Public Health

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

We will support the regulations, but like the Secretary of State, I did not come into politics to restrict people’s freedoms in this way. As one who represents Leicester, a city that has effectively been in a form of restrictions since last March, I well understand the devastating impact restrictions can have on our economy, on our way of life and on the mental health and wellbeing of our constituents. Indeed, many of our constituents will feel devastated by the prospect of weeks and weeks, perhaps longer—possibly until the end of March—in isolation, feeling anxious and lonely.

Last year, in the months following the long lockdown, 19.6 million prescriptions for antidepressants were issued—a 4% increase on the same period the year before—to more than 6 million people in England, which is the highest number on record. If we are to support lockdown we need assurances from Ministers that mental health services will be fully resourced, will stay open and can respond to people’s needs throughout lockdown.

I know that many people find solace in prayer, so I am grateful that communal prayer can continue during lockdown. With the indulgence of the House, may I take the opportunity to thank Leicester City Council, Peter Soulsby and our councillors, especially those for the wards of Stoneygate, Wycliffe and Spinney Hills, who have worked hard with our many mosques, temples, gurdwaras, synagogues and churches across Leicester to ensure covid-secure worship?

[Jim Shannon]

I think it is important to have prayer. Does the shadow spokesman agree with the call I have made in the past for a national day of prayer in this country?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I think that that is a very good recommendation. May I extend an invitation to the hon. Gentleman to return to Leicester to watch our great football team, when we are allowed and are out of lockdown? Perhaps I will take him around and show him some of the great inter-faith work that we do in Leicester as well.

The lockdown will have a huge impact on the wellbeing of our children, so a plan to get our children back safely to school is a priority. There are thousands of children out of school in overcrowded, cramped accommodation, unable to access learning properly from home. There are other children at risk of abuse and violence. Members may know that I have spoken of my own experiences growing up in a home with a parent who had a problem with alcohol. Many children face the prospect of being locked in their home with a parent who abuses drink or drugs, so I urge Ministers to work with and fund children’s advocacy and support groups such as the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, with which I have worked closely, that will do so much throughout this lockdown.

Today, I agree with the Secretary of State. We do, unfortunately, have to restrict freedoms further to safeguard freedoms for the future and save lives. As he said, the tragic reality is that the virus is out of control. To be blunt, there is no freedom for our constituents if they are in the graveyard. There is little freedom either for those who suffer the enduring, debilitating effects of long covid. Yesterday, almost 55,000 cases were reported in England—one in 50, as the Secretary of State said, have the virus. The numbers in hospital are higher than in April, with over 1,800 in intensive care. Yesterday, there were over 3,300 hospitalisations—a record—and admissions are going up in every region.

This is a national emergency, and a national lockdown is necessary. Indeed, we should have locked down sooner. We are voting this lockdown through on Twelfth night, yet in the run-up to Christmas the alarm bells should have been ringing. The Secretary of State came to the House on 14 December to report a new strain, now known as the B117 strain. He told the House:

“Initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing variants.”—[Official Report, 14 December 2020; Vol. 686, c. 23.]

The Prime Minister learned of the rapid spread of the new variant on 18 December. The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group met that day and concluded that the new strain added at least 0.4 to the R. On 21 December, the chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said that the new strain was “everywhere” and cases would rise after the “inevitable mixing” at Christmas. He said:

“The lesson…you have to learn about this virus…is that it’s important to get ahead of it in terms of actions”.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies met on 22 December, the following day, and concluded:

“It is highly unlikely that measures with stringency and adherence in line with the measures in England in November…would be sufficient to maintain R below 1 in the presence of the new variant.”

Here we are, two weeks later, with half a million infections and 33,000 hospitalisations since 22 December. This is a national tragedy. Why does the Prime Minister, with all the scientific expertise at his disposal, all the power to make a difference, always seem to be the last to grasp what needs to happen? He has not been short of data—he has been short of judgment, and yet again we are all paying the price.

As the Secretary of State has said, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccination is how ultimately we are released from these restrictions. I pay tribute to everyone involved in helping to distribute and administer 1.3 million vaccine doses so far. This a great achievement, but we need to go further and faster.  The Prime Minister has promised that almost 14 million people will be offered the vaccine by mid-Feb. That depends on about 2 million doses a week, on average. Both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have assured us in recent days that that is doable, based on orders, but, in the past, Ministers told us that they had agreements for 30 million AstraZeneca doses by September 2020 and 10 million Pfizer doses by the end of 2020, so I think that people just want to understand the figures and want clarity. How many of the ordered doses have been manufactured, how many of the ordered doses have been delivered to the NHS, and how many batches are awaiting clearance through the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency clearing processes? Two million a week would be fantastic, but it should not be the limit of our ambitions. We should be aiming to scale up to 3 million, to 5 million, to 6 million jabs a week over the coming months. If we can vaccinate 29.6 million people, deaths and hospitalisations will be reduced by 99%. That is what we should be aiming at now.

[Steve Brine]

Obviously the Opposition will support this tonight, but, further to the exchanges that a number of Government Members had with the Secretary of State, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House at what point he and the Leader of the Opposition will be calling for our constituents to be released from the restrictions? Please do not say, “When it becomes obvious it is going to happen.”

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Gentleman asks a perfectly reasonable question. Of course, as we vaccinate more, mortality rates will improve more and we will be able to save people’s lives, but there will be others who remain unvaccinated and exposed to the virus, and will possibly develop debilitating symptoms of long covid as a result of that exposure. I do believe that we can begin to ease restrictions once we increase the proportions of those who are vaccinated, but we will not be able to go back to normal yet, because the virus will still be circulating. Even though they may not end up in hospital and on ventilation, many who have contracted this virus have remained incredibly ill as a result.

[Dr Murrison]

I am really pleased by the generally positive way in which the hon. Gentleman is approaching this; it does him great credit. Can I perhaps help him out by making a suggestion? Every year, we accept a certain amount of deaths—tragic, sad deaths—from seasonal flu, up to 28,000 in recent years. Would it be reasonable to anticipate the number of deaths that are going to be caused by this virus and try to make a political judgment—for a political judgment is what it is—on what we feel is acceptable, and that will give us our criteria for deciding on when to lift this lockdown?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, like the former Public Health Minister, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), but this is not just a simple calculation about the number of deaths that are prevented. The right hon. Gentleman has more clinical experience than I have, obviously, but we know that there are people who suffer long-term, debilitating conditions as a result of this virus, with reports of people developing psychosis, long-term breathing problems, and problems with the rhythm of their heart. It remains an extremely dangerous virus, regardless of whether people end up in hospital and on ventilation. But he is quite right: in the end, this will be a judgment for politicians and a judgment for this House. It is not a judgment for the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser, although I would hope that our judgments, in the end, are guided by the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I, too, commend the hon. Gentleman for the constructive approach he is adopting. He clearly has a very good relationship with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Will he assent to the proposition that public confidence in this vaccination programme is critical if we want people to comply with these lockdown measures, and we must do nothing that creates false expectations or unrealistic expectations about how the vaccination programme will go? We must be modest in what we promise and hopefully we will overachieve. Can he assist my right hon. Friend in that objective?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I think that as a rule in politics it is always better to under-promise and over-deliver. Maybe the Whip on the Treasury Bench could send that advice to the Prime Minister, because the Prime Minister tends to have the opposite approach to some of these matters, I would say.

Our big target should be to vaccinate more, particularly among NHS staff. Many NHS staff on the frontline, in the face of danger, are scared. They are exhausted. Many have said to me that they feel they were sent out in the initial weeks of the first wave without the protection of personal protective equipment, and now they are exposed again without the protection of inoculation. Will Ministers move heaven and earth to get all frontline NHS staff vaccinated urgently, and can we have a clear date by which NHS staff on the frontline will receive the vaccine? If manufacturers can increase supply, what more can be done to improve distribution? In addition to GPs, our community pharmacists have tremendous links with hard-to-reach communities. We need to make full use of them.

Vaccination not only saves lives, and is not only the route out of restrictions; it is also urgent, because we are now in a race against time. The B117 strain is fast becoming dominant, and it has done so in just a matter of weeks. The more virus there is circulating, the more opportunities there are for further mutations that could give the virus greater advantage—possibly a variant on which vaccines no longer work, risking another devastating covid wave in winter 2021. Vaccination, both at home and across the globe, is now fiercely urgent, and the race to vaccinate is therefore literally a race against evolution.

We will also support this lockdown tonight because we know we have to reduce transmission. That is why we are asking people to stay at home. But not everyone can work from home on their laptops. There are 10 million key workers in the United Kingdom, of whom only 14% can work from home—key workers, many of whom are low paid and often use public transport to travel to work in jobs that, by necessity, involve greater social mixing, who are more exposed to risk. Often, because of their home circumstances, they end up exposing others to risk as well. We witnessed that in Leicester, where it is suspected that a spike back in the summer was the result of a spillover of infections into the community from those sweatshops that did not adhere to proper health and safety rules.

We need to make sure that our workplaces are covid-secure; otherwise, we will not get on top of transmission. What support are the Government offering to install ventilation systems in workplaces? Will the Government introduce a safety threshold for ventilation of indoor workplaces without outside air? Given that the B117 strain is so much more transmissible, are the Government considering reintroducing the 2-metre rule? Given that fewer than 20% of those who should isolate do so fully, will the Government finally accept that sick workers need proper sick pay and support? Otherwise, those workers will be forced to work, spreading this illness.

The British public have done so much over the last year and have made great sacrifices. We are a great country, and our people can and will rise to the occasion. All anyone asks is that the Government do the right thing at the right time: make all workplaces covid-secure; vaccinate health workers as soon as possible; introduce decent sick pay and support to isolate, and roll out a mass vaccination plan like we have never seen before. This is a race against time—a race against evolution—and we will support this lockdown tonight.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I will now introduce the three-minute limit. I remind hon. and right hon. Members that when a speaking limit is in effect for Back Benchers, a countdown clock will be visible on the screens of hon. and right hon. Members participating virtually and on the screens in the Chamber. For hon. and right hon. Members participating physically in the Chamber, the usual clock in the Chamber will operate.