Covid-19

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate for the Opposition. It is an important debate, though a solemn one: 589 deaths of our countrymen and countrywomen were reported yesterday, having perished from this virus. The total official number of deaths from covid is now more than 50,000, but the real figure is likely to be much higher. Those are big numbers, but behind each number is a person and a grieving family. All our thoughts are with them.

It is important and appreciated that the Government continue to give Government time in this place for the consideration of covid. Often—we understand this—the Government need to act swiftly to tackle the virus, but it is crucial that we get parliamentary opportunities to scrutinise their actions. I hope that we find the Government in listening mode, because we could do much to improve the current response.

In that spirit, I turn first to test and trace. Test and trace is important for two reasons: first, it is our best weapon to break the chain of transmission, and secondly, it is the part of the process that the Government have the greatest control over. Of course, the behaviour of the public is paramount, and it is critical that we guide them as best we can, but eventually it becomes a matter of personal responsibility. Test and trace, however, we have direct control of—we have control over the implementation and the commissioning.

Let us start with the good news. We recognise and welcome the overall volume of capacity developed by the Government, which the Minister talked about. That was done from scratch, and it is a very good thing indeed. However, that is as far as the good news goes, because the rest of the system is simply not delivering.

I was concerned that the Minister talked about testing but did not talk about tracing or isolation, because the system is failing, not on my terms or on political barriers put up by me or my colleagues, but on the Government’s own terms. The Prime Minister promised test results within 24 hours by the end of June. The current figure is 37.6%. That is a failure on the Government’s own terms. I hope that the Postmaster General will say when the 100% target will be reached.

On tracing, the Government say that of those with the virus, 80% of their close contacts must be reached for the system to be effective. Last week, it was 60%. It has never been at 80%; it has bumped along, frankly, in the 50s and 60s throughout. For last week, that represents 126,000 people who ought to have self-isolated but did not, simply because they did not know that they were supposed to. Each of them is walking around unaware, working as usual, living as allowed by regulations, and in close contact with goodness knows how many people. Again, that is a failure on the Government’s own terms. Tomorrow, we will get the latest weekly figures. Do we expect performance to have reached that 80%? I do not. I raise this issue every day, whether in the Chamber, online, in the media or, frankly, to anyone who will listen. That is because the failure of the system is the root of our loss of control of this virus.

If this debate follows the patterns of previous ones, we will hear contributions from Government Back Benchers critical of the symptoms of that loss of control—damage to the economy, delayed or cancelled healthcare, restricted civil liberties. Those are all exceptionally important symptoms, but I cannot understand why we do not hear greater concerned scrutiny of the cause of the problems, which is the failing system. I hope that those Members will join us in pressing the Government to do better, not because of the politics—on this occasion, I could not care less about that, frankly—but because this is a hole beneath the water line when it comes to tackling the virus. Nothing will truly get better until this gets better.

The final weak link in the chain is about isolation. Even if all elements of the system over which the Government have direct control work flawlessly, the enterprise will fail if the person at the end of the process does not isolate when supposed to. The Prime Minister has bemoaned that issue previously, which I suspect is part of his attempts to shift the blame on to other people—'twas ever thus. In reality, however, even before the pandemic, too many people were just getting by on low wages and insecure work. People were in work but in poverty, and forced, hour by hour, to earn that poverty. Now they are being told to forego even that income in favour of sick pay. That might be the right thing to do to beat covid-19, but people do not know how to isolate and feed their family at the same time.

The Health and Social Care Secretary himself said that he could not live off statutory sick pay, and it took seven months until the £500 stipend came in. The Prime Minister thought that the stipend was weekly—it is not, and it is still not enough. Until we change the situation so that those who have least in our country, and who often work in frontline jobs where they are more likely to contract the virus, do not have to choose between the national effort and financial reality for their family, we will not get people isolating in the numbers we need.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Gentleman is making a good point, and the 60-something-per cent. success rate of the national system is deeply regrettable. As in many other parts of the country, Cumbria public health has been far more successful, with a 97% success rate. However, because of a flaw in the system, if someone is contacted by Cumbria public health, they are not able to get the isolation grant. That is preventing many people from making the choices that they need to make to keep everybody safe, while also putting food on the table. Does he agree that the Government need to answer calls from the director of public health in Cumbria, and ensure that those who are contacted and asked to isolate by that body get that grant?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman gives a concerning example that shows how the system is struggling in general. I hope that the Minister will address that issue when she winds up the debate, and I will refer more directly to local authority public health shortly.

I do not want to carp on about what is not working without providing any solutions, so I come armed with three things that Ministers could do at a stroke of their collective pens that would radically improve test and trace in short order. First, we must better use NHS lab capacity to turn tests around. I very much welcome what the Minister said about megalabs, which we have eagerly anticipated for some months. However, there has been a large gap in which we have not had that lab capacity, and we will not have it for some time yet. In the meantime, let us put our NHS lab capacity to use in getting tests turned around.

Secondly, we should give control and resources to local authorities to run the tracing operation. They know our communities and already have a local presence. They are a trusted voice and, crucially, they do this routinely. They do this already. Admittedly, that is on a smaller scale—perhaps related to an outbreak of food poisoning linked to a takeaway—but they do it effectively. Let us support them to do it fully. Thirdly, we must develop a proper package of support for those who need to isolate—that is self-evident. Those three things could be done immediately, and we would all be better off if they were.

We have seen the consequence of failure and of a test and trace system that is struggling, and that is another lockdown. This time last year we were banging on doors in the cold and the rain, and none of us supported the lockdown because we want to keep family members away from each other, or to shut businesses in our community or anybody else’s. However, the failure to break the transmission rate of the virus leads us there.

There are two important things that I wish the Government would communicate more. This is not a choice between lockdown and the economy; it is not a choice between lockdown and non-covid healthcare treatment in the NHS. We must have the lockdown for those purposes, and the longer we delay putting restrictions in place, the worse are the long-term impacts on our economy. If we do not introduce regulations to reduce the transmission of the virus, the greater are the pressures on our hospitals, and the less likely they are to be able do other treatments. Those things are not in tension; they are very much complementary.

The failures of test and trace may have led us to a lockdown, but that lockdown buys us time to sort out problems in the system. We must see progress. Lockdowns alone will not tackle or eradicate the virus, but they buy us time to put in place the things that do. We have now had two weeks of lockdown, but we have not heard about what is improving in the test and trace system, or what will be better, including in the next two weeks. Ministers really need to say this today, so we can be sure and confident that the time is being used wisely. Otherwise, when we leave lockdown, this will all recur again, something that none of us wants.

We are all very wary of Christmas. Depending on which newspaper Members read, they may have woken up yet again to see that the Government’s plans, this time regarding yuletide festivities, had been briefed out to national newspapers. Putting aside the discourtesy to the Speaker and Deputy Speakers, to all of us and to this place in general, that is all well and good, but those plans are only going to be feasible if the right efforts are put in place now and this time is used wisely.

It also ought to be stated that this lockdown is longer and more painful than it needed to be because, once again, the Government acted too slowly. The scientists told them they needed to lock down, as did we, but for two weeks the Prime Minister disregarded reality, which meant that the situation worsened. That has meant that the lockdown will be longer and harder, and also meant that we lost the benefits of the school holidays. These are mistakes that cannot be repeated in the future.

As we exit lockdown, the Government need to be honest with the British people—not in off-the-record briefings to mates in the media, but to the British people—about what will come next, both at Christmas and in the return to a tiered system. I know from our experience in Nottingham that trying to negotiate restrictions was painful, even when we wanted them at the beginning of October as our infection rates increased precipitously. We could not get the initial restrictions we wanted, because the Government were moving to the tiered system and it did not fit their timeline. We then managed to get into the tiered system at tier 2; the next day, the Government said that they wanted us to move into tier 3 and were going to call us, which they did not for a further week. Eventually, we had the painful negotiations about what that actually meant for Nottingham: we brought those restrictions in on the Friday, and by the Saturday, the national lockdown had leaked out. The system has not worked for Nottingham, so we need to know that in any return to a tiered system, the Government are going to work much more quickly and in a more agile manner. Every day wasted is a day when the virus thrives, so we need to be better upon exit.

Turning to the vaccine, we strongly welcome the Government’s efforts in this area: they were right to pre-order doses across a wide portfolio, and they were also right to back British. With our excellent research and our proud record in this area, we should be in the vanguard of it, and patriotic about our efforts to tackle this global issue. Last week, I responded on behalf of the Opposition in an excellent Westminster Hall debate on the covid-19 vaccine, secured by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), the day after the news broke that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had achieved success in a phase 3 study. Since then, we have heard similarly positive news about the NIH-Moderna vaccine candidate, which is likely to be followed by other candidates, whether that of the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, the candidate referenced by the Minister, or candidates developed elsewhere. I understand that overnight, there have been further promising developments for a Chinese candidate.

During that debate, colleagues and I raised the challenges and considerations that need to be addressed to make sure that this is handled and executed well. I will not repeat those contributions in the level of detail we went into then—they are on the record in Hansard for people to read. However, the theme was that we cannot repeat the slowness or logistical challenges that we saw early in the pandemic with regard to the procurement of personal protective equipment and testing: no Nottingham people being sent to Llandudno or Inverness for their healthcare this time, please, Minister.

As we have done throughout the pandemic, we on the Opposition Benches will work constructively with the Government to support viable vaccines being secured, ensure the right groups are being prioritised, develop an effective delivery programme, counter vaccine hesitancy—that is critical—and continue to support these efforts globally. A failure on any of those points will undermine the whole process, so it is absolutely crucial that we come together, and I am sure that Ministers will welcome that.

However, I want to briefly reference a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) made regarding the NAO report. Again, we understand—as that report did—that the Government were having to do things that would normally take 18 months’ worth of planning in hours and days, and that comes with some efficiency trade-offs. However, we did not hear clearly enough in the Minister’s opening statement a sense that that has been reflected upon, and we did not hear what will be different in future to make sure those mistakes are not repeated.

[Karin Smyth]

I appreciate my hon. Friend having picked up on the point I made. The Minister very carefully read out a statement in reply to my question about the Government’s response to the NAO report. I am concerned that she was saying that the Government stand by what they did in that period, and do not think that the way in which those contracts and large procurement processes were handled was a problem. It may be that the Minister wants to correct the record, but if that is the case, does my hon. Friend agree that that is deeply worrying?

[Alex Norris]

I heard the point that the test had been clear that nothing wrong had been done, which, frankly, is a very low bar. I do not think anybody would say that there was nothing that happened in the early procurement phases that we would not perhaps want to change or do better later. I hope that the Paymaster General in winding up might reflect on that.

Perhaps this is the best place to say that the announcement on long covid will be very much welcomed by a lot of people, including my good friend Jo Platt who has been campaigning on this for many months, as well as living with her long covid. This is a story for lots of people up and down the country, across all our constituencies, who are living with the after-effects of this horrible virus over and over again. The act of knowing that they are being heard, as well as the 40 clinics, will be a real tonic to a great number of people, so we very much welcome that.

I turn to inequalities. At the beginning of the pandemic, we talked about the virus being a great leveller, not distinguishing between us depending on our lives, our jobs and our postcodes, but nine months on we know that to be patently untrue. Sixty per cent. of those who died were living with disabilities. Those of Bangladeshi heritage are twice as likely to die as those who are white British. Those of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and black Caribbean ethnicities are 10% to 15% more likely to die than I am. Mortality rates in the most deprived communities are more than twice those of the least deprived communities. This pandemic has shone a light on our inequalities, whether that means the inequality in work, in housing or in income, and these inequalities have had tragic consequences for some and, in the aggregate, are catastrophic for all of us.

When we beat this virus, which together we will, what comes out of it must be a fair settlement that recognises these inequalities as bad and tackles them head-on. That is why it is already concerning to see again—of course, leaked to national newspapers—that the overseas aid budget is the first on the chopping block. In 2010, the Government chose to target those who had the least to pay for a crisis that they did not cause, and these reports are a sign that maybe this is the plan again. We will not let them repeat this in 2020. It simply would be hugely unjust.

Before I finish, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our incredible NHS and social care staff for all they have done for us. They are truly the best of Britain. Similarly, the pandemic has revealed the key workers all over our communities and all over our economy, so this week, during Respect for Shopworkers Week, I would like to say a special thank you to those working in our shops, keeping us fed, but still facing rising violence and abuse every day. The Government should take better action to protect you—the Government could, of course, adopt my private Member’s Bill and I encourage them to do so—but whether it is that or through another mechanism, we will fight for you until they do.

In conclusion, now more than ever we must stand together as a country, as families and as communities, and show once again that at a moment of national crisis, the British people always rise to the challenge, support those who need it and pull together. That involves not only recognising successes, but assertively tackling the failures that have held us back during the pandemic. If we address these, we will beat this virus.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We will begin with a time limit of six minutes.