Public Health

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

May I preface my remarks by saying that I accept that we are in a serious situation? It is worse in some areas than in others, but hospital admissions are rising across the country, albeit that improved treatments mean that fewer people, as a percentage, are progressing from admission through to intensive care units, and fewer people as a proportion are dying as a result of the virus. Therefore, some of the pressure, I understand, is on general beds more than on ICU.

In this context, restrictions may be necessary. We should certainly all take personal responsibility, and I share my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary’s enthusiasm for an effective and rapid vaccination programme. But that does not absolve this House of its responsibility to protect the liberties of the British people or to hold the Government to account. Neither of those things would be consistent with approving regulations that would allow a full lockdown to be in place for the next three months, to 31 March. Today, both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have given me reassuring words that they do not want that, but the regulations give the power to decide that to the Government, not to this House. I urge the Secretary of State again to reconsider and see whether he might be able to promise a further vote at the end of January and at the end of February, so that this House will decide whether these extreme controls remain in place for that long, not the Government.

I share the concerns of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) about getting schools back as soon as realistically possible. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows that I have considerable concerns about the fundamental human rights that are being taken away under these measures, including the right to see our children or grandchildren. These really are the most basic rights, and are now to be taken away for up to a year for some people. These points are critical, but I will not repeat them.

Finally, let me say to the Secretary of State that people will tolerate restrictions where they can see a genuine rationale—some common sense—behind them. I return to some of the questions that I was asking back in the spring, during the first lockdown. Why does it make sense that I can buy flowers in a supermarket, but an open-air market cannot sell them? Why is it illegal to go out for a walk on my own twice in the same day? And why, when it is legal for two members of the same household to take a walk across a golf course, is it illegal for them to play golf while they are doing it?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Sir Graham Brady]

Will the Minister give way?

[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.