Covid-19

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to get involved in political controversy in Wales while rejecting the principle of getting involved in political controversy. Having thought about it, on balance, I am going to sidestep that particular political controversy. As it happens, I strongly think that the public expect us to work together in the national interest, and that is what we propose to do.

A crucial part of that national interest is protecting the most vulnerable. When coronavirus spreads rapidly, it reaches all parts. Many of the most vulnerable can live only with care and support from those outside their home, or live in multigenerational households. We must protect the most vulnerable from the disease, and we will, with renewed shielding advice and support for care homes, but we cannot rely on that alone.

There is no quick fix to this pandemic; there is no silver bullet. What makes this fight so tough is that the virus thrives on all the things that make life worth living, such as the joy of social contact and the communal events that give us so much happiness and fulfilment, but we must persevere together to get it under control.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

One of the key things that we will depend on after the lockdown is over—assuming that the House gives its support—is a really effective contact tracing system. The Secretary of State knows as well as I do that, in the last couple of weeks, the system has been reaching only 48% of the contacts of those who have tested positive. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies says that for the system to be effective, it needs to reach 80%. In the 28 days of lockdown, what specific steps will he take to get it to 80%?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon Friend is right; I was going to come on to that issue. Of course the contact tracing system needs to contact as many people as it can. The figures that he refers to include a huge array of different types of contact. I will update the House on the improvements that we have seen in contact tracing, including an increase in the absolute number of people who have been contacted and in the proportion.

We absolutely need the proportion to go up. A critical part of that is people’s engagement with the contact tracing system, as well as the system itself. Some of the proportion who are not reached are not reached because their contact details are not given. It is quite hard to blame the people who work in NHS Test and Trace, who are working so hard on it, for that particular reason. It is important to go into the details of why a particular contact is not made and try to improve all those details. That work is ongoing, but I accept the challenge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

There are several points that I want to cover. First, I will just reiterate to the Minister what I said to the Leader of the House. I really do not think that a 90-minute debate on Wednesday is adequate for the decision the House is being asked to take, which will potentially cost 10% of our gross domestic product. It seems to me that that warrants a slightly longer debate to allow Members from both sides of the House to set out the concerns and questions that they might have and to properly represent their constituents. I would ask Ministers to reflect on whether they think a 90-minute debate is actually adequate.

I know Ministers have referred to the debates we have already had, but of course we have not seen the regulations yet. We are not planning on seeing them till tomorrow. I anticipate that they will be quite lengthy and that there will be many questions about them. I suspect Members who are lucky enough to participate in the debate will have just one or two minutes to make their points, and I really do not think that is adequate. Even at this stage, it is not too late for the Government to think again and give us a full day’s debate on Wednesday, perhaps even with the House sitting later to enable that to be taken into account.

[Mr Steve Baker]

With apologies to the House, I just want to ask my right hon. Friend if he agrees with me that there has been rarely enough time for this subject—in particular, this evening—and whether the Government might consider putting on longer debates routinely.

[Mr Harper]

I take that point. I do have sympathy with the Government—I was a business manager—but it seems to me that the decision the House is being asked to make on Wednesday is an incredibly significant one that will impact on every single person who lives in England and, because of cross-border traffic, a very significant number of people who live in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well. It seems to me that a longer debate would be more sensible.

The second issue I want to turn to is also one that I raised earlier with the Leader of the House, referring back to what the Prime Minister said in the statement. He said, in answer to the question from the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), that the Government would publish and make available to Members all scientific information that underpinned the decisions the House is being asked to take. The House will know that one of the key pieces of information presented at the press conference on Saturday and referred to by the Prime Minister is the graph that sets out the scenarios for the number of deaths that may take place, and there is also the modelling that the NHS has done on the need for beds. As far as I am aware, none of that information has been published. The reasonable worst-case scenario, which the Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), referred to in her exchange with the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), has also not been published. The only thing that has been seen is a leaked version that went to The Spectator.

Again, it seems to me that, if we are going to make this decision, we need to see that evidence quickly so that we can make such a decision. The reason why I want to see it—I have an open mind as to what I am going to do on Wednesday, but this is the reason why I have a problem—is that in my area the prevalence of the virus is fairly low and the rate of prevalence among members of my community who are over 60 is low and flat or falling, so it seems to me that there is very little evidence that there is going to be a significant problem in our local hospitals, and that was reinforced by conversations we have had with those NHS professionals.

I am willing to accept that there may be evidence to say otherwise, but because what Ministers are saying is at variance with what I am being told locally, I do need to see some evidence. I am afraid that just seeing a graph, without seeing any of the assumptions or the data that underpin the models, particularly when they give such significantly different results, is not good enough. Let me give the Minister an example. Carl Heneghan, the professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford, and Daniel Howdon, a senior research fellow, looked at the graph that was presented, and have pointed out that the worst of these scenarios suggested that on 1 November there would be 1,000 daily deaths, which is about four times the level of the actual number of deaths taking place. That does at least cast some doubt on the accuracy of that scenario, which is why I want to see all of the data.

At the conclusion of the debate I ask the Minister to confirm that that information, as the Prime Minister committed to earlier today, will all be published tomorrow at the latest, so that we have a proper chance to scrutinise it before we are asked to take a very significant decision on Wednesday. I hope she is able to give that assurance, which I think will reassure not just Members on both sides of the House, but the millions of constituents we represent, who will expect us to take that decision with great care.