Covid-19

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Help like that is always very welcome. What I can say is that we want to ensure that the House can be properly involved in this process while also allowing the whole nation to move fast where that is necessary. What I would say to my right hon. Friend and others on this point is that I welcome the rightful recognition that sometimes we do have to decide at pace. This is an unprecedented situation and the truth is that the secondary legislation procedures were not designed for a situation like this. The question is how we can have the appropriate level of scrutiny while also making sure that we can move fast where that is necessary.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

On another point—with the leave of the Chair, we may debate these matters around process in a couple of days’ time—may I focus the Secretary of State on the positives? Although there are many challenges, which I will come to if I catch the Speaker’s eye later, we have many things to celebrate in this country about how we have approached the response to this pandemic—not least the brilliant scientific community in this country, which has produced the only known effective treatment for covid-19 and is doing great work on getting us closer to a vaccine. We like to beat ourselves up—or, rather, the media like to beat us up—but is not the truth that we have many things that the rest of the world follows us in?

[Matt Hancock]

That is right, and in fact my hon. Friend leads me to where I was going to come next. He is right: whether it is producing the only known treatment, dexamethasone, or having a leading vaccine candidate around the world, or the work that our staff in the NHS did to protect the NHS in the peak of the crisis, or building the Nightingale hospitals in nine days—they told us we would never get that done, but we did—or sorting out the huge problems we had in the provision of personal protective equipment. With the PPE strategy that we set out and published today, we have made it clear that, on all but one line of PPE, by the end of this year we are on track for 70% of our PPE to be produced here in this country. When I got this job, it was 1%. These changes are all huge areas of progress that we have made in tackling this virus, and I am very proud of the whole team who have come together to make them happen.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne). I agreed with precisely zero of what he had to say, but this is not the first time that has happened in our time in this House.

As the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic in the UK began to recede over the summer, some sobering truths became evident. The UK had suffered one of the highest per capita death rates in the world and taken a far larger economic hit than comparable developed economies. Many attribute that dismal double whammy of failure to a Government who were too complacent at the beginning and too slow to lock down and prevent the death rate spiralling so badly out of control.

UK resilience to the threat of pandemics has been badly undermined by a decade of austerity, which weakened the ability of the NHS and both national and local government to react in time to prevent the disease taking hold. This failure became all too evident in the chronic shortage of personal protective equipment, which put key workers at unnecessary risk and led to the deaths of all too many, especially in the NHS and social care sectors.

The abandonment of testing so early in the pandemic meant that those charged with protecting us were effectively blind to its development in the community. That increased the chances of a total lockdown being the only viable response the Government could turn to. The Prime Minister recognised that all too belatedly on 23 March.

It is unclear how many lives the Prime Minister’s personal struggle with his libertarian instincts and his complacent reaction to the looming threat cost.

[Steve Brine]

I listen carefully to what the hon. Lady says in this House. She is very experienced and she sat on the Front Bench when the Labour party was in government. May I clarify what she is saying? If I understand correctly, she seems to be suggesting that there was a way to avert a national lockdown, which most other countries in the world have had, by different actions being taken prior to March this year. Is she seriously saying that?

[Ms Eagle]

I was trying to say that complacency at the beginning caused many more deaths; it caused us to have a higher death rate and a bigger economic hit than other countries. From the beginning there has been a problem with mixed and often contradictory messaging from the Government about the rules they wish people to follow, and a lack of transparency about how those decisions are made. Not only has that undermined the efficacy of public health messages, but it has genuinely confused people who wish to do the right thing.

The Government’s moral authority to order the greatest restrictions on personal freedom since the second world war has been completely undermined by two things. The first is the revelation of Dominic Cummings’s rule-breaking trip to Durham, and the Prime Minister’s refusal to sack him. That prompted public anger on an unprecedented scale, persuading many that there was one law for them and a completely different one for the Prime Minister’s friends.

The second is the lack of transparency and parliamentary oversight surrounding ministerial pronouncements on the rules. All too often the rules appear to be contradictory, almost arbitrary, and difficult to justify. The public were asked to work from home one minute, only to be urged to return to work and save the high street the next. Now, as evidence of a second wave of the virus emerges, people are being ordered back home again, but not before the Government spent half a billion pounds on subsidising meals out in August, and opened air bridges to half of Europe, only to reimpose unenforced quarantine requirements on those who had been trusting enough to believe them.

We are now told that we cannot meet people at home or in their gardens unless we are in their bubble, but we can go to the pub with six households, as long as we leave by 10 pm. All those rules are different in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Respect for the rules will evaporate if the Government do not do a better job of justifying them, and ensuring that they are coherent and understood.

The Government have centralised all decision making, and outsourced procurement for test and trace, leading to a failing system. They have not involved local public health or local authorities in the decision-making process. Only two weeks ago I asked the Health Secretary about sudden increases in infections in Wirral. He replied that that issue had been considered by silver and gold committees, but no one bothered to tell Wirral Council that that was happening, and at the height of the pandemic it was reduced to watching daily press conferences to try to discern what was happening.

We cannot fix test and trace without more local co-operation. In Wirral, pillar 1 tests now take 48 hours, and we have an infection rate of 157 per 100,000, and rising. Pillar 2 tests—when people can get them—take between five and seven days to get results, thereby rendering their effect, which is to get people to isolate, much less likely to work.

How can we get less centralisation and more transparency into the Government’s response to this pandemic? When considering parliamentary accountability, perhaps we should look at what New Zealand has done. It set up a special committee—it is called a Select Committee but it does not have to be—and it has a majority of Opposition Members on it, although it is a rotating membership. The committee is led by the Leader of the Opposition, it has unusual powers to subpoena witnesses and papers, and it can subject any Government decisions to that unusual but timely form of scrutiny. That worked well in New Zealand, because it allowed policy making to be improved by parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.

As we move to discuss the new measures on Wednesday, I believe that this House should carefully consider doing what the New Zealand Parliament has done. We should allow the Government to give Opposition Members that duty so that we can get some air, transparency and accountability into the decisions that the Government are currently making behind closed doors.

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[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I want to cover just three things. I will start by making a plea to Members of the House, to elements of our beloved media, and indeed to the great British public: step back at times, understand a little more, and possibly condemn a little less. We must remind ourselves that there is nothing normal here. This is an unusual event; this is a pandemic. Today we have heard calls for clarity—indeed, we hear that from the Opposition all the time—but in my experience of sitting on the Front Bench in a public health job, all too often calls for clarity are calls for certainty, and that is not how it is in a pandemic.

Just this weekend we heard that the university experience is not as billed. No, it is not—it is awful for freshers going to university and away from home for the first time, in a strange city with people they do not know. On the whole, however, universities are doing their best in an impossible situation. This will not be universally popular, but we should take great care about saying that universities should be refunding all those tuition fees, because those fees will keep universities in business, and keep them going so that they are there once this awful business is over. When we change the quarantine rules for this country or that on a Thursday, especially during the summer months, we see news bulletins full of people saying, “There was no notice.” No, because it is a pandemic. Of course there cannot be two weeks’ notice, because things change quickly in a pandemic.

I sit on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and we hear the arts sector say, “Give us a date. We want a date for reopening.” We would love to give people a date for reopening, but it would mean very little. We cannot be sure of where we will be in a month, let alone in three months when a big west end performance could be ready. We hear this all the time, but I ask Opposition Members to please think before they scream “U-turn!” Do they really want a Government who are not prepared to change their mind when the facts change? The previous Labour Government U-turned many times when the facts changed, and they were right to do so.

Policy making in normal times—I have done it—takes time. It is a slow process, and it is meant to be. We go through consultation and scrutiny—that is how normal policy making works—but in a pandemic that is not possible. In March some quick decisions were taken, and they are still being taken as the facts change. It will not be perfect, but that is what a pandemic will do.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that what we were doing in March was very different from what the Government are dealing with today?

[Steve Brine]

Unquestionably. The quick decisions that we had to make back in March were about whether we should have a national lockdown or not. We had to make those quick decisions, but we now know an awful lot more about the virus, and we have much better treatment. The only effective treatment that we know of comes from scientists in this country. My point is that we are not doing any of this to upset our constituents; we are doing this to try to keep people safe.

My second point is about Parliament. He is no longer in his place, but I agree with much of what was said by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). This is about consent, and as I said to the Prime Minister last Tuesday when he made his big announcement in the House, we must have the ongoing consent of the British public, or we are in trouble. I fear that that is slipping away. I am getting a constant stream of emails from constituents, questioning the decisions being made because they cannot see the evidence or logic behind them. They do not know where we are going or what is the destination. Yes, we have had a lot of statements from the Health Secretary, and I give him credit for that, but statements are not debates which, like tonight, become an exercise in how many Members the House can accommodate, and then the poor Minister of State on the Front Bench will probably get five or six minutes to wrap the whole thing up.

There is an old adage in this place that one should never ask a question to which one does not already know the answer, but I will ask two questions to which I genuinely do not know the answer. Perhaps the Minister can help me when he sums up the debate. Why are young children included in the rule of six—of course, they are not in Scotland? I do not know the answer to that, although many of my constituents have been asking me. Please can we hear the evidence behind that?

What is the evidence for the 10 pm curfew? I agree with what Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, said today about the knock-on effects. If we are going to have a 10 pm curfew in our pubs and restaurants, we will have to have a 10 pm curfew on selling alcohol in our off-licences and supermarkets. I would just say this on alcohol, as a former public health Minister: if people are so desperate to drink until 10 pm and then to get loaded with more booze in the off-licence so that they can carry on until 3 in the morning, what does that say about the unhealthy relationship that this country has with alcohol? It is an elephant in the room and we overlook it at our peril.

Finally, on the vaccine, when it comes, if it comes—and I pray to God that it does—could we please, Minister, consider the economic case for the vaccine? Yes, of course we have to give priority to our health and social care workers, but there is a covid generation that I mentioned with regard to university. They have had a rotten deal in the last six months and they are going to have a rotten deal in the next six months. I think that we should consider our young people—as the earners and the backbone of our economy—as the economic case for the vaccine when we get there.

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[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Since covid-19 began, sadly in Herefordshire we have seen 128 deaths and 1,008 people have tested positive. However, looking to France as an example of where we could be in just a matter of weeks, there have been 14,412 new cases in the last 24 hours, compared to just 5,693 in the UK. In the past week, 4,102 people in France were admitted to hospital, 763 of whom needed intensive care; here, there were some 1,727, with 262 on a ventilator.

Should the UK experience a similar fate, we must restructure how the Coronavirus Act works. In March, we did not know what we were dealing with and how best to manage a fast-spreading virus. The Italian handling of the crisis made us believe that it threatened to overrun the NHS. Parliament granted the Government emergency powers, which at the time was a sensible course of action. Six months on, things have changed. The NHS has been saved and Parliament is sitting.

The press report further covid plans that, as a Conservative, I find possibly draconian, curtailing freedoms, but I am sure we would give parliamentary approval for life-saving precautions. We need to remember that both sides of the House are united in wanting to beat this disease. I know we would be complaining if we sat on the Opposition side of the House, so we need to involve all MPs to get the necessary actions approved. Decisions are being made at ministerial level, such as closing pubs at an early hour, despite Public Health England saying that only 5% of outbreaks occur at pubs and restaurants, based on the advice from SAGE and various other experts.

Let us get those experts approving vaccines. We are only three months away from the final approval of the first vaccine. That is why we do not need a six-month extension to the powers granted by the Coronavirus Act. Vaccines for covid-19 are the key to eliminating the virus. The faster one is distributed, the more likely we are to protect the most vulnerable in our society, and that is the area we should be working on. Do we really need to wait till the end of the year? Do we need to follow the existing testing regime so religiously? Is there an opportunity to hurry things up? Perhaps we can look at people who feel most at risk and may be willing to volunteer for an early vaccination—and do not tell me it is impossible, because that is what we are always told just before it becomes possible.

Worldwide, there are a total of 320 possible vaccines in development. Today, roughly 280,000 trial participants across 470 sites in 34 different countries are racing to find a vaccine for covid-19. It is a global search, but we should be rightly proud of the British institutions at the forefront of these efforts. The UK Government have pledged £250 million to the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations, the largest contribution of any nation.

In total, four vaccine candidates have entered the final steps of the regulatory approvals process. The leader is the joint AstraZeneca and University of Oxford team. They have reached phase 3, which makes it the most advanced vaccine in development, and the study should be complete by December. The speed at which that is being done is outstanding, but we need to do more. The Government have invested £131 million to support vaccine development at the University of Oxford and Imperial College, on top of the £2.3 billion to GAVI and the wider international effort to fight the virus. In doing so, the Government have secured early access to a total of 190 million doses of covid vaccine candidates.

[Steve Brine]

That is all true, but is it not the point that, in the same way as we are all dependent on each other doing the right thing at the moment in the absence of a vaccine, we have a responsibility, as a country that leads on GAVI, to take on the anti-vaxxers and those who will deny a vaccine to themselves and thereby put others at risk? When the vaccine comes, we need to roll it out and we need to roll it out everywhere.

[Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend is right, but everybody who takes the vaccine reduces the risk proportionately for everybody else. It is all about the R number, as he knows. That is why the Government have been right to pre-book the vaccines: 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca and University of Oxford vaccine, 30 million doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, which is the next one in evaluation stage 3—we should have doses by the end of 2020 for that—and 60 million doses from a company called Valneva, whose vaccine will be provided in the second half of 2021.

The Government have a great story to tell on the work that they have made possible. We are all doing all we can to save lives, and we should now restore parliamentary democracy too. In these difficult times, my constituents want hope. After the sacrifices they have made, the vaccines that we have funded and the lives that have been saved, we all deserve it. We need to start voluntary vaccinating now, and we need to get life back to normal.