Coronavirus

Steve Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

As so often, my right hon. Friend, who is one of the most astute medical practitioners in this House—crikey, I could get myself into trouble there, because all the medical practitioners in this House are astute, but he is also a public health expert. I will start again. My right hon. Friend’s point was a really good one and very astute. He is exactly right about our approach: the two-week review is a data review.

Up to around 10 days to a week before the decision making cut-off for the proposal to take step 4 on 21 June, it looked like hospitalisations were staying flat, despite rising case rates. We did not know whether that was because of a lag or because there was now going to be no cases turning into hospitalisations. That remains the case now for the link to the number of people dying, because the number of people dying each day in England is actually slightly falling at the moment—thank goodness —and there has not been a rise in the number of deaths following the rise in the case rates, which started about three weeks ago. Within a couple of weeks, we will know whether that continues to be flat or whether it rises a little. It has risen a little in Scotland; I just put that warning out there. That is precisely the sort of data that we will be looking at at the two-week point. We have been absolutely clear that the goal on which we hang the decision ahead of 19 July is one of delivering the vaccines, and we have a very high degree of confidence that we can deliver the vaccines that we think are needed in order to be able to take step 4 on 19 July.

I hope that was a clear and comprehensive answer, once I untangled myself from my initial response to my right hon. Friend.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Is not the problem with the two-week checkpoint that it creates another moment of hope for people who still feel even these restrictions very acutely, and that if we create hope and then shift the goalposts again, people will continue to deepen their despair? What will he say to those people?

[Matt Hancock]

No, because I think people understand that we are putting forward the moments by which we can and then will make assessments according to the data. We have done that throughout. I think people get that and they understood that ahead of 21 June. I think people are smart enough to understand that distinction.

After this four-week pause, we will be in a stronger position—because of the vaccination rollout that we have been discussing—to keep hospitalisations down, and so to live with this disease and take that final step on the road map.

Let me turn to the regulations themselves, which put the pause into effect by amending the expiry date of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps) (England) Regulations 2021, so that they expire at midnight on the evening of 18 July. To reflect this change, we also need to align the dates on several other covid regulations that are essential for keeping us safe, including: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020; the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations, which give powers to manage local outbreaks by cancelling events and closing individual premises; and the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Local Authority Enforcement Powers and Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, which give local authorities powers to enforce covid-secure measures for businesses. They will all be extended until midnight on 18 July.

We do not want to extend these sets of regulations a day longer than we have to and have always said that we would ease restrictions as soon as we were able to safely to do so. Even though we have put forward these regulations to pause step 4, we are also putting forward regulations to ease restrictions in some areas, allowing us to remove the 30-person gathering limit for weddings, receptions and commemorative events—subject, of course, to social distancing measures—and to run another phase of our pilots for large events at higher capacity, including some, such as the Wimbledon finals, at full capacity. Even though we have not been able to take the full step 4 as we wanted, the regulations will allow us to make some cautious changes that will bring some joy to many people and move us slightly further down the road to recovery.

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[Matt Hancock]

Yes, we do propose to consult on this point, alongside the consultation on mandatory vaccination as a condition of deployment in the NHS. As my right hon. Friend rightly says, this is a complicated operational matter. The principle of vaccination for those in a caring responsibility is already embedded, as he says; there is a history going back more than a century of vaccination being required in certain circumstances. I think these are reasonable circumstances, so we will go ahead for those who work in care homes and we will consult about those in domiciliary care and those working in the NHS. However, I have no proposals for going, and would not expect us to go, any wider.

[Mr Steve Baker]

I can understand why we would want especially to protect people in those circumstances, of course, but will the Secretary of State explain why it is not possible to maintain their right to choose not to be vaccinated by instead, for example, requiring daily lateral flow tests for workers in those industries?

[Matt Hancock]

We already have significant testing, but this is a matter of risk and we know that the vaccine reduces that risk very significantly.

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[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I wish to try to be constructive about how we can improve SAGE. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, SAGE has huge power over our lives. It has power over whom we hug and hold. It has power over which businesses open and which businesses close. In essence, it has power over who keeps their job and who loses their job. We, too, in this place have great power, but our power is matched by accountability.

Accountability is very important in the exercising of power, so I want to suggest some reforms to SAGE—some quite technical reforms. First, there is a need for greater financial transparency from members of SAGE in line with that expected of Members of Parliament. For example, I think when we look at SAGE members, we should be able to see what their annual income is—not only from their substantive job, but from their pensions accrued or the pensions they might well be in receipt of. This is something that is freely available for all Members of Parliament. I think we should also know and constituents should know if they have any significant shareholdings in companies, in the same way that our constituents know if we have significant shareholdings in companies. We could also look at whether they get other forms of income—from rent, for example.

I am not suggesting for a minute that this would include the spouses or partners of members of SAGE in the same way this does not include our spouses and partners, but given that they are making huge decisions that have huge financial consequences for tens of millions of people, it is important that our constituents know whether or not the people making these decisions are sharing the pain or are insulated from the pain. For example, in the case of young people, many SAGE experts say that young people should be working from home. We know that young people are now tied to their small kitchen table or in their bedroom in miserable environments—the new dark satanic mills—and working endless hours in appalling circumstances, because people with nice gardens and comfortable homes think that is what they should be doing.

There should also be far greater personal accountability. There should be no more, “Here is Sir Mark Walport—of SAGE, but here in a personal capacity”. Nonsense! He is there because he is a member of SAGE. We should also have elections to SAGE, so we could see Sir Mark Walport, Professor Susan Michie, John Edmunds and regular talking heads in our TV studios challenged by people with a different perspective—people such as Professor Karol Sikora, Professor Paul Dolan, who is an expert on human behaviour and quality of life, and Professor Ellen Townsend, who has a huge interest in the welfare of children and adolescents who are now being plagued by anxiety and eating disorders.

[Mr Steve Baker]

My hon. Friend is making a great case, with which I largely agree, but does he agree with me that experts are only human and to an extent we have been asking the impossible of them? They are risk averse—they do not want to be blamed for a disaster—and they will choose to give advice that is cautious. Would he join me in recommending to the Prime Minister the reform that I have put forward, which is to have competitive multidisciplinary expert advice with red team challenge?

[Sir Charles Walker]

I think that is a fantastic and plausible suggestion. We need a diversity of voices, but of course if we had elections, we could get people elected from Independent SAGE, and we know what they want—harder lockdowns, tighter lockdowns and a permanent end to freedoms.

But there is an alternative to elections and to financial disclosure, which is that the Prime Minister could say to members of SAGE, “Here it is: you can either advise me or you can advise the “Today” programme, Sky and Channel 4, but you can’t do both. You can either be a serious scientist at this moment in time advising your Government or you can be a media talking head building a career outside SAGE, but you can’t do both”. I think that is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. We would not expect our generals to give a running commentary on a war, undermining politicians. It is just not acceptable. It is just not acceptable, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can you imagine if the Clerks who advise my Administration Committee were going out and briefing what they would like to see my Committee do and pushing us into a corner all the time? It would not be tolerable. It would not be tolerated in this place, and it should not be tolerated by No. 10.

So here it is: full financial disclosure from members of SAGE and full elections, or they advise the Government, and if they do not want to do that, but want to advise TV studios, they do that, but they do not do both.

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[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I refer the House to the declarations that I have made relating to the Covid Recovery Group.

No one can deny the brilliance of the Government’s—the NHS’s—vaccination programme. By mid-April, the over-50s and the vulnerable had had their first vaccination, and overwhelmingly they have now had their second. That is reflected in the Office for National Statistics antibody data, which shows extraordinary levels for anyone over 50. Antibodies are there in that population, which is vulnerable to the disease.

That brings me to the best case that the Government could make for the regulations before the House, which is that the ability of the NHS to provide other healthcare could be compromised by admissions from a younger population, because a small percentage of a big number is still a big number. But the huge problem with that is that it concedes the point that our liberties can be used to manage the capacity of the NHS. I cannot concede that. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said, that is not the way in which we should be going as a society. If the restrictions that we are extending had been proposed for that purpose in the past, we would never have accepted them.

In Wycombe, people have of course been dutifully washing their hands, covering their faces and keeping social distancing rules, yet early in this pandemic, I remember one dear, sweet, older lady was beside herself with anxiety at the thought of having to go about her ordinary life with her face covered, and look at us now, taking it for granted. This is not normal. This is the dystopia that I stood here and forecast on the day we went into lockdown.

Thousands of pubs, restaurants and theatres have struggled by—if open at all, then hardly breaking even. We have been told by UKHospitality that they are still making a loss. The truth is that the Government do not have a systematic way of showing us the cost-benefit of the measures that they propose. One of my colleagues earlier mentioned Professor Paul Dolan. I have done a lot of work with him and I will write to Ministers with a paper from him. He shows how to look at not just the splash of policy, but the ripples. We really need to get this sorted out and embedded in a new public health Act, together with reform to modelling and some changes to expert advice, which I raised in an intervention.

One of the most important things that we have learned from Mr Cummings’ leaked WhatsApp messages is that it seems that the Government have been significantly influenced by polling. I fear we have had a real doom loop here between polling and policy making, which has driven us into a disastrous position. We now must not tolerate lockdowns being perpetually on the table. We must not tolerate a situation going on where we and the police are unclear about what the law is and how it should be applied. Imagine that you can hug but not dance—what madness is this? We cannot tolerate a situation any more in which a Government social scientist told the author of the book “A State of Fear” that the Government had used unethical techniques of behavioural science to deliver a policy which he said, in his own words, “smacks of totalitarianism”.

We have transformed this society for the worst. We have it put in place a culture and habits that will take years to shake off and that distance people from one another and diminish their quality of life and the quality of relationships that they have with one another. High streets are in danger of becoming haunted alleyways. We are in danger of hollowing out and destroying the entertainment industry—much of what makes life worth living. Today’s vote will go through—it is a foregone conclusion—but as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) implied, if the Conservative party does not stand for freedom under the rule of law, in my view, it stands for nothing. We have got to have a turning point. We have got to recapture a spirit of freedom.

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[Mr Steve Baker]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend, and it is a good argument for voting for these restrictions, of course it is, but has he considered the possibility that, very sadly, the NHS will now be under pressure for years, dealing with the backlog?

[Simon Fell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am making the judgment based on my local knowledge and that of my director of public health, but we all have to make that decision in this place today.

We cannot afford for schools to close again, for young people to miss any more of their lives, or for any of our businesses to close as a result of further impositions, so it has to be one more heave, to protect more people, and then we have to accept that, in the face of a virus that we are not going to get rid of, and which will continue to mutate and challenge us while we are on this Earth, we must vaccinate as many people as possible and then give people back their freedom.

There is a more fundamental issue at play here—public acceptance. We made a delicate compact with people over the last year. We restricted their liberties to keep them safe, and already we are seeing compliance with that law beginning to fray. We must accept that people expected their liberty to return as vaccinations were rolled out, but as we vaccinate more, acceptance of that compromise falls. If we cannot maintain that compact, our response to it has to change.

So I hope and expect that after this final surge of vaccinations, we will return on 19 July to a society where people are able to make their own choices. It is easy to sloganise about freedom. I, for one, am deeply uncomfortable about living in a country where we dictate to newly married couples whether they can cut their wedding cake or not.

I believe that this Government have acted honourably and with good intentions throughout this horrible pandemic, so I am giving them my support tonight for one last heave to finish the job, and then we must return all of our freedoms on 19 July.

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

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as chair of the Covid Recovery Group.

Before I turn to the matters before us, I would like to put on record my thoughts about the loss of Jo Cox five years ago. Sadly, I remember that day very well. Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I were both in different roles at that time, and it was our joint responsibility—in my case as the Government Chief Whip and in yours as the Opposition Chief Whip—to ensure that the House was able to be recalled for appropriate tributes to the paid to Jo Cox and her memory. I know that, in your position, you are unable to speak often in the House, but it was a great pleasure working with you on that very sad occasion to make sure that a fitting tribute was paid. Sadly, I remember that day very well.

On a happier note, in one sense, I would like to put on record my thanks to Sir Roy Stone for his 44 years of service in the civil service, which will shortly come to an end, although I am told he is not retiring; he is going to turn his attention to other things. He was a fantastic principal private secretary to me when I was Government Chief Whip, and I know that his loss will be felt across Government.

[Mr Steve Baker]

May I take this moment to put on record my apologies to my right hon. Friend, who was Chief Whip during a period when I was leading various rebellions? I also want to offer a great apology to Roy Stone, who will have had to put up with the trouble that I caused my right hon. Friend. I am very grateful for the things that my right hon. Friend has said.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend reminds us all how we can have different roles in this House. It is worth noting that, as a former Government Chief Whip, I do not find not supporting the Government a particularly comfortable place to be. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said, sometimes we have to put what we believe to be the interests of our country first, and that is what I feel I am doing.

I want to draw attention to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said, because he is right. There are documents with Government—I am not saying that these have been agreed by Ministers, but certainly this advice is being given to Ministers—that Government should aim to have a very low prevalence of covid. That is not zero covid, but it is not a great distance away. If Ministers were to agree to that strategy, it would mean restrictions going on for the foreseeable future, and that is one of the things that we are very concerned about.

I note, at this point, what my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said: the Labour Benches are somewhat empty—the Back Benches are completely empty— and it is colleagues on the Government side of the House who are holding the Government to account. I accept that the Government may occasionally find that uncomfortable, but it is our role as Members of Parliament.

I always find it helpful to draw attention to the documents actually before us. For those who do not know, we have an explanatory memorandum, which explains what it is we are voting on today. It has been prepared by the Department of Health and Social Care and it will have been approved by a Minister of the Crown. It is very clear, and it is worth reading. Paragraph 7.3, bullet two, makes it clear that the Government will

“likely be able to offer a first dose”

of vaccine

“to all adults…by July, but the vaccinations”

themselves will probably not take place until August “due to supply constraints.” We know that it takes two or three weeks until those vaccinations are effective, so those adults will not actually be protected until later in August, so that means that this delay is therefore pointless, or alternatively, that we are not going to cease these restrictions on 19 July if vaccinating all adults is the goal.

If we then turn to the review dates and whether this is indeed a terminus, paragraphs 7.4 to 7.7 are very interesting. There is a review required by the Secretary of State every 35 days. The first review, according to this, is not due until Monday 19 July. There is no mention here of an earlier review after two weeks—

“the first review due by Monday 19th July 2021.”

It says that

“England will remain at Step 3 for a further 4 weeks (subject to further review).”

It also says that the primary purpose of extending these regulations is

“to gather more evidence that the…tests can be met”—

not that these rules will expire after four weeks never to be reintroduced, but to gather evidence for tests to be met and then for a decision to be taken about whether these restrictions are to continue. The second reason given is to

“allow more people to receive vaccinations…further reducing these risks”,

as Ministers have said, but as I just pointed out, the first doses are not going to be delivered until August, so that makes no sense. Something does not add up here, and we are concerned that these regulations are not going to end on 19 July.