Covid-19 Update and Hospitality Curfew

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We have put extra financial support into the north-east, and I thank people across the north-east for what they are doing to stick by the renewed and increased restrictions that we had to put in place earlier this week. The point the hon. Gentleman makes about people’s reduced inhibitions later at night is the critical one, and as I just mentioned to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, it is almost certainly true—I think this is one of the few things we know about this virus with great certainty—that transmission is much lower outside than inside, and that also helps with protecting people against this virus.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

My constituency thrives on hospitality, and many jobs are dependent on it. It is also low-incidence when it comes to the virus and high-compliance when it comes to the safety measures around being covid secure. My right hon. Friend said in his opening remarks that the second peak is highly localised. In that light, how quickly can we look to move to a more localised, regional approach to the 10 pm curfew?

[Matt Hancock]

We are taking a more localised approach to tackling this second peak than we did to the first, for two reasons. The first is that the evidence is that it is much more localised in terms of where the virus is concentrated. The second is that we know far more about where the virus is concentrated, but that extra information also tells us that the number of transmissions is much higher in hospitality than in many other settings—for instance, workplaces. That is why we have made the decision that we have, but the core of my hon. Friend’s point, which is that it is safer in places such as Eastbourne because there are fewer transmissions, is reasonable, and we keep all of this under review.