Covid-19 Update

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for his telephone call earlier today.

We are at a critical moment—“a tipping point”, to quote the deputy chief medical officer. We have all seen the clear and alarming trend in infection rates. The virus is now spreading in all areas of the United Kingdom, though much faster in some areas than others. As the Prime Minister and the deputy chief medical officer said, there are more patients in hospital with covid today than when the country went into lockdown on 23 March, and deaths are rising. Nobody should be under any illusion about where this is heading or about the need for decisive action. The question today is whether the restrictions announced by the Prime Minister can bring the country back from the brink and whether they can regain control of the virus and provide the support and confidence that local businesses and communities need.

That is how high the stakes now are, so we will consider the package, we will look at the small print of the Prime Minister’s statement, we will discuss them with local mayors, councillors and leaders in the areas most affected and we will scrutinise the economic package that sits alongside them. But I have to say to the Prime Minister that I am now deeply sceptical that the Government have actually got a plan to get control of this virus, to protect jobs or to regain public trust. We have tried to give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, but it increasingly feels like the Prime Minister is several steps behind the curve and running to catch up with a virus that he lost control of long ago.

It was less than three weeks ago, on 22 September, that the Prime Minister came to this House to announce new restrictions. He said then that the measures he was introducing would

“curb the number of daily infections”

and that those restrictions were

“carefully judged to achieve the maximum reduction in the R number”. —[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 797-98.]

That has not happened. Those measures have not worked. We would not be here today if they had.

There is a pattern here. On 1 July, the Prime Minister told us of his new whack-a-mole strategy to control local outbreaks. Twenty areas have now been in restrictions for more than two months, and 19 of them have seen their infection rates rise, some by very large amounts, so those measures have not worked either.

In May, the Prime Minister boasted of a “world-beating” track and trace system. He told us that it would be a “real game changer” in the fight against the virus. We have debated this many times since, but last week, the figures were the worst yet. The Prime Minister promised that 100% of test results would be turned around in 24 hours. The latest figure for in-person testing is just 24% being turned around in that period.

This serial failure, combined with the repeated leaks and briefings to newspapers in the past few days, have fatally eroded public confidence just when we need it most, so can the Prime Minister tell us what reassurance he can give us that these measures today will be sufficient to get the virus under control? Will he finally accept that trace and isolate should be handed over to local authorities, as we have been saying for months? Will he accept that the support packages announced by the Chancellor simply will not work for many thousands of people, particularly those on the minimum wage? There is huge anger about this in the areas under lockdown, and there is a huge gap in the Government’s plan. Will he confirm that Mayors, local leaders, council leaders and others will be fully involved in any future decisions?

Finally, I want to say this to the Prime Minister. I know that there will be some on his side who will oppose further restrictions, who will look at the data and tell him to disregard it or who will say that the cost of acting now is too high. I want to be clear: the worst thing that the Prime Minister can do is not act quickly and decisively enough, and keep coming back to this House every couple of weeks with a new plan that does not work and is not up to the scale of the task. We need to break that cycle, finally get on top of the virus and rebuild public confidence. I hope that the measures announced today will do that, but the House and the country will be deeply sceptical about whether they can.

[The Prime Minister]

We have had a slight change of tack, in my view, from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has hitherto been willing to support the measures that the Government are putting in place to restrict the spread of coronavirus. We now see an equivocation; he wants it both ways. He said he supported the rule of six, and then his side refused to vote for it. He said he is unwilling to support the restrictions we placed on hospitality, and he continually runs down NHS test and trace. What he will not say is what he would do or exactly how he would propose to get this virus down without those kinds of restrictions. If he supports the tier 3 measures that Merseyside city region has rightly put into place today, he should say so. He should have the guts to say to local leaders across the country that he supports those measures and that he encourages them to go into tier 3.

It is a stunning silence that we have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. We, by contrast, are working with those local leaders to put in place the measures that will protect their populations, protect the NHS, keep our economy moving and drive the virus down. That is our collective endeavour, and I strongly urge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to work out where he stands and to stop flip-flopping from one side to the next—or rather, to go back to his previous position, which was to support restrictive measures where necessary to drive the virus down.