Government Response to Covid-19

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this important debate. It is right that in the midst of this deadly pandemic, which has cost over 46,000 lives and prompted the deepest recession since the 1930s, the Government are held to account for their response. It is welcome that hon. Members have had the opportunity to do so today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) spoke powerfully on behalf of nurses and social care workers and about the extraordinary sacrifices made by so many of them, as well as the need for them to be properly paid and protected. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) rightly highlighted the vital role of test and trace in enabling as many people as possible to live as normally as possible, and the failures of the Government’s privatised Serco system to do so. I want to add my condolences to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on the sad loss of his mother-in-law to this horrible disease. The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) spoke about the Government’s use of data, saying that they have not made the best use of it, and the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) described the Government’s approach as erratic: I agree with both of those statements, though I fear not so much with the rest of their analysis.

The Labour party supported the Government in introducing necessary measures to respond to the coronavirus pandemic to save lives and to prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed. We are now at a point, once again, at which R is rising in all regions and across all age groups, so we do not agree with hon. Members who have expressed the view that lockdown restrictions are not necessary, or that a whole-country approach should not be used at this point in time. Nor do we agree with hon. Members seeking to trade off the impact on the UK economy against coronavirus spread and impact on health.

[Bob Seely]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[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.