Public Health

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I could use my time to discuss specific local issues, the need for better support for local businesses and jobs and how the Government have failed to produce the necessary data and evidence to support the measures they have imposed, such as the 10 pm curfew, closing pubs and restaurants, and banning families from meeting one another. But I want to focus on the biggest hurdle to this country and the northern region being able to address the covid-19 crisis more effectively, and that is the Prime Minister and the lack of a coherent strategy to help us get back to any semblance of normality any time soon, whether or not we find a vaccine that works—something that the Government seem to pin a lot of their hopes on.

This Prime Minister has overpromised and underdelivered consistently. In July, he was talking about a more significant return to normality in November. We are just a matter of weeks away from November, and we are already hearing rumours of a full lockdown. My constituents have been clear that they hear confused messages. They are bewildered, and they are not listening to what the Government say any more. They have heard, “Eat out. Don’t eat out. Meet your family. Don’t meet your family. Travel. Don’t travel. Work from home. Don’t work from home,” and there have also been the debacles over primary schools reopening and the process for awarding exam results. The Prime Minister and his Government have demonstrated an incredible amount of incompetence. He could not even explain the rules in the north-east when asked. I do not need to spend long on the utter shambles of test and trace, because that has been well covered.

The Prime Minister has lost control. The Conservative party could make a big difference in the fight against coronavirus by ridding us of this Prime Minister and putting someone in place who is competent, up to the challenge of leading our country at a time of national crisis and will appoint people to the Cabinet who can do a proper job. The Prime Minister is fond of using wartime analogies. I believe we need a covid war Cabinet that is cross-party, at the very least with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition in it. Constituents are telling me that they want politicians to work together to find a way forward and do the right thing, with proper parliamentary scrutiny. They are growing tired of the constant change and confusion. More of my constituents are telling me that they want to get on with their lives using their own common sense.

I have little time to list the other things that need to be done. We need the Government to articulate and communicate effectively what they see as the big trade-offs we face as a nation in terms of health, welfare, the economy and jobs, as well as how they will address the consequences of delays in treatment for non-covid patients for the early detection of conditions such as cancer and the impact on mental health of the lockdown restrictions. They need to show evidence to back up measures they put in place, to begin to regain people’s trust. They particularly need to demonstrate that what is happening in our hospitals is not a normal consequence of winter pressures. Test and trace must be put right quickly. We need much more local control and the resources to go with it.

We know that only some people spread the virus. What is being done to better target those who have a high viral load? The Prime Minister’s speech yesterday was high on rhetoric but contained little to give confidence to this Parliament and the country that he has a strategy for a way out of this crisis without wrecking the economy and curtailing some of our civil liberties.