Coronavirus — House of Commons, 2020-02-26
Topic: Health
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I join the hon. Gentleman in reiterating our thanks to all NHS and Public Health England staff, and others, who have been working so hard on this issue. I also express my thanks to the hon. Gentleman, and to every Member of the House with whom my Ministers and I have had dealings. In each and every case, everyone has taken a responsible and proportionate approach. This is not a political matter; this is a matter of keeping the public safe, and everybody in this House has played their part Plans are in place in case of the virus becoming a pandemic, but it is not yet certain that that will happen. The plan is still in the phase of "contain": we aim to contain the virus both abroad and here at home, and prevent it from becoming a pandemic, while of course ensuring that plans are in place should that happen. On travel to Italy, our advice is that all but essential travel is not recommended to the quarantined areas of northern Italy. The advice for people returning from northern Italy is clear: those returning from the quarantined areas should self-isolate, and those returning from the rest of northern Italy should self-isolate if they have symptoms. I hope that advice is clear, and it is available on the Government website The hon. Gentleman asked about Heathrow, and we have expanded the availability of supported isolation facilities. Just having Arrowe Park and the facility at Milton Keynes is not appropriate for individual travellers whom we think need to be quarantined, but at the moment those numbers are low, which is why we need only one facility. We chose a facility near Heathrow because that is the point of biggest throughput, but we do not rule out rolling that out more broadly if we think it necessary The Department for Education has repeatedly issued advice to schools—I am glad to see the Minister for School Standards in his place—and we issued revised advice this morning. Our goal is to keep schools open wherever we can, as long as that protects the public. Our wider goal is to have minimum social and economic disruption, or disruption to the NHS, subject to keeping the public safe. The message that we do not have a policy of blanket school closures is important. Unless there is specific professional advice, or until there is a positive test, schools should stay open and follow the advice on the GOV.UK website. If they have queries they should contact their regional schools commissioner The hon. Gentleman asked about the availability of testing, and as far as we know, we now have testing sites at all A and E facilities across England. We are also planning to introduce home testing, some of which has started already, so that people do not have to go to the pod in front of A and E—that pod has been placed there to ensure that people do not go into A and E, where they might infect others. Home testing is the safest place to be tested because people do not have to go anywhere, and that will allow us to roll out testing to a larger number of people. The hon. Gentleman asked about the available funding. Funding is available from the Treasury. So far we have used it for capital funding, but we will obviously keep this issue under review.