Public Health

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

May I start by welcoming the fall in infection numbers, with the drop in the number of people being admitted to hospital, and crucially that the national R rate is now below 1, and below 1 in many parts of the country? That is very welcome news across the House. Before this lockdown, the infection rate was doubling every two weeks, the R number was above 1 in every part of England and rising, and the number of people in hospital was going up sharply across the country. In other words, the virus had been allowed to get out of control.

If anyone doubts that a lockdown was necessary, I would point out that since 2 November, when this lockdown started, 10,711 people have tragically died within 28 days of testing positive for covid-19. In the past week alone, that is an average of 460 deaths per day. Those are appalling numbers, and every one is a tragedy. So we can argue about why this lockdown did not happen earlier, when the infection rate was lower, as we argued for on this side of the House, but whatever view was taken of the timing, it is clear that the lockdown was necessary and has helped to reduce infections.

May I also welcome the progress on vaccines? I have nothing but admiration for our scientists and the amazing progress that has been made. This is a great moment for our scientists. I went to Oxford University the week before last, to see the vaccine group there and to see the remarkable work that it was doing, just before it announced its results. A vaccine may now be in sight, and we must do everything we can to encourage take-up and make sure that it is rolled out quickly, fairly and safely.

However, the questions before this House today are these: how can we save as many lives and livelihoods as possible until we reach the light at the end of that tunnel, and are the measures that the Prime Minister has announced today going to control the virus and provide the right support to the communities worst affected by these restrictions? Labour has supported the Government in two national lockdowns. I recognise the need for continuing restrictions and I do recognise that the tiers have been toughened, as it was obvious to everyone that the previous tiers were a one-way street to tier 3, but I am far from convinced by what the Prime Minister has said today. In particular, the economic package is nowhere near sufficient to support the communities most affected, and they have been suffering for many months.

[Mr Dhesi]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will just make some progress, and I will come back to my hon. Friend.

I also fear that without the right health measures in place—in particular, a working trace and isolate system—there are real risks that this plan is incapable of controlling the virus this winter. I want to set that out in a bit more detail, but before I do so I will give way.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the Leader of the Opposition. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the support for businesses, especially in tier 3, that are struggling—in the hospitality and in the arts sectors specifically—is just not enough, because many of them are on the brink of collapse?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We have lots of speakers, and interventions from those who are down to speak early is not fair on those later in the list. I do understand that people who are not going to speak might need to intervene, but please let us think about each other.

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree, and I will come on to business support in a minute, but let me make the points in support of the case we make today.

The first point is this: we have been here before. On 10 June, the Prime Minister told us for the first time of his “whack-a-mole” strategy to control local infections. He told us it would be so effective that restrictions would only be for a few weeks or even a few days. That was far from reality; Leicester, for example, has just gone into the 154th day of restrictions, and by the time these regulations run out on 2 February, Leicester will have been in restrictions for 217 days. So that 10 June proposal did not work.

Roll on to 22 September: by now, infections are rising in 19 of the 20 areas then under restrictions. The Prime Minister announced new restrictions, including the rule of six. He told the House that the rule of six would

“curb the number of daily infections and reduce the reproduction rate to 1”.—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 798.]

That is what he said about the rule of six. So that did not work.

Two weeks later, on 12 October, with the precise opposite happening, the Prime Minister stands up again—for the third time—and introduces a three-tier system. Again, he said that this will work: he told the House that this would deliver the reduction in the R rate locally and regionally that we need. That did not work.

Nineteen days later—the fourth attempt now—in a hurried press conference on a Saturday, the Prime Minister announced that the tier system had failed, the virus was out of control and a national lockdown was now unavoidable.

The reason that this all matters is that there is a pattern here. The Prime Minister has a record of overpromising and underdelivering—short-term decisions that then bump into the harsh reality of the virus.

And then a new plan is conjured up a few weeks later—we are now on at least the fifth plan—with an even bigger promise that never materialises. After eight months, the Prime Minister should not be surprised that we and many of the British people are far less convinced this time around.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I have a biology degree and I am going to take a wild punt that I am one of the few Members of this House to have used the word “epidemiology” in anger before January this year. We have choices to control this virus: we can have a lockdown, we can have a tiered system, or we can have no lockdown, where lives, such as those of John and Ken, family friends who we have just recently lost, are lost to this awful covid. Why will the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Labour party not tonight support these measures that are saving lives?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention and I am setting out exactly why not—and I will take interventions along the way so that what I say can be challenged—but the first point, which I have just finished making, is that we have been here before; this is at least plan no. 5 and the first four have not worked. So I think everybody would forgive the British public for being sceptical about the fifth plan.

I will go on now and set out the second point I want to make, which is that the public health risk of the Prime Minister’s approach is significant. The prevalence of the virus remains high; even if the R rate is below 1, it is only just below 1, and we know that the virus is at its most deadly during the cold winter months, exactly when the NHS is under the most strain. So if we are to keep the R rate below 1 during winter and not waste the progress that has been made in the past four weeks, we need to proceed with precision and caution. But instead of levelling with the British public, the Prime Minister spent the weekend telling his Back Benchers that the plan is all about, in his words, loosening restrictions across the country, and he has been fuelling a promise that within two weeks or so local areas have a real prospect of dropping to a tier below the one they are in.

We need to level: in my view, that is highly unlikely, and we might as well face that now. It is obvious that the new tier 1 may slow but will not prevent a rise in infections, and it is far from certain that the new tier 2 can hold the rate of infection. [Interruption.] I hear the mutterings, but let us just see where we are in two weeks. I look across the House to Members who think that perhaps, in two weeks, their area is going to drop down a tier just before Christmas. Let us see.

[Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)]

Your famous hindsight.

[Keir Starmer]

This isn’t hindsight; I am telling you what is going to happen in two weeks. We know where we will be in two weeks. I have no doubt that there will be Government Members getting up and saying, “I thought my area was going to drop a tier just before Christmas.” That is not levelling—that is not being straight —because that is not going to happen. The new tier 1 may slow the rate of infection, but it will not prevent it from increasing, and tier 2 will struggle to hold the rate of infection. I hope that it does. I hope that I am wrong about this, and I think that all Members hope I am wrong about it, but tier 2—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Sambrook, it is continuous; we have had it for a few weeks now. Let us have a rest today.

[Keir Starmer]

Tier 2, crucially, depends on all other factors falling into place at exactly the same time. Although we all welcome the chance to see our loved ones at Christmas, I am not convinced that the Government have a sufficiently robust plan in place to prevent a spike in infections over the new year.

Of course this is difficult, and all systems would have risk, but that brings me to my third point. The risks we face in the decisions we make today are much higher because the Prime Minister has failed to fix the major problems with the now £22 billion track and trace system. Before the Prime Minister simply brushes the point aside again, let me remind him and the House that one of the major reasons that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies advised a circuit break back in September was that track and trace was only having, in its words,

“a marginal impact on transmission”.

The great thing that was going to control the virus was not working then. If we are to control this virus, that really matters, and the Prime Minister having his head in the sand is not helping.

I know that the Prime Minister will say, “We’ve made advances in testing.” I recognise that, and I genuinely hope that it helps to tackle the virus, but let me quote the chief scientific officer, who said that

“testing is important, but of course it only matters if people isolate as well.”

That is blindingly obvious, but only a fraction of people who should be self-isolating are doing so, and the Prime Minister still has not addressed the reasons for this, including the huge gaps in support.

I know that there has been an announcement about the change for those notified by the app—a ridiculous omission in the first place—but it does not affect basic eligibility. Only one in eight workers qualify for the one-off £500 self-isolation support. Anyone not receiving that has to rely on statutory sick pay, which is the equivalent of £13 a day. That is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. People want to do the right thing, but for many there is a real fear that self-isolation means a huge loss of income that they simply cannot afford.

I think—I cannot prove this—that one of the main reasons that people are not passing on their contacts in the way we want is that they fear that those they pass on contacts for will not be able to afford to self-isolate. That is a real problem, and we cannot carry on ignoring it.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is doing a very good job—it is his job to criticise the Government, and of course mistakes have been made—but a credible Opposition would have a plan of their own. What is the plan of the Labour party?

[Mr Speaker]

Sir Edward, that is your second bite of the cherry; there are other people as well—please.

[Keir Starmer]

I will come to that. I have accepted the case for restrictions—we were very clear about the need for a circuit break; we are clear that we need to go into restrictions—but we need a scheme that works, and I am explaining what the problem is with this scheme as we go through it.

Let me stay with track and trace. We know the claims the Prime Minister made about this at the beginning of the year and in the middle of the year. On tracing, which is crucial, the latest figures show 137,000 close contacts were missed by the system in one week. That is the highest weekly figure yet. This is not a figure that is going down; it is a figure that is going up. Over 500,000 close contacts have been missed by the system in the past month. That is not a statistic. That is half a million people who should have been self-isolating, but instead of self-isolating, they were with their friends, their families and their communities—half a million people in one month. That is a huge gap in the defences. I raise this issue every week, and the Prime Minister pretends it is getting better, but it never does. The Prime Minister has almost given up on it and put mass testing in its place, but again, that is blind optimism, not a plan. The idea that we can go through the next few months and successfully keep the virus under control when 500,000 people a month are wandering round when they should be self-isolating is not a sensible plan going forward.

My fourth point is the level of economic support that is provided. I have to say to the Prime Minister that it is hard to overstate the level of anger about this out there in our communities, many of which have been in restrictions for months on end. Yesterday, I did a virtual visit to local businesses in the north-west. Their emotions range from deep disappointment with the Government to raw anger that the Prime Minister and Chancellor just are not listening and do not get the impact of months of endless restrictions and the impact they have had on local communities. In March, the Chancellor vowed to do whatever it takes to support households and businesses, but there have now been six economic plans in nine months, and the level of support is still insufficient.

For these reasons, and let me spell them out—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister mumbles, but let me spell them out. First, the scheme does not fairly reflect the difficulties faced by businesses across the country. [Interruption.] I would be surprised if Government Members are not picking that up from their constituents and businesses. Let me start with the additional restrictions grant, which gives a flat figure to local areas, regardless of how long they have been in restrictions. That means Greater Manchester, which will be on its 40th day of severe restrictions when it enters tier 3 tomorrow, has received the same one-off support as the Isle of Wight, which went into restrictions far later and will emerge tomorrow into tier 1. That is unfair, and everybody knows it is unfair, and everybody in this House is being told by their constituents and by their businesses that it is unfair, so to pretend it is not just is not real, Prime Minister.

The second aspect—[Interruption.] The second aspect is that the grant does not take account of the number of businesses that need support in each area. Our great cities are being asked to spread the same sum far more thinly, and that is also clearly unfair. Our constituents know it is unfair, our businesses know it is unfair, and nothing has been done about it.

The third aspect—even allowing for today’s announcement on pubs, which is the definition of small beer—is that many businesses are now receiving less support than they did during the first wave. That is a huge strain for businesses, particularly those that have been so long under restrictions, and it makes no economic sense for the Government to allow them to go to the wall.

Putting the grant system to one side, the second major point about the economic support is that millions of self-employed people remain unfairly excluded from the Government support schemes. Again, nothing is being done about that. I have raised it so many times with the Prime Minster, as have others, and every time he chooses to talk about those who are within the scheme, ignoring those who are not in the scheme. It is eight months on, and we are facing another three or four months of this. That will mean 12 months without the support that is needed in those areas.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. He talks about those people who have been excluded from support. To focus in on who those people are, they include people who set up their own businesses 18 months ago, directors of very small limited companies, taxi drivers, hairdressers and the like. These are the entrepreneurs we need to build Britain back as we recover from the economic wreckage of the coronavirus. Does he agree we should be investing in those people, not excluding them and leaving many of them in deep and dangerous debt?

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree, and their cry still has not been heard. I accept that in putting together a support package in a hurry back in March, there may have been reasons why certain groups were overlooked, but this is eight months on. It has been pointed out over and over again, and here we go into a tiered system and there is still that gap in the system, and it is being very strongly felt out there.

The third point about the economic package is this: the Government must remove the uncertainty about furlough and rule out changing the scheme again in January. That is crucial, because businesses are beginning to make decisions about what they do in January. The Chancellor made this mistake before. By the time the furlough was extended, many businesses had laid people off because it came too late. We know what happens in that circumstance. The uncertainty has already caused real economic damage and we cannot afford the same mistake again. So, taken together, the business and economic support just does not stack up.

I want to make a wider point about the economic damage that this pandemic and the Government have done to our economy. Last week’s autumn statement laid bare the huge and worsening economic cost of the crisis. I know there are those who say, “That is the reason to end restrictions”, but the reality is that we cannot protect the economy if we lose control of the virus—that just leads to more uncertainty, more restrictions and more long-term damage to the economy. The failure to get control of the virus or take a long-term approach to shielding our economy has left the UK with the worst economic recession of the G7 and the highest death toll in Europe.

The fifth reason for scepticism about the Government’s approach is this: managing and priorities. The past 48 hours have been a summary of the mistakes the Government have made in this crisis. The Prime Minister is fatally split between appeasing his Back Benchers and following the science, and he is ending up pleasing nobody. I think the Prime Minister knows that tough restrictions are now needed, but he pretends that the restrictions might not be in place for very long. He pretends that it is quite possible that everybody will be in a lower tier in two weeks’ time. The reality is that tough restrictions will be needed until the vaccine is rolled out, and that may be months away. The Prime Minister will doubtless be back in a few weeks with another plan, but he does not make that case today or provide the certainty or the consistency that we need. So in the past 48 hours we have had concessions, letters and promises to his MPs, not clear and reliable messaging to the public, and that is symptomatic of the problem.

Coronavirus remains a serious threat to the public’s health, our economy and our way of life. We recognise the need for continued restrictions, but it is not in the national interest to vote these restrictions down today and we will allow them to pass. But it is another wasted—

[The Prime Minister]

Ah!

[Keir Starmer]

We accept the case for restrictions. We want a plan that is going to work, we are on plan 5 and this one is full of holes; we have been there so many times. So many times the Prime Minister has stood there and said, “This is the plan, this will solve the problem.” This is the fifth time around and we still have a plan with holes that have been there for months. Why is track and trace still not working? Why are the gaps in the support still there? Why are those we are excluding not included? Why are those who have to self-isolate not given the support to do so? Those are huge gaps in the system and to simply vote through a plan without recognising those problems is not going to help.

I accept the case for restrictions—we will not stand in the way of these regulations; we do not want the restrictions to come off—but I am not going to stand here and pretend, as the Prime Minister does: “This is the plan that will solve it all. Vote for this and it will all be fine through to Easter.” That is not going to happen and nobody should vote on that basis today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, indeed; I can make that guarantee. Our position on fish has not changed. We will only be able to make progress if the EU accepts the reality that we must be able to control access to our waters. It is very important at this stage to emphasise that.

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

Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls. On average, a woman is killed by a man every three days in this country. It is a shocking statistic; and, sadly, the pandemic has seen a significant increase in domestic abuse. I will join those marking this day, and I am sure that the whole House would agree that we need to do far more to end domestic violence.

The Prime Minister may remember that in August last year, he wrote the foreword to the ministerial code. It says:

“There must be no bullying…no harassment; no leaking… No misuse of taxpayer money…no actual or perceived conflicts of interest.”

That is five promises in two sentences. How many of those promises does the Prime Minister think his Ministers have kept?

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that the Ministers of this Government are working hard and overall doing an outstanding job in delivering the people’s priorities, and that is what we will continue to do. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman waits a little bit longer today, he will hear some of the ways in which this Government are going to take this country forward, with one of the most ambitious programmes of investment in infrastructure, schools and hospitals for generations. If he wants to make any particular allegations about individual Ministers or their conduct, he is welcome to do so. The floor is his.

[Keir Starmer]

I did not really hear an answer there, so why don’t we go through these commitments in turn, starting with bullying and harassment? The now former independent adviser on ministerial standards concluded that the Home Secretary’s behaviour was, in his words,

“in breach of the Ministerial Code”,

and, he said,

“can be described as bullying”,

which means:

“intimidating or insulting behaviour that makes an individual feel uncomfortable, frightened, less respected or put down.”

What message does the Prime Minister think it sends that the independent adviser on standards has resigned but the Home Secretary is still in post?

[The Prime Minister]

Sir Alex’s decisions are entirely a matter for him, but the Home Secretary has apologised for any way in which her conduct fell short. Frankly, I make no apology for sticking up for and standing by a Home Secretary who, as I said just now, is getting on with delivering on the people’s priorities: putting, already, 6,000 of the 20,000 more police out on the streets to fight crime and instituting, in the teeth of very considerable resistance, a new Australian-style points-based immigration system. She is getting on with delivering what I think the people of this country want. She is showing a steely determination, and I think that is probably why the Opposition continue to bash her.

[Keir Starmer]

The reality is that any other Prime Minister would have fired the Home Secretary and any other Home Secretary would have resigned, so I think we will chalk that up as one broken promise.

On to the next: no leaking. Over the summer, we saw repeated leaks about which areas would go into restrictions. The Prime Minister’s plans to go into a second national lockdown were leaked all over the national papers, resulting in a truly chaotic press conference, and we have seen more leaking in the past 24 hours. This serial leaking is causing huge anxiety to millions of people about what is going to happen next. I know there is supposed to be an inquiry under way, but can the Prime Minister tell us, is he any closer to working out who in his Government is leaking this vital information?

[The Prime Minister]

I have already told you, Mr Speaker, that as soon as we have any information about anybody leaking, we will bring it to the House. But I may say that I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman is really concentrating on trivia when what the people of this country want is to see his support, and the support of politicians across the House, for the tough measures that we are putting in to defeat coronavirus. He makes various attacks on, I think, my leadership and handling of the ministerial code. I would take them a lot more seriously, frankly, if the Leader of the Opposition could explain why the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is still a member of the Labour party. Does he support the right hon. Gentleman’s continued membership of the Labour party—yes or no? Why doesn’t he answer that question?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I think I will make that decision, Prime Minister. Thankfully we have got the sound—we do not want to lose it. [Laughter.]

[Keir Starmer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The difference, of course, is that I am tackling the issues in my party and the Prime Minister is running away from the issues in his. I take it from his answer that he has no idea who is leaking from his Government, so I think we will put that as another one in the “no” column.

Moving on, to perhaps the most serious of the promises under the code: no misuse of taxpayers’ money. For weeks, I have raised concerns about the Government’s spraying taxpayers’ money on contracts that do not deliver. The problem is even worse than we thought. This week, a Cabinet Office response suggests that the Government purchased not 50 million unusable items of protective equipment but 180 million, and a new report this morning by the National Audit Office identifies a further set of orders totalling £240 million for face masks for the NHS that it cannot use. So will the Prime Minister come clean: how many hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on equipment that cannot be used?

[The Prime Minister]

Actually, to answer the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s question directly, 99.5% of the 32 billion items of personal protective equipment that this country secured conformed entirely to our clinical needs, once we had checked it. Of all the pathetic lines of attack that we have heard so far, this is the feeblest, because if you remember, Mr Speaker, we were faced with a national pandemic on a scale that we had not seen before and the Government were being attacked by the Labour party for not moving fast enough to secure PPE. I remember the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that we needed to unblock the blockages in the system and that we needed to shift heaven and earth to get it done. That is what he said at the beginning of the pandemic. Then he complained that we moved too slow. Now he is saying that we moved too fast. He has got to make up his mind what his attack is.

[Keir Starmer]

It is obvious that either the Prime Minister does not know how much taxpayers’ money has been wasted, or he does not care. So far, we have bullying, harassment, leaking and the misuse of taxpayers’ money. I must say to the Prime Minister that it is not looking good so far, but let us press on. The next one is

“no actual or perceived conflict of interest”.

Where do I start on this one? Last week, we learned that suppliers with political connections were 10 times more likely to be awarded Government contracts, and this week The Sunday Times reports that the Health Secretary appointed one of his closest friends to a key advisory role. This friend also is a major shareholder, as it happens, in a firm that specialises in lobbying the Government on behalf of its clients, and some of those clients have secured tens of millions of pounds of Government contracts during the pandemic. Was the Prime Minister aware of this apparent conflict of interest?

[The Prime Minister]

In so far as there are any conflicts of interest, they will be evident from the publication of all the details of all the contracts. Again, the right hon. and learned Gentleman just seems to be attacking the Government for shifting heaven and earth, as we did, to get the medicines, the PPE, the equipment and the treatments that this country needed. What it reveals really is a deep underlying Labour hatred of the private sector, and it is actually thanks to the private sector and the Government working with the private sector that the UK was able to produce the world’s first usable treatment for the disease in dexamethasone and has worked hard to secure huge numbers of doses of the world’s first usable room-temperature vaccine. That is the private sector working to deliver for the people of this country and it is this common-sense Conservative Government working with the private sector, rather than abominating it and relying exclusively on some deranged form of state control. How else does he think we could possibly have done it?

[Keir Starmer]

No one is knocking the private sector; the Government are knocking the taxpayer, and that is not trivial. So I think it is a clean sweep: bullying, harassment, leaking, wasting public money and obvious conflicts of interest. It is the same old story: one rule for the British public and another for the Prime Minister and his friends. Just look at the contrast between his attitude to spraying public money at contracts that do not deliver and his attitude to pay rises for the key workers who kept the country going during this pandemic. If you have a hotline to Ministers, you get a blank cheque, but if you are on the frontline tackling covid, you are picking up the bill. Will the Prime Minister finally get his priorities right, stop wasting taxpayers’ money and give police officers, firefighters, care workers and other key workers the pay rise they so obviously deserve?

[The Prime Minister]

It is this party and this Government who have given key workers and public sector workers above-inflation pay rises this year, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, whether that is the police, the Army or nurses, who are now getting 12.6% more than they were three years ago. It is this Government who will continue to increase the living wage, as he will discover if he can just contain his impatience for a few minutes.

Indeed, it is this Government who have not only delivered free school meals and a vast increase in spending on development around the world but have looked after the poorest and the neediest. One of the most important facts about the £200 billion coronavirus package of support that the Chancellor has devised for lives and livelihoods across the country is that the benefits overwhelmingly prioritise the poorest and neediest in the country. The reason we can do that is because we have a Government who understand how to run a strong economy and who ensure that they take the tough decisions now that will allow our economy to bounce back—that is what this Government are doing.

Covid-19: Winter Plan

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 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, when he set out a summary of the proposal.

Let me start with the good news: the tremendous progress on vaccines. Last week, the shadow Chancellor and I went to the Oxford vaccine group at Oxford University. It was inspiring. It was remarkable to see the work that they are doing. Our thanks, and I think those of the whole nation, go to all those who have taken part in the vaccine trials and research. We wish them Godspeed. I also want to make an open offer to the Prime Minister: Labour will provide any support we can in the national effort to deliver the vaccine safely across the country. That is an open offer.

I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is seeking a four-nation approach on the arrangements over the Christmas period. We will obviously await details on that, and the evidence that supports the steps being taken, but the four-nation approach is the right approach.

Now for the more difficult bit. The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel; the question today is how we get there and protect lives and livelihoods along the way. The Prime Minister proposes a return to the three-tier system. That is risky, because the previous three-tier system did not work. Tier 1 areas drifted to tier 2, almost all tier 2 areas ended up in tier 3 and those in tier 3 could not see a way out, and we ended up in national lockdown. That was the sad reality of the tiered system before. Nobody wants a repeat of that.

I accept that the new tiers are different from the old tiers, but many of the questions are the same. They are not trick questions. I acknowledge that none of this is easy, but if the Prime Minister is going to carry Parliament and the country on this, they need answering.

First, on the tier system—the Prime Minister touched on this—which local areas will be in each tier? This is the red-hot question. This is the question everybody is going to be asking over their kitchen table tonight. I had a roundtable with business leaders this morning, and it was the first question they asked me. The Prime Minister says it will be decided later this week, possibly Thursday. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that these decisions are taken very quickly and very clearly so that everybody can plan. That is obviously particularly important for the millions who were in restrictions before the national lockdown, because the message to them today seems to be, “You will almost certainly be back where you were before the national lockdown, probably in even stricter restrictions.” People need to know that so that they can plan for that. I really emphasise how important that is for the Prime Minister.

Secondly—the Prime Minister said he wanted uniform rules—will the tiers simply be imposed region by region, come what may, from 3 December, or will there be an element of local consultation and negotiation? I understand the uniform rules, but simply to impose them runs the risk of not getting buy-in from local leaders and local communities, which is incredibly important to people complying with the rules.

Thirdly, how long does the Prime Minister anticipate each local area will remain in each tier? For those that are going to come out of lockdown and almost certainly go back to more restrictions than they left, that is going to be a very pressing question.

Fourthly, will there be a new economic package to accompany these new tiers? There is huge concern among many businesses about their viability in tier 3, particularly a strengthened tier 3, so what new support can they expect? May I touch again on those who are self-employed who are outside the self-employed scheme—the so-called excluded? They will be hearing a message about the next three months in relation to schemes that they are not currently in, and that needs urgently to be addressed.

I turn to the public health impact of this approach, because one of the major reasons that we ended up in a national lockdown was that, in the words of the Government’s scientific advisers—the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—test, trace and isolate was only having

“a marginal impact on transmission”.

It is one of the reasons that they suggested a national lockdown.

I know that the Prime Minister will talk about increased testing, mass testing. That is welcome but it is only part of the story, because the other two parts—trace and isolate—are not fit for purpose. SAGE advised, and continues to advise, that for trace and isolate to be effective, the percentage of contacts traced needs to be about 80%. It is currently nowhere near that level. It has never been near that level, and the figures are not getting any better. The latest figures actually show that every week, about 120,000 close contacts—that is, people who should be self-isolating—are not being traced by the system. The likelihood of getting the virus under control when 120,000 people who should be self-isolating are moving around their communities is very low.

Only a fraction of people able to self-isolate are doing so when asked to. We said to the Prime Minister that this needed to be fixed in the period of the national lockdown, and it has not been. It was barely mentioned in the Prime Minister’s statement today, and many people will be forgiven for thinking that the Prime Minister has given up on trace and isolate and is about to abandon that scheme altogether to reach out for a different scheme—mass testing. It is very important that we understand that if we are going into a tiered system, abandoning trace and isolate, or not getting trace and isolate where it should be, we are running a major risk.

This is not about knocking those on the frontline or knocking those working on track and trace; it is about being grown up about risk. If we are reintroducing a three-tier system without having fixed trace and isolate, that is a major risk and we all need to acknowledge it, because it raises the million-dollar question: how confident is the Prime Minister that the approach he is proposing today will keep the R rate below 1? If it does not, the infections will go up. They will go back out of control and we could well be back in a national lockdown. That is the million-dollar question.

Labour has backed the Prime Minister on all the big decisions that the Government have had to take to protect public health, including the two national lockdowns. We have done so because we want there to be a national consensus on such difficult issues and because we will always put public health first. Ideally, I would like to be in a position to do so again, but there are huge gaps in this plan, huge uncertainties and huge risks. We will await the detail. We want the Prime Minister to get this right. He has got a week to do so. Will he start by answering these straightforward questions?

[The Prime Minister]

I would like to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his qualified welcome of these measures. He says that they are risky. It is not quite clear where he is supporting them or not. I think they are the right thing for the country. I think they are the right way of getting the virus down. If he wants to go back into another or keep a national lockdown on, I do not think that is the right way forward for this country. We want to get the economy moving as far as we possibly can and keep schools open, while supressing the virus.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asks when we will make the announcement about who goes into which tier. As I said to him earlier on, and as I said in my statement just now, that will be announced on Thursday. The reason for the delay is quite simply that we need to see the data as it comes in. Of course, we will work with local authority leaders about which tiers they need to apply. We will discuss it with them, but in the end, we have to take some decisions and get on and do it. I think that we saw from the last experience that it was those local authorities—Liverpool springs to mind—that went early and were very collaborative that were most successful in getting the incidence down.

Some of the things that we will look at in deciding which tier is appropriate are case detection rates in all groups, case detection rates in the over-60s, the rate at which cases are rising or falling, the positivity rate overall and the pressures on the NHS in the region. Those are the things that we will be looking at as we make our judgment. Clearly, in some ways, the tiers have been changed—I mentioned the point about curfews, and there are extra possibilities for indoor and outdoor sports and events, as I said in my statement—and it is right that the balance of the impact of those should continue to be tough.

Once again, the right hon. and learned Gentleman criticises NHS Test and Trace. People should bear in mind that that operation has helped indisputably in identifying the areas that have the greatest prevalence of disease; it is not just to drive down the disease in those areas that it has been of immense value. We now have testing capacity of over 500,000 a day. NHS Test and Trace has done more than in any other country in Europe. What is so exciting about the new lateral flow testing is that, when we come to isolate, there is the prospect of using lateral flow tests, as I said, to check whether people are actually infected or infectious, thereby obviating the need for the 14-day quarantine.

Science is really beginning to ride to our rescue. It is in that context, with the combination of the tiering system, lateral flow tests and the gradual roll-out in the weeks and months ahead of the vaccine, that we are able to come out of the lockdown next Wednesday and to make the progress that we have described. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for such support as he felt able to offer at this stage. I am aware that his support is one of those things that is, “Now you see it, now you don’t,” but never mind, I will take it while it seems to be there, at least temporarily, and I look forward to further conversations with him in the next week.

Integrated Review

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement.

Under my leadership, national security will always be Labour’s top priority. Britain must once again show global leadership and be a moral force for good in the world, both in how we tackle present and emerging security threats, and in how we build a fairer, greener and more secure world. So we welcome this additional funding for our defence and security forces, and we agree that it is vital to end what the Prime Minister calls—with, I have to say, a complete lack of self-awareness—an “era of retreat”.

This is, however, a spending announcement without a strategy. The Government have yet again pushed back vital parts of the integrated review, but there is no clarity over their strategic priorities. Then there is the question of money. How will this announcement be paid for? Such is the Government’s handling of the pandemic that the UK has had the sharpest economic downturn of any G7 country. Next week, the Chancellor will have to come here and set out the consequences of that. Can the Prime Minister tell us today: will the commitments that he has made require additional borrowing and tax rises—if so, which ones?—or will the money have to come from other departmental budgets? In particular, at the election last year, there was a very clear Conservative party manifesto commitment

“to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI”

on international development. A straight question, Prime Minister: are the Government going to keep to that manifesto commitment? He must know that if he breaks it, that will not only undermine public trust, but hugely weaken us on the global stage.

The Prime Minister spoke of an “era of retreat”—a really interesting phrase, after a decade of Conservative government and under-investment in our armed forces. I remind the House that defence spending has fallen by more than £8 billion in real terms over the past 10 years. Over the same period, UK regular forces have decreased by a quarter, and on top of that, the National Audit Office estimates that there is a black hole of up to £13 billion in the MOD equipment plan. The additional funding announced today is on foundations that have been seriously weakened over the past 10 years.

Let me come to a point that is very important to our armed forces personnel. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether there will be any further cuts to the size of our armed forces over the period of this spending review?

There are a number of other holes in the Prime Minister’s plan. With less than six weeks to go until the end of the transition period, there is still no clarity about the direction of our post-Brexit foreign or trade policy. The Government have not yet rolled over existing trade agreements with 15 countries—deals worth up to £80 billion of trade a year. The Prime Minister speaks of tackling global security threats and improving cyber capability—that is all welcome, and we welcome it—but four months after the Intelligence and Security Committee published its report concluding that Russia posed, in its words,

“an immediate and urgent threat to our national security”,

can the Prime Minister tell us why he has still not acted on that or followed through on the Committee’s recommendations? When will he do so?

There was very little beyond warm words about how the UK will lead the global efforts against the biggest threat we face: the international climate emergency. The COP26 conference is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but the Committee on Climate Change says that the UK’s domestic measures

“are not making adequate progress in preparing for climate change.”

Yesterday’s announcement—another press release without a strategy—will do nothing to address that.

This is a time of huge global uncertainty. It is time for Britain to emerge from a decade of decline. I know that the Prime Minister is always keen to talk about the bits of government that he enjoys—big announcements, space programmes, moonshots—but this statement shows that the Government still lack a clear strategy, a coherent vision for Britain in the world or any idea of how the promises that the Prime Minister makes will actually be delivered.

[The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)]

Of all the humbug that I have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that really takes the cake. This is a man who campaigned until December last year to install in government a Prime Minister who wanted to scrap our armed services and pull out of NATO, and his own record of support for our armed services is very thin indeed.

I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman now welcomes this package, although his comments scarcely do it justice. This is the biggest package of support for our armed services since the end of the cold war. It bears absolutely no relation to discussions about overseas aid. This House and this country should be incredibly proud of what Britain does to support people around the world. Under any view, this country is, has been and will remain one of the biggest contributors to aid of any country on earth. I am proud of that, and I am proud that this package will help to deliver 40,000 jobs around the UK.

The Conservative party fundamentally believes in defence of the realm, supporting our armed forces and ensuring that the country as a whole is strong and able to project our strength around the world. It is notable that, in government, we have instituted such extra protections for the armed services as wraparound childcare for armed services families and, by the way, protection for our veterans and their families from the misery of continual vexatious prosecution by well-paid lawyers long after the alleged crimes were committed and with no new evidence provided. The Opposition, under the leadership of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, refused to vote in favour of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which will give veterans that protection and reassurance.

I do not think I have heard so much phoney stuff from the right hon. and learned Gentleman in all the time that we have faced each other. This is a guy who campaigned actively to install in government somebody who wanted to break up our armed forces and pull out of NATO. I do not know what he was thinking. He never mentioned his support for the armed services then, and frankly I do not attach much credence to it now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

May I start by sending my best wishes to the Prime Minister and all those across the country who are doing the right thing by following the rules and self-isolating?

Devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is one of the proudest achievements of the last Labour Government. Until now, whatever our disagreements, there has been a very broad consensus about devolution, so why did the Prime Minister tell his MPs this week that Scottish devolution is, in his words, “a disaster”?

[The Prime Minister]

I think what has unquestionably been a disaster is the way in which the Scottish nationalist party has taken and used devolution as a means not to improve the lives of its constituents, not to address their health concerns or to improve education in Scotland, but—I know this point of view is shared by the right hon. and learned Gentleman—constantly to campaign for the break-up of our country and to turn devolution, otherwise a sound policy from which I myself personally benefited when I was running London, into a mission to break up the UK. That, in my view, would be a disaster. If he does not think that would be a disaster, perhaps he could say so now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We can play pedantics another time.

[Keir Starmer]

The single biggest threat to the future of the United Kingdom is the Prime Minister, every time he opens his mouth almost. When the Prime Minister said he wanted to take back control, nobody thought he meant from the Scottish people, but his quote is very clear. He said

“devolution has been a disaster north of the border”.

This is not an isolated incident. Whether it is the internal market Bill or the way the Prime Minister has sidelined the devolved Parliaments over the covid response, he is seriously undermining the fabric of the United Kingdom. Instead of talking down devolution, does he agree that we need far greater devolution of powers and resources across the United Kingdom?

[The Prime Minister]

Tony Blair himself, the former Labour leader, has conceded that he did not foresee the rise of a separatist party in Scotland and that he did not foresee the collapse of Scottish Labour. I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right: there can be great advantages in devolution, and I was very proud, when I was running a devolved administration in London, to do things in which I passionately believed, such as improving public transport, fighting crime and improving housing for my constituents, and we had a great deal of success. What disappoints me is that the Scottish National party—by your ruling on its correct name, Mr Speaker —is not engaging in that basic work. Instead, it is campaigning to break up the Union, an objective that I hope the Leader of the Opposition will repudiate. Will he say so now—that he opposes the break-up of the United Kingdom?

[Mr Speaker]

It is not a ruling; it is a matter of fact.

[Keir Starmer]

Of course I do not want the break-up of the United Kingdom, but if anything is fuelling that break-up, it is the Prime Minister.

Turning now to the Prime Minister’s handling of the pandemic, the Prime Minister is doing the right thing by self-isolating after being notified by track and trace, but does he think he would have been able to do so if, like so many other people across the country, all he had to rely on for the next 14 days was either statutory sick pay, which is £95 a week—that is £13 a day—or a one- off payment of £500, which works out at £35 a day?

[The Prime Minister]

It is good finally to hear something from the right hon. and learned Gentleman in praise of NHS Test and Trace. I think it has secured at least one of his objectives, which is to keep me away from answering his questions in person. I believe that the package that we have in place to protect people and support people throughout this crisis has been outstanding and exceptional. The UK has puts its arms, as I have said many times, around the people of this country—a £200 billion package of support; increasing the living wage by record amounts; uplifting universal credit; many, many loans and grants to businesses of all kinds, and £500 of support for people who are self-isolating in addition to all the other benefits and support that we give. I think it is a reasonable package. I know it is tough for people who have to self-isolate, and I am glad that after a long time in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman simply attacked NHS Test and Trace, he seems now to be coming round and supporting it.

[Keir Starmer]

I am not going to take lectures on support—the lockdown measures were passed the other week with Labour votes. Thirty-two of the Prime Minister’s own MPs broke a three-line Whip, and I hear that about 50 of them have joined a WhatsApp group to work out how they are going to oppose him next time around. He should be thanking us for our support, not criticising.

As the Prime Minister well knows, so far as the £500 scheme is concerned, only one in eight workers qualify for that scheme. The Prime Minister always does this: he talks about the number of people he is helping but ignores the huge numbers falling through the gap.

Members here may be able to afford to self-isolate, but that is not the case for many people across the country who send us here. It is estimated that only about 11% of people self-isolate when they are asked to do so—11%. That is not because they do not want to; it is because many do not feel that they can afford to do so. For example, if someone is a self-employed plumber, a construction worker or a photographer and they do not qualify for social security benefits, or if they run a small business and cannot work from home, they are likely to see a significant cut to their income if they have to self-isolate. This is affecting many families across the country. Does the Prime Minister recognise that if we want to increase the number of people who isolate, we need to make it easier and affordable for people to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

Again, I think it is extraordinary that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now coming out in favour of NHS Test and Trace when he has continuously attacked it. In fact, the numbers that he gives for the success rate of the NHS self-isolation programme are, according to my information, way too low. We continue to encourage people to do the right thing—it does break the chain of transmission of the disease. As for the self-employed groups that he mentions, we have given £13.5 billion so far in support for self-employed people and have uplifted universal credit in the way that I described.

What we want to do is to get the virus under control, get the R down below 1, which is the purpose of these current measures, encourage people to self-isolate in the way that I am, and thereby stop the disease from spreading so that the firms, professions and businesses that the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about can get back to something as close to normality as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are giving them every possible support.

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister must understand that there is a huge gap in the system, because if someone cannot afford to isolate, there is little point in their being tested or traced.

While the Prime Minister and the Chancellor will not pay people enough to isolate properly, we learned this week that they can find £21 million of taxpayers’ money to pay a go-between to deliver lucrative contracts with the Department of Health and Social Care—£21 million. I remind the Prime Minister that a few weeks ago he could not find that amount of money for free school meals for kids over half-term. Does the Prime Minister think that £21 million to a middleman was an acceptable use of taxpayers’ money?

[The Prime Minister]

When this crisis began, we were urged by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to remove the blockages in our procurement process to get personal protective equipment. As he will remember, we faced a very difficult situation where around the world there were not adequate supplies of PPE. Nobody had enough PPE. We shifted heaven and earth to get 32 billion items of PPE into this country. I am very proud of what has been achieved: 70% of PPE is now made, or capable of being made, in this country, when it was only 1% at the beginning of the pandemic. It is entirely typical of Captain Hindsight that he now attacks our efforts to procure PPE. He said then that we were not going fast enough but now says we went too fast. He should make his mind up.

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister talks about hindsight; I say catch up. I called for a circuit breaker; the Prime Minister stood there at the Dispatch Box and said it would be a disaster and he was not going to do it. Then he caught up and did exactly that just a few weeks later. We now have a longer, harder lockdown as a result of his delay, so I will not take that from him.

Last week, the Prime Minister could not explain how his Government ended up paying £150 million on contracts that did not deliver a single piece of usable PPE; this week, he is effectively defending the paying of £21 million on a contract with no oversight. This morning, the independent National Audit Office concluded that the Government’s approach was, in its words, “diminished public transparency”. It reported that more than half of all contracts relating to the pandemic, which, Mr Speaker, totalled £10.5 billion, were handed out without competitive tender and that suppliers with political connections were 10 times more likely to be awarded contracts.

We are eight months into this crisis and the Government are still making the same mistakes. Can the Prime Minister give a cast-iron assurance that from now on all Government contracts will be subject to proper process with full transparency and accountability?

[The Prime Minister]

All Government contracts are of course going to be published in the due way and they are already being published. Again, I must say that it is extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman now attacks the Government for securing personal protective equipment in huge quantities. I want to thank again all the people who were involved in that effort: Lord Deighton and literally thousands of others who built up a mountain of PPE against any further crisis.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about transparency and moving too fast to secure contracts. He should know that the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), wrote to the Government, attacking us for failing to approach various companies, including a football agent who was apparently offering to supply ventilators and a historical clothing manufacturing company that offered to make 175 gowns per week and whose current range includes 16th century silk bodices. Again, at the time, he bashed the Government for not moving fast enough. It is absolutely absurd that Captain Hindsight is now once again trying to score political points by attacking us for moving too fast. I am proud of what we did to secure huge quantities of PPE during a pandemic. Any Government would do the same.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. I can tell him that the pilot is planned to last for approximately two weeks and we will keep the House updated on the results as they are evaluated.

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

Can I start with the elections in the United States? Whatever the results, will the Prime Minister join me in saying that it is not for a candidate to decide which votes do and do not count or when to stop counting? The next President must be the free and fair choice of the American people.

Can I also express my revulsion at the terrorist attacks in Nice and Vienna? I am sure I speak for the whole House in saying that our thoughts are with all those affected.

Of course, Mr Speaker, I join the congratulations on your one-year anniversary.

Turning now, if I may, to covid-19, on 21 September, when the Government’s scientific advisers indicated that a circuit break would bring the virus back under control, the number of people that day who tragically lost their lives to covid-19 was 11. The Prime Minister ignored that advice. On Monday, 42 days later, the number of people who tragically lost their lives to covid-19 was 397—that is a staggering 35-fold increase. Does the Prime Minister understand the human cost of his delay in acting?

[The Prime Minister]

In answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s opening question, of course we do not comment, as a UK Government, on the democratic processes of our friends and allies, and I do not think, in all seriousness, he would expect otherwise.

Turning to the point about covid and the decision—the difficult decision—that this House has to face tonight, I think I speak for many hon. Members across the House when I say that I do not think any Government or any Parliament would want to impose these measures lightly on the people of this country.

It was always right to pursue a local and regional approach, as our scientific advisers said. I will tell you why, Mr Speaker: because that regional approach was showing signs of working and still is showing signs of working. It did get the R—the transmission rate—down lower than it would otherwise have been. But we have to face the reality that, in common with many other countries in this part of the world, we are facing a surge in the virus, which this House must now tackle with the measures we have outlined. They will, as hon. Members know, expire on 2 December, and I hope very much that Opposition Members will support them tonight.

[Keir Starmer]

I am sure that nobody wants a lockdown, but it is a question of timing. Had the decision been taken a few weeks ago to put in place a circuit break, it could have been done for two to three weeks and taken advantage of schools being closed over half term. Now the Prime Minister’s proposed lockdown will be for at least four weeks, which means that businesses will be closed for longer and in the critical run-up to Christmas. Does the Prime Minister understand the economic cost of his delay in acting?

[The Prime Minister]

It is precisely because we understand the economic cost and the social and psychological damage of lockdowns that it was right to go for the local and regional solution, which was supported by many Members—indeed, it was supported by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as long as it was useful to him for a while. That was the right approach. By the expiry of this period on 2 December, as I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), we will be rolling out across this country new types of testing on a scale never seen before, beginning this week in Liverpool, enabling us to detect asymptomatic cases. That is crucial, because as the House knows, 70% of transmission is taking place between people who have no symptoms. That will enable us to find new ways on a mass scale to break the chains of transmission. I want to particularly the Labour leadership of Liverpool for their co-operation—a manner of co-operation that I commend to those on the Opposition Benches.

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister’s delay in acting is a huge failure of leadership, and it is no good saying that there was support for the tier system. As he well knows, I looked at the evidence and made a decision three weeks ago that the right thing was a circuit break. I do not buy the argument—I do not think anybody does—that the facts suddenly changed this weekend. The direction of travel and the number of infections, hospital admissions and, tragically, deaths have been clear for weeks.

But we are where we are. Millions of people across the country are really concerned about the restrictions that will come into force at midnight tonight. I accept that we all have a duty to pull together and try to make this lockdown work, so I just want to ask some basic and direct questions on behalf of those millions of people. First, will the lockdown end on 2 December come what may, or will it depend on the circumstances at the time? People need to know that.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for the support that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now offering, and I can answer him very simply. As the House knows, and as I informed him repeatedly on Monday, these autumn measures to combat the surge will expire automatically on 2 December, and we will then, I hope very much, be able to get this country going again and get businesses and shops open again in the run-up to Christmas. But that depends on us all doing our bit now to make sure that we get the R down. I have no doubt that we can and that we will be able to go forward from 2 December with a very different approach, but of course, it will be up to the House of Commons to decide thereafter what to do.

[Keir Starmer]

I accept that there will be a vote in the House. That does not tell us anything; that is the process. I want to press the Prime Minister. Is he saying that if, by 2 December, the R rate has not come below 1 and is still rising, we will come out of lockdown come what may, with infection rates going up on 2 December? That does not seem sensible to me.

[The Prime Minister]

It is thanks to the efforts of the British people that the R is now currently only just above 1 as it is. We are doing the right and the prudent thing at the right time to get that infection rate down, and these measures, as I have said repeatedly to the House, will expire on 2 December. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now saying he wants to protract them beyond 2 December, then perhaps he should make his position clear.

[Keir Starmer]

I just want some basic honesty, and this is serious. If the infection rate—[Interruption.] We have to look the public in the eye. If the infection rate is still going up on 2 December, it is madness to come out of the system back to the tiered system, when we know the one thing the tiered system cannot cope with is an R rate above 1. That is the basic point. We can come back to it on 2 December, as we always do, but that is the point I am making.

The one thing we know a circuit break or lockdown does is buy time, and the Prime Minister needs to use that time to fix Test and Trace. I know he will talk about the capacity of 500,000, what is going on in Liverpool, how it is world beating, etc., but we have been going round and round in circles on this. The latest figures show that 113,000 contacts were not even reached, and that is just in one week. Only 20% of those who should be isolating are doing so, and the majority of people still do not get results in 24 hours. So can the Prime Minister give a straight answer: what is he going to do in the next four weeks to fix this, because if he does not, we will be back here again?

[The Prime Minister]

With greatest respect to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has stood up and said that I will brag about NHS Test and Trace and its achievement of a target of capacity of 500,000, I am perfectly willing to accept the failings of NHS Test and Trace. Of course I am, and of course I take full responsibility for the frustrations people have experienced with that system, but to go from 3,000 tests a day, 2,000 tests a day to 500,000 is a quite remarkable feat. It is the biggest diagnostics exercise this country has ever carried out, and they are helping to drive down the R. They are doing, in my view, an absolutely invaluable job, whatever the difficulties they face. What we now need to do is to come together as a nation, briefly—if we can—put aside party political wrangling and point scoring, and work together, as I think he will tonight, to support this package to get the R down and allow us to go forward in a different way, with the mass testing that I have outlined from 2 December.

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister must see that if four out of 10 of those who should be contacted are not being contacted, we have a problem in the system that needs to be fixed in the next four weeks.

Finally, I want to ask about care homes, which of course were hit so badly in the first wave of this pandemic. Can I pay tribute to all those working in care homes, who have given such dedication and commitment in the toughest of circumstances? We owe it to them not to repeat the mistakes of the first wave, but, Prime Minister, as we face the second wave, there is an increasing concern about the emotional wellbeing of those in care homes and their families if all visits are stopped. It must be possible to find a way—perhaps a dedicated family member scheme of some sort—to allow some safe visits to alleviate the huge fears of isolation and despair across the coming months. Will the Prime Minister work cross-party to find a scheme that will work for those in care and their families?

[The Prime Minister]

New guidance on care homes and visiting relatives safely—because the point the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes is incredibly important —is going to be announced today to try to strike the right balance between people’s real, real need to see their loved ones and obviously the risk of spreading the disease in care homes. We are going to be publishing some guidance about how that can be done today.

I am grateful for the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s offer to work collaboratively, but I have to say that the House will generally have noted that he has used this crisis as an opportunity to make political capital and to have what I think a shadow spokesman called a “good crisis”—a “good crisis”. Can I commend a different approach, because he has attacked the Government’s strategy? Can I commend a different approach? The former Labour leader, the right hon. former Member for Sedgefield, who is not as fashionable on those Benches as he once was or should be—[Interruption.] Not with all of them; perhaps on the Front Bench, but not all of them. He had written a good piece in today’s Daily Mail, in which he supports—broadly supports—this Government’s strategy: praising UK drugs companies for what they are doing; supporting our search for a vaccine; and supporting mass testing in Liverpool, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman deprecates. I think what he should do is actually take a leaf out of the Blair book, and by the way, I can tell him that Tony Blair would not have spent four years in the same shadow Cabinet as Jeremy Corbyn, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

Public Health

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I know that a lot of Members want to speak, particularly on the Government Benches, and so I will keep my remarks brief.

Nobody votes for these regulations today with anything other than a heavy heart, on both sides of the House. I did not come into Parliament to restrict people’s freedoms, to prevent people meeting their friends and their loved ones, or to decide when people can and cannot leave their home or how many people may attend a funeral. I do not want Parliament to be closing businesses, gyms, bars or places of worship. Frankly, I do not want Parliament to be legislating on any of these issues, least of all after the British public have made so many enormous sacrifices already.

Parliament probably should have had more time to scrutinise the regulations, to amend them and to consult. There are going to be anomalies and inconsistencies that we cannot amend and probably could have been ironed out. I am very concerned about the impact on businesses who spent thousands of pounds becoming covid-secure, doing everything the Government asked, only now to be forced to shut. However, while these regulations are not in any way desirable or perfect, they are now necessary because the Government have lost control of the virus, and we will support them.

The country is at—indeed, we are several weeks past—the tipping point in the fight against the virus. We must never forget that on Monday, 397 people lost their lives to covid-19, more than 1,000 patients were on ventilators and there were over 20,000 positive cases. To anybody who disputes the trajectory of the virus or what the cost of inaction would be, I would point out that when SAGE warned 44 days ago that if we did not act at that time there would be catastrophic consequences, there were then, six weeks or so ago, 11 deaths from covid-19, just over 4,000 infections and 181 people on ventilators. That is not graphs. That is not projections. That is the grim facts in the past few weeks, and we know that the figures double, then double and then double again. That direction of travel has been clear for some time, and I am afraid the reality is that the two pillars of the Government’s strategy—the £12 billion track and trace and the regional restrictions—have been washed away by the second wave. If we are to have any chance of getting the virus back under control, to prevent many more people from falling ill or losing their loved ones and to protect the NHS, we need to take decisive action now.

There are some wider points I want to raise, and I suspect that they are shared points. There needs to be additional support during the lockdown. This is going to be incredibly hard for the British public. Millions of people tonight are really anxious about what will happen over the coming weeks. They are anxious on the health front for themselves and their friends and family, and anxious about their jobs. That is why we called for the restrictions to be put in place some weeks ago when there could have been a shorter period, which would have been better on the health front, with fewer lives lost, and better on the economic front.

More broadly, I was struck by the words of the chief executive of Mind, who warned earlier this week that the second lockdown was likely to be even harder on people’s mental health. We know that there has already been a large increase in demand for mental health services, so there needs to be emergency support in the next few weeks to address this. I think that this is a cross-party issue that we can work on together. I am also concerned about domestic violence, which was one of the issues in the first lockdown. We saw an appalling rise in domestic violence during that period. The charity Refuge reported a 50% increase in demands to its helpline, and there was a 300% increase in visits to its website. I passionately believe that we need to do much more as a country and as a Parliament to tackle this, and that must start with a clear, well-resourced plan for addressing domestic abuse during this lockdown and this winter.

I want to turn to the question of faith, which has already been raised. These regulations will have a serious impact on faith communities and places of worship. There is real concern across faiths about the lack of consultation, and I hope that the Government can urgently address that, including by convening the places of worship taskforce.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The leaders of every single faith community have now written to the Government asking for the evidence behind the closure of churches during the next four weeks. The fact is there is almost certainly no evidence. Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that all the faith communities —Muslims, Jews, Christians—have really done their best to comply, through cleansing and in every other way, and will he demand of the Government now that the churches, mosques and temples are opened as soon as possible?

[Keir Starmer]

On the question of whether all faiths have done their level best to comply, I do agree. A huge amount of effort has gone in, in places of worship and many other places, to try to defeat the virus. The British public have done a huge amount, and so have all the institutions and faith organisations, to try to keep the virus down, but the truth is that it is out of control. The taskforce needs to be convened so that these issues can be discussed during the next few days and weeks, because this is a very deep issue for many people.

[Tim Farron]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making some very important points. Does he accept that, for churches and other faith communities, although the buildings themselves may not be sacred, what goes on within them is? We have noticed over the last few months the importance of verbal and non-verbal cues when people are gathered together, which allows them to help one another when they are mentally and emotionally struggling. While I understand the logic behind the closure of these places, it is potentially hugely damaging to people’s mental health and wellbeing. Does he agree that this needs to be reviewed at the soonest possible opportunity?

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree that it should be reviewed as soon as possible. I think that is probably a shared sentiment across the House, as nobody wants these measures to be put in place. It is a bit like the care homes issue that I raised earlier. We all know the risks to care homes from the first phase of the pandemic, and we all know the toll that the next few weeks are going take—not only on those in care homes, but on the families who are desperate to visit those in care homes. That is why I think it may be possible, on a cross-party basis, to find a way to have safe visits during the next few weeks. There are very difficult questions.

Let me turn to the question of homelessness, which is already a moral emergency in this country. The lockdown now comes as the weather has turned, the winter is setting in and sleeping rough is more dangerous than ever. It is therefore vital that the Government restart the “Everybody In” programme and reintroduce the evictions ban so that we do not see a further spike in homelessness. That needs to be done urgently.

More broadly, the Prime Minister needs to show that he has a plan B on 2 December to control the virus and rebuild the economy and a clear strategy to ensure that we never, ever get into this situation again. The explanatory notes in the regulations show just how vague the plans for 2 December are, as they say: “It is expected that at the end of the 28-day period, the previous alert levels introduced in October will once again be brought into force. This policy is subject to review”. There are millions of people who have been in restrictions for many months who will be very worried about that paragraph.

Let us take Leicester as an example. Leicester has been in restrictions for over 120 days. It is very hard to make the argument to the people of Leicester that the restrictions are working. It is very hard to make the argument to the people of Greater Manchester, who were in the equivalent of tier 2 restrictions for six weeks, that the tiered system is working. That is because the public’s experience of the tiered system is that areas that are in tier 1 or the equivalent end up in tier 2, and that areas that have been in tier 2, sometimes for weeks on end, drift towards tier 3. If the tier system worked, tier 2 areas would go back to tier 1; that would be success. But, actually, the vast majority—if not all of them—have gone up to tier 3.

The Prime Minister sometimes says that this is a party political issue, but it is not. If the idea at the end of the exercise on 2 December is to go back to the system that we are leaving tonight, when that system—certainly in tiers 1 and 2—simply is not working, that is very hard for the public, because they know that that is not going to keep them safe, they know that it puts further health and economic matters at issue and they know that it means that Christmas is not going to be what it could be.

[Neil O’Brien]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about my constituency. I gently point out to him that during the period of the most restrictions in Leicester, the number of cases did come down from 160 to 25 per 100,000. That shows that tough controls of the kind that we are about to vote to bring in today do work.

[Mr Speaker]

Let me help people. A few Members have now intervened a couple of times. We want to get everybody in. If they go down the list, I am sure that they will appreciate that.

[Keir Starmer]

I have looked at the Leicester figures frequently; they do go up and down, but Leicester has never come out of the restrictions. It is a point that I have been making, and it is not a party political one. The point is that if an area is in restrictions and does not come out, the restrictions are not working. If an area was in tier 2 restrictions and ends up in tier 3, tier 2 did not work. To go back to that system does not make any sense. For heaven’s sake, we have got to use the next four weeks to come up with something better than that for 2 December, otherwise we will do the usual thing, which is to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December, and then, when we get there, find out that what we said would happen will not happen. I can predict what is going happen because it has happened so many times in the past seven months: the Prime Minister says, “x won’t happen”; x will happen; it does happen; and we start all over again. It is not fair to the British public to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman confounding his own logic? He has spent the past several days berating the Government for not introducing a circuit breaker, but at no time did I hear him explain how we would leave the circuit breaker, which it seems to me was simply the half-term holiday rebadged.

[Keir Starmer]

The lower the rate of infection and the lower the admissions, the more chance there is to get the virus under control. That is why you have to go early. If you want to safeguard the economy, go early. How on earth has it helped the British economy to delay and to go into a lockdown for four weeks when, on 21 September, SAGE was saying it could be two to three weeks? How on earth has it helped the British economy to miss the chance to do lockdown over half-term?

All Members will have seen the data about schools. We all want schools to stay open. How on earth did it make sense to miss half-term? Most schools would happily have said, “We’ll get up early—the Thursday before half-term—and we’ll use Monday and Tuesday as inset days,” and we could probably have got the best part of two weeks of schools being closed naturally, because of half-term, and have the lockdown over then. I do not think there can be anybody in this House who does not think that would have been a better period for a circuit break, lockdown—call it what you like.

It has not helped the economy to waste three weeks. If, at the end of those three weeks, the Prime Minister could say, “Well, there we are—the tiered system is now working, and I’m going to stick with it,” that would be one thing, but the Prime Minister is now saying, “I am going to do the lockdown,” which is failure. That is failure.

The next four weeks cannot be wasted—cannot be wasted. We have got to fix test, trace and isolate. The last figures show that, in just one week, 113,000 contacts were missed by the system. Four in 10 people who should be contacted are not being contacted under the system. If you are not contacted, you cannot isolate. It is not just a number; that is 113,000 people walking round our communities when they should have been self-isolating. Hands up if you think that has helped to control the virus.

We have been on about the track, trace and isolate system for months. The promises come by the wheelbarrow, the delivery never. Only 20% of people who should be isolating are doing it. Something is going wrong. Just continually pushing away challenge and pretending the problem does not exist is a huge part of the problem. Those figures have got to turn around, and they have got to turn around in the next four weeks. If we get to 2 December and those problems are still in the system, we will be going round this circuit for many months to come. If this is not fixed in the next four weeks, there are massive problems.

The Government have also got to stop sending constant mixed messages: “Go back to work, even if you can work from home,” or “Civil servants, get to work,” only a week later to say, “Stay at home.” The constant changing of the economic plans is creating even more uncertainty. There have been huge mistakes made in recent weeks during this pandemic. We have been told so many times by the Prime Minister, often on a Wednesday afternoon, that there is a plan to prevent a second wave—it is working. Well, there was not, and it did not.

Now, less than four months after the Prime Minister told us that this would all be over by Christmas, we are being asked to approve emergency regulations to shut the country down. That is a terrible thing for the country to go through, but there is not any excuse for inaction or for allowing the virus to get further out of control, so Labour will act in the national interest, and we will vote for these restrictions—these regulations—tonight.

[Mr Speaker]

I say to Members that we are going to start with a four-minute limit, starting with Theresa May.

Covid-19 Update

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for his call on Saturday to brief me on developments.

The central lesson from the first wave of this virus was that if you do not act early and decisively, the cost will be far worse, more people will lose their jobs, more businesses will be forced to close and, tragically, more people will lose their loved ones. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor failed to learn that lesson; as a result, this lockdown will be longer than it needed to be—at least four weeks—it will be harder, as we have just missed half-term, and the human cost will be higher.

On 21 September, when the Government’s own scientists—SAGE—recommended an urgent two to three-week circuit break, there were 11 deaths from covid-19 and just over 4,000 covid infections. For 40 days, the Prime Minister ignored that advice, and when he finally announced a longer and deeper national lockdown on Saturday, those figures had increased to 326 deaths a day and 22,000 covid cases. That is the human cost of the Government’s inaction.

The reality is that the two pillars of the Prime Minister’s strategy, the £12 billion track and trace and regional restrictions, have not only failed to stop the second wave, they have been swept away by it. At every stage, the Prime Minister has been too slow, behind the curve. At every stage, he has pushed away challenge, ignored advice and put what he hoped would happen ahead of what is happening. At every stage, he has over-promised and under-delivered. Rejecting the advice of his own scientists for 40 days was a catastrophic failure of leadership and of judgment. The Prime Minister now needs to explain to the British people why he failed to act and to listen for so long. But tougher national restrictions are now needed, the virus is out of control and the cost of further inaction would be huge, so Labour will provide the votes necessary to make this happen.

But we will also demand that the Government do not waste these four weeks and repeat past mistakes, so can the Prime Minister answer some very simple and direct questions? Will the Government finally use this period to fix the broken track and trace system and give control to local authorities, as we have proposed for months? We all agree that schools should be kept open, so will the Prime Minister finally put in place the additional testing, support and strategy needed to make that happen? Will the Prime Minister confirm that the new economic package—I think it will be the Chancellor’s fourth in five weeks—will be at least as generous as in March? Despite the partial step he announced today, will he go further to close the gaping holes in support for the self-employed, and will there be further support for the 1 million people who have already lost their jobs since March?

How does the Prime Minister plan to get a grip on messaging and rebuild public trust? After all, this announcement is only happening today because it was leaked to the national papers before it came to Parliament.

Finally, can the Prime Minister clarify what the process will be for exiting lockdown? Will it be only when the national R rate is below 1, or will some regions exit lockdown before others? I noted the Prime Minister did not make this clear in his statement. This really matters, because even before this national lockdown, millions of people have been living under restrictions for months—Leicester, for example, is on day 127—and after everything the British people have been through and are being asked to sacrifice again, they need confidence that the Government actually have a plan; that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I know how difficult this next month will be, and the months to come. The lockdown will be harder, longer and more damaging than it needed to be, and now more than ever we must stand together as a country, as families and as communities, and show once again that at a moment of national crisis, the British people always rise to the moment and support those in need.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for supporting these measures, and I think he is right to do so, but I make absolutely no apology whatever for doing my level best—our level best as a Government—to avoid going back into a national lockdown, with all the damage that entails for people’s livelihoods, for people’s mental health and for jobs across this country. That was our intention, and it is absolutely true, as the House has learned today and has seen, that the virus has risen across much of northern Europe. That does not mean that it was wrong to go for a local approach, and it does not mean it was wrong to support NHS Test and Trace, because both of those approaches—both of those means—have done a fantastic job, in their way, of bringing the virus under control and reducing the R. It is lower than it would have been without those heroic local efforts, and it is lower than it would have been without NHS Test and Trace. In my view, the right hon. and learned. Gentleman should stop continually knocking NHS Test and Trace, because we need people to self-isolate. I will accept many criticisms, but the one thing I do think we need to get right is that we need to see people self-isolating to a greater extent than they currently are. It would be good if people across this House could therefore back and support NHS Test and Trace, because it is absolutely vital.

Turning to some of the points that the right hon. and learned Gentleman made, yes it is absolutely true that we are going to protect schools particularly, and we are massively expanding testing for schools. Earlier in my remarks, I mentioned what mass testing can do for particular institutions: schools, hospitals, universities and others. He asked about help for the economy, for businesses and for the self-employed. He perhaps did not hear what I said: we are massively increasing help for the self-employed, and will continue to support businesses and livelihoods across this country. I once again thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the creativity he brings to these problems.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked when these measures would end. As I have already told the House, they will end on 2 December. The House has the right to decide, and will vote on whatever measures it chooses to bring in, but we will then go back to the tiered system based on the data as it presents itself. He asked the people of this country to stand together against the coronavirus, and I could not agree with him more. All I respectfully say to him is that I think the people of this country would also like to see the politicians of this country standing together a little bit more coherently in the face of this virus.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend by telling him that the incidence in the Vale of Aylesbury is in fact less than half the England average. The way forward for constituents in the Vale of Aylesbury and everywhere else is for everyone to keep following the guidance, observing the new restrictions and, obviously, washing hands, wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces and keeping a sensible distance.

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

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

Prime Minister, how does an area which goes into tier 3 restrictions get out of those restrictions?

[The Prime Minister]

The simplest and most effective way for areas to get out of those restrictions is, of course, to get the R down to 1 or below, and I am very pleased to say that some areas are already having a considerable effect with the measures that they are taking.

[Keir Starmer]

Can I press the Prime Minister on that answer? If the infection rate, R, in a tier 3 area has not come below 1, will it be possible in any circumstances for that area to come out of tier 3—if the R has not come below 1?

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, the R is one of the measures that we look at. We take a decision based on a number of things including the R—also, of course, rates of infection, rates of admission to hospital and other data. But the most important thing is for areas that do go into tier 3—and I am very grateful to local leadership in the areas that have gone into tier 3, because it is the right thing for them to do, the right thing for their constituents, the right thing to save lives —when they are able to make progress, then, of course, they will come out of tier 3. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows full well, the measures that are put in place are reviewed every 28 days.

[Keir Starmer]

I am now confused by the Prime Minister’s answer. If it is not the R rate under 1, what is it? Millions of people want to know the answer to that question. Millions of them are in tier 3 and millions more are likely to go into tier 3. They really need to know. On Friday, the chief scientific officer said that tier 3 on its own certainly is not enough to get the R rate below 1. On the same day, the Prime Minister himself said that there was only a chance of getting infection rates down.

That goes to the heart of the issue in Greater Manchester and elsewhere. The widespread fear is that tier 3 is the worst of all worlds: it brings significant economic harm without getting the virus sufficiently under control to exit tier 3. So instead of being a solution, tier 3 is a gateway to weeks and weeks, or more likely months and months, of agony from which there is no likely exit. Can the Prime Minister not see the problem if there is not a clear exit?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sorry, but I have made it absolutely clear that a part of the country going into tier 3 is in there only for 28 days; we will review it after 28 days. Areas that have gone into tier 3 are, I believe, already making progress, and areas where there are restrictions in place are also showing signs of progress. We are pursuing a local—a regional—approach, which is the sensible approach for this country. That is what the epidemiology supports. It is what the deputy chief medical officer supported last night.

Again, I want to thank local leadership in Merseyside, in Lancashire, actually in London, in the west midlands and elsewhere for what they are doing. It is a bit incoherent of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to attack local lockdowns when he wants to plunge the whole country back into a damaging lockdown for weeks on end, and he has no clue about how he would propose to get the country out of that—does he?

[Keir Starmer]

I appreciate that there will be a review every 28 days, but if the R rate has not come below 1, then the infection rate is still going up, the numbers are going up, the admissions are going up, the numbers in hospital are going up and the deaths are going up. Is the Prime Minister seriously saying that he would take a tier 3 area out of tier 3 with the R above 1? I do not think so.

Let me spell out what that means. On Friday, thousands of people in Greater Manchester—taxi drivers, pub and hospitality workers, people working in betting shops, the self-employed and freelancers—will either be out of work or face significant pay cuts. That is the reality on Friday in Greater Manchester. But their rent and their mortgage will not be lower; their food and their heating bills will not be lower—and that could last for months.

Why can the Prime Minister and the Chancellor not understand that? They should stop bargaining with people’s lives, stop dividing communities and provide the support that is needed in Manchester.

[The Prime Minister]

I am very proud that this Government have already given Greater Manchester £1.1 billion in support for business, £200 million in extra un-ring-fenced funding, £50 million to tackle infections in care homes, £20 million for Test and Trace, and another £22 million for the local response that we announced yesterday. Yesterday, the Mayor of Greater Manchester was offered a further £60 million, which he turned down, having had no encouragement to support it, I may say, from the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

I can tell the House today that that cash will be distributed to the boroughs of Greater Manchester. I thank right hon. and hon. Members across the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), for Bolton West (Chris Green), for Bolton North East (Mark Logan), for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), for Bury North (James Daly), for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), for Leigh (James Grundy), for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) for the support that they have given in this matter.

[Keir Starmer]

This is a Prime Minister who can pay £7,000 a day for consultants on Track and Trace, which is not working; who can find £43 million for a garden bridge that was never built; but who cannot find £5 million for the people of Greater Manchester. I really think the Prime Minister has crossed a Rubicon here, not just in the miserly way that he has treated Greater Manchester, but in the grubby take-it-or-leave-it way that these local deals are being done. It is corrosive to public trust to pit region against region, mayor against mayor, council against council and ask them to trade away their businesses and jobs. We need a one nation approach to replace these endless local battles with clear national criteria and proper support for jobs. Labour’s motion this afternoon would do that. Why will the Prime Minister not support it?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of the one nation Conservative support that we have given to the entire country: £200 billion in support for jobs and livelihoods across the whole of the country already, and a further £9.9 billion now for the job support scheme. It is this Government who have cut VAT for business and deferred business rates. There is no other country in Europe where so much support and so much help has been given to the population to get through this crisis, and we will continue to do that. It is the height of absurdity that the right hon. and learned Gentleman stands up and attacks the economic consequences of the measures we are obliged to take across some parts of the country when he wants to turn the lights out with a full national lockdown, taking kids—[Interruption.] That was his policy last week anyway, wasn’t it? Perhaps he could confirm that that is still his policy. Is that what he wants to do?

[Keir Starmer]

At his press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister produced heat maps across the country showing that the infection rate was up in all ages and across all regions, and particularly showing regions that have been in the equivalent of tier 2 restrictions for weeks, if not months, moving into tier 3. If they are moving into tier 3, tier 2 has not worked, because if tier 2 had worked, they should be going into tier 1.

So tier 2 goes to tier 3, and tier 3 has no end, because there is no prospect or confidence in the R rate coming below 1—and I do not believe that a tier 3 region will come out of those restrictions unless R is below 1 and while the numbers are still going up. So we now have a stark choice.

By the way, Prime Minister, Cornwall is the only place—possibly with the Isle of Wight—where the infection rate today is less than it was in Greater Manchester when it went into local restrictions, so this idea that some areas are immune is wrong.

So there is a stark choice: carry on with the Prime Minister’s approach, which will lead to weeks and weeks and months and months of prolonged agony in everyone’s constituencies for millions of people in tiers 2 and 3, with no exit; or put in place a two to three week time- limited circuit break to break the cycle and bring the virus back under control.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland—in part—have chosen that path. With half term starting this Friday, this may be the last opportunity for the Prime Minister to put in place an effective circuit break. The Prime Minister was too slow in the first phase of the pandemic; he is being too slow again. We cannot repeat this mistake. Will he act in the public interest and take the opportunity to put in place a circuit break this Friday?

[The Prime Minister]

We will do whatever it takes to get this country through the crisis, with or without the support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I have explained why I do not believe that his policy is the right one for the country, because it would involve closing schools and shuttering businesses, with all the psychological and emotional damage that a lockdown of that kind brings. He cannot say how many circuit breakers he thinks would be necessary. He cannot say how long they would go on. He cannot say how much damage they would do to the UK economy and to people’s mental health.

We, on the other hand, want to go on with our common-sensical approach, which is a local and regional approach, keeping kids in school and keeping our economy moving, because that is the way to get the whole of our country through this crisis together so that all the regions of the country, particularly those regions that are now, alas, under tier 3 restrictions, bounce back strongly together.

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.