Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 General Committees

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and I will begin by saying that Members on the Labour Benches support these regulations. As one of the three Members of Parliament for Leicester, I am extremely concerned about the impact of this extended lockdown on children who are missing out on school, on local businesses and jobs, and on our universities and voluntary groups, as well as the mental health and other long-term health consequences for people in our city. However, keeping people safe and getting on top of this virus must be our top priority, so we will not be opposing the regulations.

I do, however, want to put on record my concerns about how these regulations and Leicester’s lockdown as a whole have been handled, and to ask the Minister some serious questions about where we go from here. This is because I want Leicester to get out of this lockdown as quickly as it is safe to do so, and because I hope the Government will learn lessons from what has happened in Leicester so that they do not make the same mistakes in any further local lockdowns.

In summary, I think Ministers were too slow to act; have been too centralised in their approach; and have so far failed to provide the additional support Leicester’s businesses and public services need. That is not only unfair; it makes no economic sense, because if more businesses close and more people lose their jobs and our public services struggle to cope, it will cost not just Leicester but our whole country far more in the longer term.

I want to start with the failure to act quickly enough and share vital information with Leicester at an early stage. I am told that since the launch of the NHS test and trace system at the beginning of May, Leicester’s director of public health repeatedly asked Public Health England for the results data from pillar 2 tests—essentially, all testing outside of hospitals—preferably at postcode or what is called lower-super-output areas of below 2,000 people. That data was not forthcoming to Leicester or any other council, apparently because it,

“wasn't in a fit state”.

That was the data from a test and trace system that, you will recall, Sir Christopher, the Prime Minister launched as “world-beating”. Can the Minister explain why the information was not available from the start? Even if it was not perfect, how could local councils possibly know whether they had a problem without that vital data, especially as the pillar 2 testing was a growing part of the overall test numbers?

The Government finally published the total number of positive tests for pillar 2 data at the beginning of June. I am told that our director of public health immediately raised concerns that Leicester’s rates were higher than in other parts of the country. He asked for more detail, especially at the postcode level—at this stage we got the total numbers for the whole city, not individual wards or smaller areas—and what action should be taken. I understand he received reassurances from Public Health England that there was no cause for concern, and that it was probably a data collection or small numbers issue. He raised the same issues the following week and received a similar response.

On 15 June, Leicester’s director of public health was actually told by Public Health East Midlands,

“We have not identified an obvious geographical hotspot... nor an outbreak to date.”

Yet three days later the Secretary of State said in a press conference that there was an outbreak in Leicester. One would think that in such an urgent situation—I have never denied that it was not an urgent situation—with a dangerous virus that spreads so quickly, we would have immediately been given all the possible data, at the very least broken down by postcode. However, it was not until 25 June, 11 days later, that postcode data for pillar 2 testing were finally sent through to our director of public health.

I am going through all of this in what seems like an awful lot of detail because detailed local data, including on ethnicity and where people live and work, is absolutely essential to identifying the location and cause of any problems and taking action to prevent them from getting any worse. I am afraid we are still not getting all the data that we need in a timely enough fashion. We have only just got the total number of both positive and negative tests. We still need household data, not just postcode data, because not everybody with the same postcode works, eats and worships in the same place. We need data on people’s ethnicity and where they work, which is not mandatory—it says only what is people’s occupation. What we really need to know is where people work so that if there is a problem in a food factory or somewhere else, we can go in and sort it out.

We also need contact tracing data so that we know how many people who have been in contact with someone who has tested positive have been followed up for additional tests and possible isolation. All of that is vital to getting on top of the situation, and we need all of that data daily, not weekly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said on Tuesday, the virus does not wait a week, so why should our director of public health? I am afraid the problems do not stop there.

The way in which the lockdown and by extension the regulations have been brought in was, I am afraid, badly organised and ill thought through. Over the weekend of 27 and 28 June, it was briefed that Leicester was to be subjected to a further lockdown—a briefing by the Home Secretary in The Sunday Times. That announcement was made without warning and without the involvement of the city council, the local police or our NHS. A front-page headline might feed the ego of those responsible, but it does nothing for the people it actually affects, other than cause serious anxiety and confusion. That is no way to treat people who have already made huge sacrifices and are being asked to make them all over again.

As if that were not enough, the official announcement on the lockdown was not made until very late on the evening of Monday 29 June; the map of the lockdown area was not published until 12 hours later; and the regulations to implement the lockdown, which we are now finally voting on, were not published for another four days. I cannot tell you the chaos and confusion that that caused. My inbox was absolutely inundated with messages from worried constituents, as were other hon. Members’ inboxes. Given all that, I want to put on record my thanks to our city council and, in particular, Leicestershire police for handling the situation with calm confidence, patience and skill.

I say to hon. Members here that we all know that this pandemic is unprecedented. It is one of the hardest things that any Government have ever had to deal with, and mistakes will inevitably be made, but you do not have to be Einstein to realise that you should not announce a lockdown that will affect hundreds of thousands of people in a national newspaper and until you know exactly where, when and how it will be put in place. That is the very least that our constituents deserve.

People in Leicester also want the Government to acknowledge the additional financial and other consequences of putting us back into this extended lockdown. That is something that Ministers—I should say that this is directed not at this particular Minister but at other Ministers in the Government—have so far failed to do.

After receiving so many emails in the course of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as the lockdown was coming into place, I wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is responsible for business and industry, to ask whether additional support for businesses and employees would be available as a result of the lockdown. He replied to me on 7 July, saying:

“The Chancellor has already said that there are no plans to change the scope or extend any of the schemes currently available.”

I am told that that explicitly contradicts commitments made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to the Labour leader of Leicester City Council and the Conservative leader of Leicestershire County Council. I ask hon. Members in this Committee just to think for a minute about this happening to their own constituency and what their constituents, local businesses and others would be saying to them.

Local businesses are having to stay shut, or close back down, through no fault of their own. They have spent huge amounts of time and money getting ready to reopen, only to see their efforts go to waste. I am thinking of businesses such as North Bar and Kitchen, a brilliant and highly recommended restaurant in my constituency, which says that

“we are now really struggling being forced to close for a second lockdown...Through no fault we feel isolated and we need additional financial support from government for the extra strain this has put on us and our small business.”

I am also thinking of hairdressers such as Malcolm Murphy Hair and Jeana Louisa’s Hair Salon, which worked so hard to get everything in place—they were ordering stock, juggling their staff to comply with social distancing and getting all the appointments up—just to see their hopes dashed again.

These businesses are not arguing against the lockdown. They accept that it is necessary to keep people safe and they know that they have to play their part, but they are asking for the Government to acknowledge that they need extra help just to keep the show on the road and their heads above water, and for doing the right thing.

The Government have also failed to offer any reassurance to people on the furlough scheme. Again, I ask hon. Members to consider this. What happens if Leicester’s businesses are still in full lockdown when the Government stop paying national insurance and pension contributions and start reducing furlough payments, because the rest of the country is opening up and businesses are going back and making money, making a profit? My constituents are understandably worried. They are thinking, “If my employer can't pick up the strain because they’re not allowed to open, I’m going to lose my job.”

The East Midlands chamber of commerce says that the failure to provide Leicester’s economy with extra support is “a massive mistake” that could create “a two-tier recovery” that puts Leicester “at a long-term disadvantage”.

Will the Minister tell me, or ask her colleagues, this: why are Leicester’s businesses being unfairly penalised? I am not denying that the Government have done a huge amount to support businesses during this awful pandemic, but I am asking them to recognise the additional problems that we face. Why will the Government not guarantee that the full furlough scheme will continue for as long as Leicester is in lockdown? Do they recognise that the inevitable increase in unemployment as a result of the pandemic could be even worse in Leicester, a city where 40% of children are already growing up in poverty, with all the awful long-term consequences that that brings? If the Minister recognises that, will she speak to her Treasury colleagues and ask them for a more flexible approach that acknowledges that local lockdowns will have an additional impact on local businesses and jobs that should be recognised and funded?

Our public services and voluntary groups need extra support too. For example, throughout the extended lockdown the city council will have to continue to provide an uplift in fees to care homes to cover their additional costs and higher than normal vacancy levels; help for those who will have to stay shielding; support to keep homeless people off the street; and help to our countless food banks to ensure that thousands of people have enough to eat. That extra work comes with an extra cost. Will the Government meet it?

Do the Government recognise that there is extra work for our police? That was particularly so during the first weekend when the lockdown came in. The media said all sorts of things about whether people would be going out into the county, to the pub where everyone else was going, and what they would be doing. We had more police on that weekend than on a typical new year’s eve. Our two universities are seriously concerned about the impact of the extended lockdown, particularly on whether international students will decide to come to Leicester. Our schools are worried about children falling even further behind and how they will ensure that parents are confident that it is safe for their kids to go back to school in September.

Our vital local community organisations and charities face extra costs because they are being locked down for longer, and cannot rely on their usual sources of income. LOROS, which runs an incredible hospice in my constituency, had just reopened 11 of its 29 shops when the renewed lockdown came in. Six of those shops are in the city. As a result LOROS is losing about £15,000 a week. Its chief executive asked me to find out whether any extra help is available. I wonder whether the Minister can respond, or ask one of her colleagues to do so.

Above all, people in Leicester and Leicestershire want to know when and how we will exit the lockdown. Our businesses want to know when they can go back out and try to get back on their feet. People want to know when they can go out and start earning a living. The Secretary of State originally said that the lockdown would be reviewed on Saturday 18 July. In his statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday he said he would be reviewing the data today. I hope that the Minister will confirm when people in Leicester will hear the news. Will it be today or Saturday? Surely, if there is one thing that we have learned from this whole business it is that leaving people hanging is unfair and a recipe for chaos and confusion.

Will the Minister explain the criteria that will be used to judge whether the lockdown will be lifted? Will it be the total number of positive tests or the proportion of positive results per 100,000 of population? Will it be the rate of increase or decrease in positive tests? Will it be the famous R rate that the Government initially said they would use to determine the exit from lockdown for the country as a whole? Will it be the rate of hospital admissions due to covid-19, care home infection rates or death rates in either or both? I know that it is difficult, but it seems unbelievable to me that we still have no sense of how the Government will judge whether Leicester can exit the lockdown. I hope that the Minister will enlighten us.

I will conclude—the Committee will be glad to hear—with some thoughts about the future. I know that my constituents and people across the city are worried about the long-term implications of the pandemic and, in particular, Leicester’s extended lockdown, on lives and livelihoods and people’s perceptions of Leicester as a whole. However, by working together and with the right support and leadership we will, I know, get through and build a brighter future.

Ours is a great, diverse and thriving city. We have amazing businesses, arts, culture, sport and universities. Leicester could and should play a key role in levelling up the midlands economy, particularly in the east midlands. The Space Park in my constituency is a partnership between the University of Leicester and industry that has the potential to create thousands of high-skill, high-value jobs in a global market worth billions. Our financial services sector and IT companies have grown hugely in recent years. We have a burgeoning tourism sector, following the amazing discovery of Richard III. That is not to mention our great restaurants, comedy festival, theatres and vibrant music venues.

In order to fulfil our potential, however, we need a Government who work with us. We need a Government who take their responsibility for helping to crack down on exploitation in the textile industry. Contrary to many reports in the newspapers, we do not have evidence that that is the cause of the outbreak in Leicester. That is not to say it is not, but the local director of public health and Public Health England have found no evidence that that is the cause. However, there are serious problems that need to be addressed. In order to do that, we need a Government who properly fund the bodies responsible for enforcement, such as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Health and Safety Executive, instead of slashing their budgets. We need a Government who actually implement the recommendations to tackle worker exploitation that were made by the Environmental Audit Committee in its report on fast fashion last year, rather than simply ignore them. We need a Government who invest in our infrastructure and people, because today’s global economy is utterly unforgiving towards people without skills.

We need a Government who understand that, with the right support, we will emerge from this crisis stronger than before, play a critical role in boosting the lives and livelihoods of people across the east midlands, and contribute towards the success of our country as a whole. I hope the Government listen to our concerns, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[The Chair]

If no one else wishes to participate in this important debate, I call the Minister to respond.