Covid-19: Update

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for the Statement made in the Commons yesterday. I pay tribute again from these Benches for the amazing work of all the NHS staff and volunteers in delivering the vaccine to so many millions of people. However, as the chief medical and scientific advisers have repeated many times in recent weeks, the virus is still among us, creating new strains and threatening our recovery in the UK. It is therefore vital that the Government continue as we emerge from this lockdown to be led by data, not dates.

It is clearly right to add India to the red list. In the UK we have deep ties and bonds with India of course, but it was the correct thing to do in the circumstances and it is also right that the Prime Minister should postpone his visit. Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which have lower rates than India, have been on the list since 9 April so I wonder why it took so long to add India.

Can the Minister update the House on the presence of all three new variants identified—the Indian, Brazilian and South African—and their presence and spread in the UK? Indeed, can he update the House about the global co-ordination of surveillance of the new variants?

With regard to protecting our borders, this week Hong Kong identified 47 Covid cases on a single flight from Delhi. Before the Friday deadline there will be hundreds of people arriving on flights from India. Is this not very risky?

Even with high levels of vaccination across the population, there will be significant groups who are not vaccinated—children, for example—so the virus will be endemic. As the Chief Medical Officer has recently confirmed, papers from SAGE model a third wave this summer. How do we avoid that?

The poorest and lowest paid in the most insecure jobs do not isolate as they should because they cannot afford to do so. From these Benches we have pointed out time and again that one way to ensure self-isolation—and therefore help the Government tackle this—would be to pay higher sick pay and expand its scope. Will this happen?

There is no mention in the Statement of vaccine passports. Does the Minister anticipate that they will soon be needed for football games and concerts?

I regret that we need to turn to the media stories about lobbying and the revelations in the Sunday Times regarding the former Prime Minister acting on behalf of Greensill and the payday financing scheme. As my right honourable friend Jon Ashworth said in the Commons yesterday:

“This was not an act of altruism to staff in a pandemic but an investment plan to package up loans to sell to investors, with the former Prime Minister, not nurses, in line for a payday windfall. Cameron wrote in one of his emails: ‘As you can imagine, Matt Hancock’ is ‘extremely positive about this innovative offer.’”—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/21; col. 659.]


What was being sought was a partnership with NHS Shared Business Services, which is jointly owned by the department, to access the personal and financial data of thousands of NHS staff for their electronic records for commercial gain. I expect the move would next be to the social care sector. We know that at least 30 trusts may have spent valuable time considering the adoption of this untested payday lending scheme as a result of the lobbying by Mr Cameron. Can the Minister ensure that publication of all the text messages, emails and correspondence with David Cameron will happen? Can the Minister tell the House how many NHS leaders and officials Mr Cameron and Mr Greensill lobbied and met? How many NHS trusts in total were approached about this expensive—and, indeed, unneeded —scheme? Even today, we see further allegations of contracts being granted without proper scrutiny and governance, following the Secretary of State’s own links with Topwood. Questions about conflicts of interest are inevitable.

Apart from the issue about pay levels in the NHS which might necessitate such a scheme, can the Minister accept that NHS staff deserve a pay rise and support, not payday loan apps forced on the NHS by speculators trying to make money out of the pandemic? What is his view of this? Does he appreciate that honesty, probity and transparency are directly linked to people’s acceptance of and adherence to the rules we have all obeyed for many months to beat this pandemic?

Last year, a former Conservative chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Feldman—who was running a lobbying firm with healthcare clients—acted as an unpaid adviser to the Minister himself. When I was a Minister I was told that one must not only be scrupulous and transparent in one’s dealings but that one should not do anything that could be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

I hope the Minister will not just get angry as he has in the past and say it is all not true and how hard everyone is working to get the pandemic under control—everyone knows how hard he and the public servants are working—as he will be missing the point. The point is about the reputation and standing of government, democracy and accountability. Does he believe it would be a good thing for the Government to reflect on the Nolan principles of public life, particularly with regard to recent procurement processes, and the lessons that might be learnt?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I add my tributes from these Benches to all those who continue to work well above and beyond the call of duty in all areas to do with managing the Covid pandemic. This includes the vaccination teams, the invisible workers—the scientists working in labs and all those who we do not see on a daily basis—as well as our overtired doctors, nurses and other clinical healthcare workers, and those in social care who are still taking remarkable precautions.

It is worth noting despite the reduction in cases, hospital cases and deaths that daily cases are still double the level that they were at the lifting of lockdown 1, so it is good that the Government are not speeding things up. We need to continue to move carefully and steadily, as later parts of the Statement talking about the India and South African variants give cause for some concern. It is also reassuring to see that uptake of the vaccine is excellent. However, the Statement is silent on when all adults will have been offered the second vaccine. That is important because, as scientists constantly remind us, two doses are needed. Focusing only on the first vaccine is giving the vast majority of the public overconfidence about protection. If people want to go on holiday, one dose of the vaccine will not be enough, whether that holiday is in the UK or abroad.

That leads also to those who are immune-suppressed and to those under 18, because until all are safe, none are safe. Can the Minister say if there is any news on the OCTAVE clinical trials on the ability of those who are immune-suppressed to make and retain antibodies? Those formerly shielding—including me—still need to avoid mixing with people. They are still waiting for news to see if they can relax, even after two doses of the vaccine.

What is the news for children? I understood that the trials on over-12s had been halted following the blood clot issue with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Is that still the case? What are the long-term plans to ensure that our under-12s and, indeed, our under-18s are safe? The Statement says that:

“The vaccine is our way out of this pandemic”.


Not on its own, it is not. We must continue to test, trace and isolate to keep people safe. The Government are to be applauded for the large number of lateral flow tests because they are useful, but they are not as effective as PCR tests for really tracking the virus.

Had I not been unable to do so, I would have loved to have been at Wembley on Sunday supporting my team, which, sadly, lost to Leicester. I would have been delighted to have been part of a testing arrangement to see what happens, but other fans have said that they were only asked to be tested in advance and that there is no testing afterwards. Is that correct? In other words, how detailed is this testing for moving back into normal life going to be?

I am a member of the All-Party Group on Coronavirus, and this morning we heard from scientists who are bemused that immediate contacts of those who test positive are still not routinely PCR tested, which all the countries with a truly effective test and trace system operate. That is vital with the high percentage of people with Covid still having no symptoms, so they would believe that there is no reason for them to be tested, and it is particularly important with the information about the spread of the variants from South Africa and India.

I have family who live in Wandsworth. This time last week, as the announcement about mass testing across Lambeth and Wandsworth was made, we were told that everyone in those areas would be publicly informed. Three days later, not only had my son heard nothing, but he walked past a newly set up testing site a few hundred metres from his house, went in, and discovered that he did need to be tested. So, he and my daughter-in-law had their tests. It transpires that the only notification from Wandsworth Council before the weekend was a tweet, with none of the mechanisms used elsewhere such as texts via GPs, posters up in the street, word of mouth, or even leaflets. How on earth can that be real surge testing if only a small percentage of the population see a handful of tweets?

On the India variant, scientists also told the APPG this morning that the estimated figure of 103 cases was considerably lower than the likely number of cases circulating because only 10% to 15% of positive lateral-flow swabs are sent on to laboratories where they are scanned for variants. This might mean that the actual number is 10 to 20 times the official estimate. This brings us full circle, back to test, trace and isolate. Even with vaccines, it is vital to have an effective test, trace and isolate system to keep people safe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, outlined, adding India to the red list but giving people three-and-a-half days’ notice before implementing it, means that a large number of cases are likely to slip into the country. Even if they are caught through positive testing, we are unlikely to have a real sense of the actual number of cases.

This follows on from the concern that we from these Benches have had about successful self-isolation and quarantining for a year. The APPG heard evidence this morning that demonstrated that arrangements at our borders, particularly in airports, are not Covid safe, either for travellers or staff, and they risk becoming breeding grounds. This now needs to include effectively separately passengers who arrive from red-list countries from those who arrive from others, and ensuring that all quarantine rules are observed. We heard evidence that people were leaving their quarantine hotels early, and that others, quarantining at home because they did not come from red-list countries, were being forced to use public transport to get to testing centres for their day eight tests. Worse, border staff are discovering around 100 fake Covid test certificates daily, and there are probably many more. If that does not signify a real worrying standard for the possibility of vaccine passports, I do not know what does. When will a proper test, trace and isolate system be put in place that includes immediate contacts and more lateral-flow tests being tested for variants, along with vital, proper, paid arrangements for self-isolation, including quarantining and proper separation in the transport arrangements for those coming from abroad?

Finally, I will spend just one minute on Greensill. It is not just Greensill: we need desperately to see full publication of all meetings and correspondence—informal and formal—that Ministers have had regarding all contracts, whether it is payday loans, PPE or testing arrangements. This also includes the new quarantining partners; the Health Secretary said on Monday that two have already been sacked, having been in place only for a short time. It is vital that the smell-test on all these contracts is evident and sure.