Public Health

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I put on record my thanks to you and your staff for what is now the second recall of Parliament for important business. I know that a lot of work goes into making that possible, and we really appreciate that, but it is important that we are here today. The daily figures that colleagues will have read while sat in this debate are sobering: 1,041 more of our countrymen and women have lost their lives to this horrible virus. It is a sobering moment, and with that in mind, we will support these regulations today. We do not think it is inevitable that we are in this situation, but it is clear that we are in a very challenging moment indeed, and in these dangerous times, with our NHS working at such high capacity, it is in the national interest to protect it and make these difficult decisions.

I say to people watching: if you are one of the very many people who have been excluded from Government support so far, or if you have missed out on self-isolation support, or if you are concerned about business support or reductions in welfare support going forward, I hope that you will have seen the support from our Benches, from my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Bristol South (Karin Smyth), for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Putney (Fleur Anderson), all giving you voice. Similarly, I hope that those very many clinically extremely vulnerable, who have so often felt ignored, saw in the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) that they are not. The same goes for contributions on frontline staff made by my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson).

Many points were made earlier today about schools, which I will not emphasise any further, other than to mention the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham (Clive Efford), for Sheffield Central, for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). Important points were made about the border by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), which I will reflect on shortly.

Many Opposition colleagues—including my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth—referred to the vaccine, as did many Government Members, including the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) and the hon. Members for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke). In particular, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) made contributions about the Government committing to publish a schedule of precisely what vaccine is going to be received and when, and how that will be rolled out, and I think the Government ought to do that.

Important contributions were made by Government Members about the exit plans and support for business, as well as children and early years. Contributions were made by the right hon. Members for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the hon. Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) about oversight, and we as an Opposition would support a further review, in shorter order, of these regulations and further debate to make sure that they are as effective as possible.

The right hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) all made points about the scientists. I would perhaps fall on Margaret Thatcher’s maxim, “Advisers advise, Ministers decide”. Ultimately, if those colleagues are dissatisfied with the actions of the Government, it is for Ministers alone to account for them rather than the scientists, who are giving their best endeavours, even if we do not agree with them.

I thought it was interesting that not a single colleague mentioned that we are exactly where we were one week ago. I was in this place, the Minister was in her place and you were in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker, as we were discussing regulations. That failed. That seems funny, but actually, it is not funny at all when we think about it. I asked the Minister three times to say that the Government thought that their final attempt to salvage the tier system would work. I had no such commitment made, so perhaps it is not a surprise that it fell over, even if it is a surprise that it fell over as quickly as it did. That is a characterisation of a failure to grip this virus, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said. The Government have been just so slow and always short, trying to do the bare minimum and never, frankly, doing enough.

In a similar vein, it was quite disappointing that the Secretary of State’s contribution—his 23 minutes—could have been an intro to a general debate on vaccines, because that was all he spoke about. Of course, the vaccine is important and is our way through this, but actually, it is a failure to grasp at ministerial level that there are many things other than the vaccine, that they have control and say over and that they simply have not done well enough on.

This lockdown, which we will no doubt support tonight, will not make our problems go away. Lockdowns do not solve anything. They buy us time to solve things, so in the limited time remaining, I will highlight some of those that I think that the Secretary of State ought to have referred to, and I hope that the Minister will in her winding-up speech.

On economic support, again, there was not a word for those many millions excluded from support so far. They have gone a long time now without support. They deserve more than the glib comment that they had from the Prime Minister this morning. I hope the Minister might do a little bit better. The Chancellor should be here giving us a chance to scrutinise those plans. He was very keen to at the beginning, but we have not seen him now for a very long time.

Test, trace and isolate remains a significant gap in our fence. What fools we all look now given that, when the virus was at its lowest ebb in the summer, that system was not sorted out. Instead, while the testing number at the beginning of the system remains a very good one, turnaround time does not hit its targets, tracing never hits its targets and we know that not enough people isolate because the support for them is not good enough. The fact that we have failed to fix those problems reflects very poorly on the Government.

On the border, I am always loth to make international comparisons, certainly beyond Europe, but our daily death total today is more than the entire death total during the pandemic in Australia. There are ways in which we are similar and ways in which we are different from them, but I think we should reflect on the fact that on 20 March, they closed their border. Anyone returning home during that time had a two-week quarantine, but that was it. Now, we are still talking about test to release and other such measures at the border. It is an extraordinary failure.

To finish, I will make a couple of points on vaccination. The development and procurement of vaccine has been a success of this Government—I have said that multiple times in this place, and will continue to do so—but whether they have a successful vaccination programme remains to be seen. There is frustration on both sides of the House that we do not yet have the sense that this will be a 24/7 service, or that we are unleashing all those people who have volunteered to contribute. It is surprising to see pharmacies on the front page of national newspapers—that is the length that pharmacies feel that they have to go to get the attention of the Government. If the Government are sure they do not need that extra support and will still deliver on time, they should be clear about that.

May I have some particular clarity from the Minister? We have been hearing the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister now saying—they have changed their form of words in the past three or four days—that everyone in categories 1 to 4 will be “offered” the vaccine by the middle of February. What does that mean? What does it mean for the modelling? Before, we thought that by the middle of February we wanted everyone in those categories to be vaccinated—within, of course, the limits of people choosing not to take it up. What this cannot be is a paper exercise; it has to be the fullest—

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Norris]

The Minister seems to dispute that, so I hope that she will take the time in her contribution to do so.

The vaccination programme represents a deal with the British people. We are asking the British people to ensure significant hardship for a significant period—that is the British people’s side of the bargain. The Government’s side of the bargain is an effective, safe and timely vaccination programme. They have to deliver on that.

I will finish in that spirit, with a simple message to my constituents and constituents across the country: stay at home, protect the NHS and vaccinate Britain.

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

The regulations before us set out measures that none of us wants to take, yet we must take them if we are to control this new and aggressively infectious variant of coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly across the country. As we heard from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health, we are up against it, in a race of vaccine versus virus. We are vaccinating faster than any comparable country but, even as we do so, each day we have a relentless rise in the number of new infections, hospital admissions and, sadly, deaths. We now have more than 30,000 people in our hospitals with covid.

Earlier this week, the UK’s chief medical officer’s advice was that we should move to alert level 5, meaning that if action is not taken, NHS capacity might be overwhelmed within 21 days. The consequences of that and the decisions that it could lead to are not decisions that we want our doctors to have to take. Therefore, I say to hon. Members, that is why we must adopt the measures before us. Just as we do not want to impose the restrictions on people, we must of course be ready to lift them too, as soon as we are in a position to do so. Lockdowns come at huge cost, economic and social, and in particular to the many thousands of children who are no longer going to school.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

The regulations can continue until 31 March, but will my hon. Friend confirm that, in fact, they will be reviewed fortnightly and that any regulations that are considered unnecessary will be lifted as soon as possible?

[Helen Whately]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Many other hon. Members have also asked about the duration of the restrictions and ongoing parliamentary scrutiny. I can say that the regulations provide for the restrictions until 31 March 2021 not because we expect the full national lockdown to continue until then, but to allow a steady, controlled and evidence-led move down through the tiers on a local basis. The restrictions will, of course, be kept under continuous review. We have a statutory requirement to review them every two weeks and a legal obligation to remove them when they are no longer necessary to control the virus.

I also reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), my right hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and others that we absolutely do not want to continue the restrictions longer than necessary. Most particularly, we do not want to keep children at home and being home-schooled. I say that as a parent with three children who have spent the day, I hope, being home schooled—my husband has been in charge of that today. We do not want that to be the situation any longer than it has to be. Schools were the last to close, and the Prime Minister has said that we want them to be the first to open. Of course, they are still open for the children of critical workers, and that should include—to pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger)—those involved in the construction of critical national infrastructure, such as the Hinkley Point power station.

While with great reluctance we have had to keep most children out of school, we have also had to require outdoor sports facilities, such as golf courses, to close. Several hon. Members have challenged that, and I want to tackle it head on. I say to hon. Members who have raised this issue that if we made an exemption for golf, we would also have to make an exemption for other outdoor activities, such as tennis, outdoor bowling, climbing walls, riding centres, dry ski slopes and go-karting—I could go on. People would then say, “I’m being told to stay at home but I can go and do all those things, so you don’t really mean that I should stay at home.” Quite apart from the fact that people congregate in those outdoor settings, we need to be really clear that the message now is, “Stay at home.”

[Sir Charles Walker]

I am pretty thick when it comes to logic. A person can go on their bicycle and that counts as exercise, but they cannot sit on their own, in a solitary way, on a riverbank. What is the problem with that?

[Helen Whately]

I do not believe that my hon. Friend is as he describes himself, but what I do think is quite clear. We are saying that people should stay at home, unless their reason for leaving home is on the very clear list of essential reasons for doing so. That covers the eligibility of the children of critical workers to be in school, healthcare appointments and, indeed, exercise. We really need to make sure that it is absolutely clear that, other than for those specific reasons, people should stay at home. That is what we need to do in order to control this raging virus. That is the message that all of us need to convey to our constituents.

[Sir Graham Brady]

Will the Minister give way?

[Helen Whately]

I have very little time and want to cover more of the points that have been raised, including by my hon. Friend.

As hon. Members have said, this national lockdown is different from previous lockdowns because we have the vaccine and the end is in sight. We have already vaccinated more than 1.3 million people. That includes the nearly one in four of those over 80 who have had their first jab. By the middle of February, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the top four priority group identified by JCVI—namely, care home residents and staff; people over 70; all frontline NHS and care staff; and the clinically extremely vulnerable. That answers the question posed by the shadow Health Secretary as to when NHS frontline staff will have the opportunity to be vaccinated, as they, together with social care staff, are in the group to be offered the vaccination by mid-February.

The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), asked how the vaccine will be offered. He will know that vaccination is not mandatory. We are educating, encouraging and informing people of the important reasons why they should step forward and have the vaccine. That is the way in which we are going about it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) rightly said that we should stop at nothing to get people vaccinated, and I could not agree more. That is why my hon. Friend the vaccination deployment Minister is working with the NHS on getting millions of people vaccinated in just a matter of weeks, involving hospitals, GPs, community pharmacies and a workforce that includes thousands of volunteers, including health professionals returning to the frontline to play their part. As the Health Secretary confirmed earlier, we have already acted to reduce some of the bureaucracy and, in particular, some of the training models required for those NHS returners, so that we are ready to vaccinate as fast as the vaccine can be supplied.

I have heard several hon. Members call for more data on the vaccination roll-out. I assure them that weekly data will be published tomorrow, and the publication of daily data will start next week. That data will show our accelerating vaccination programme protecting more people day by day, so that in time we will be able to lift many of the restrictions before the House today.

In conclusion, there are difficult weeks ahead for all of us—especially for those working on the frontline in health and social care, whom we cannot thank enough—but we are on the final stretch with the end in sight, so we must keep our resolve and get behind these restrictions, which are needed to control the virus until the vaccine has reached those that it needs to. I commend the regulations to the House.

Question put.