Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, of course. Along with my hon. Friend, the director of public health in Buckinghamshire was invited to engage with the team as we were looking at the indicators and making this decision. These are difficult decisions; he is right about that. The case rate in Buckinghamshire is 138 per 100,000, and positivity is above 5%. We will review these allocations in a fortnight and then regularly thereafter. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and supporting the people of Buckinghamshire to do what is right, to get the case rate down and to get Buckinghamshire—if at all possible, and if it is safe—into tier 1, with the lighter restrictions. But it is critical, to keep people safe, that we take the action we need to today.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

A recent University College London study found that less than half the public understood what the rules were in the previous tier system. Today we have a new tier system. We have a five-day relaxation at Christmas. We have a Government website that has crashed this morning. The written ministerial statement published this morning has a number of question marks against different areas. There are inconsistencies between what the Prime Minister has said, what the OBR has said and what the Secretary of State has told MPs about the length of restrictions. I have a simple request: will the Secretary of State ensure that there is a clear, consistent and honest communications campaign to ensure public trust and compliance and so that we do not overly raise expectations?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, there will be a widespread public information campaign about these new tiers. It is on all of us to follow the rules in our local area. Notwithstanding the rules, we all need to behave in a responsible way, because we all have a role in controlling the spread of the virus.

DHSC Answers to Written Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who landed his question very effectively. He is absolutely right to talk about the balance between speed and accuracy. In some cases where the issue is complex, a letter may be more appropriate for getting detailed information, rather than the short factual response to a parliamentary question. Sometimes the delay can be because Ministers—this goes to the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders)—on reading the question and the answer, and looking at it as a constituency MP as well, may realise that they want to send it back for redraft because it does not answer an hon. Member’s question. That can cause delays, but we endeavour to provide accurate answers as swiftly as we can.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I absolutely understand and appreciate the pressures on the Minister’s Department. However, it does grate that I regularly hear, in debates in this Chamber, Conservative Members saying how quickly and easily they can get direct responses from Ministers. He himself referred to a WhatsApp group a few moments ago, and I suspect that that is for Conservative Members. For those of us on the Opposition Benches, written questions and letters are often the only means to scrutinise, secure detailed information and hold the Government to account. Over a third of replies to my questions have been delayed for more than a month, and the longest delay was 190 days. I have had replies to letters outstanding for up to five months. Do my constituents have any less of a right to a response? Does the Minister have any advice for me as an Opposition spokesperson about how I can get more timely and detailed information?

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Bryant might have the mobile number for you.

Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Precisely for the reasons my hon. Friend sets out, the top priority for this vaccine, according to the clinical analysis, is the residents of care homes, along with the staff who work to look after them so well. They are in the very first categorisation because they are the most vulnerable to this disease and because a care home’s nature as a generally communal environment means that they are particularly susceptible. As he represents the oldest constituency in the country, I am sure that that sort of prioritisation will mean that should this come off and if the other hurdles are passed, a lot of vaccine will be heading to North Norfolk.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Of course the news about the Pfizer vaccine is extremely encouraging, and we are all hoping that it is proved safe and effective, and that it is approved by regulators. Let us suppose that that is the case. Given that it is being manufactured in Belgium and that, as the Secretary of State has noted, it has to be kept at minus 70° at all times until shortly before administration, what arrangements is he putting in place to ensure that there is absolutely no delay of the supplies at the borders following the end of the Brexit transition period? Any significant delay could at worst result in precious supplies being damaged and rendered useless, which could delay roll-out.

[Matt Hancock]

Of course we have looked at this risk, and I have confidence in our plans to be able to deliver the vaccine whatever the outcomes of the negotiations over our future relationship with Europe.

Covid-19

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

As well as boosting contact tracing rates, which are absolutely critical, I hope the Secretary of State will address the issues with the app that have been revealed this weekend; it has not been contacting people who should have been contacted. Self-isolation is also important. The Prime Minister admitted today—he finally acknowledged—that self-isolation rates are far too low, but we have heard nothing about what steps are to be put in place. We need carrots, not sticks—support and incentives for people to self-isolate. The Secretary of State mentioned multigenerational households; there are many overcrowded households, particularly in inner cities, and therefore high-risk people who cannot self-isolate at home. Has he given any consideration to setting up self-isolation support facilities that those people can go to?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course, self-isolation following contact or following a positive test, or in quarantine from abroad, is absolutely critical, and we have brought in measures to improve self-isolation, such as the £500 payment and strengthening the enforcement around it, and we are always looking for what we can do to strengthen self-isolation; the Prime Minister was absolutely right in what he said earlier, and there is a huge amount of work under way on it.

Covid-19

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

There has been, quite rightly, much discussion of the mental health impact of covid during the pandemic. I have spoken about it on a number of occasions, largely with regard to children and young people and those working on our frontline in health and care, but today I will focus on two groups who have been largely forgotten and overlooked by the Government and are suffering the mental health impacts of the pandemic immensely: those excluded from financial support and unpaid carers.

We had a welcome statement from the Chancellor earlier, but those excluded from support since the start of the pandemic were yet again overlooked. We know well that those are largely self-employed freelancers and small business owners, especially in hard-hit industries such as the arts, the events industries and exhibitions, as well as many others. The financial struggle and anxiety is taking its toll on their mental health. They are struggling to put food on the table, support their families and keep a roof over their heads. ExcludedUK has already reported four suicides and large-scale insomnia and depression among those affected. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the chair of the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group, wrote to the Health Secretary and the Chancellor on that on 16 July but has yet to receive a response. We requested financial support for that group, a boost in mental health services and support for debt counselling charities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is right that mental health is one of the core issues, but there are many issues. Does she agree that one thing the Government could do is provide a phone service that people could contact to get guidance on what to do? People are left to their own devices and, if that continues, clearly we will have very serious times.

[Munira Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, makes a valid point. That is why I have been calling for additional support, whether signposting or helplines. We actually need a cross-Government strategy on mental health going forward.

On those who have been excluded from financial support, as the Chancellor remains intransigent on that point, I urge the Minister first to speak to her Treasury colleagues and ask them yet again to think again. Will she also step up mental health support for those who have been excluded? The mental health impacts will cost us a lot down the line.

The other very important group is the more than 9 million unpaid carers who are the forgotten heroes in our society. I hope the Minister agrees when I say that our health and care systems would be overwhelmed if it were not for the work of unpaid carers in our society. The Exchequer saves billions thanks to their work. Four out of five unpaid carers have taken on more caring responsibilities during lockdown, and almost two thirds have seen their mental health worsen during the pandemic. Many have lost their access to respite care, which has affected their ability to earn money. She will be aware that carer’s allowance is pitifully low at £67 a week.

One thing that would help respite care and day care centres to reopen—Homelink in my constituency is taking all sorts of safety measures and is desperate to reopen—is access to regular testing. I raised that in the Chamber with the Secretary of State for Health on 7 July. He told me that a plan was in place and he would write to me about it. He never wrote to me, but I did not chase him about it because I heard that testing had been made available to day centres—briefly; I have now heard that it is no longer available. My council has spoken to colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, who say that they cannot offer tests to respite care day centres. Those officials say that they are following SAGE priorities, and that suggests to me that there never was a plan. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that point. This is an issue for the Department, and I urge her to address it urgently, because respite care is a lifeline to so many unpaid carers. I also ask the Minister to speak to her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about addressing the woeful level of carer’s allowance. How can anyone be expected to survive on the equivalent of £1.91 an hour?

The Chancellor previously said to the public,

“you will not face this alone”.

Can we say, hand on heart, that unpaid carers and those whom the Chancellor has excluded from financial support have not been left alone? They feel abandoned and their mental health is suffering, so I urge the Minister to address these injustices.

Covid-19 Restrictions: South Yorkshire

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is not something I have been involved in or had sight of.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Public trust in the midst of a public health emergency is absolutely critical. People need to know what they are working towards when they are making these immense sacrifices, so may I press the Minister once again on the criteria that he has agreed with the Mayor of Sheffield city region for South Yorkshire going into tier 3 and to come out? Will those same criteria be applied to other tier 2 areas such as London, York, Essex and parts of the midlands, or will they all be subject to a series of negotiations at local level behind closed doors? The public need and want to know.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is her party’s spokesperson on this issue. I entirely understand where she is coming from and the importance of trust and transparency. I set out in the statement why the move has been made to increase the tier level—the infection rates and the hospitalisation rates—and why that development needed to be arrested by these measures. I set out in response to the shadow Secretary of State the considerations that would play a part in determining the review periods when an area could start to move back down those tiers. Those things include infection rates, the impact on the NHS and hospital capacity in the area and other local factors. It is reasonable that we set out that broad approach, but also that we recognise that in some areas very specific local considerations will be driving growth of the disease and infection rates, and they may need to be taken into consideration as well.

Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Programme motion
Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

There are three vaccine trials under way in the UK: the AstraZeneca trial, which is frequently discussed; the Imperial College trial; and a trial of the Novavax vaccine. The period of the trial is dependent on the clinical results and on the data. Of course, of those three, the AstraZeneca trial is the most advanced and is in phase 3 trials. We are closely in contact with all of them to ensure that they get the support they need.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I was alarmed, as were many public health experts, to read reports over the weekend that test and trace data is being shared with the police. Even a source in the Secretary of State’s own Department said that that will put people off getting tested. I hope the Secretary of State agrees that that is the exact opposite of what we need. Public trust and confidence in test and trace is critical, and transparency of the use of personal data is central to that, so will he publish today the memorandum of understanding that he and his Department have signed with the National Police Chiefs’ Council?

[Matt Hancock]

It is very important that people come forward for testing. As the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said yesterday, of course, the vast majority of people not only come forward for a test, and want to come forward for a test, when they have symptoms, but want the isolation arrangements to be enforced fairly so that everybody isolates when they need to. That is the reason that we have taken the approach that we have, which I set out to the House several weeks ago.

Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

In fact, very shortly the Joint Biosecurity Centre will be making further of its analysis public. It works within the Department and its officials are civil servants, so it is different from SAGE, which is made up of independently employed scientists. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend makes an important point, on which we are acting.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

As a London MP, may I start by saying thank you for the briefing call that London MPs had with the care Minister and officials this morning about today’s announcement? A number of questions, however, remain unaddressed from both that call and today’s statement. Will the Secretary of State advise the House about what the evidence is behind the measures he is implementing in London? What modelling has been done on their impact, and how long does he expect these restrictions to last?

[Matt Hancock]

We are seeking to publish further evidence on the impact of measures. For instance, I have often mentioned Leicester and Bolton—in Bolton, the curve was flattened and in Leicester we brought it down with a much stricter intervention than the one we are proposing in London. We are proposing to publish further information on the analysis of the impact of such measures.

The fundamental science is really simple: the more people congregate, the more the virus is passed from one to another. That is why the restriction of social activity between households indoors is an important part of restricting the spread of the virus. All those areas in level 2 are reviewed fortnightly. Of course, if we can bring any area, including London, out of level 2 faster, that will be even better. I am working with the cross party London councils and the Mayor on setting out more details about how London can exit these measures and get down to level 1. Ultimately, of course, and as soon as possible, we all want to get to level zero, which is normal life.

Local Contact Tracing

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I support Labour’s motion. This is not about ideology; it is about what works. In the midst of a public health emergency and an economic crisis the likes of which we have never seen before, it is about not politics but what works. We in the Liberal Democrats have been calling since April for tracing to be locally led, because we understand that local authorities know their communities best and local directors of public health have the expertise to do the tracing.

There has been a lot of talk about testing and I have talked a lot about testing, so I shall not go over that, given the time available, but the one thing I will say about it is that we must—must—turn around tests within 24 hours. That turnaround time has dropped to around 25% and tracing is not effective if the tests are not turned around quickly enough.

I have heard about local tracing for myself from directors of public health and local councillors. In Watford, they have a 93% local tracing rate. This morning, I talked to councillors in Liverpool, where they have a 97% local tracing rate. Until today, they had had only £300,000 to do that tracing, yet on average they have to trace around 5,000 contacts a day. Yes, more resources are now going to tier 3, but that resource needs to go everywhere.

Sky News has just broken the story that it has uncovered Boston Consulting Group contracts that suggest BCG consultants are paid £7,000 day rates to work on test and trace. Just imagine how far that money would go if it was given to local authorities. These consultants are being paid weekly the equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year. I do not have an ideological issue with the private sector, but, as the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), said, it is about having the right expertise in the right place.

On isolation, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, it is important that we have in place the right package of support, both financial and practical, as we have seen in other countries, including Korea and Germany. There is a local element in Italy and Iceland, where local service providers are also supporting enforcement with their local populations. It is not about slapping £10,000 fines on people for not self-isolating, as this place has legislated to do.

I say to the Minister humbly: please recognise that you cannot get everything right in a pandemic. Change tack or we will be stuck in this yo-yo situation forever. The only way to keep the virus under control is by testing, tracing and isolating, so for the sake of the British people, to save lives and to save jobs, turn around tests in 24 hours, devolve tracing locally and double down on isolation. That should be the ultimate condition if there is to be a circuit breaker. We need a major overhaul of the system.

Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State acknowledge—a simple yes or no—that we should not be in this position in the first place and that the best exit strategy is having an effective system of testing, tracing and isolating that is locally led? If that were working properly—even SAGE has admitted that it is not—we would not be here.

[Matt Hancock]

We have one of the biggest systems of tracking and tracing in the world. The idea that I sometimes get from people in this House is that, somehow, it is not one of the biggest systems in the world or one of the most effective in the world. I get that in this House, but I do not get it when I talk to my international colleagues. They ask me, “How did you manage to build this capacity so fast?” That is the truth of it.

Of course we need to continue to build it and to make sure it is continuously more integrated into the local communities, who can often go to reach the contacts that the national system finds it hard to reach. However, to argue that the enormous system that is working so effectively, with so many brilliant people working on it, is at the root of this challenge is, unfortunately, to miss the big picture, which is that, sadly, this virus passes on—until we have a vaccine or a massive testing capacity that nobody yet has, this virus passes on through social contact and that is, unfortunately, what we need to tackle in order to get this under control.

Let me make a point about the numbers. In the first peak, about 8% of people caught covid and 42,000 people died. If we do not have the virus under control, even with the better survival rates we now have, thanks to both drug discoveries by British science and improvements in clinical practice, those figures will multiply. In addition, harder economic measures would then inevitably be needed to get it under control and they would be needed for longer. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, like me, want our economy back on full throttle, we need to keep this virus in check.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

Does the hon. Member agree with me that one of the other reasons why SAGE said that test, trace and isolate is having a marginal impact is because the “isolate” part is not working, and that rather than slapping £10,000 fines on people for not self-isolating, what we actually need to do is provide incentives and support so that people isolate?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I agree entirely with her. I have been having these exchanges with the Secretary of State on almost a twice-weekly basis, and when I go over the remarks I have made at the Dispatch Box and remind myself of what he has said at the Dispatch Box in case I can catch him out, throw quotes back at him and all that kind of stuff, I have noticed that we were making this argument months and months ago. It is not good enough just to give one £500 payment; people need support to isolate. If they are poor and on a zero-hours contract, and they are forced to make a choice between not feeding their family or going to work, they will go to work. That has been one of the most significant failures in the test, trace and isolate regime, and the Government, I am afraid to say, still have not fixed it. We would argue again that they have to put testing and tracing in the hands of public health and local NHS partnerships, because unless we get testing sorted out, we will have a never-ending rollercoaster of restrictions, while deaths and damage continue.

When it comes to the overall set of restrictions announced yesterday, the fundamental question for us as an Opposition is not whether they go too far, but whether the overall package in fact goes far enough. A question was posed by the chief medical officer himself at the Downing Street press conference yesterday. He commented that the areas worst hit by covid will need extra measures on top of those announced on Monday if infection rates are to be significantly lowered. The question is: will the measures announced yesterday reverse the rising tide of hospital admissions and reverse the rising tide of critical care admissions? I obviously hope so; but I am sorry, I fear it will not. The rate of growth in the virus may at this stage be quicker in the northern regions, but the embers are burning brightly everywhere else as well, and I fear further action is going to be needed.

The Prime Minister says he follows the science. Yesterday the SAGE minutes that came out—after the press conference, frustratingly—warned of a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences, and said that the burden of a large second wave would fall disproportionately on the frailest in society, and on those on lower incomes and from the black, Asian and minority ethnic community. That last point is exactly what is currently happening in our intensive care units across the country.

The same minutes reveal that the Government were advised to close all hospitality, move all university teaching online and put in place a national circuit break three weeks ago, with immediate action. The Government rejected that advice, presumably in favour of the measures that we are debating today. Of course, it is only advice to Government—Ministers are perfectly within their rights to choose what advice to take and not to take; to govern is indeed to choose—but the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have come to the Dispatch Box week after week and told us that they are following the science. So at what precise moment did the Prime Minister stop following the science?

I am sorry to say that SAGE advised the Government to take action in March, but the Prime Minister was too slow. After the Prime Minister spoke yesterday, we saw that yet again he has been advised to take action and has so far refused. It is the same virus, the same delays, the same country and the same Government making the same mistakes again. Our constituents will ask, “Is history repeating itself?” If these tiers do not work, then what? Tier 4? Tier 5? What is the plan? Well, there isn’t one.

We had whack-a-mole—a fairground game—but there was never a strategy, just a soundbite from the circus ring showman. We have had exaggerated claims, complaints when challenged and a lack of transparency with the public, but further action and a clear plan are needed. Just at the time when hospital admissions are rising again, we have the Prime Minister hanging on to a rising balloon, and—to quote “Withnail and I”—not knowing whether to

“let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher”.

We have the highest deficit in Europe, the worst recession in Europe and are now not even pretending to follow the science. We will not divide the House against these restrictions, because we believe they are necessary as far as they go, but I fear that the Government now need to go further. The sooner that the Prime Minister is clear with the British public, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I have heard one or two people say that the Government do not have a plan, but I do not agree with that. I think the Government have a good plan, which they set out in May. I read it at the time and thought it was very sound. My problem is that the Government often do not seem to remember that they have a plan and do not always follow through on some of the things in it, for example, the risks of a vaccine, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) reminded us about. The Prime Minister said in the foreword to the plan:

“It is clear that the only feasible long-term solution lies with a vaccine or drug-based treatment.”

But he was frank enough to say that

“while we hope for a breakthrough, hope is not a plan. A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away.”

The best evidence, even now, is that that year, which would take us to next May or so, is about the best-case scenario for being able to vaccinate older members of the community if all goes well, so it is clear that we have to do other things.

The first phase of the Government’s plan was the lockdown, to drive down the virus to a very low level. The second phase was to introduce smarter controls, for example, covid-safe workplaces in hospitality venues, combined with an effective testing and tracing system. I said in my intervention on the Secretary of State, looking at the evidence at the moment, that the second most important piece of that, according to the Government’s plan, was the following:

“local authority public health services to bring a valuable local dimension to testing, contact tracing and support to people who need to self-isolate”.

I welcome the extra support given to the local public health teams in the high-risk areas that the Government have set out, but I would argue that it should go further and extend across the country. The importance of that is seen if we look at the data, which shows we are reaching only about 74% of those who test positive to get their contact information. We are reaching only 68.6% of those contacts in total, according to the latest data, which is the lowest percentage. That means that overall we are reaching only about half of the contacts of people who test positive.

[Munira Wilson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the data also shows that the tracing rates for local authority or regional public health teams are somewhere between 90% and 100%, whereas the central contact tracing percentage is only somewhere in the 60s? That is more evidence that we should be running this locally.

[Mr Harper]

I do think there is some evidence to show that local teams are better. I work closely with my local director of public health in Gloucestershire—I am sure every Member of the House does with theirs—the fantastic Sarah Scott, who has recently been promoted to a wider brief, and her team. I would have real confidence that if she were given the resources, she and her team would do a fantastic job of tracing contacts quickly, getting to them, working with them to explain why isolating was important and perhaps being able to work with them to identify some of the barriers that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) mentioned, might stop them isolating. If we were to do that and be much more effective, that would enable us not only to live with this virus, but to live meaningful lives where people could have more social contact; they could have more ability to have those important contacts—the Secretary of State acknowledged they were important. That was in the Government’s original plan and they should lean into it. The Government have a strategy and they need to go back to that original strategy to look at the areas that are not being executed as well as they could be. I said in my intervention that I give credit to the Test and Trace team for massively expanding testing, but the testing is not an end; it is a means to an end: to identify the virus, isolate areas where we need to put in further measures and encourage people to isolate. If we do that, we will be successful and the country will thank us for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). As he pointed out, there is some significant uncertainty about when we might have a vaccine, so there are two critical levers to tackling this virus: one is public trust, which the Government can achieve by taking people with them on the measures that they seek to implement; the other is a functioning, locally led, test, trace and isolate system.

On public trust, the Government have made much of following the science. Yesterday, we found out that there were plenty of recommendations from SAGE that the Government chose not to follow. The legislation that we are considering is before us today. That may be so, but it is up to politicians to make policy decisions and advisers to advise. To build public trust, the Government need to explain their thinking. What are their trade-offs? They need to show their working. When they have considered these measures, what are the wider health impacts of not taking them? What are the economic impacts of taking these measures? People need to see for themselves, and there must be trust from the public in following the new measures. I strongly agree that clarity of message is important for public trust.

Many Members have mentioned following the science, and my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) made a passionate argument about the curfew, which we know is resulting in other behaviours that frankly put public health and those businesses at risk. A publican in my constituency said, “We will just have to make up for the lost income by encouraging people to drink earlier in the day,” with bottomless brunches and so on. That binge drinking will happen earlier, or in people’s homes after the pubs have shut.

The Minister will have heard my earlier interventions on test, trace and isolate, and I believe that the 90 pages of complex rules and regulations would not be necessary if we had a properly functioning system. We got the R rate below one in the national lockdown, and on 23 April the Secretary of State said:

“Test, track and trace will be vital to stop a second peak of the virus.”

I know he likes to talk about his very large testing system, but we have had all sorts of issues with data, and sadly he was making jokes about that in the Smoking Room last week, apparently.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Not true.

--- Later in debate ---

[Munira Wilson]

Okay, but he has not denied it. [Hon. Members: “Yes, he has!] Fair enough. I withdraw that remark. This is not a party political point. I care for my country, and lives and jobs are at risk. Please can we sort out test, trace and isolate, because none of the measures will work if the system is not operating properly.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

It was a very decent thing to do to withdraw that remark.