Public Health

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

These decisions were taken on false data owing to the Excel error. The situation in Knowsley and St Helens was worse than first thought. The infection rate is almost four times higher than that in Greater Manchester when restrictions were introduced there. I fear that, once again, the Government have acted too late.

There are bigger consequences of this mistake. For the past week, thousands of people across the country should have been told to self-isolate. Instead, they have been unwittingly spreading the virus. That has put lives at risk and could lead to many more families losing their loved ones. For our £12 billion world-beating test and trace system the public deserve better. Even before this error, 35% of contacts had not been traced in Knowsley. The Government have had months to fix this. Infection rates are back to the levels we saw in April but, with the serial incompetence that we have seen, I am afraid this is hardly a surprise. Local authorities and health officials have proved far more effective at contact tracing than private companies. If the Government had trusted them and invested in them in the first place, we would not be in the situation we are in now.

Like many colleagues, I have received emails asking me to oppose the restrictions. For me, health will always take priority over the economy. I understand that we need a strong economy to fund our national health service but the best way to repair the economy is to get the virus under control. The UK has had the highest number of covid-19-related deaths in Europe followed by the worst economic crisis. That is in stark contrast to Germany where many fewer deaths have led to a much better performing economy. This is no coincidence.

There is no trade-off between the economy and health. To improve the economy, the Government must get the virus under control. To get the virus under control, the Government must have a working contact tracing programme.

This announcement came with the promise of £7 million pounds for the councils affected, working out at less than £800,000 for each authority. For the size of the task in hand that is simply not good enough. These are the councils that were originally promised that they would be reimbursed with whatever it takes to keep communities safe. Hardly is the word the bond.

We are not yet out of this crisis. We may not even be halfway through. The reality is that even our top scientific and medical experts do not know how bad this could get. With this in mind, I urge the Government to share the scientific and medical evidence with local communities so that they may understand on what basis a decision has been made and for Government always to err on the side of caution to protect lives. It is better to be safe than sorry.