Covid-19 Update

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I very much respect my right hon. Friend’s suggestion and I understand the logic of what he is saying, but I believe that the people of this country should be self-isolating, in the way that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is rightly doing, on the basis that it is the right thing for themselves, for their families and for the country. They do get support, where needed, of £500, and there are very considerable fines for failing to do it. I think that is the right way forward and I hope he will join me in commending prompt action by everybody who is asked to self-isolate. It is the right thing to do for you, for your family and for the country.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP) [V]]

Let me thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of his statement.

As we know, yesterday the UK reached yet another terrible milestone—100,000 covid-related deaths. Today, it is only right that we reflect on all those who have lost their lives during this pandemic. Our thoughts and prayers are most especially with their families and those who are left with the heaviest burden of grief. In time, there will be a reckoning on the UK Government’s response to this virus and it is clear that that verdict may well be damning. In the here and now, though, it remains our job to focus on how we can support and save as many people as possible in the weeks and months ahead. That means a renewed commitment to maintaining public health, but it also must mean a renewed package of financial support for all those—all those, Prime Minister—who have been left behind by this Tory Government.

Right now, covid is the immediate threat to life, but poverty remains a killer, too. In 2019, the Institute for Public Policy Research revealed that Tory austerity cuts over the previous decade had resulted in as many as 130,000 preventable deaths. The Prime Minister promised not to repeat Tory austerity. If people are to believe him, he should start by making three important announcements today: extend the furlough scheme for the full duration of the pandemic; maintain the uplift to universal credit and apply it to legacy benefits; and put in place a package of support for the 3 million excluded.

Prime Minister, eleventh-hour announcements have to stop. These decisions cannot wait until the Budget in March. People need certainty now. I asked the Prime Minister these same questions at Prime Minister’s questions, but I failed to get a straight answer, so please try again, Prime Minister. Will his Government extend furlough, maintain the universal credit uplift and offer support for the 3 million excluded? Finally, on international travel, both the Scottish and Welsh Governments want to go further on quarantining measures than what his UK Government are proposing. Will the Prime Minister stop his half measures and join the Governments in Scotland and Wales in stricter enforcements on international travel? That, Prime Minister, would be leadership.

[The Prime Minister]

I look forward to what the devolved Administrations do later, but I can tell the House that we are putting in the toughest measures virtually anywhere in the world, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be setting out the detail in due course.

I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that this country, through the might of the UK Treasury, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said many times, has been able to look after people across the UK. It is thanks to the UK Government that we have the furlough scheme, the bounce back loans and the many other forms of support. It is thanks to the UK that we have, for instance, the Army able to move people in distress with covid in remote parts of Scotland to the hospitals where they need to get to, and indeed the British Army helping across Scotland, I am proud to say, to distribute the vaccines that are so essential for our fight back from this virus. So I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will abandon his narrow nationalist position and look at the achievements of the UK overall, and I think it is a fine, fine thing. It would be a wonderful thing, by the way, if the Scottish nationalist party for a moment stopped talking about its desire for a referendum while we are trying to deal with a pandemic.