Coronavirus Update

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He and I are passionately of one voice on this—as, I think, is the whole House. The Government will recommend a vaccine only when it is known to be safe and effective. We will then need to administer that vaccine, and for people to have confidence in it. People who propagate untrue myths about vaccines are putting lives at risk—that is true of the measles jab and other jabs, and it is true in this case too.

The social media companies have an important responsibility. They have taken some action already, and I pay tribute to them for that; in fact, I have a meeting later this week with a Mr Nick Clegg, who is in a position of responsibility at Facebook, but it is not only Facebook and Instagram that have taken action. We will be discussing what more action can be taken to make sure that people who are propagating lies about vaccines do not manage to spread those lies.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Nobody has worked harder than my right hon. Friend to try to save lives and protect people throughout this pandemic, but I know that he, like me, would like a safe and fast economic recovery, so can he please clarify something for my constituents? I have wedding events organisers and business meeting organisers who are genuinely asking what the difference is between a restaurant, which can safely socially distance with perhaps 60 covers, and a wedding, which is allowed only 30 people, who are also socially distancing with all the motivation to do so. Is there some health reason for that, or is it simply a straightforward matter of trying to reduce the return to economic activity?

[Matt Hancock]

No. This is essentially a judgment about ensuring that people have the appropriate social distancing, with, of course, the maximum possible return to economic and social life. There is a judgment to be made about where such restrictions are put; they are the sort of restrictions that nobody would ever want to put in place, but the problem is that the virus thrives on exactly the sort of social contact that people want to undertake when they are celebrating something like a wedding.

We cannot negotiate with the virus; all we can do is try to have the right balance of measures to keep the spread of the virus down while allowing the restoration of economic and social life. Ultimately, the rules we put in place are judgments, and they are the best judgments we can make with the information available. We keep them under constant review—as I hope my right hon. Friend has seen, for instance, with the reopening of nail bars and beauty salons this week—just as we keep the data on the spread of the virus under review.