Coronavirus

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and it is part of the reason why we are concerned. If this was genuinely going to be the end of it, that would be one thing. I have listened carefully to the Members who have spoken and a number have said that they will support the Government on this occasion, but this is it. I am afraid that we have heard that before and it has turned out not to be true, and I am afraid, just from reading the documents in front of us, that that is why I have some scepticism.

The final thing I will say—I hope the Minister who will be winding up the debate, who I have a great deal of respect for, can clarify this—is that I am not quite sure what is going to happen at the end. The review of the evidence that has been gathered about whether the tests are met is not due to be done until 19 July, so I am not clear about when Ministers are going to come to Parliament to set out whether those four tests have been met. Is it going to be on 19 July, or is it going to be before 19 July? I am not clear whether they are going to give that one week’s notice—all the way through the road map so far, we have had four weeks, then a week’s notice. I am not quite clear about the timetable, and this is important, because, as has been said, people’s lives will now be reoriented around that new date, including weddings, family events and people’s plans. It is important that our constituents know what to expect. When can they expect a decision? When can they expect to know what their life will look like? It is because of concerns about whether the regulations really are the end that I will, I am afraid, vote against them this evening.

My final point is on the motion about proceedings in this House. It is my strong view that, although it has been welcome that we have been able to have Parliament meet through a pandemic, and thanks should go to all the parliamentary staff who have made that possible, it is, I think, indisputable that this Parliament, in its current form, is not as effective in holding the Government to account and enabling us to do our job as Parliament should be. I think that we should get back to as normal as possible in this House as fast as we can. For that reason I will also vote against the motion to continue these proceedings effectively until we return in September.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words about how closely we worked together after the tragic murder of Jo Cox. I much appreciated the work that we did together at that terrible time. I also echo his words about Sir Roy Stone, who I saw this afternoon to say how much I had always valued the advice that he gave to me when I was Opposition Chief Whip.

We now go to Sir John Redwood.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

It is time to trust people more. It is time to control people less. I would like to praise Ministers and officials, and particularly all the scientists, medics and researchers, who have worked so hard to ensure that the UK is a leader in vaccines—supplying one of the best vaccines to the world, getting it out early and making it available for all of us, and ensuring that we had bought in other vaccines that became available so that we were in a position to protect our population well and relatively early compared with other countries. I pay tribute to all the work by the NHS and the medics to understand how to treat the disease better and how it is transmitted so that we can take better actions to give people greater security.

I say now to all those experts, the NHS and the Government, “Share what is relevant with the rest of us—the public—and let us make more of our own risk assessments.” We are now saying to people that there are two major ways in which we can all protect ourselves against the possibility of getting this disease, or a bad version of it. First, we are making two jabs available to all adults who want them, and the figures so far show that that gives them a much better probability of not catching the disease at all and very strong protection against a serious case of it, which is what we are mainly worried about, as we are trying to stop people dying or struggling in intensive care, and to stop that pressure on the NHS and all the suffering that it produces.

We are also saying to people, “If you’re still worried about the residual risk or if you really don’t like vaccines, you can self-isolate.” I hope that the Government will continue, as an employer and as the Government, guiding others in the economy to say that we should be generous and supportive of anyone who really does feel that they need to protect themselves against the virus by self-isolation, but I think that we are now well beyond the stage where we have to isolate practically everybody else to some extent when so many people now have protection, are making their own risk judgments, and want to get on with their lives.

In the room, when assessing the data, it is important that we look at all the data about jobs, livelihoods, incomes, family stress and mental health pressures, because this policy is creating all of those. The Government can do more. They should be helping the private sector to manage air flows, air extraction, ultraviolet cleaning and so forth to make it safer for many more social contact businesses to reopen and have a reasonable number of people enjoying their services. I think that more could be done on ensuring that all our health settings have really great infection control, because we do not want any more slippages from health settings themselves.

I urge the Government to think again about an idea they looked at early on but did not develop, which is in the large populated areas, particularly the conurbations, to have isolation hospitals that deal with covid and other variant infectious diseases well away from general hospitals. We add to the pressures and the likelihood of cross-infection if we have a general hospital taking in a very infectious disease.

There is now huge scope to get a really good economic recovery to save jobs, create new jobs and get pay up, to have many more transactions in the economy. To do that, however, we need to relax and to trust the people more. I think my constituents are ready to make decisions about their own lives again and many are very frustrated that they are not allowed to. We have all this great advice and knowledge. Let us not get too gloomy and let us not lock everybody up again.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As colleagues will be aware, there have been quite a few interventions, so after the next speaker I will have to take the time limit down to three minutes in order to get everybody in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

The trouble is that there are lots of different scientists and they do not agree with each other, yet only certain scientists seem to have an impact on the Government. Usually, it is the most doomsday of those scenarios.

Where is the data that shows that allowing six people inside a pub has increased infection rates, and by how much? Where is the data that shows how much faster an infection has spread because up to 30 people have been able to meet outside since the original journey out of lockdown? Where is the data showing that the NHS is being overwhelmed, not by covid patients, but by a huge increase in children and families suffering mental illness, including many worrying episodes that we have seen as constituency MPs, or by the surge in advanced cancer cases that could not be diagnosed and treated early? Where is the data showing how many businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector, cannot wait a further four weeks to be profitable and are likely now to fail, with the accompanying impact on people’s jobs, livelihoods and wellbeing? Where is the data showing the impact on the wellbeing of children now denied sports days for another year and school proms? Students are again being denied graduation ceremonies for a second year, having missed out on so much of their university experience. Where is the data on the impact of domestic abuse, which has risen so much, as we have seen? Where is the data showing the continued impact on babies? The problem is that the only data considered seems exclusively to be the worst-case scenarios about the spread of covid, regardless of the current single-figure average death rates.

No covid strategy is risk-free, but a further delay is by no means a victimless decision. It is time that we trusted people to live with covid just, as the Prime Minister announced in February, in the same way that we “live with flu”: we do not let flu get in the way of living our lives. The Government promised at that stage that we would move to personal responsibility. My fear is that if the Government continue to try to nanny people, they will just not take any notice and no amount of retained rules will make any difference. People are already increasingly making their own risk assessments. As somebody tweeted the other day:

“I had Covid. I have antibodies. I have had both jabs. I’ve worn a mask. I’ve sanitised to within an inch of my life… But now, #ImDone no more. It's over.”

My fear is that this will become a much more widely held view if the Government just keep delaying freedom day, without the evidence to back it up.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I really do not mind interventions taking place, but we have 13 people to get in before I start the wind-ups, so every intervention means that somebody is not going to get in. I urge people to speak for fewer than three minutes if they can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

Following the science is an attractive and even comforting idea in a time of uncertainty. But—I say this as a scientist —we can no more follow science than we can follow history. Science gives us knowledge and understanding, but it cannot give us wisdom, and it is wisdom that we need to make what are essentially moral and political decisions about how we balance the short and long- term best interests of our whole society. I am saddened that we have lost—I hope only temporarily—that sense of balance.

Preventing death from covid seems to have become the principal purpose of our national endeavour, no matter the cost to our way of life. We have placed insufficient emphasis on the terrible long-term consequences of lockdown—poverty, unemployment, lost education, debt, undiagnosed cancer, loneliness, hopelessness and fear—and focused far too narrowly on just one set of metrics: the daily covid data. Even the most hardened libertarian would accept that, in a national emergency and in the face of significant threat to life, restrictions on our freedoms have been necessary and right, but with all vulnerable people having now been offered vaccination, the balance of risk has shifted.

Covid is no longer a substantial threat. The average covid mortality so far in June is seven deaths a day—seven out of around 1,500 daily deaths that we could expect in normal times. The number of people in hospital now stands at 1,177—some 37,000 fewer than at the peak in January. Thanks to the incredible efficacy of our vaccination programme, it is hard to comprehend how our hospitals could quickly become overwhelmed. The idea that we are still in a state of emergency is not supported by the evidence, yet significant legal restrictions on our basic freedoms are to remain, even dictating how many of our family and friends can visit us in our private homes. The restrictions we face are now out of proportion to the threat, so extending the measures sets a dangerous precedent.

We must learn to live with covid in the way that we live with so many other risks. Vaccines will never be 100% effective, just like seatbelts, smoke alarms or contraception, but it is vital to our autonomy and our identity as human beings that we are able to make our own choices and evaluations of everyday risks, as has been the norm in our country for generations. I have the greatest respect for Ministers, who have had to make unimaginably difficult decisions over the past year, but now is the time to restore a sense of balance, proportion and fairness, and to make a return to life in all its fullness.

In my final seconds, I want to say this: childhood should be a time that is care-free. Testing our children twice a week, making them wear masks when they are not at risk, and constantly reminding them that they may be a danger to people whom they love, is damaging them psychologically, and we have to stop.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

If everybody now takes two minutes, everybody will get in. I am sure Dr Kieran Mullan will lead the way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate—one that I know is of huge importance both to this House and to the country. In West Dorset, we have had one of the lowest numbers of cases and of deaths across the whole country. As it stands today, in the whole of Dorset we have just one person poorly in hospital. We have not lost anybody from this virus for around two months, so it is with great regret that I have to tell the Government that I find it very difficult to support their line and will not be doing so in the Lobby this evening.

The vaccination scheme—which has been a source of national pride and I think many if not all of us have now received a vaccination—has brought great reassurance to many people across this country. But we now have to help everybody in the nation, particularly those who, as in my constituency, where 97% of our businesses are small or micro-sized, are feeling this so painfully. We need to be able to give them the summer as the opportunity to get their business back not just for the short term, but for the long term. That is why, as the Member for West Dorset, I must make it clear to the Government that I am afraid I am unable to support them in the Lobby this evening.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to Neil O’Brien, whom I have also asked to stick to two minutes.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con) [V]]

None of us wants these restrictions to go on for a moment longer than they have to. All of us are proud of our world-leading vaccination effort, and I pay tribute to everyone involved in delivering it in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. However, when we see that cases are doubling roughly every 10 days and that within a week or two we will be back to the same number of cases every day that we had at the start of the November lockdown, we can see why there is real cause for concern. That is why it is right to go for the delay that we will vote for this evening. We know that getting a second vaccination dose gives people a lot more protection against this dangerous new variant. We know that many more people will be fully vaccinated as a result of this delay and that will potentially save thousands of lives, so it is the right thing to do.

My pleas to Ministers are as follows. The first is that we use the time that we are buying tonight to really drive vaccination rates among that last 4%—perhaps 1 million people—among the most clinically vulnerable groups. As the number of cases accelerates, those people have a target on their back, and it would be a tragedy for them to die of fear, ignorance or simple lack of knowledge at this stage, at the very end of the pandemic.

My second plea to Ministers is to continue to improve our ability to detect at an early stage and close our borders against dangerous new strains. While the Indian variant is very dangerous, as this thing bounces around the world, one day there will potentially be something worse, and we need to be ready for that. Last but not least, we must improve our ability to nip future pandemics in the bud. I believe that involves reappraising our attitudes to things like challenge trials, so that we never have to go through this again.

It is the right thing to do to delay ending the restrictions for a few more weeks. It is a difficult decision but it is the right one. We need to put in place all the right measures to ensure that we are never in this position again, and that when we abolish these restrictions, we abolish them forever.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

No. 47 has withdrawn, so the final Back-Bench speaker is Shaun Bailey.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is always a little bit trepidatious coming in at this stage of the debate.

The debate has been very finely balanced, and the difficulty is that after so many great contributions, one feels as though one is repeating oneself a bit. This is a difficult decision, and I do not envy the Government in the position that they find themselves in. We must tread a nuanced, balanced path, ensuring that we protect the most vulnerable while safeguarding those liberties that I am sure all of us in this House want to ensure that we and our constituents can enjoy.

The pandemic in my communities, in Sandwell, has been different, because we have not been able to work from home. The majority of my constituents have had to go out to work in the factories or in other places. They have had to be there. I want to dispel the notion that we can all carry on as normal—that we can all work from home. It just does not happen, I am afraid; it is just not reality. An important point that was raised by many hon. Members from both sides of the House this evening is that we must use the time that we will now have as a result of the regulations—because they will pass this evening—to ensure that we plan properly, to tackle the issues and the challenges that we are faced with in our NHS.

I want to talk about primary care, because that is a big thing for my constituents—no more so, at the moment, than in one of my communities, in Tividale, where my constituents struggle to get a GP appointment. One constituent who contacted me today had had to call the surgery 150 times to try and get in to see someone. It is not acceptable; it cannot carry on. I have had really positive discussions with the Minister and his team in the Department of Health, but we must find a solution. And we must use this time, not just on short-term matters, but to flesh out a long-term plan to deal with these issues, going forward. Because our NHS has done a fantastic job during this pandemic, now we must be sure that the issues that have come to light as a result of the situation we find ourselves in, are dealt with for the long term, so that the legacy of the pandemic is that we ensure that we pay back those NHS heroes who have saved so many people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As no. 49 has withdrawn, I call the shadow Minister, Justin Madders.