Government Response to Covid-19

Chris Green Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax]

I have heard that. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will come on to more statistics later, although they are not always helpful.

I was interested in a recent article written by The Telegraph’s Ross Clark in which he asked whether anyone had been able to read the small print at the bottom of the graph, which states:

“These are scenarios—not predictions or forecasts.”

He added that it was odd that there was no source listing for the graphs. I would think that the best guide to future deaths is numbers of infections, but even those are a difficult yardstick as they are falling in some parts of the country and rising in others. It is also important to acknowledge that the more we test, the higher the infection rate. It is encouraging that the death rate has halved as effective treatments have come into play. Let us not forget Professor Neil Ferguson’s dire warning in March of 250,000 deaths. The truth is that—my hon. Friend has hinted at it—predictions, modelling, forecasts and scenarios change, and with them the Government’s policy. What is that exactly? The modus operandi appears to be a roller coaster ride of lockdowns and release until a vaccine is found. But why, when we have a virus with a 99% survival rate? Last month the virus was the 19th most common cause of death. Have we overreacted? Yes, I think we have. A draconian, onerous and invasive set of rules and regulations now govern our very existence. Lord Sumption calls it a form of house arrest, and I concur. Interestingly, he also points out a section in the minutes of SAGE, the body advising the Government, where behavioural scientists advise the Government that

“Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.”

Instead, unfortunately for all of us, coercion was selected.

This interference in our personal freedoms has not been seen since the war. Imagine then if we had predicted the human cost; we would have surrendered immediately. I am 62 and I cannot recall a moment in our proud island history when our nation has been so cowed, to the extent that it is now. Today, a police officer can issue a fixed penalty notice of £10,000 to those “involved” in a gathering exceeding 30 people. Initially aimed at raves, that power has now been used for other purposes. That and other draconian rules, such as the 10pm curfew and the rule of six, further enhance the sense of oppression.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the rationale and reasoning for the rule of six and the 10 pm curfew have not been backed up with evidence?

[Richard Drax]

The good reason why a few of us voted against those measures was that there was no evidence to support them.

The 10 pm curfew only further destroyed the hospitality sector, while the rule of six broke up families. I cannot think of a modern crisis in which family and families are more essential and more important. Surely, their support is common sense, despite the risks. It is for them to make decisions about who they see and when, not the Government.

Depressingly, we have been warned that this lockdown might go on after 2 December, putting family gatherings at Christmas at risk. Nowhere in the debate, as far as I can recall, have we heard the word “risk”. The reason, I fear, is that we have become risk averse. Personally, I think that has made the sleepwalk into an invasion of our civil liberties even easier.

All appears to hang on the introduction of a vaccine, but the history of vaccines does not bring much comfort. An all-out effort is being made to create a vaccine, but how effective will it be? Who will it help? When will we actually have it? All these questions are still unanswered, although I welcome every effort to get one. I have spoken to quite a few medical experts and they tell me that pandemics end naturally, mitigated by better treatment of those who suffer, a vaccine and immunity in the population. Like flu, we must learn to live with this virus and not let it destroy us.

In the meantime, we are leaving a devastated landscape, economically, financially, physically and mentally. My own constituency of South Dorset, the prettiest in the country, relies heavily on the hospitality sector. Those in that sector responded to calls to make their facilities safer, only to now see them shutting again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this incredibly important debate.

My principal concern is the somewhat erratic nature of the Government’s approach to dealing with the covid crisis. At the beginning, we were in a very difficult position because we knew very little about covid, its impact and how it spread. It is not like flu, which we can understand by looking at last year and the year before that, and we cannot really look at what other countries are doing to see what we should be doing, because each country is different. We do not have that comparative process, but as we move forward we can reflect on what we have done, reflect on our successes and failures, and adapt as we go along. I was hopeful that once we had the tier system in place, we would be able to see the impact in the respective tiers. In Liverpool, for example, the Government would say that tier 3 was having a positive impact.

There were drawn-out negotiations in Greater Manchester that lasted 10 days. I would not want to apportion the blame for that to the Mayor or the Government. On one hand, we understand that this is an incredibly urgent situation, requiring decisive and quick decision making. One the other hand, negotiations can take 10 days, when in other circumstances the lockdown features have been imposed centrally.

The current approach to lockdown has us going from the tiered system—before it has been proven to work or to fail, and without seeing what evidence we can take from it—immediately into another national circuit-breaker lockdown. We have had one of those before, for three weeks. This is a milder version, because schools are not included, but it is happening in winter, in more difficult conditions. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset suggested, this lockdown should be more severe, because winter presents a more difficult environment in which to achieve a reduction of the R rate and control transmission to allow the test and trace system to work.

In Bolton, we have been through the national lockdown restrictions, the Greater Manchester local lockdown and the Bolton economic lockdown. We came back out into the Manchester lockdown and went into tier 2, then tier 3. Before we know it, we will be in another national lockdown. I am not sure that there has been sufficient reflection on the often devastating impact on people’s lives, livelihoods and education. Questions over civil liberties have not been looked into a great deal over the course of the pandemic, which began months ago.

There has not been enough time for reflection. Throughout this crisis, and especially since Bolton has been in such a difficult position, I have been asking for information from the Government. What has been happening? What is going on? What reports and assessments have been produced, and can I have access to them? Can I explain to my constituents what they have been through and why, and what the problems were? I have also asked what the successes have been. What successes have the Government learned from in Bolton that can be applied to the national lockdown or introduced to the tiering system? I would love to know.

Unfortunately, the Government have not communicated the basics. We are now going into a second national lockdown, and we need people to have confidence in the Government and their actions. We heard on Saturday about the figure of 4,000 deaths per day—four times the figure at the previous peak of the pandemic—but it largely does not reflect our experience over the last six or seven months. Our doctors and hospitals are far better prepared, and they have far greater knowledge than they did. According to the Government, however, the median figure in that report of 4,000 deaths a day could increase to 6,000. Many of my constituents are looking with disbelief at what the Government say. If people do not believe what the Government say or believe in their approach, people will not follow the law or the guidance.

To conclude, I would like to raise a couple of points. Regarding places of worship and gyms, what evidence is there to say that they should be closed down? What impact assessments have been made on the closure of gyms, particularly for women? People are concerned about running in the dark, and I think that will have a greater impact on women. The question should not be what assessment the House has made of the Government’s actions on covid, but whether the Government have really considered their own actions.