Government Response to Covid-19

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles.

I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr Drax) for securing this important debate. All of us here today are saddened that we are heading into another lockdown without the Government having done everything in their power to limit the loss of lives and infections in this second wave. I worry that thousands of lives will be lost and that our health and social care sectors will be pushed to breaking point once again. While I commend the Government for listening to the Opposition and to SAGE and for following the science, I am concerned that it has come a little too late.

We are here to discuss the Government’s effectiveness in dealing with the crisis, and I would not be telling the truth if I did not say that the Government have fallen short in navigating us effectively through the crisis. But here we are, and I look forward to working collaboratively with all Members in the House to move forward and mitigate the worst of what is to come.

The Government have rightly said that the NHS will get whatever it takes to deal with covid-19, and I am sure that the hon. Member for South Dorset agrees that it should be the same for the social care sector. It is imperative that weekly testing of care home residents and staff is prioritised in order to save many lives. As I speak about my friends and colleagues in the health and social care sector, I am sure that the hon. Member for South Dorset would like to join me in paying tribute to all the frontline workers who have put their lives on the line during the pandemic.

Statistics show that 1,320 healthcare workers have died from covid. One life lost is too many and 1,320 represents a dereliction of duty on our behalf. Delays in the early stages of the pandemic meant that healthcare workers were forced to work without the requisite PPE. Staff with pre-existing conditions are still working, despite evidence showing that they are more likely to die, or become very ill, from the disease. The sacrifices that they have made makes it incredibly painful that our nurses and colleagues in the social care sector are not being paid a fair wage. There are about 759 nurses living in my constituency who will be expected to work during the deadly second wave. One way this Government can show us that they value the work of our nurses is by increasing their pay now. It is unfathomable that nurses should still have to wait until April to receive better pay for the important work that they do.

As for social care staff, I hope that the hon. Member for South Dorset will agree that those on the minimum wage should also receive increased pay. A pay rise will not compensate them for the missed birthdays, school plays and other memories not shared with their loved ones, but it will give them—nurses and social care workers—dignity in their work and help them to provide for their families, which is help that they deserve.

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will join me in asking the Government to ensure that just three things happen: first, that healthcare workers do not run out of personal protective equipment; secondly, that they receive a pay increase; and, thirdly, that healthcare and social care staff with pre-existing medical conditions are better protected and shielded during the second wave.

As I said, it is really important for us to learn the lessons of the first wave and to work together for all our constituents.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We are now going to try to keep colleagues to five minutes.

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[Richard Drax]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. It will have to be quick, otherwise we will run out of time.

[Richard Drax]

This is devolve and divide. Would it not be wise for the Government not to go down the mayoral route in the future for other areas of the country?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I absolutely agree. This is something that historians will be looking over for many years to come. We have to learn from these mistakes during the national crisis.

We have a very low infection rate in Shropshire in comparison with other parts of the United Kingdom. We are a large rural county that is very spread out. Salopians—people from Shropshire—have been following the rules, but as a result of what has been going on in other parts of the United Kingdom, we now have a lockdown, which will have devastating consequence for many of our businesses. I will be voting for the legislation on Wednesday, but I am sure, Sir Charles, that you have listened to your constituents and many small businesses, which have put so much energy and effort into creating livelihoods. So much is at risk now, and it really pains me to see that suffering.

As I said earlier, I am proud of the fact that when we came to office we reduced the annual structural deficit that we inherited from Labour from £152 billion to £20 billion a year. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset will remember the vilification to which we have been subjected for the past 10 years, with talk of savage Tory cuts and austerity. My goodness me, at a time when we are borrowing more than £200 billion, when we have a debt ratio of more than 103% of GDP, when we are already spending £53 billion of taxpayers’ money on debt interest and when the crisis has not even finished, I dread to think of the economic situation that we would now be in if we had followed the policies of the now suspended former Labour leader and gone for massive borrowing when we did not have a crisis.

I want to ask the Minister about something that a Conservative candidate in the forthcoming local elections has asked. Mrs Susan Coleman wants confirmation that everything is being done for ladies who are pregnant so that when they go through the process in hospital, their partners are given covid tests as quickly as possible and can be present throughout the whole process of giving birth to the child.

Finally, the leader of the Conservative group in Shrewsbury Town Council wants me to ask what happens if the R rate falls below 1 during this lockdown. Will it be possible for it to be lifted sooner than 2 December?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Hunt will get 5 minutes if Mr Green takes just 5 minutes and colleagues do not intervene on him, and then everybody will be treated fairly.

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[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much, Mr Green. Last but not least, Tom Hunt.

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[Daniel Kawczynski]

You always run out of other people’s money.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Alison Thewliss]

It is all of our money. The Member talks about other people’s money. It is all of our money. We all pay in and we all deserve to have things when we need them. Part of the situation we are in is because of that. I shall wind up, Sir Charles, because I can see the clock.

There is much talk of scientists and different scientific opinions, and that is fine. Scientists are the experts in many ways on this. We should not judge them too harshly, because we have been finding out more all the time. Those scientists have the experience and qualifications that most of us in this room do not. We can have our opinions on which scientists we want to believe, but in the end we have to take the best possible evidence, do the best we can, and try to prevent any more people from losing their lives to coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Ms Hayes, if you take 10 minutes and the front Bench takes 10 minutes, Mr Drax will get two minutes at the end and we will have landed this thing perfectly.

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[Helen Hayes]

I am afraid that I will not, as time is short. The consistent pattern across the world is that the countries with the highest levels of coronavirus infections also have the worst economic impacts. The two are linked. An effective approach to infection control is also protective of the economy. The tragic reality is that the UK has both the highest number of deaths of any European country and the deepest economic recession of any G7 country. The key question at this point is why the Government’s response has been riddled with so many failures. The UK entered the pandemic with a PPE stockpile which had been depleted and without emergency supply chains in place, leaving health and social care workers unprotected at the frontline of infection control. Despite the horrific data and dire warnings from Italy, Spain and France—and the knowledge that the pandemic in the UK was running just weeks behind them—the Government were too slow to introduce the first lockdown.

When faced with the challenge of PPE and ventilator procurement, and the need to establish a test, trace and isolate system, the Government instinctively turned to outsourcing companies—many without any proven track record of delivering the goods and services required but, on too many occasions, with strong links to the Tory party—instead of looking to public services. Documents leaked this week reveal Cabinet Office contacts and others were helping VIPs sell PPE to the Government outside normal procurement channels. Contact tracing—the critical tool in preventing infection spread—was suspended in mid-March, at which point the Government lost control of the virus. Since it started again, the privatised Serco test and trace system has entirely failed to reach the baseline hurdle of reliable—still less the promise of world-beating—while much more effective contact tracing has been done by hard pressed local public health teams.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) highlighted issues around compliance. Yet in failing to hold his closest adviser, Dominic Cummings, to the same rules that he had ordered the public to obey, the Prime Minister himself undermined public trust and confidence in his approach, confirming in the minds of residents across the country that we are not all in this together. For months, the social care sector was left entirely abandoned, without PPE or access to testing, but was forced to accept patients who were covid positive, resulting in huge numbers of tragic, avoidable deaths. Unlike in Wales, social care workers in England are not entitled to full sick pay if they need to self-isolate, forcing many to choose between health and safety and putting food on the table. Now the Chancellor has increased the tax on PPE by reinstating 20% VAT, affecting people buying face masks. Why have the Government introduced a mask tax in the second wave of a pandemic?

The Government were warned weeks ago that a short, sharp circuit break would be effective in limiting infection spread and mitigating the impact of a second wave. If anybody has any doubt about the need for that, I invite them to make—as I did just a week ago—a visit to their local hospital, to see how exhausted staff still feel coming into this second wave. When we talk about the need to protect our NHS, we are talking about those staff being overwhelmed by the numbers of patients who are so sick and who they have to treat. But when Labour called for a short, sharp circuit break, the Prime Minister ridiculed the idea, and the Chancellor doubled down to block it. It is clear that the delay has cost both lives and livelihoods, and has deepened the scars to our economy. We now face a much harder lockdown with a far higher cost, because the Government have once again acted far too late.

While the Government have our support for the additional measures this week, their response to this deadly pandemic has been characterised by a lack of preparedness, dither and delay, prioritising who they know over who is best placed to deliver, and failing to heed and act on the advice of scientists. Families and communities across the country are paying a devastatingly high price for their incompetence.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Paymaster General, could you leave two minutes at the end for the proposer of the debate? Thank you.