Covid-19 Update

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for correctly characterising our response to the epidemic as “the best compromise possible”. It is a compromise. We have competing demands on our strategy: we have to protect lives and the NHS, but we also have to be conscious of the economy and the livelihoods of people, and we have to look after our students and pupils. The package of measures being put forward by the Government is the best compromise we can make for this moment, and we are unashamed of that compromise.

But the noble Baroness is wrong when she says we do not have a strategy. The strategy is really clear; it is to suppress the virus and protect the economy and education until the vaccine and mass testing are ready. It may not feel like it now, but there are glimpses of sunlight in the distance. The vaccine and mass testing provide a strong opportunity for us to suppress the virus. The strategy that we have put in place, as the Prime Minister rightly described in his address to the nation, is a way to “get through the months” until we have those arms at our disposal.

Both the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, talked about the publication of data. I must confess that I have a genuine sense of confusion about that point, because we publish so much data. If there is one thing that this Government have got wrong, it is that we have published too much data too early. Too much has not been audited; too much has been put out as early as possible in our efforts to be transparent. Tomorrow, we will have a REACT survey; we will have an ONS survey; we will have test-and-trace data. There are SAGE minutes; there is NIHR; there is literally data coming out of every organisation of government. It is a fantastically huge amount of data. It is, I confess, extremely difficult to process all of that data all at once. The story it tells does chop and change at an amazingly fast rate—much faster than any experience I have ever had in my life. It is a rollercoaster that the Government have to ride.

I make no apology, however, for the fact that this Government have sought to act swiftly and to bring in measures quickly when the evidence has changed. In the last few weeks we have seen the latest example of that, where the infection rates have clearly lifted quickly in a way that was not expected, and we have had a discussion about that point in previous sessions in the Chamber. We have moved promptly to address the challenge that those worrying and concerning figures have presented to us.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of testing. I completely and utterly acknowledge the frustration of anyone who has not been able to get a test for themselves, for their child or for a loved one. It is true that we have more people wanting tests today than we have supply. However, I cannot avoid pointing out that—boy oh boy—we have come a long way since February, when we were doing 2,000 tests a day, to today, when we are doing 240,000 tests a day, and we are well on the way to doing 500,000 tests a day by October. Our aspiration is to do many times that within the near future.

That is not in any way to avoid the fact that I wish that we had more tests today. I want to convey to the House that this Government are 1,000% committed to answering the needs of this country for testing and have put every resource—human, technological, administrative and financial—behind the testing programme in order to deliver that promise.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of tone. I completely accept her point that the people of Britain have made a terrific sacrifice. There is no question at all of blaming the people of Britain, but we have to acknowledge that the spread of the virus indicates as a fact within itself that some people are not respecting the principles of social distance, hygiene and isolation, and we have to move in order to shore up the basic principles of this country and, by the way, of any country that is effectively fighting the virus—because, if we do not, the virus will sweep through the country.

I thought that the Prime Minister put that challenge very well, and in a way that a large majority of this Chamber would support. He said that the choice was before us: we could ask those who are vulnerable and older and shielded to simply lock the door and we could turn our backs on them. That is not the choice that this Government have made. They have made a choice to fight the virus at every level, because we love the people whom we care about; and it is a pragmatic choice, because if we find the virus growing in one part of our society, whether that is young people, health workers or the very young, then sure as night follows day, it will sweep through the rest of society.

I turn to the evidence on the curfew. This is a moment where I do not have the science at my fingertips. However, I have been in pubs and clubs after 10 o’clock enough times to know about the proximity and intimacy of late-night drinking, and I know that what happens then is not conducive to social distancing. This is a moment when plain common sense can tell you that a curfew will help to break the chain of transmission among young people. It is, unashamedly, a signal that we cannot go on like this and, in particular, that young people have to change their behaviours because the signs of infection are crystal clear. The prevalence among young people is too high, and we have to turn that corner.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about symptomatic and asymptomatic testing. The honest truth is that it is very difficult to tell; if someone is standing in a testing queue, we do not turn them away. By the way, in order to get a test, people do have to fill in a form, on which they are asked if they are symptomatic. What we do know from closer analysis and questionnaires is that a proportion of testees—between 20% and 25% at current rates—do not meet the strict criteria of our testing. I am grateful to the British public for beginning to show respect for the fact that every test counts, and for helping us direct them at the most needy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about domiciliary care, an issue that has been raised in this Chamber a few times. I reassure all those in the Chamber, including the noble Baroness, in answer to her specific questions: yes to PPE, yes to testing and, by the way, yes to new guidelines that help minimise contact and the number of patients seen by each itinerant domiciliary worker; and yes to substantial extra funds for the social care system, specifically to help social care avoid relying on people travelling from patient to patient.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about our relationships with local authorities and the local teams. I reassure her that we have moved a very, very long way in the last six months and that the picture she paints is understandable but out of date. We have come a huge way to share all of our insight, data, analysis and systems with local authorities, local directors of public health and local infection teams. Decisions on lockdowns now have a protocol whereby they are led by local teams after engagement with local civic groups and brought to the Secretary of State after they have been agreed at a local level.

Substantial sums—billions of pounds—have been given to local authorities to help them afford the kinds of local intervention that they choose to make in order to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged during the epidemic. Money is given to local authorities for PPE for the people that they decide need it. Community health is being supported within the NHS in order for communities to be given the support they need. Engagement with local civic groups and business leaders is at a level I have never seen in government before.

I will give one example in relation to contact tracing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, specifically asked about. In Leicester, money has been given to the local council for it to commission its own contact tracing, because we recognise that the local authority may well have the insights, cultural connections and sensitivities, and contacts needed for this kind of work. Therefore, we have provided financial and logistical support, and professional advice on how it can fill the gaps. We recognise that a national system cannot do everything, and that we have to be both national and local at the same time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, ended by talking about the public mood and her concerns that people are reaching a state of despair. I completely recognise the exhaustion that many people feel about the state of the epidemic. I particularly recognise the morale within the NHS and social care, where people have worked incredibly hard, often in circumstances and doing tasks that they did not originally sign up for, and the sacrifice that many people have made, whether they work in the healthcare system, are supporting people they love, cannot do the things they want or are isolated and on their own. Of course, lots of people have made massive sacrifices, but I do not recognise the world she describes.

I think the public largely support the steps taken by this Government to suppress the transmission of this virus. After all, it is the virus that is the enemy. In many respects, we have an incredibly united country in fighting that enemy. The way in which the British public have supported the regulations and guidelines, which have had a tough effect on many people’s lives, demonstrates a huge amount of support. No Government —and certainly not this Government—will stretch that beyond what is tolerable. I posit to the Chamber that, to date, that support is still in place, and I remain extremely grateful for it.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. As ever, I ask that the questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

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[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Absolutely not, my Lords. I pay tribute to British manufacturers, which have come an enormous distance—everyone from high-end manufacturers such as Burberry to those which once made recycled bin bags and have now turned their factories over to producing aprons and other important PPE articles. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Deighton, who has done an enormous amount to generate interest among British manufacturers of all kinds in order to support British PPE production. However, we have to have a balance to this. Some specialist goods, such as gloves, are best made elsewhere, but having the capacity and expertise to make 50% of our PPE means that we now have a route to making it all if necessary.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

The last question is from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to hear that there are 30 million doses of flu vaccine. I remind the House of my interest with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. How and when will the flu vaccine reach doctors’ and GPs’ surgeries? My noble friend will be aware that PPE will presumably have to be worn for the dispensing of each dose of flu vaccine, which means that the vaccination will be administered at a loss to dispensing doctors and others. That does not seem sustainable. Is that an issue that my noble friend will be able to address?