Coronavirus

Eleanor Laing Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 17 February and 9 March, on UK science, research and technology capability and influence in global disease outbreaks, HC 136; e-petition 313310, Repeal the Coronavirus Act 2020, and e-petition 561995, Repeal Coronavirus Act and end all Covid-19 restrictions; First Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, Unequal Impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: interim Report on temporary provisions in the Coronavirus Act, HC 386, and the Government response, HC 1172; Fourth Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, Unequal Impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report, HC 1050; and Eighth Report of the Procedure Committee, Back to the future? Procedure after coronavirus restrictions, HC 1282.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We now come to motion 2, on public health, which, with the permission of the House, we will debate with motions 3 to 5.

Before I call the Secretary of State to move motion 2 and speak to the other motions, I can confirm that Mr Speaker has not selected any of the amendments. I should also mention that there will be a limit on Back-Bench speeches not of three minutes initially, but of four minutes.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

I beg to move,

That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps) (England) Regulations 2021 (S.I., 2021, No. 364), dated 22 March 2021, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22 March, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this we shall discuss the following:

Motion 3—Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 2)—

That the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020 should not yet expire.

Motion 4—Coronavirus Act 2020 (One-year Status Report)—

That this House has considered the one-year report on the status on the non-devolved provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020.

Motion 5—Proceedings during the Pandemic (No. 6)—

That the Order of 2 June 2020 (Proceedings during the pandemic (No. 2)), as amended on 1 July and 22 October 2020, the Order of 4 June 2020 (Virtual participation in proceedings during the pandemic), as amended on 1 July, 2 September, 22 October and 30 December 2020, the Order of 3 November 2020 (Proxy voting during the pandemic (No. 2)) and the Order of 25 February (Sittings in Westminster Hall during the pandemic) shall have effect until 21 June.

[Matt Hancock]

Over the past year, we have all been engaged in a monumental national effort to fight coronavirus, which has required the House to take extraordinary measures in response to this extraordinary threat. Today, we debate our road map to recovery and what is legally needed to take the cautious but irreversible path out of this pandemic. We propose to remove some of the emergency powers that the House put in place a year ago and set the steps of the road map that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set out into law, replacing the existing national lockdown. We are able to take this action and propose these measures thanks to the perseverance of the British people in following the rules and the success story that is our UK vaccination programme, which has now vaccinated more than 28.6 million people—55% of all adults in the United Kingdom.

Hospitalisations are now at their lowest point since September and are down 90% since the peak. To put this into context, there are today just over 5,000 people in hospital with covid. At the peak, just two months ago, there were just under 5,000 new admissions with covid each day. Deaths are now at their lowest point since October and they are down 94% since the peak. The research published today shows that our vaccination programme has already saved the lives of more than 6,000 people across the UK, up to the end of February.

The success of the vaccination programme means that we are now able to carefully replace the short-term protection of the restrictions that we have all endured, with the long-term protection provided by the vaccine. Our goal is to be cautious yet irreversible. I must tell the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, that while I am still, by nature, an optimist, there remain causes for caution. Cases are rising in some areas and they are rising among those under 18. There are early signs of cases flattening among the working-age population, too.

I am delighted that uptake of the vaccine is now 95% among over-60s and that protection against dying from the vaccine is around 85%. Both of those figures, 95% uptake and 85% protection, are higher than we could have hoped for, but while we are confident that we have broken the link between the number of cases and the hospitalisations and deaths that previously inevitably followed, no vaccine is perfect and take-up is not 100%, so that link, while broken, is not yet severed.

New variants also remain a risk because we do not yet know with confidence the impact of the vaccine against the new variants. We all want these next few months to be a one-way route to freedom, so as we restore the freedoms that we all cherish, we must do so in a way that does not put our NHS at risk.