19:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 524 / Noes: 16 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
I beg to move,
That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 3) and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 8), dated 5 January 2021, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5 January, be approved.
The new variant of coronavirus presents us with a renewed challenge, here in Britain and around the world. Our strategy throughout has been to suppress the virus until a vaccine can make us safe, and while our collective efforts were working on the old variant, when faced with a new variant that is between 50% and 70% more transmissible, there has been no choice but to respond. I understand that these regulations have serious consequences, and I regret the huge costs they bring, but I know just as surely that these costs are far outweighed by the costs we would bear without action.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Do not viruses, especially when they become as widespread as this one, always mutate? Have the Government not planned for that?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course, we have been not only watching for mutations but, indeed, testing for mutations throughout, and it is partly because the UK has the biggest genomic testing capability of any country in the world that we have been able to pick this one up. There may be new mutations in other countries that do not have this scale of genomic testing, and just under 50% of all the sequenced genomes of covid-19 that are deposited with the World Health Organisation are deposited by the UK because of this capability.
That leads to a challenge, which is that it is the countries that have the genomic testing capability that spot the new variant and report it. There are countries that may have variations that are not known about and are not discovered in this way and cannot be reported, but that is the nature of the pandemic. My strong view is that we should be transparent and clear with our international friends when we find a new variant that is difficult to deal with.
When I have previously come to ask for the House’s support for national restrictions, we had to take it on trust that there would be an exit, because it was before a vaccine had been approved. Today I come to the House seeking approval of these regulations knowing, from the huge pressure on the NHS right now, that this action is necessary today, but also with the certain knowledge that we have a way out.
Before turning to the detail of the regulations, I want to set out the plan for how we get out of them, because that is critical. This country was the first in the world to deploy not one but two vaccines, and more than 1.3 million people have been vaccinated already, including a quarter of the over-80s.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I do not like it one bit, but I will support the Health Secretary tonight. The reason I will do it, and I suspect the reason why there is such high public support for these measures, is the position in which the NHS finds itself and the level 5 ruling. If we have, by the middle of February, vaccinated the top four groups, who are the ones likely to overwhelm the NHS, does the logic not follow that at that point we will be able to lift the restrictions on our constituents’ lives?
Matt Hancock
I will come on precisely to my hon. Friend’s point, because that is a critical question that I know people are rightly asking: if we are going to have these restrictions, how do we get out of them and, frankly, how do we get out of all the restrictions that we have had to put in place?
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State mentions the vaccine as one of the crucial routes out of this, and I pay absolute tribute to all the incredible scientists and NHS staff who are preparing to deliver it. However, one of the things my constituents are asking me is how we can be sure that the production of the vaccine will meet the ambitions the Prime Minister and others have set out and that we are building the types of facility we need to continue to ramp up production to the highest levels we can. Can the Secretary of State explain what is going on, because I was concerned to hear about the factory in Wales that is not operating seven days a week? Why is that? Is it because it is not getting enough supply into its system?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before the Secretary of State answers the question, let me say that we can have interventions of course—this is a debate—but they must not be long interventions. I give notice now that the time limit for Back-Bench speeches will be three minutes from the beginning, and even with three minutes not everyone on the Order Paper will be called, because there is not enough time.
Matt Hancock
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to answer these interventions briefly, but they are important because people want to know what is the way out of these restrictions, and that is absolutely central to the case I am making.
The fill and finish plant in Wrexham is doing a brilliant job, but it can fill and finish vials only at the speed at which the vaccine material, which is a biological material, not a chemical compound, can be produced. It is doing a brilliant job at the pace that it needs to go. AstraZeneca and Pfizer are manufacturing the material itself, and they are also working as fast as they can, and I pay tribute to them and their manufacturing teams, who are doing a terrific job.
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
Approving these regulations today would allow for lockdown for three months, until the end of March. The Secretary of State will have heard my exchange with the Prime Minister earlier, when the Prime Minister said that he did not think we would have to wait that long for an opportunity to choose whether to end the regulations. Will the Secretary of State go further and give a commitment to a further vote at the end of January and the end of February, so that the House will have control over what is happening?
Matt Hancock
While these regulations do provide for new restrictions until the end of March, that is not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then, but to allow the steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a local basis. Those tier changes do require a vote in Parliament. The restrictions will therefore be kept under continuous review; there is a statutory requirement to review them every two weeks and a legal obligation to remove them if they are no longer deemed necessary to limit the transmission of the virus.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I thank the Secretary of State; I understand the reasons for the regulations, and I fully support them. Does the Health Department, in conjunction with the Education Secretary, have any intention to ensure that teachers are given priority for a vaccine because of the work that they do, along with nurseries and children’s special needs? If we ensure that they have it, we can continue with some reality.
Matt Hancock
Of course we are considering who, once we have vaccinated those who are clinically vulnerable, should be the next priority for vaccination. Teachers, of course, have a very strong case, as have those who work in nurseries. Many colleagues on both sides of the House have made that point, and we will consider it.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Just to pick up one point, the Secretary of State cites the certain knowledge that there is a way out. The whole point of the intervention by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) is that there is uncertainty. What contingency plans are there if a mutation proves resistant to either of the vaccines and we have to be in these measures for longer? In particular, will the Secretary of State consider the fact that we have barely drawn on the numerous people in the armed forces to create extra NHS capacity? We could do so much more of that if necessary. Is that part of the plan?
Matt Hancock
Yes, it is very much part of the plan; it is happening right now. On mutations and the link to the vaccine, as with flu, where mutations mean we have to change the vaccine each year, any vaccine might have to be updated in the future, but that is not our understanding of the situation now. Of course that is being double-checked and tested, both with the scientists at Porton Down and, as we roll out the vaccine in areas where there is a high degree of the new variant, and by the pharmacological surveillance of those who have been vaccinated, which will allow us to see for real the impact of the vaccine on the new variant. The goal, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, is that by the middle of next month we plan to have offered the first dose to everyone in the top four priority groups, and they currently account for four out of five covid fatalities. I am not sure that this point has fully been addressed, but the strong correlation between age and fatality from covid means we will be able to vaccinate those who account for four out of every five fatalities within the top four cohorts. It does then take two to three weeks from the first dose to reach immunity, but the vaccine is therefore the way out of this pandemic and the way to a better year ahead.
Matt Hancock
Yes, but then I want to make some progress on the detail of the regulations.
Mr Harper
I am grateful; it is on the specific point that my right hon. Friend has raised. He knows I understand it, because it is exactly the one I raised with him in this House last week when we were recalled, and I welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment to it. To go back to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), my right hon. Friend is clear that once we have vaccinated those four groups and they have got immunity, we have therefore taken care of 80% of the risk of death. So what possible reason is there at that point for not rapidly relaxing the restrictions in place on the rest of our country?
Matt Hancock
We have to see the impact of that vaccination on the reduction in the number of deaths, which I very much hope we will see at that point. That is why we will take an evidence-led move down through the tiers when—I hope—we have broken the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths. We will need to see the protection in lived reality on the ground, but we will watch this like a hawk. My aim is to keep these restrictions in place for not a moment longer than they are necessary.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for everything he is doing, but the logic of his anticipating what is going to happen in two, three or four weeks’ time from the number of cases we are getting at the moment is that we can do the same in reverse. That is to say that when we have a sufficient number of people vaccinated, we can anticipate how many deaths will have been avoided in two, three or four weeks’ time. As this cuts both ways, that means that he will be able to make a decision on when we should end these restrictions, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has just suggested.
Matt Hancock
The logic of the case made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) is right, and we want to see that happen in empirical evidence on the ground. This hope for the weeks ahead does not, however, take away from the serious and immediate threat posed now, and I wish to turn to what is in the regulations and the actions we need to take.
The Office for National Statistics has reported that one in 50 of the population has the disease, some with symptoms and some without. The latest figures show that we have 30,074 covid patients in UK hospitals and that the NHS is under significant pressure. Admissions are now higher than at any point in the pandemic, and so on Monday all four UK chief medical officers recommended that we move the country to covid-19 alert level 5. In practice, that means that they believe that without action there is a material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed. It is for that reason that we have placed England into a national lockdown, alongside action taken in each of the devolved nations. Every single citizen needs to take steps to control this new variant, and this personal responsibility is important. To give the NHS a fighting chance to do its vital work of saving lives, it is on all of us to support it.
The regulations set out that everyone must stay at home save for a limited number of reasons permitted in law, including: essential shopping; work, if it cannot reasonably be done from home; education or childcare if eligible to attend; medical needs, including getting a covid test or getting vaccinated; exercise; escaping domestic abuse; and for support bubbles where people are eligible. These regulations are based on the existing tier 4 regulations, with some additional measures that reinforce the stay-at-home imperative.
These include: stopping the sale of alcohol through takeaway or click and collect services; and closing sport and leisure facilities, although allowing playgrounds and allotments to remain open. I know that these further restrictions are difficult, but, unfortunately, they are necessary, because we must minimise social interaction to get this virus back under control. These measures came into force first thing this morning under the emergency procedure and will remain in force subject to the approval of this House today.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I have just been talking to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) who is a doctor. He showed me the ridiculous form that he has had to fill in to be able to give this simple jab—all this diversity and equality training. When he is inoculating an old lady, he is not going to ask her whether she has come into contact with jihadis or whatever. The Secretary of State must cut through all this bureaucratic rubbish.
Matt Hancock
I am a man after my hon. Friend’s heart. I can tell the House that we have removed a series of unnecessary training modules that had been put in place, including fire safety, terrorism and others. I will write to him with the full panoply of training that is not required and that we have been able to remove. We made this change as of this morning, and I am glad to say that it is now in force. I am a fan of busting bureaucracy, and in this case I agree that it is not necessary to undertake anti-terrorism training in order to inject a vaccine.
Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
I notice also a story about not delivering vaccines on Sunday. As I understand it, it is thought that there will be sufficient vaccines to be able to do seven-day inoculations. If somebody runs short, they will get topped up, which is a little different from what The Daily Telegraph said today.
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend is quite right. The supply of vaccines can take place on all seven days of the week, but, in a regular way, we do it on six days of the week and then, on the seventh day, people can either rest or deliver further vaccine if that is what is necessary. As a result of this delivery schedule, there has been no point at which any area has been short of vaccine. We have a challenge, which is to increase the amount of vaccine available. The current rate-limiting factor on the vaccine roll-out is the supply of approved, tested, safe vaccine, and we are working with both AstraZeneca and Pfizer to increase that supply as fast as possible. They are doing a brilliant job, but that is the current rate-limiting step. As that supply increases, we will need more people to give vaccinations. We will need to get pharmacists involved in the vaccination. I very much hope to get my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), a former doctor, and others involved in vaccinations. We will need more people, but the current rate-limiting factor is the supply of vaccines.
That is not to say that the companies are not supplying on the schedule that was agreed; they are, and they are doing their bit, but we do need to increase that supply and then the NHS will increase its delivery. I hope to make that point crystal clear, because Public Health England work to get the vaccine out is not a rate-limiting factor, the current discussion with pharmacists is not a rate-limiting factor, and the fill and finish is not a rate-limiting factor. What is a rate-limiting factor is the amount of the actual juice—the actual vaccine—that is available, which is not manufactured like a chemical. It is a biological product. I do not know whether you bake your own bread, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I sometimes do and it is a bit like the creation and the growth of yeast. That is probably the best way to think of it. It is a complicated and difficult task and that is the rate-limiting factor. I pay tribute to those who are engaged in the manufacturing process of this critical product.
Steve Brine
My right hon. Friend knows that I am obsessed with this point. He mentioned the agreed schedule of delivery. Will he consider publishing that, so that we can see what the agreed schedule is?
Matt Hancock
I can assure my hon. Friend that the agreed schedule of delivery will enable us to offer vaccinations to everyone in the top four priority groups by the middle of February. That is why the Prime Minister was able to commit us to that schedule.
I want to talk about the support that has been outlined. We are providing an additional £4.6 billion of support to businesses, including those in retail, hospitality and leisure that have been forced to close their doors once again, on top of the £280 billion plan for jobs, which includes the extension of the furlough scheme until April.
Mr Harper
I will be brief—I do not want to try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) raised his point because earlier this week we had a fantastic call with our hon. Friend the Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, who is responsible for vaccine delivery, in which we asked a number of times about the agreed schedule but did not get a clear answer. If it has been agreed with the companies, why can my right hon. Friend not just publish it, so that we know when the vaccine will arrive? That will give people confidence that we will deliver on the Prime Minister’s commitment to the country.
Matt Hancock
I will happily take that point away, but I can tell my right hon. Friend that that supply allows for delivery on the schedule and the target the Prime Minister set, to which my whole team is working.
John Spellar
The Secretary of State stressed that the problem is really in production of the vaccine. Presumably, the number of sites on which that is done is limited. Why have we not expanded the number of sites?
Matt Hancock
We have; we spent the summer working on that. The vaccine has sprung into prominence in the public debate over the past month or so, but we were working on that though the whole of last year, and I am glad to be able to assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is further expansion still to come.
I will end my speech by reiterating that we know that if we do not act now, eventually the NHS will not be able to cope. No Member of this House wants to witness the scenes that have been seen elsewhere in the world of hospitals overrun and doctors forced to choose who to treat and who to turn away. Although the winter weeks will be difficult, we now know what the way out looks like. Accelerating the deployment of covid vaccines, making the most vulnerable groups safe, and everyone playing their part on the way is the route out of this pandemic.
Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for everything he has done on this. Will he join me in thanking the residents of Wolverhampton for the community testing that they have done, especially Bilal mosque and Sedgley Street gurdwara, where people have all come together to defeat this virus?
Matt Hancock
Yes I will. I am glad I took that final intervention. The people of Wolverhampton have come together to deliver community testing in an incredibly impressive way. I have heard about the work of the gurdwara, bringing together leaders of all different faiths to make sure that we get testing out into the community. We need to do the same with the vaccine programme, because both are critical.
In the meantime, we must stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. That eventually will carry us to a brighter future.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I call the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), I confirm that a three-minute limit will be imposed immediately on Back-Bench speeches.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I put on record my thanks to you and your staff for what is now the second recall of Parliament for important business. I know that a lot of work goes into making that possible, and we really appreciate that, but it is important that we are here today. The daily figures that colleagues will have read while sat in this debate are sobering: 1,041 more of our countrymen and women have lost their lives to this horrible virus. It is a sobering moment, and with that in mind, we will support these regulations today. We do not think it is inevitable that we are in this situation, but it is clear that we are in a very challenging moment indeed, and in these dangerous times, with our NHS working at such high capacity, it is in the national interest to protect it and make these difficult decisions.
I say to people watching: if you are one of the very many people who have been excluded from Government support so far, or if you have missed out on self-isolation support, or if you are concerned about business support or reductions in welfare support going forward, I hope that you will have seen the support from our Benches, from my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Putney (Fleur Anderson), all giving you voice. Similarly, I hope that those very many clinically extremely vulnerable, who have so often felt ignored, saw in the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) that they are not. The same goes for contributions on frontline staff made by my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson).
Many points were made earlier today about schools, which I will not emphasise any further, other than to mention the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham (Clive Efford), for Sheffield Central, for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). Important points were made about the border by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), which I will reflect on shortly.
Many Opposition colleagues—including my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth—referred to the vaccine, as did many Government Members, including the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) and the hon. Members for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke). In particular, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) made contributions about the Government committing to publish a schedule of precisely what vaccine is going to be received and when, and how that will be rolled out, and I think the Government ought to do that.
Important contributions were made by Government Members about the exit plans and support for business, as well as children and early years. Contributions were made by the right hon. Members for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the hon. Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about oversight, and we as an Opposition would support a further review, in shorter order, of these regulations and further debate to make sure that they are as effective as possible.
The right hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) all made points about the scientists. I would perhaps fall on Margaret Thatcher’s maxim, “Advisers advise, Ministers decide”. Ultimately, if those colleagues are dissatisfied with the actions of the Government, it is for Ministers alone to account for them rather than the scientists, who are giving their best endeavours, even if we do not agree with them.
I thought it was interesting that not a single colleague mentioned that we are exactly where we were one week ago. I was in this place, the Minister was in her place and you were in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker, as we were discussing regulations. That failed. That seems funny, but actually, it is not funny at all when we think about it. I asked the Minister three times to say that the Government thought that their final attempt to salvage the tier system would work. I had no such commitment made, so perhaps it is not a surprise that it fell over, even if it is a surprise that it fell over as quickly as it did. That is a characterisation of a failure to grip this virus, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said. The Government have been just so slow and always short, trying to do the bare minimum and never, frankly, doing enough.
In a similar vein, it was quite disappointing that the Secretary of State’s contribution—his 23 minutes—could have been an intro to a general debate on vaccines, because that was all he spoke about. Of course, the vaccine is important and is our way through this, but actually, it is a failure to grasp at ministerial level that there are many things other than the vaccine, that they have control and say over and that they simply have not done well enough on.
This lockdown, which we will no doubt support tonight, will not make our problems go away. Lockdowns do not solve anything. They buy us time to solve things, so in the limited time remaining, I will highlight some of those that I think that the Secretary of State ought to have referred to, and I hope that the Minister will in her winding-up speech.
On economic support, again, there was not a word for those many millions excluded from support so far. They have gone a long time now without support. They deserve more than the glib comment that they had from the Prime Minister this morning. I hope the Minister might do a little bit better. The Chancellor should be here giving us a chance to scrutinise those plans. He was very keen to at the beginning, but we have not seen him now for a very long time.
Test, trace and isolate remains a significant gap in our fence. What fools we all look now given that, when the virus was at its lowest ebb in the summer, that system was not sorted out. Instead, while the testing number at the beginning of the system remains a very good one, turnaround time does not hit its targets, tracing never hits its targets and we know that not enough people isolate because the support for them is not good enough. The fact that we have failed to fix those problems reflects very poorly on the Government.
On the border, I am always loth to make international comparisons, certainly beyond Europe, but our daily death total today is more than the entire death total during the pandemic in Australia. There are ways in which we are similar and ways in which we are different from them, but I think we should reflect on the fact that on 20 March, they closed their border. Anyone returning home during that time had a two-week quarantine, but that was it. Now, we are still talking about test to release and other such measures at the border. It is an extraordinary failure.
To finish, I will make a couple of points on vaccination. The development and procurement of vaccine has been a success of this Government—I have said that multiple times in this place, and will continue to do so—but whether they have a successful vaccination programme remains to be seen. There is frustration on both sides of the House that we do not yet have the sense that this will be a 24/7 service, or that we are unleashing all those people who have volunteered to contribute. It is surprising to see pharmacies on the front page of national newspapers—that is the length that pharmacies feel that they have to go to get the attention of the Government. If the Government are sure they do not need that extra support and will still deliver on time, they should be clear about that.
May I have some particular clarity from the Minister? We have been hearing the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister now saying—they have changed their form of words in the past three or four days—that everyone in categories 1 to 4 will be “offered” the vaccine by the middle of February. What does that mean? What does it mean for the modelling? Before, we thought that by the middle of February we wanted everyone in those categories to be vaccinated—within, of course, the limits of people choosing not to take it up. What this cannot be is a paper exercise; it has to be the fullest—
Alex Norris
The Minister seems to dispute that, so I hope that she will take the time in her contribution to do so.
The vaccination programme represents a deal with the British people. We are asking the British people to ensure significant hardship for a significant period—that is the British people’s side of the bargain. The Government’s side of the bargain is an effective, safe and timely vaccination programme. They have to deliver on that.
I will finish in that spirit, with a simple message to my constituents and constituents across the country: stay at home, protect the NHS and vaccinate Britain.
The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)
The regulations before us set out measures that none of us wants to take, yet we must take them if we are to control this new and aggressively infectious variant of coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly across the country. As we heard from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health, we are up against it, in a race of vaccine versus virus. We are vaccinating faster than any comparable country but, even as we do so, each day we have a relentless rise in the number of new infections, hospital admissions and, sadly, deaths. We now have more than 30,000 people in our hospitals with covid.
Earlier this week, the UK’s chief medical officer’s advice was that we should move to alert level 5, meaning that if action is not taken, NHS capacity might be overwhelmed within 21 days. The consequences of that and the decisions that it could lead to are not decisions that we want our doctors to have to take. Therefore, I say to hon. Members, that is why we must adopt the measures before us. Just as we do not want to impose the restrictions on people, we must of course be ready to lift them too, as soon as we are in a position to do so. Lockdowns come at huge cost, economic and social, and in particular to the many thousands of children who are no longer going to school.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The regulations can continue until 31 March, but will my hon. Friend confirm that, in fact, they will be reviewed fortnightly and that any regulations that are considered unnecessary will be lifted as soon as possible?
Helen Whately
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Many other hon. Members have also asked about the duration of the restrictions and ongoing parliamentary scrutiny. I can say that the regulations provide for the restrictions until 31 March 2021 not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then, but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a local basis. The restrictions will, of course, be kept under continuous review. We have a statutory requirement to review them every two weeks and a legal obligation to remove them when they are no longer necessary to control the virus.
I also reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), my right hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and others that we absolutely do not want to continue the restrictions longer than necessary. Most particularly, we do not want to keep children at home and being home-schooled. I say that as a parent with three children who have spent the day, I hope, being home schooled—my husband has been in charge of that today. We do not want that to be the situation any longer than it has to be. Schools were the last to close, and the Prime Minister has said that we want them to be the first to open. Of course, they are still open for the children of critical workers, and that should include—to pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger)—those involved in the construction of critical national infrastructure, such as the Hinkley Point power station.
While with great reluctance we have had to keep most children out of school, we have also had to require outdoor sports facilities, such as golf courses, to close. Several hon. Members have challenged that, and I want to tackle it head on. I say to hon. Members who have raised this issue that if we made an exemption for golf, we would also have to make an exemption for other outdoor activities, such as tennis, outdoor bowling, climbing walls, riding centres, dry ski slopes and go-karting—I could go on. People would then say, “I’m being told to stay at home but I can go and do all those things, so you don’t really mean that I should stay at home.” Quite apart from the fact that people congregate in those outdoor settings, we need to be really clear that the message now is, “Stay at home.”
Sir Charles Walker
I am pretty thick when it comes to logic. A person can go on their bicycle and that counts as exercise, but they cannot sit on their own, in a solitary way, on a riverbank. What is the problem with that?
Helen Whately
I do not believe that my hon. Friend is as he describes himself, but what I do think is quite clear. We are saying that people should stay at home, unless their reason for leaving home is on the very clear list of essential reasons for doing so. That covers the eligibility of the children of critical workers to be in school, healthcare appointments and, indeed, exercise. We really need to make sure that it is absolutely clear that, other than for those specific reasons, people should stay at home. That is what we need to do in order to control this raging virus. That is the message that all of us need to convey to our constituents.
Helen Whately
I have very little time and want to cover more of the points that have been raised, including by my hon. Friend.
As hon. Members have said, this national lockdown is different from previous lockdowns because we have the vaccine and the end is in sight. We have already vaccinated more than 1.3 million people. That includes the nearly one in four of those over 80 who have had their first jab. By the middle of February, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the top four priority group identified by JCVI—namely, care home residents and staff; people over 70; all frontline NHS and care staff; and the clinically extremely vulnerable. That answers the question posed by the shadow Health Secretary as to when NHS frontline staff will have the opportunity to be vaccinated, as they, together with social care staff, are in the group to be offered the vaccination by mid-February.
The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), asked how the vaccine will be offered. He will know that vaccination is not mandatory. We are educating, encouraging and informing people of the important reasons why they should step forward and have the vaccine. That is the way in which we are going about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) rightly said that we should stop at nothing to get people vaccinated, and I could not agree more. That is why my hon. Friend the vaccination deployment Minister is working with the NHS on getting millions of people vaccinated in just a matter of weeks, involving hospitals, GPs, community pharmacies and a workforce that includes thousands of volunteers, including health professionals returning to the frontline to play their part. As the Health Secretary confirmed earlier, we have already acted to reduce some of the bureaucracy and, in particular, some of the training models required for those NHS returners, so that we are ready to vaccinate as fast as the vaccine can be supplied.
I have heard several hon. Members call for more data on the vaccination roll-out. I assure them that weekly data will be published tomorrow, and the publication of daily data will start next week. That data will show our accelerating vaccination programme protecting more people day by day, so that in time we will be able to lift many of the restrictions before the House today.
In conclusion, there are difficult weeks ahead for all of us—especially for those working on the frontline in health and social care, whom we cannot thank enough—but we are on the final stretch with the end in sight, so we must keep our resolve and get behind these restrictions, which are needed to control the virus until the vaccine has reached those that it needs to. I commend the regulations to the House.
Question put.