third. While cases now are ticking up, the number of deaths remains mercifully low, and we will continue to investigate how our vaccines are breaking that link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. I am also encouraged by new data just today from Oxford University’s mix and match trial, which shows that a mixed schedule of jabs, such as getting the AstraZeneca jab first and the Pfizer second, could give our booster vaccination programme more flexibility and possibly even some better immune responses.
Finally, we continue to see a rise in hospitalisations. Although in line with the kinds of numbers we had anticipated at this point in our road map, the number of people needing hospital treatment for Covid-19 has doubled since the start of May. Admissions are most clearly increasing in the north-east and south-west of England, so we have been boosting testing centres and vaccines in those areas and keeping a close watch on the numbers.
I spent my first day as Health Secretary—just yesterday—looking at the data and testing it to the limit. While we decided not to bring forward step 4, we see no reason to go beyond 19 July because, in truth, no date we choose comes with zero risk for Covid. We know we cannot simply eliminate it; we have to learn to live with it. We also know that people and businesses need certainty, so we want every step to be irreversible. Make no mistake: the restrictions on our freedoms must come to an end. We owe it to the British people, who have sacrificed so much, to restore their freedoms as quickly as we possibly can, and not to wait a moment longer than we need to.
With the numbers heading in the right direction, all while we protect more and more people each day, 19 July remains our target date. The Prime Minister has called it our terminus date. For me, 19 July is not only the end of the line but the start of an exciting new journey for our country. At this crucial moment in our fightback against this pandemic, we must keep our resolve and keep on our road map to freedom so that together we can beat this pandemic and build back better. It is a task that I am deeply honoured to lead and one I know will succeed. I commend this Statement to the House.”
My Lords, I start by saying how much these Benches identify with the words the Government have issued about the horrifying treatment of Chris Whitty, our Chief Medical Officer. It was completely shocking and disgraceful. For a truly amazing public servant to be treated like this is unacceptable at any level.
I thank the Minister for presenting the Statement and echo the words of my right honourable friend John Ashworth yesterday in welcoming the new Secretary of State to his position. It was pleasing to see the new Secretary of State at St Thomas’ Hospital yesterday; I hope it is the first of many visits to our inspirational and dedicated NHS and social care staff. I hope the Minister’s new boss will be more receptive than the previous one and make arrangements for them to receive a fair pay rise, and not the real-terms pay cut that is currently pencilled in.
Yesterday the Secretary of State let it be known that the 19 July reopening will, in effect, go ahead. He told the news that there is “no going back” and that lifting the restrictions will be “irreversible”. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that many across your Lordships’ House will give a collective and noble eye- roll at these words. Like many here—and unlike the Secretary of State—we have responded to a lot of these Statements in the last 15 months. We heard that there was “nothing in the data” to suggest that 21 June could not go ahead. Noble Lords will remember that children returned to school for one day before the January lockdown and the words “It will all be over by Christmas.” Some time last spring, I think the words “We will send it packing in 12 weeks” were used.
The context this time is that there has been a rise of 84,000 cases in the past week—an increase of 61%. Yesterday saw the highest case rate since January. If these trends continue, we could hit 35,000 to 45,000 cases a day by 19 July. We know that this variant means fewer hospitalisations and fatalities, but it also means that young people will become ill and some will have long Covid. It will again mean disruption to our schools and our youngsters’ learning and socialisation. When will we see a review of the arrangements in schools?
My Lords, I echo on behalf of these Benches the concerns about the treatment of Professor Chris Whitty. It is totally unacceptable, and it is good news that the police are now investigating this.
Just now, in reply to my question on the Urgent Question, the Minister said that the health and social care Bill has been published. Over the last few minutes I have been searching the web, but I cannot find it— can he help me any further?
Yesterday’s Statement from the new Secretary of State struck an interesting new note. The department is clearly no longer going to be led by data but by dates. Yesterday, 22,868 new cases of Covid were reported. This time last year, when lockdown was finally lifted, daily cases were under 1,000. Even with the high level of vaccinations, this is causing illness and pressures on the NHS—even if it is a different kind of pressure to that of a year ago. On Sunday, Andrew Marr reported on his programme that his own experience of catching Covid had been difficult. He said that, while he had not needed to go to hospital, he was more ill than he had ever imagined possible, and it was not an asymptomatic experience. In the light of this and the reports of growing numbers of people living with long Covid, can the Minister say why data will now clearly not factor into the decisions about 19 July?
On these Benches, we believe that we need to learn to live with this disease, but unlike the Statement from the new Secretary of State, we do not believe that this is just about vaccination, important though that is. This week, Israel has found that, despite early and comprehensive levels of vaccination, the delta variant is ripping through its communities. We have argued since February 2020 that controlling outbreaks is vital. Can I ask the Minister about the provision of test, trace and isolate arrangements moving forward? Specifically, have local directors of public health been given access to emergency funding for the provision of surge testing and tracing and vaccination in their communities? When will the pilots for increased support for those needing to self-isolate be published? We still believe that people should be paid their wages if asked to self-isolate. As that number is considerably fewer than six months ago, it would be not only cheaper for the Treasury but a much more effective way of ensuring that the spread of the virus is reduced.
My Lords, I am enormously grateful for those extremely thoughtful questions. As ever, I welcome the challenge and scrutiny that the House of Lords always provides on these matters.
I completely endorse what the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton, very thoughtfully said about Chris Whitty. Chris Whitty and JVT are both complete legends, and both have been accosted in public. This is completely unacceptable. We must look at the security of those who serve us so well, and we must somehow address the disrespect that often happens when public figures walk in public. It is a great regret that this has happened.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about nurses’ pay. I repeat to her what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health said yesterday: this absolutely remains a priority. We must have a fair pay settlement. That pay settlement is going through the pay review process at the moment, and we look forward to receiving the output on that.
Both the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton, asked about the basis for the optimism that we have at the moment. I have stood at this Dispatch Box for 18 months as the purveyor of difficult news to the House, and have lived through some very difficult moments in that time. I am acutely aware of the concerns that noble Lords have. I think the questions put were very reasonable and deserve a clear answer, so let me explain why we are a bit more optimistic than I think we ever could have been in the recent past. The case rates are slowing down, for both over and under-60s. Hospital admissions among the over-60s have started to fall, and while there are signs in both measures that the rate of growth is slowing, there is just not enough to fundamentally change our assessment of the risk of delta. In the last two weeks, we have seen case rates fall in both Bolton and Blackburn. That is an incredibly important observation, and one that bears testimony to the effectiveness of the local authorities, test and trace, and all of those who have contributed. It is mainly driven by the under-60 group, but not wholly. Rates among older people are plateauing right across the country at a lower level, and hospitalisations and severe illness are being prevented by people being doubled vaccinated against Covid-19. There are very clear signs that the vaccine is working in lots of ways.
We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
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We also all know that this is a race between the vaccine and the infection, but I fear it will not be won by the vaccine in the next three weeks, so if we are looking at possibly 200,000 people infected with Covid on 19 July, the Minister needs to tell us what impact that will have on the road map out of restrictions. Can he confirm whether “irreversible” means the Government are now ruling out restrictions this winter? Have they abandoned the plan that the previous Secretary of State and officials were drawing up for that?
The Secretary of State has promised to give the NHS everything it needs to get through the backlog, so will the hospital discharge and support funding be extended beyond this September, or will trusts have to make cuts instead? We have already had some discussion about the backlog today; for example, when will the NHS again guarantee that 95% of patients will start treatment within 18 weeks of referral? How long is it likely to be until we can reach those sorts of targets again? When will the Government give primary care the resources to meet the challenge of the hidden waiting list of over 7 million patient referrals that we would have expected since March 2020?
Given the pressures on primary care, is it still the Secretary of State’s plan to press ahead with the GP data transfer? Frankly, if this department cannot keep its own CCTV footage secure, how does the Minister expect it to keep our personal data secure? I think that is a legitimate question.
Given the pressures across the whole healthcare system, will the Government now abandon the ill-thought-out top-down reorganisation of the NHS that the previous Secretary of State was about to embark on?
Finally, I have raised with the Minister the importance of the Nolan principles which must guide the ethics and behaviour of us all, particularly those in government. The Good Law Project today published emails which used the noble Lord’s private address. Transparency is the word I am looking for here. The spotlight has been turned on the Minister in recent days, including a formal complaint to the Lords commissioners about the issuing of passes.
The Minister might do well to consider a couple of things: actually referring himself to the commissioners about that matter, if there is a chance he may have acted outside the rules, and—he has had to deal with this question several times and is very robust about it—making his emails and communications transparent and explaining them. He is sure that he has done nothing outside those rules; he would therefore be wise to be transparent about that. It is not the original scandal that gets people in the most trouble—it is the attempted cover-up, or the chance that there might be one. Transparency is the best advice I can give the Minister today.
Usually the Minister agrees with me on the importance of test, trace and isolate, even if we perhaps disagree on how that should be funded and supported. Can he respond to the concerns of the doctors and scientists who are appalled with today’s proposals that company directors will be able to temporarily leave quarantine for business meetings? People are still furious that the Prime Minister delayed adding India to the red list, with the resultant rapid spread of the more transmissible and more serious delta variant. As Professor Christina Pagel says:
“luckily elites don’t get or transmit covid.”
Stephen Reicher, the eminent behavioural scientist, said he was horrified by the
“scandalous misuse of science as a cover for political decisions … which is putting us all at risk.”
When commenting on the DCMS report published on Friday, he said:
“The headlines and the political response isn’t just an exaggeration, they directly contradict what the report says. It warns that the research wasn’t designed to draw any conclusions about the effects of events on transmission and mustn’t be used to do so”.
Yet Ministers and the press are all reporting that these events in the trial had no effect on infections and were safe to reopen.
Yesterday, a No. 10 spokesperson explicitly denied that government Ministers have used private email addresses. They said:
“Both the former health secretary and Lord Bethell understand the rules around personal email usage and only ever conducted government business through their departmental email addresses”.
This is directly contradicted by the Second Permanent Secretary in meeting minutes published by the Sunday Times. Those minutes clearly state that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock
“corresponds only with private office via a gmail account”.
As the Good Law Project has reported, on 19 April 2020, the noble Lord, Lord Feldman, emailed the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, at his private address, about the availability of Covid-19 test kits via a Canadian company, saying:
“Certainly worth contacting … to see if they can help … and the pricing seems competitive.”
Self-evidently, this is government business, and specifically within the portfolio of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. The noble Lord, Lord Feldman, once co-chair of the Conservative Party, was writing to the Minister at his private email address on government business. In addition, I note that the Minister’s meeting with Abingdon Health on 1 April 2020 was not disclosed on the ministerial meeting schedule.
We note that, unlike the response from the noble Lord, Lord True, on the earlier UQ, it is not possible for the public to access private emails; the Freedom of Information Act specifically excludes it. Not going through the formal government-approved routes, whether for emails or declarations of meetings, gives the impression that perhaps the Minister has something to hide from his dealings with a former chairman of the Conservative Party and the company he was acting for. I note that the company was awarded an £85 million contract after the meeting and the emails.
There has been considerable speculation about the role of Ms Gina Coladangelo as a lobbyist, unpaid adviser to Matt Hancock and then a non-executive director for the Department of Health and Social Care. The press and media have also reported that the Minister gave Ms Coladangelo a parliamentary pass last year. Can he tell the House what personal parliamentary service she provided for him during that period? Does the Minister feel that his position is tenable, given this evidence?
By 19 July, two significant things will have changed that may give us stronger confidence. First, we will have offered a first dose to all adults in the United Kingdom. The NHS states that it can do this by 19 July. We will have also given a second dose to a higher proportion of over-40s, giving them more protection against hospitalisation. Secondly, we will be very close to the school holidays, which start on 26 July, and school-aged children being out of school. This will significantly reduce transmission among the population which is unvaccinated and has driven case growth. Universities should also be out.
We are monitoring the data every day. So far, we have not seen indicators that substantially change our assessment of the four tests. I hear loud and clear what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, says about Andrew Marr and his experience. Vaccination is not a panacea. It does not save everyone from any illness at all, but it has a significantly strong effect for us to move on to the next stage.
In terms of the backlog, I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that we are putting funds in place to do whatever it takes to get us back to where we began. I cannot give the specific reassurances she asked for on whether specific funds will be extended, but it is our aspiration to work as hard as we can. On GP data, I assure her that the clinical trial progress that we have made on things such as Regeneron in the last few days gives us such a clear inspiration and motivation for ensuring that we get this project right. On trusted research environments, we have demonstrated that we listen and that we will change how we implement the GP data transfer, but our objective remains resolute. We are committed to continuing with this programme of work.
I will give a very clear response to the very important question regarding emails, asked by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton. I am absolutely rigorous in ensuring that government business is conducted through the correct formal channels. Contracts are negotiated by officials, not by Ministers. Submissions from officials are handled through departmental digital boxes, and that is right. Official decisions are communicated through secure governmental infrastructure.
I have read the Ministerial Code; I have signed it and I will seek to uphold it in everything that I do. The guidelines are clear that it is not wrong for Ministers to have personal email addresses. I have corresponded with a very large number of noble Lords in this Chamber from both my parliamentary address and my personal address. That is right and I will continue to do so. In their enthusiasm, third parties often seek to engage Ministers through whatever means that they can find, including their personal email. That is not the same as using a personal email for formal departmental decision-making. Those who have seen material on the internet should judge it extremely sceptically, because distorted fragments of evidence do not provide sufficient grounds to rush to judgment on how Ministers do their business.
I do not recognise the substance of the comments of the Second Permanent Secretary, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and he has indicated to me that he does not recognise the substance of those comments. I completely recognise the comments that were made regarding the meetings with Abingdon Health. The meetings schedule from that week was overlooked because of an administrative oversight. It has now been uploaded to the internet. I will be glad to share a link to that register. On the complaint made by Anneliese Dodds, I have written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and would be very glad to share that letter with the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton.
I take this post extremely seriously. During the work of the pandemic, many people—officials, Ministers and those in industry—worked extremely hard to address the severe epidemic that we face, and I am extremely proud of how that business was conducted.