Contributions
3,496 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateThat is a matter for the Treasury, as the hon. Lady indicates. The truth is that we have made PPE freely available to health and social care and other public services until the…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateThe answer is yes, and I will add a third: visitors to care homes. I would like the testing regime to work for those people, to make visiting easier. When it comes to agency…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateIt is up to the local authority, in the first instance, to notify a Member of Parliament, although often, if an issue is very significant, we in the Department will also work with…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateBefore I forget, Mr Deputy Speaker, I should say happy birthday to you as well. The hon. Lady asks a very important question. The JCVI has looked at that issue and in the earlier…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateYes, absolutely; this is a UK programme and I have been working closely with my Northern Ireland counterpart, Robin Swann, who is doing a brilliant job in Northern Ireland, to…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateOf course it is important that we continue to build and strengthen the contact tracing system, as we are doing. My hon. Friend mentions the uncertainties, and the issue of the…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateOf course we have looked at this risk, and I have confidence in our plans to be able to deliver the vaccine whatever the outcomes of the negotiations over our future relationship…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdatePrecisely for the reasons my hon. Friend sets out, the top priority for this vaccine, according to the clinical analysis, is the residents of care homes, along with the staff who…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateWe are of course concerned about that and will put in enormous efforts to try to ensure that the take-up of the vaccine is as equal as possible. The starting principle is that we…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateI am very happy to look at that with my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary. It is, of course, a Department for Education lead, but I am happy to do my bit.10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateI understand the yearning for certainty. All I can say to my hon. Friend, in honesty, is that I want us to get back to normal as quickly as possible, and yesterday’s news is a big…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateThat is a very good question from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—I would expect nothing less. The critical answer to how long this takes is that it depends on the…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateYes, of course. I have seen some heart-rending stories and I have met people who are affected by their inability to see their relatives in care homes. The lateral flow tests that…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateOf course, we are working to ensure that, by us all working together and making sacrifices, we can come out of this lockdown and into the tiered approach we had in place…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateI am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is generous with his words. I also direct his warm words of gratitude to the vaccine taskforce, which has done so much work to ensure…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateI will write to my right hon. Friend on exactly this matter. Of course, the more that we can do to get the infection rates down during lockdown, the easier it will be to get out…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateMy right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, and we all know how close it is to her heart. In the first lockdown, many NHS services were suspended, partly because of the…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateI am very grateful to the hon. Member for his questions and for the approach that he is rightly taking. Like him, I am delighted that we are able to roll-out routine testing to…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateWith permission, Mr Speaker, I will like to make a statement on coronavirus. The virus remains a powerful adversary, but we are marshalling the forces of science and human…10 Nov 2020HANSARD Covid-19 UpdateNo.10 Nov 2020