Covid-19

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to be called so early in such an important debate. This is my first opportunity to address the House since leaving the Government earlier this month, so I want to pay tribute to those I worked with in local government and my former Department. It was a great privilege, and they are exceptional people.

Having stood recently in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s place, I can testify that this is a difficult time to be in government. I pay tribute to him and his colleagues for everything they are doing on our behalf at a moment of national crisis. I know how exacting it is.

This is clearly a very important moment in our national debate about our strategy on coronavirus. It is a time for clarity, consistency and courage. I welcome the measures that the Prime Minister announced last week. Covid-19 is an awful disease and it is essential that the public respect the rules that are in place for their protection, from the rule of six to the guidance on hands, face, space, which will undoubtedly save lives. I supported those measures precisely because they are limited and proportionate. Fundamentally, we owe it to the British people to be totally honest with them about the situation. Until we have a vaccine, we are going to be living alongside the threat of the virus and some of those we love may die. We do not know when a vaccine will become available or precisely how effective it will be.

Faced with that reality, we need to be clear sighted about the choices that are open to us. It is therefore right that, as the Government have chosen, we should seek to keep as much of our economy and society open as we possibly can. If we could say with confidence that by holding on for just a few weeks or indeed a few months, we would reach a certain cure, the calculus might look very different. Given that we cannot do that, to return to a national lockdown would be not only untenable but wrong.

The toll such a lockdown would exact would be stark and serious. It would manifest itself in grim statistics and it would fall to us in this House to reflect on them in the years ahead: the cancers undiagnosed, the jobs and businesses lost, the soaring demand on our mental health services. It would also creep in like sea mist in less tangible ways: the opportunities forgone by a generation of young people, the loneliness of millions parted from their loved ones again. It is therefore my firm belief that now is a time for resolution, when we must do our utmost to live without fear, even in the most dangerous times, as generations of Britons have done before us.

That is not a counsel of despair. As my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary said, thanks to the hard work of so many people, we are incomparably better placed than we were in March to live alongside the virus. From the Nightingale hospitals to new treatments such as dexamethasone, to new capabilities such as the outstanding NHS covid app, we grow stronger almost every week in our ability to defeat the virus. That is reflected in the improved mortality figures this time round.

As I am sure colleagues across the House have done, I visited my local major hospital this summer to hear first-hand from them about how they have responded to the situation. I pay great tribute to all those at The James Cook University Hospital for everything they have done.

Although I respect everything that the Government are doing, I want to raise several points about the issues thrown up by local lockdowns. Today, my Conservative colleagues from the Tees valley and I have written to our local authorities asking them not to seek to go further than central Government require when it comes to the restrictions that are currently in place. The new measures that the Prime Minister announced need time to bed in.

That leads to a very important question for the Government. As the number of local lockdowns across the north of our country continues to multiply, are we in effect seeing a national, or at least semi-national lockdown imposed by default? Some 16 million people are now living under the shadow of those restrictions. What is our exit strategy from this situation? As we look at the likes of Leicester, Greater Manchester or West Yorkshire, we see that none of them are leaving the restrictions. What hope can I offer my constituents, as we stand on the brink of further intervention in the Tees valley, that there is a way out? It will be a long, hard and lonely winter if there is no such exit strategy. That is why my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) and I have taken a stand today.

How long can we realistically expect people to comply with those measures? As lockdown fatigue worsens, we must address the growing risk that tighter restrictions will punish the law-abiding while others are unable or unwilling to comply.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Given that my hon. Friend is addressing the legal aspects, has he thought about the implications for other aspects of criminal law?

[Mr Clarke]

Indeed, the restrictions place a significant burden on our law enforcement agencies.

I will close by dealing with the slightly different local lockdowns that are in place across the country. The lack of consistency makes compliance harder and I urge my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and Government Front Benchers to reflect on possible options to try to establish the clearest possible protocol so that we can get uniformity of decision making across those areas. I clearly recognise that we are trying to make the most effective intervention in each area, reflecting the local circumstances. However, I worry that a slightly different situation in the north-east, compared with West Yorkshire and compared with Greater Manchester, risks making it harder for those who want to do their best to get behind the Government’s measures to do the right thing. Better observance must be our collective goal.

I offer my right hon. Friend and our health service every good wish as we try to overcome the challenges. At a moment when there are no easy choices, let us ensure that we enable our country to live rather than simply exist in the period that lies ahead so that the country we return to on the other side of this dreadful situation is happy, healthy, successful and free.