Covid-19 Update
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
The whole House would agree that the Government must absolutely make sure that there is a fair pay settlement for all NHS workers, and that is certainly what there will be.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I am absolutely delighted to see my right hon. Friend back in his rightful place on the Front Bench. There can be no clearer example of the Government’s commitment to recycling. I hope that he will bring his customary consistency in approach to the covid crisis, and tell us whether we are following dates or data. As for the data we get, it is not just about the number of infections—it is about who is infected, what age they are, whether they have pre-existing conditions, and whether they have been offered a vaccine, but have refused. It is not just about hospitalisations and how many people are in hospital. How long have they been hospitalised compared with the figures for previous parts of the pandemic? How many of them require extra care and how many are in intensive care units? We need to understand much better how the Government are reaching their decisions. The British people are not stupid, and Parliament needs to be taken into the Government’s confidence much more. I trust, given the previous examples of how he has conducted himself, that my right hon. Friend can do that.
Sajid Javid
I should first tell my right hon. Friend that I am happy to be recycled. Recycling is something that we are all in favour of. On his important point about data, I saw the data in the Department for the first time yesterday. I saw the detail that it provides and how granular it is. I was impressed with that data, so I can give my right hon. Friend reassurance that the Government are looking at the data, and are absolutely taking it into account. I would also like to find a way to make sure that we can share as much of that data as possible so that others can benefit from it, and I will certainly look at ways in which we can do just that.
Coronavirus
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Yes, I would characterise it in that way. Our goal, ahead of 19 July, is to take step 4. On the basis of the evidence so far, I am confident that we will not need more than the four weeks to get this job done and take step 4.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend give us a little more information about the rise in hospitalisations that he mentioned? Of those who are being hospitalised, how many are in the younger age group who were not yet eligible for the vaccine, and how many are above that age—in other words, those who were able to get the vaccine but chose not to?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. The answer is that the majority are in the younger age group who have not yet had the chance to be vaccinated. Just under one fifth of those going into hospital in the last week have had both jabs, about a fifth have had one jab and the majority have not had any. The majority are under the age of 50 and have not yet had the opportunity to have both jabs. I think there is a material difference when it comes to the state’s responsibility to offer the vaccine to all adults. The duty that we have when somebody has not been offered the vaccine is greater than the duty we have when we have offered a vaccine but somebody has chosen not to take it up. There is a material difference between those two situations that I think my right hon. Friend was getting at.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I am afraid that the previous speaker will be very disappointed, because we are going to have to live with covid, like we have to learn to live with every other infectious disease that exists in the world. Yes, we have tried to suppress it. Yes, we tried to deal with it, but we will have to learn to live with it. Viruses, the hon. Member may be surprised to know, have been around for 400 million years—a lot longer than us. Guess which one is winning the Darwinian race.
When we do have to make decisions, I think one thing is very clear. Up to this point, the aims of the medical profession and the Government’s advisers and the aims of the Government have been broadly similar, but they will have to diverge at some point, because the medical profession will always want to see the rate of infection brought down to the smallest level possible at whatever cost, but the Government have different considerations. The Government need to ensure that the rest of the health service is able to operate properly, that the economy is moving and that the social and wellbeing aspects of the population are looked after. That is why the aims are different.
While I am at it, on a private note, I am sick to death of the Government’s so-called advisers coming on TV and giving their individual views, rather than giving advice to the Government on a confidential basis. If they want to be stars of Sky News, let them leave SAGE and carve their own path.
On what basis will we decide when we have this divergence? The first thing to say is that the variant will not be a reason for keeping lockdown. The variant may be more transmissible, but that is irrelevant if it is not causing more hospitalisations or more deaths. We have already heard from Public Health England that the two vaccines—Pfizer and AstraZeneca—can cope as well as with the new Indian variant as they can with the Kent variant. We do not need to hear about the variant argument, because I do not think it holds water.
What matters is who is being hospitalised, and where. Are the hospitalisations young people who have not yet had the vaccine, who may be at risk because of the increased transmissibility of the new variant, or is it people, as we have seen in some parts of the country, who have been offered the vaccine, but for one reason or another have chosen not to get it? We cannot have the country being held to ransom by any groups who have been offered a vaccine but have chosen not to take it; that is utterly unacceptable.
It seems to me that the essence of the Government’s case—if the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), wants to, he can intervene to confirm it—is this: the Government’s strategy was based on a single vaccine strategy, in the belief that, if enough people got it, the efficacy would be high enough that we could unlock at that point. However, the evidence published by Public Health England yesterday showed that the Pfizer vaccine is 94% effective against hospitalisation after one dose, but that AstraZeneca is only 71% after one dose and takes the second dose to get up to 92%.
It seems to me that the Government are telling us— I wish they would be clear about this—that they need a little more time to get people, especially those on AstraZeneca, to the second dose so that there is the level of protection against hospitalisation that we see with the Pfizer vaccine. If the Government presented their case in that way, it would be an awful lot easier for the rest of us to give the Government our support, because that would be a clear rationale.
We also need a clear assurance that the two-week review point is not a ploy to buy support in the House of Commons, but a genuine review of the data, whereby we will see within a couple of weeks whether the hospitalisation rate is increasing or not. If the Government give us a clear assurance that the two-week point is a real review and that we can achieve the full relief of the lockdown at that point, the Minister might be able to buy a little support from his own Benches this evening.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba) [V]
It feels like we have entered yet another episode of “Hancock’s Half Hour”, but unfortunately it is laughable for all the wrong reasons.
The first motion under debate today is indirectly relevant to Scotland and to my Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency. Without independence, Scotland will continue to suffer the consequences of the UK Government’s hapless leadership on covid. Travel agencies in my constituency have another month of pouring money down the drain and another month with no tangible support from the Government. The first motion is England only, so Alba Members will abstain on that principle, but to those who have suffered loss of life and bereavement, the Government’s response of repetitious, braggadocious claims at every juncture must be disheartening. It is more indicative, as I said earlier today, of a Del Boy Britain: “Everything will be fine because we’re British.” But it is precisely why we find ourselves in this position.
This Government have put political priorities over public safety. There was a lack of action on border control at the start of pandemic and with the identification of the delta variant. They have allowed new variants to enter and seed, and the weekend’s failure by the UK Prime Minister to lead the G7 to invest in vaccines and cash in line with the World Health Organisation’s identified need is absolutely unforgivable.
There has been an unwillingness to listen, to learn and to respond; chaotic messaging; and the abandonment of testing in March 2020, instead of using that nadir of the pandemic to expand testing. The Secretary of State has continued with his overconfidence in in-the-field lateral flow test devices, and the chaotic education policy has only made things worse. There are continued huge gaps in support, driving poverty and disadvantage in the face of repeated warnings. These are not just my concerns; many have been raised in the prestigious British Medical Journal.
Not every misstep can be mitigated by the effective work of Kate Bingham’s vaccines taskforce. Recently, the Secretary of State supported my calls for surveillance across a range of indicators to beat the virus, but vaccines are not foolproof.
The G7 chair opportunity was an unforgivable moral failure. Vaccines, cash, but also robust international surveillance, are urgently required. The Government’s growing propensity to ignore scrutiny of Parliament is absolutely staggering, and now the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) derides scrutiny of experts in the media. It has been never clearer than with their vote-dodging reduction in overseas aid and that will not be forgiven.
This is a global and dynamic challenge. The completely inadequate response from the G7 summit risks the development of ever more virulent variants. In the light of that failure in leadership from the Prime Minister, can we get some straight answers—probably not? What action is the Secretary of State taking to secure our public health by working to meet those WHO targets for vaccines, cash and surveillance? Any return to normality will happen only when we are all safe.
Dr Fox
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Would it be possible for you to convey to Mr Speaker that, while we are still operating under the restrictions that we have in Parliament, we need to try to find ways to intervene on contributions that are being made on video? Otherwise, we are unable to challenge the views of the Scottish nationalists, who claim that the problems that they suffer from in the covid pandemic are a result of the United Kingdom Government’s actions, when they themselves have the same powers to deal with them in Scotland, had they chosen to do so differently, but they have not.
Covid-19 Update
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
Of course the purpose of the app is to identify people who have been in close contact with somebody who has tested positive and let them know that, and therefore ask them to self-isolate—that is what it is there for. The hon. Gentleman asks me to get more data so that it can be more targeted. He will know from last summer’s debate that the restrictions on the amount of data we can gather through that app are put in place by the companies rather than by us, so we cannot be more targeted. I am very happy to arrange a briefing for him on the details of that. But the goal is to ensure, in time, especially for those who have been vaccinated, that we follow through on the pilots we have done under which people who are contacts—not the “cases” themselves—are able to go into a testing regime, rather than having to isolate. There are pilots under way to check clinically that that works, and I look forward to seeing their results.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend advise us about the demographics of those he believes are likely to be hospitalised? Today, Public Health England said that both the Pfizer and the AstraZeneca vaccines can cope as well with the India variant as the Kent variant. The Pfizer vaccine is 94% effective against hospital admission after one dose and 96% effective after two, while the AstraZeneca vaccine is 71% effective against hospitalisation with one dose and 92% effective after two. Who would be hospitalised to the extent that the NHS would be swamped? Will he promise us that our country will not be locked down because some individuals who could be immunised choose not to be?
Matt Hancock
Yes. Thankfully, the take-up rates are very high, so only a very small proportion of people have chosen not to come forward to get the jab when offered. My right hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that the state’s obligation to get the country out of this situation falls more heavily on ensuring that vaccinations are offered than that they are taken up. Our goal is to ensure that take-up is as high as possible but, given that we are not going for mandatory vaccination across the board, the commitment that we make is to offer, and there is an important distinction between the two, as my right hon. Friend draws out.
On the make-up of those hospitalised, the average age has fallen considerably since the vaccination programme started, which is probably in large part due to the fact that, of course, the older cohorts were vaccinated first. That also, on average, reduces the acuity of those in hospital and therefore helps to break the link between hospitalisations and deaths yet further. I hope that answers my right hon. Friend’s first point.
Covid-19 Update
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady raises an important point on a subject that she knows extremely well. If I may, could I give her the respect of considering the question and writing to her with a full reply, because it is a very important question and I want to make sure that we get it right? Maybe we can then have a correspondence to make sure that we get to the right result.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
The UK’s vaccination programme has been an international trailblazer, the strategic aim of preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed has clearly been met, and I am delighted that my right hon. Friend, who has done a tremendous job as Secretary of State throughout the pandemic, appears determined not to allow a shift in the goalposts and to follow the cautious pathway out of lockdown. But can we please, and can he please, ensure that we have a rational and balanced discussion about viral variants? Viruses always mutate and there will be an unavoidable level of risk that we will have to get used to post pandemic, unless we are to become a perpetually frightened, introspective nation—the opposite of global Britain?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend has deep experience in this area, and I am very grateful for what he said—that was very kind. He is absolutely right about the fact that viruses always mutate, and we can rise to that—we can respond to that—as we do with flu. This is another area in which the parallel with how we manage flu as a country is the right one, because the flu virus mutates most years. We work out, observing the Australian winter, what is the most likely variant we will get in our winter, we adjust the vaccines to that variant and then we roll them out over the autumn. That sort of programme is likely to be needed in this country for some time to come. We will start later this year with the booster shots, and we will make progress after that according to the evidence as we see it. I hope he was not trying to make a point of something; I always try to be rational, but it is sometimes hard.
Coronavirus
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
A year after the lockdown, may I begin by thanking people in my constituency? Of course, I thank the core workers, whom we recognise so often, in the NHS and in education, but also those on the supermarket tills, public sector transport workers and those who have been delivering to our homes and who have kept our lives going. They do not always get the mention they deserve. I also thank the community groups and volunteers who have silently and often invisibly managed to keep our communities afloat. Above all else, I thank the men, women and children in all our constituencies who have forgone the basic human pleasures of family and friends and made sacrifices to keep the rest of us safe—very unlike, I have to say, the selfish, reckless and self-indulgent individuals who were rioting close to my constituency, in Bristol, last weekend.
I would be dishonest if I did not say that I resent having to vote for a six-month extension to these rules, given that they are out of step with the lockdown path set out by the Government. However, I also accept that we have no alternative, given the legislative position in which we find ourselves, so I will support the Government today. After looking back on how we have handled this, including the legislative elements, we need to ensure that, when the same or a similar situation happens in the future, we do not allow such long periods for the Government to hold emergency powers without the House of Commons being able to regularly review them. A six-month period where the Government have such powers is out of step with our constitutional conventions in this country. It is certainly out of step with what I regard as the principles of conservatism to allow the Government that leeway, so I hope that will change.
There has been a lot of talk about the concept of passports. I will say something briefly about that. In international travel, we are all used to the concept that we cannot cross a border without having immunisation. That is a perfectly reasonable thing for any country, including the United Kingdom, to want to do. It is when it comes to domestic issues that I think there is a real problem. Were the Government to try to compel individuals to carry some proof of either immunity through vaccine or a negative test, that would be completely unacceptable in a country where civil liberties are held so highly and are so prized. However, we as Conservatives should be careful not to constrain the private sector in how it chooses its customers. If companies—whether airlines or pubs—choose to have particular customers in particular ways, that is up to them. I would not like a Conservative Government to intervene in the freedom of the private sector to choose its customers. We cannot pick and choose which freedoms to protect and which to disapply.
On the concept of a third wave, it is not a third wave; it is a continuing wave. If a population does not have immunity to a particular pathogen, it will continue to spread until community immunity increases, either through vaccination or because of recovery from infection.
We have to ensure that we do better globally. We have not done well, as a global community, on this pandemic. We have mrNA technology, which should make it much quicker for us to deal with any emerging pathogens, yet we have a global pandemic disaster on our hands. We have to recognise that, if we are going to do better in the future, we have to have global protocols. However, we cannot have global protocols without global metrics—and we cannot even decide exactly how to measure the number of people who have died from the pandemic. We have a long way to go and, when we look at how we handled it, we need to look at how we handled it as an international community. A global pandemic requires global solutions.
Covid-19
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
It was great to hear the Prime Minister say today that the Government’s policy will continue to be based on data, not dates. It would have been wrong to give in to those who wanted a premature lifting of restrictions on the basis of the calendar rather than the available scientific data, but it would also be wrong to continue unnecessarily with restrictions if the data said that it was safe to lift them. If data is right in one direction, it has to be right in the other. I hope that there will be sufficient flexibility in the mechanism that the Government have set out today to respond more quickly should the data continue to improve.
The strategy has always been clear. It has not been to drive covid deaths down to zero, because that would be ridiculous and out of step with everything we know about medical science and historical experience; it has been to stop the medical services becoming overwhelmed. As we see greater levels of immunisation, with a reduced risk of that happening, I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General that that is the No. 1 basis on which we should make decisions.
Our vaccine results continue to be terrific. It is one of the best cases we can make for the Union of the United Kingdom that we have been able to buy and distribute vaccine across the whole country in a way that would not have been possible otherwise. There must be a lot of egg on a lot of Euro faces tonight, given the information we have about the AstraZeneca vaccine. It would perhaps be a source of some amusement even in this House, were it not so serious, that the idle chatter and uninformed comments from senior European politicians will undoubtedly have cost lives. We should be trying to get a vaccine dividend for the British people, given the success of our vaccine programme, to get back as quickly as we can to normal.
The NHS will face staffing issues, as we have to deal with not only the new vaccines but the second doses of vaccine at the same time, and I would like to hear from the Minister how we will deal with that. It is right for us to share vaccine with the developing world. It is not a case of altruism. In a world that is interconnected and interdependent, the longer the pandemic goes on, the more variants we will see, and therefore it is in our mutual self-interest to deal with it.
Finally, it is time to get Parliament back. The mechanisms we have had are better than no Parliament, and Mr Speaker and his staff deserve credit for that, but if it is good enough to get the schools as institutions back, it is good enough to get Parliament back. Three-minute monologues that are uninterruptible are not the same as the robust debate that we need.
Anthony Mangnall
Being in Parliament gives the opportunity for individuals to intervene in debates and have a more rigorous debate on these issues. Is that not a benefit to being here?
Dr Fox
Proving the point that show is always better than tell, my hon. Friend is exactly right. We have to not just hold the Government to account on the issues of the day but have genuine debate in Parliament about the whole range of issues that will become live once we start to get complete control over the covid pandemic.
It is time that we set out a programme for immunisation in Parliament for Members, Members’ staff, our security staff, the catering staff and even the Lobby. On that subject, I am more than happy to volunteer my services, if for no other reason than I have always believed it is fine to mix business with pleasure.
Covid-19
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
When a friend of mine in Switzerland called this morning to say that the covid debate in the UK had become extremely polarised, it made me think about the need for rationality and proportionality in reporting. I was therefore appalled when I switched on the BBC and saw:
“Covid: 2020 saw most excess deaths since World War Two”.
In fact, further down the report it says that, when the age and size of the population is taken into account, 2020 saw the worst death rate since the mid-2000s. We do not need sensationalist reporting like that, particularly from national broadcasters, because there are real questions to be asked about mortality.
There is no clear way to measure covid mortality. We measure excess death rates, those who died within 28 days of a positive test and those who have covid on their death certificate, but that does not tell us what we really need to know: who actually died of covid as the primary infection, who died with covid—died of something else but was diagnosed as being positively exposed—and who died as a result of covid, either because of the lack of access to healthcare during the lockdown or because of the diminution of healthcare capacity because of high infection rates. That is why I reiterate my plea for a cross-party, cross-House commission to look at how we can actually get better data, which we will need for the future.
I turn to the success of the Government’s vaccination programme. The seven-day average of doses administered per million population show the UK at 2,500, Denmark second top in Europe at 1,500, well ahead of Germany on 571 and France on only 340. This is a great success for the Government. The success in the availability of the vaccine is the success of the strength of the Union. The UK Government took action to invest £120 million between 2016 and 2021 on new vaccines. The United Kingdom Government, on behalf of the whole country, secured access to 367 million doses from seven vaccine developers, with four different vaccine types.
The people of Scotland are asking as a response to covid, “Will I get my vaccine soon?” and “Will I get my business support?” What about the Scottish Government? The Deputy First Minister says that a second referendum is a “critical response to covid”. What a damning indictment: nationalist fanaticism over independence taking greater importance than the needs of the Scottish people. We can deal with public health emergencies much better as a United Kingdom. It is not the Government of England who are cutting the number of vaccine targets in half for the rest of January. We can not only do better within the United Kingdom, but help to lead the global response to this and future pandemics better together.
Public Health
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
May I begin by acknowledging the difficulty of the task faced by Health Ministers and the Prime Minister in this crisis? We have a proportion of the public who want a full lockdown, irrespective of the consequences to the economy, and we have another proportion of the population who want no lockdown whatever, irrespective of the consequences to public health. However, even those who reluctantly accept the need for further restrictions must be mindful of the balance between the authority of Government and the responsibility of citizens, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) that we need to have sufficient parliamentary oversight during the period for which these restrictions are in place. I hope to hear from the Minister a Government commitment to more debate and regular votes during this period so that Parliament can express its view on behalf of the public.
I would like to say a few words about the vaccine programme. First, I congratulate the Government on having a world-leading immunisation programme, with two very difficult elements that have to be kept in balance—the supply of the vaccine and an adequate number of vaccinators. Of course, those two elements of the logistics have to go hand in hand and at the same speed—not an easy task for Ministers.
We will have to have a surge capacity in vaccinators to be able to deal with demographic and regional differences across the country and to avoid rate-limiting steps in the process. I made a point to the Prime Minister this morning about how difficult it has been for former GPs such as myself to get back into the vaccinating process and about the number of courses we have been asked to complete. I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State announce this afternoon that there will be some changes to that, and I think that is the fastest action I have ever known from a Government in 28 years—raise the issue with the Prime Minister in the morning, and get an answer from the Secretary of State in the afternoon. Incidentally, I think there is an easy fix to this problem. We can get those who want to come into the programme to fulfil two of the better modules—Core Knowledge for COVID-19 Vaccinators and Minimum Requirements for Staff Returning to the NHS.
However, we will also require more scrutiny of the vaccine process itself if we are to be confident in endorsing the public health policy that we have. We need to look better at the modelling and the data that is out there about the effectiveness of a single dose in creating sufficient population immunity, if that is to take place rather than the two doses, and we need to look at an assessment of the Pfizer vaccine in producing continued immune response in the three weeks after the first dose, as was originally envisaged, and in the extended extend 12-week period. It is essential that we know that these things are based on proper scientific data. The key to the success of the strategy will be our ability to understand the data and to unlock the lockdown and get back to normal.
This has been a very difficult time for everyone. We must at least learn the lessons for the future, because the pandemic will not be a once-in-a-generation event.
Covid-19 Update
Liam Fox Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I am very glad to be able to reassure the hon. Lady that the agreement that has been reached with the dentists is all about ensuring that while we support our NHS dentists we see them do as much as they can to look after people and help them get the treatments they need. This is a good, balanced programme and I am sure it will be implemented well by the dentists.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
May I say how delighted I am that North Somerset is moving down into tier 2, which is just reward for the efforts of my constituents and the whole community and also offers great potential help for our hospitality industry as we go into the Christmas period? On the question of balance, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend that we have to consider not just the number of people and the number of households but the age and vulnerability of those who are meeting? May I say, echoing the words of my colleague, that I wish a very happy Christmas to my right hon. Friend and his team of Ministers, who have done the most difficult job imaginable in a rather exceptional way? I hope—although without much expectation—that they will get some break over the Christmas period.
Matt Hancock
The people of North Somerset, who my right hon. Friend represents, and those of nearby Weston-super-Mare have done a remarkable job of bringing the case rates down to 120 for every 100,000. I am very pleased that we are able to take North Somerset out of tier 3 into tier 2. I would also say to everybody that the point about personal responsibility that my hon. Friend stressed and that I strongly agree with still applies. Coming out of a tier makes life easier, of course—we do not want the tiers in place any longer than absolutely necessary—but it is still on everyone in North Somerset, as well as in Bristol and Herefordshire, which have also come down, to do their bit and keep those case rates down.
Covid-19
Liam Fox Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I pay tribute to all those in my own constituency who have helped our community through the pandemic—the medical and emergency staff, other key workers, our volunteers, and the neighbours who have made all the difference.
I want to say a few words about how we can ensure that public confidence in our policy remains high, but first I will make a few comments on the current lockdown. I reinforce my hon. Friend the Minister’s point that when we leave the national lockdown on 2 December, we are not going into a national free-for-all in the run-up to Christmas. Ministers must make it very clear that we are transitioning back to a regional tiered system, because over-optimism, just as if people believe that a vaccine coming means they do not have to obey the rules, would be very dangerous for public health.
But if we are going to move successfully back to the tiered system, we have to deal with some of the illogical rules that still exist despite the best efforts of Ministers. This is not frivolous—it is important in getting people to conform to the restrictions that are in place. For example, we want people to play sport, so do we really believe that a spaced round of golf is more dangerous to public health than people attending a supermarket? When it comes to religious observation, is it credible that people who go to church for private worship who are properly spaced are a greater danger than the same number with the same spacing who take part in a service? These issues are important to a lot of people out there. The Government need to deal with some of these illogicalities if we are to deal with conformity.
There is something that Ministers can do immediately, and that is about free testing for families of key workers. I have a constituent who is a key worker who has been sent home because her son has also been sent home from school to isolate. She cannot go back to work until her son has a negative test, but he does not qualify for free testing. In other words, she must pay to get her son tested before she can go back to a key occupation. That cannot be the right way to treat our key workers. I urge the Minister to look as quickly as possible at how we deal with these key members of our society.
May I ask the Minister to look again, through the Treasury, at those who were remunerated through dividends? Many of those people are hard-working and decent, not tax dodgers. They were able to get by for a short period of time, but as the lockdown goes on, it is becoming impossible for them and they are facing absolute undue hardship. I urge the Government to look again at them.
My main comments relate to our great maxim in medicine—do no harm. That means that the patient must not be worse off from the cure than they were from the original disease. This is a dilemma facing all Governments. How do we protect public health while ensuring the economic viability by which the funding for public services is generated? So far, the public remain very supportive of the Government’s position, but that cannot be guaranteed. Recent controversies over the use of data have made it more difficult for the Government simply to say that they are following the science. Sadly, there is growing resistance to the concept of lockdowns, which is inevitable as economic concerns rise to the fore. It is utterly irrational to say that one is against all lockdowns, because that needs to be a decision taken on the basis of the evidence at the time. However, we need to understand the anxieties and the frustrations if the Government want to keep their options open and retain credibility with the public.
So how can Parliament play its part in that process? Covid-19 is not just a health issue; it is also an economic issue, affecting welfare and employment and our personal and social wellbeing. And of course there is no such thing, actually, as “the science”; rather, there is a range of scientific views, and we need to understand what that range is and the weight given to the respective parts of it if we are to have faith in the outcome of the judgments that have been made.
Our current Select Committees are very good at looking at departmental functions and policy, but they are very vertical and do not look across the whole of Government. In 2012, after the banking scandal, David Cameron set up the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards; it was a full parliamentary Committee of inquiry involving both Houses. I believe we need the same now: senior but temporary, cross-party and with both Houses. Of course, the reaction from the Front Bench is likely to be, “No more scrutiny”—I have been there and done that; I have been on the Front Bench and know what all those arguments are—but I think it would be a mistake and something the Government would come to regret, because such a Commission would help show that across the whole of Government, advice and data had been properly scrutinised. It is an opportunity to reinforce public confidence as we face the covid pandemic into 2021.
Finally, there is another reason why we should have such a set-up. This will not be the last pandemic we face. In the era of globalisation, when in normal times, for example, we have 700,000 people in the air at any one time, we will face further pandemics, and although this has been a tragedy for every single case, it has not been a particularly lethal pandemic by historical standards. We must set up the structures that we will need to deal with future pandemics, and we need internationally to work out the protocols we will put in place when we have the emergence of new viruses and the metrics we will use to measure that, because we cannot have the disorganised and shambolic international response that we have had to this particular pandemic. Meanwhile, at home we need transparency, with all the evidence scrutinised, if we are to maintain public confidence and see off the political opportunists and the conspiracy theorists, and, with that transparency, we need that scrutiny in this House and we need it urgently.