Esther McVey
MP for Tatton · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Why did they believe then that people under 18 could not make the decision to marry, but now believe that they can make the decision to vote? The same applies to property ownership and mortgages.”
“Yes, that is right. Things are changing continually. The Bill goes against the age of adulthood, with lawmakers raising the minimum age for many different things. As a country we collectively agree that the age of 18 is adulthood, and with that come rights and responsibilities, and things we can and cannot do.”
“If those in Scotland want to carry on with this vote rigging, they are fully entitled to do so, and I am sure that they will conjure up many other ways in which to do it.”
“I will carry on for a second. We are not saying that 16-year-olds would be sent off to combat, nor would we be saying that the inconsistencies about the age of marriage carry on. In England and Wales, the legal age for marriage and civil partnerships is 18. Arranging a marriage for anyone under 18 is illegal.”
“Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire, which would tie the age at which people can buy alcohol to the age at which they are eligible to vote. The question is simple: why have the Government decided that in respect of voting the age of 16 is adulthood, while in many other areas it does not meet the threshold?”
“I rise to speak to amendments 49 to 55 and amendments 56 to 62 to clause 1, which are in my name, and in support of amendments 6 to 12 to clause 1 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford). Through the Bill, the Government have taken inconsistency to a new level.”
The complete record
Every one of 605 lines we hold for Esther McVey, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 11 of 13.
“But now, even the large multiple retailers such as Lloyds and Rowlands have had to sell off their community stores as they move to remote delivery and go online in an attempt to become profitable. Even they cannot make community pharmacies work. Adding to the problem of underfunding is, as we have heard, a shortage of medicines, which often results in community pharmacists dispensing medicines at a loss. Even when the NHS decides to increase the price it is willing to reimburse pharmacists for those medicines, it often comes after weeks of pharmacists gambling on what price they will have to pay, which creates huge uncertainty for them and their businesses. Ironically, it is the very low prices that the NHS is willing to pay that drive the shortages.”
“Lee explained to me that, despite it being a busy community pharmacy and having a good reputation—I can vouch for that, as I went there, too—they had very much a hand-to-mouth existence as funding fell and things such as rent, utilities and wages increased, squeezing their profit margin to the point where their business became unviable and the only thing they could do to safeguard their 12 years of tireless work was to sell it. It was a sad day for them, because their dream was for the two of them, married, running this community pharmacy and supporting the local community, but it had become abundantly clear to them for some time that the only way for such pharmacies to exist was to find efficiencies through having multiple branches.”
“Increasing demands and ongoing pressures are threatening their sustainability. Tatton currently has a healthy number of local pharmacies—18— supporting nearly 70,000 residents. However, pharmacies are disappearing across the country—and in Tatton, too. Government figures show a decrease of 222 between December 2022 and June 2023. The reasons for those closures include inadequate funding, rising operational costs and difficulty in recruiting and retaining community pharmacists. Tatton community pharmacist Lee Williams, along with his wife and fellow pharmacist Caroline, were two of the first constituents I met at their pharmacy in Knutsford when I became the MP for Tatton back in 2017. They have since had to close their pharmacy.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate with you as Chair, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing this important debate on community pharmacies, which are a crucial part of our healthcare ecosystem. I also thank him for his thorough explanation of the current state of community pharmacies and their needs. I am often reminded that when we feel unwell or something has gone a bit wrong, our first point of call is often to walk into a pharmacy to get advice, support and medicine. Somebody there can put one’s mind at ease. Those who are vulnerable or elderly can also get their medicines delivered to them, which adds to the wellbeing of the local community. However, despite community pharmacies’ immense importance, they face huge challenges.”
“In particular, we are still waiting for redress schemes to be set up to meet the costs of additional care and support for those who were harmed by Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. Why has that not been done? This is a bleak and worrying situation, so I will try to end on a more positive note by commending the important work of the hon. Member for Bolton South East as chair of the APPG on hormone pregnancy tests. My final tribute must go to Marie Lyon, whose tireless campaigning on Primodos over the decades has been inspirational. She deserves the full support and respect of this House, and I hope she and others harmed by this drug can finally get justice.”
“As many as 98 out of 100 adverse drug reactions go unreported. The APPG, of which I am a co-chair, was told that the MHRA is running a system that is too slow to act and is beset by conflicts. Failure to act now will only lead to more harm. We also heard from the solicitor Peter Todd who was acting for 43 individuals who suffered blood clots as a result of the AstraZeneca vaccination. He described how the Government’s vaccine damage payment scheme is operating poorly and failing to help those who have been injured. Not only is the current system unable to protect patients from harm, but it is failing to look after those who have already been harmed. Three years on from Baroness Cumberlege’s landmark review, the Government have not fully implemented its recommendations.”
“In 2020, the independent medicines and medical devices safety review, “First Do No Harm”, found that Primodos, sodium valproate and pelvic mesh had all caused “avoidable harm”. The review showed that patients had been let down, and it called for significant reforms of the MHRA, due to its mishandling of safety concerns. The review was clear that there is “gross under-reporting” of suspected adverse reactions and that “systems are both too complex and too diffuse to allow early signal detection.” That theme keeps coming up, and in a recent meeting of the APPG on pandemic response and recovery we heard from Professor Carl Heneghan, who described widespread problems with the reporting of adverse drugs and device reactions, which continue to be a major cause of hospital admissions.”
“It noted, of drug companies, the “closeness that has developed between regulators and companies”, which had “deprived the industry of rigorous quality control and audit.” It also highlighted “the MHRA’s poor history in recognising drug risks, poor communication and lack of public trust.” In 2020, Dame June Raine, the chief executive officer of the MHRA, stated that her agency had transformed itself from watchdog to enabler, so I ask: has anything improved in the intervening 20 years since the Health Committee inquiry? I fear not, and I think the time has come for another inquiry of similar scope and depth, only with more robust outcomes. That is what we want—robust outcomes.”
“Sadly, Primodos is not an isolated case, and we have seen many examples over the years of our regulatory bodies failing to keep patients safe from new medicines and medical devices. In 2013, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listed 27 medicines that had been withdrawn on safety grounds. The average time they were on the market was 11 years. I wonder how many times we will allow history to repeat itself. There have been reports and reviews calling for reform, and back in 2004 the Health Committee undertook an inquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.”
“I, too, thank the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) for bringing this debate to the House. Listening to all the powerful speeches really makes me proud of the Chamber. This is the Chamber at its best, with the powerful speeches of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). How distressing it must be for the women and families harmed by Primodos that they are still having to fight nearly five decades on. Their road to justice has been long and cruel, and it is shameful that we find it necessary to debate this again. How can it be that the Primodos families are still not being properly supported and compensated after all the evidence that has been presented?”
“They were absolutely proud to serve in that institution, but it does become their life. They said that it did become their mind in a way, controlling what they did in their thought processes. Therefore, my constituents are asking for a similar process in reverse, and with as much thought and consideration, as they step away from the armed forces. To give up life in the armed forces and regain one’s autonomy might sound easy, but it had not been. They had had their time managed and their life controlled, so to now get the freedoms to do what they wanted and fill the hours was actually quite daunting. Without that drilled schedule, without every moment being filled, they felt that time dragged, allowing loneliness and depression to sink into their lives.”
“Most importantly, they feel that it does not need to be that way. With more structured support, clear signposting and ongoing checks—interestingly, they mentioned to me a check at the seven-year mark—the transition could have been so much easier. The veterans felt that much greater care and attention was given to the whole process of getting them into the armed forces than was given to them when they left. Removing “the individual” and fitting them into an organisation had a lot of thought put into it, but reversing that process it did not. They explained to me that, on arrival, each was given a number. They would be drilled and trained, and pushed both physically and mentally. It is a form of training that makes them a team and part of a great institution—without doubt one of the best in the world.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered veterans in Handforth. It is a pleasure to have you chairing this debate, Dame Angela. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for listening to the concerns of my Tatton constituents. This topic should and, I am sure, does concern each and every one of us, as it is about the support that we provide to our servicemen and women as they leave the armed forces and prepare for civilian life. I am here today representing veterans and their families in Handforth, who feel “forgotten about”. Those words struck a particular chord. They said that they had served in the armed forces, but when they left service, they felt that there was an abruptness to that end of service and very little help for them to adjust back into civilian life. To be blunt, they have struggled with that transition.”
“Gianna said that that tangibility—if I can say that—was important. Yes, it would be good if that simple advice were online, but she felt that having a book—which she might not need straight away, on day one, or in week one or year one, but which she could go to later as things emerged—would allow her to feel comforted.”
“For example, when Sebastian was discharged and started showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, his wife Gianna felt as if she had nowhere to turn. She said that the lack of signposting both by the Government and the MOD left her feeling angry and rejected. She was sent from one organisation to another, and found the delay in receiving support for her husband quite shocking. When I asked Gianna what exactly she would like to see happen, she said she would like to see something simple and quite tangible, such as a book, issued to each service member and/or their family member when leaving the forces, containing a list of contacts and the assistance on offer. That way, they would have a first line of response. Therefore, my first question is: will the Minister look into providing something like a physical booklet?”
“Each week, 18 to 25 people turn up, and they have those discussions, those talks and that helping hand, which is offered over, as they say, a hot beverage. It was at one such session that they asked whether I could relay to the Minister their overwhelming concern that, once discharged, they felt they had nowhere to go. They felt there was a distinct lack of signposting and no central point where information was available. While they appreciated that there was an array of charities, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has said, they felt that somehow the Ministry of Defence needed to do a little more and not contract out its responsibilities to others. They felt the support was bitty, piecemeal and the exact opposite of the training they were given to enter the armed forces, which was precise and regimented.”
“The hon. Member is spot on. It is absolutely the case that those charities do a wonderful job, but greater structured support is needed. My constituents are asking the Minister to make the process easier even before discharge. They are asking that people be signposted and helped even before leaving, so that they know the local area that they are going back into, the local groups and the local community. That would make leaving so much easier; it would provide them with stability and a clearer transition to their new life. In my constituency, there is a very interesting group. These people are passionate about not seeing the experience they had repeated. Sebastian and Gianna Edwards-Beech have set up a support group called NAAFI Break. They welcome veterans and their family members for support.”
“When he responds to the debate, will the Minister let me and my constituents know what the Government are doing to support veterans with mental health conditions and how they intend to support them and their families? My constituents are helpfully proposing that, either prior to or after discharge date, the MOD sends individuals to a medical facility for an all-round health screening, to diagnose any injuries that have been missed while on active service. That could also lead to an understanding of what might happen to them in future. The armed forces covenant, established in 2011, was intended to be a solemn agreement that our Government and local authorities would provide adequate support, recognition and assistance to those who had served our Army in uniform.”
“Traumatic brain injuries are often overlooked, but they can have devastating effects on physical and mental wellbeing. They can cause memory loss, cognitive impairment, mood swings and a range of debilitating symptoms that can significantly impact a veteran’s ability to reintegrate into civilian life. Many believe that, despite the growing body of scientific evidence linked to traumatic brain injury and PTSD, the UK Government have failed to allocate the necessary resources and funding for a comprehensive researched diagnosis into the treatment and conditions. If that is the case, we are doing a disservice to our veterans, which does not live up to the promises made in the armed forces covenant. I hope the Minister can reassure me that that is not the case, and that much work is being and has been done.”
“She had seen a lot during her time in the Army. That woman is based in Cheshire. The support groups for women were in the cities, in Liverpool and Manchester, and meeting online for her was not the same as seeing people face to face. She wondered how she could connect with other veterans, particularly female veterans, who are scattered across the country, without having to incur all the significant travel costs. All at the session were concerned about support for those with PTSD, particularly those who had been in Afghanistan and Iraq, understanding how it develops and the treatment accompanying it. I have another question for the Minister. How much research have the Government done—or are doing—into PTSD and its treatment, as well as into traumatic brain injury, which is linked to PTSD?”
“Thank you, Dame Angela, and I thank my hon. Friend for that honest contribution, particularly with such great first-hand knowledge. To continue with my other point, I was sat next to a very impressive woman who had served and done well in the Army, but who was struggling now that she had left. She, too, felt abandoned. She had gone into the Army to get away from her life. The Army was a fresh start and a new beginning for her. She had grown there and done well. However, on leaving, she felt she was put right back into the place that she had tried to escape from. That left her depressed, as if she had walked back in time, back into the problems that she had tried to get away from. She felt it was worse for her, as there were no other women close by who she could relate to and who shared her experiences.”
“Will the Minister talk a little more about that wording and that obligation that I know we would all like to see? Finally, I come to the armed forces compensation scheme. Those who had applied and qualified felt the experience was of delays and complicated process. Will the Minister give an update on how that process will be made smoother and faster? I know we all believe in honouring our veterans, and that means ensuring that when they leave the armed forces they can reintegrate into civilian life in a smooth, coherent, supported way, so they do not feel abandoned and lost. The one way that can be done is to provide the assistance they so rightly deserve.”
“My hon. Friend is right that they need a safe home. That is part of the connection to the local community, before they even leave the armed forces. What is that signposting? Who are those local groups? That of course includes, where do they sleep? Where is that roof over their head? Apart from the anti-discrimination policies in the armed forces covenant, there are concerns about the wording. It is not definitive enough, such as when a local authority or business is tasked with supporting a veteran. The wording is “where possible”. That means there is no obligation, and veterans often feel that they are “palmed off”—in their words—to charities or other voluntary bodies, because there is not a sufficiently worded obligation in the current form.”
“It has been reported over the last couple of days that accommodating HS2 will mean fewer trains between the north and London. One station affected is Wilmslow in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that were that to happen, HS2 would no longer be value for money or good for the north? It would certainly take longer and cost my constituents more.”
“Does the Secretary of State agree that shutting schools during covid lockdowns was a disaster for children and their mental health and has led to an explosion in severely absent rates? Will she make sure that cannot happen again by classifying all education settings, including schools, colleges and universities, as essential infrastructure, to ensure they remain open during national emergencies?”
“I very much welcome this statement to limit the number of students that universities can recruit to courses that are failing. The Secretary of State has my full support. Can she tell me whether this measure will also apply to foreign students? At the very least, will foreign students be barred from bringing dependants with them to do these courses?”
“18. What recent progress he has made in negotiations with the World Health Organisation on proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations 2005.”
“Will the Minister assure me that the proposed changes to the International Health Regulations being negotiated will not give new rule-making powers, such as those tabled by Bangladesh, to the WHO director general to make binding directions on matters including border closures, quarantining and vaccine passports? Even the WHO’s own expert review committee has raised concerns over such significant increases in power.”
“I will call Sir Chris Bryant to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“My constituency has a problem with Travellers pitching on private land and common land and causing a nuisance, currently on Parkgate Industrial Estate in Knutsford. Either the police do not have sufficient powers to deal with this issue, or they do have sufficient powers but they are not using them. Will the Deputy Prime Minister get the Government to speak with Cheshire police to ensure that they have the powers to deal with this blight on our local community and that they use them?”
“In Wilmslow in my Tatton constituency, we have a football academy run by Erik Garner, which will be putting on a girls’ world cup for primary age children this summer. That is possible only because town councillors stood in to give funding to ensure the maximum number of girls can participate. Given that women’s football is still growing, will the Minister explain how organisations that do not have parish and town councils that can step in can access financial support from the Football Association for similar events, to help to inspire the next generation of Lionesses?”
“Making NHS dentistry appealing is, therefore, a matter of high importance. Some suggestions have been handed to me and I will put them forward—and I know the Minister will be coming forward with bold plans. One suggestion was getting rid of student debt for newly trained dentists; might we remove that if they move into NHS provision? Also, what extra funding will be given and how will we move away from units of dental activity? We all want this to work; it is vital that it works and I certainly do not want to be taking calls from desperate constituents who need urgent dental medical care.”
“Interestingly, the number of qualified dentists is at an all-time high, but the number doing NHS work has fallen significantly. Last year, a British Dental Association poll found that 45% of dentists in England were doing an average of 25% less NHS work since the start of the pandemic. The poll also shows that 75% of dentists are thinking of reducing their NHS commitment this year, with almost half considering either a change of career, early retirement or turning fully private. Bupa, which provides both NHS and private services, recently reinforced these figures, stating that it intends to merge or sell 85 of its 450 practices across the UK because of rising running costs and lack of dentists willing to deliver NHS care. This means nearly half a million more patients could lose their dentist.”
“Tatton dentists have reached out to me and told me the current payment system of units of dental activity, introduced by a Labour Government back in 2006, has never worked and subsequent tinkering has not worked either. The Minister will probably know how it works, but others might not: a check-up with X-rays counts as one unit; adding a filling or several could count as another two units; and providing a full set of dentures is seven. It does not pay: the formula does not work, which means that dentists lose money, particularly when treating the neediest patients—those who really need their care and attention. Those figures never have stacked up and tweaks will not make a difference. In a nutshell, the business case is broken and a new one needs to be brought forward. NHS dentistry is not attractive; we need to make it appealing.”
“1 issue raised with it by NHS patients, and that four out of 10 people who contact it say that they are having difficulty accessing dental care, which is exactly what I am hearing from my constituents. The system is bad and decaying, and has been for some time. Lockdown made things significantly worse. With dentists shut down for the first few months of the pandemic, 50 million appointments were lost, and 3,000 dentists stopped providing NHS dentistry because the restrictions through lockdown made it financially unviable for practices, meaning NHS dentists are disappearing at a rate of knots. Some 90% of practices are closed to new patients, 80% will not even accept children, and in 37% of local authorities there are no practices accepting new adult NHS patients. Reform needs to be radical.”
“He needed to have his teeth removed and dentures fitted, but he could not find a dentist. When he rang the emergency dentist, there was a recording saying “No appointments”, and then the phone was just ringing out. He was pointed in the direction of a practice in Buxton, but found that it was no longer taking NHS patients, and one in Northwich which had a two-year waiting list. Other constituents who thought that they were fortunate enough to have an NHS dentist found that the Mobberley Road practice in Knutsford was no longer taking NHS patients either, and that they were no longer registered there. Healthwatch, the independent statutory body, says that this is the No.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing the debate. Together they have acted like a veritable tag team, securing debate after debate, this being the third. The problem we are discussing is obviously not getting better, and it is not going away. It is clear from what we have heard from Members today that it is becoming a bigger issue in our casework, and that is certainly my experience. I have taken some desperate phone calls from constituents, and have been shocked by what I have heard. It has led me to get on the phone straight away to beg dentists nearby to see some of those constituents. One, an elderly resident of Wilmslow, was losing his teeth and had abscesses.”
“I remind Members that they need to bob if they wish to be called in this debate. I will not put a time limit on speeches, but be mindful that we will go to Front Benchers at 10.28 am, and that Robbie Moore will have a couple of minutes at the end to wind up.”
“I want you to be accountable and, if you are not, we will vote you out at the next election. We want to know that we are in control of what is going on.” That is why we are here today. They are concerned about those word changes and what we are doing.”
“Who has a say in it? That is why people have written to their Members of Parliament and asked for a debate here today. They ask, “Where are those powers going? Who is to remain sovereign? Who will have oversight?” Today, we are here to allay those concerns, to get those issues out in the open, and to head off any issues and ensure that we are not signing away our sovereignty. Here, for the Minister to address, are just a couple of the issues that my constituents have flagged up. It is those word changes—it is not that countries would have to “consider”, but that they will now “follow”; it is not that these things are non-binding, but that they are binding. My constituents are not some kind of conspiracy theorists. They come to me saying, “You are my Member of Parliament. I want to hear you debate things on the Floor of the House.”
“Our APPG has heard from renowned experts such as Professor Carl Heneghan, Lucy Easthope, Mark Woolhouse, Robert Dingwall, Dr Allyson Pollock, Lord Jonathan Sumption, Kate Nicholls OBE and many more, who have all advocated for evidence-based, proportional measures to prevent avoidable suffering and loss. However, while all that analysis is ongoing, the World Health Organisation is preparing an international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness. The treaty seeks to enhance international co-operation, which sounds good in theory, but critics say that in practice it could transfer power away from sovereign and democratically elected nations, and the rights of the individual into the hands of the WHO, an unelected and largely privately funded bureaucracy. That is the nub of it. Who has the oversight? Who is creating the powers?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for moving the motion. I thank the 156,000 people who signed the petition, including 295 of my Tatton constituents, who helped to secure today’s important debate. The vast majority of the nation has been busily moving on from the pandemic and the lockdowns, and rightly so, but much analysis of covid and the lockdowns is still ongoing, with the UK covid inquiry beginning to hear evidence in June for its first investigation. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pandemic response and recovery, I welcome that inquiry, and all other frank, open discussions and analysis of the impact and effects of lockdown, and how policies were originated and formulated.”
“It may not yet be clear how the WHO would legally enforce any of these emergency powers and policies, but there is plenty of potential for its unelected bureaucrats to chip away at our democratic standards. It is therefore vital that we demand robust debate, and an open review of all these plans in Parliament and in public—something that was sorely lacking during covid times. Our parliamentary system was not really designed to support referendums, so I would be loth to inflict another referendum on the public. However, I agree on the need for parliamentary scrutiny. We need debate and votes in both Houses to ensure that this country lives up to its democratic obligations to its citizens, and to ensure we continue to make our own decisions about how we manage public health threats in this country.”
“The poverty that we have inflicted on people with lockdowns is incredible. This petition, calling for a referendum on the treaty, makes it clear that there is growing concern about the expansion of the WHO’s powers and the encroachment on national sovereignty. The UK Government have declared unilaterally that the UK supports a new international legally binding instrument as part of a co-operative and comprehensive approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Will the Minister explain how that can be the case when Parliament has not yet been allowed to scrutinise those plans? Although we must not overhype the nature of the threat—I get that—this proposed treaty could, or should, give us all pause for thought.”
“As Ofsted’s damning 2021 report pointed out, children have fallen well behind in their education and suffered significantly, in particular in their mental health, as a result of lockdowns. Here in the UK, it is estimated that school closures will lead to significantly lower life expectancy and to £40,000 being lost from the lifetime earnings of each individual. Children should never have had to shoulder such an enormous burden, and one that will likely hamper them for the rest of their lives. The lockdowns—those stay-at-home mandates—damaged the economy, but more importantly they drove and will drive many people into poverty, to such an extent that Professor Thomas of the University of Bristol thinks that 2.5 million life years have been lost because of a loss of GDP and those lockdowns.”
“As we heard from many Members today, the World Health Organisation was set up in the aftermath of the second world war with the aim of providing a high standard of healthcare for all. It approached health in the round, promoting community-based services to address physical, mental and social wellbeing—all admirable reasons for why it was set up. In recent decades, however, WHO’s focus appears to have narrowed, as private foundations and pharmaceutical companies become an increasingly significant and influential part of WHO’s funding base. Its approach has become more focused on vaccine-based interventions and, most recently, on blunt instruments such as lockdowns, of which we are still analysing the consequences. It is safe to say there was a negative impact on the young.”
“Before covid-19, WHO had repeatedly overestimated deaths from new infections, diseases and outbreaks. In 2009, for example, it predicted a swine flu death toll of 7.5 million and warned that nearly a third of the entire world population would become infected. That led to knee-jerk over-investment in vaccine contracts, which clawed precious money away from fighting other diseases. In the end, it was concluded that total global mortality was roughly on a par with annual deaths caused by seasonal influenza, nowhere near the original prediction. Those are the issues that my constituents raise with me—issues of who we are handing control to. As they say, WHO has not covered itself in glory in providing consistent, clear and scientifically sound advice for managing many international disease outbreaks.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for saying those words on the Floor of the House, so that they can be documented in Hansard . My constituents have other concerns. They remind me—not that I need to be reminded—that it was WHO that went against its own 2019 evidence-based influenza pandemic guidelines. It never advocated lockdowns as a method of controlling respiratory illnesses but, following China’s early lead, it began to champion lockdowns. Look at the U-turns on face coverings: in March 2020, it did not recommend them for healthy people, but the sudden change in the guidance followed despite the apparent lack of any new, high-quality research. In July 2020, BBC’s “Newsnight” suggested that the decision was the direct result of political lobbying.”
“Can the Minister reassure my constituents who are concerned that the Government will concede sovereignty and hand power to WHO? Can she give reassurances that that will not happen?”
“I am pleased my question has now resulted in a response, for which I am grateful. However, from that response, I was none the wiser as to how the Government have explained the non-covid excess deaths we have seen. So can the Minister give us an insight into the reasons for the non-covid excess deaths since the pandemic?”