Covid-19

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

That includes some brilliant interventions from my right hon. Friend, who calls for more from a sedentary position. So there is further work to do, and I look forward to engaging with colleagues to ensure that we have the proper parliamentary scrutiny.

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

To develop the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), I accept the points about scrutiny that the Secretary of State makes, but it is about not just scrutiny but the laws we are making. The laws that came in at midnight, for example, were 12 pages of laws, with lots of detail, criminal offences and duties not mentioned when they were set out in a statement last week. That includes duties on employers, directors and officers, with serious criminal penalties. We need to scrutinise the detail of the legislation before it comes into force and give our assent, and not, I am afraid, just allow the Secretary of State to put it into force by decree.

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, sometimes in this pandemic we have to move fast. Sometimes we have had to move fast, and we may need to do so again. The challenge we have in this House is how to ensure proper scrutiny while also being able, when necessary, to move fast in response to the virus. That is the challenge that collectively we all face.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

We always look at the effects of these policies. We have to take everything in the round, including the level of social distancing that might have been going on, were that to continue all through the night. One reason we brought in the policy is that we have seen it work in other countries, as the hon. Lady knows. None of these interventions on social distancing are ones that we take lightly or want to put in place. The central question is how we keep control of the virus in the best possible way, while reducing the impact on the economy and on education as much as possible.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his indulgence in taking a second intervention. I agree with him: unlike some people, I think we need to take tough measures to deal with the virus, and that we sometimes need to act quickly. The really important question is: will the measures be effective, and do we have the evidence to support that? Therefore, I gently say to the Secretary of State that that is why I think that Ministers coming to Parliament, marshalling the arguments and laying out the evidence, means that we get better decisions that are likely to be more effective in dealing with the virus and protecting our economy. I think that is the general view of many colleagues, on both sides of the House, and I hope he will reflect on that when he meets my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady).

[Matt Hancock]

It is a view that I very largely share. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the number of times that I have stood at this Dispatch Box and taken into account points made by Members, from either side of the House, is beyond what I can count. Listening to points that have been made has been part of the rhythm of the response. I therefore caution against the idea that there has not been parliamentary scrutiny, and I know that because I have been at this Dispatch Box usually several times a week when Parliament has been sitting. But I understand the concerns—of course I do—and I hope we can find an appropriate way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a great pleasure to follow both the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).

In my interventions on the Secretary of State earlier, I made the synopsis of the argument that I want to make about why Parliament should be involved, but I have some very specific examples. My own view is that it would have been wiser if the Government had stuck to guidance as opposed to putting every single one of the rules into law, partly because we could then have acted faster and there would not have been the same issues about putting things into the criminal law, but, secondly, because we could have kept the language much more straightforward and simple. Some of the complexity that is inevitable when we legislate is part of the reason why citizens find quite a lot of this difficult to follow. The Government have made that decision and we are putting things into the law, but that does mean that, when we are legislating, it is important that this House scrutinises the Government. I alluded to the two reasons for that in my interventions. One is about evidence—about what works and what scenarios we are facing—and the second one is about the detail of the law.

Let me give an example on the first one from last week. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) set out his views about the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser. I do not share those views, but in a press conference last Monday they talked about the doubling time of this virus. Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, said he thought that the epidemic was doubling roughly every seven days. He said that it could be a little bit longer, or perhaps a little bit shorter, but let us say roughly every seven days. That was the underpinning of what my right hon. Friend called “the graph of doom”, which set the tone for last week. When the Prime Minister came to this House on Tuesday—the day after the evidence was presented at the press conference at which there were no questions permitted—he said that, the day before, the chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer had said that the doubling rate was somewhere between seven and 20 days. That is really quite a dramatic difference.

The difference between 10,000 cases by the middle of October or 50,000. I do not know which of those two scenarios is correct, but the point is that they are not the same. The reason why Ministers should have to come to the House is so that we can interrogate them on the evidence, understand the problem facing us and understand the efficacy of the solutions.

The second reason is on the regulations. The regulations, which came into force at midnight last night and which were only published, or made, at five o’clock yesterday, contain some very serious powers that were not in the statements made to Parliament last week. For the avoidance of doubt, I broadly support those measures because they are about making sure that people self-isolate when they either test positive or when they are a contact. There are duties that are put on employers that create criminal offences both for the company and for individual managers in that company. I do not know how many businesses in this country are aware of the fact that these duties have now just landed on them—I would hazard very few. There are also measures that give the power of using “reasonable force” to enforce self-isolation not just to police officers and police and community support officers, but to any individual appointed by the Secretary of State and also to employees of local authorities, supposedly these covid marshals. That raises issues about who can use reasonable force, what training they have to use it in a safe manner and also if they are, by definition, using reasonable force on someone who is very likely to have coronavirus, how they exercise the reasonable force in a way that is safe for them. Do they have proper training? Those are all questions that no one in this House has been able to ask a Minister, because the regulations came into force last night. They have to be debated within 28 days, but that could be a month away and it could happen after they have been amended several times, as we have seen with other regulations. I do not think that is the right way to make the criminal law and introduce important sanctions in a democracy.

The changes were announced last week. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, I do not buy the idea that there was no time between last week and this week when they could have been debated. When the Government want to, they can change the business of the House rapidly. They can also arrange for the House to sit rapidly. I urge Ministers to take those steps to make sure that these laws are better scrutinised.