Public Health

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, completely right. Containment is the objective of the tiering scheme that the Government are announcing, and I hope the Opposition will support that tonight, in spite of what I gather is their decision to abstain, which seems extraordinary to me. We cannot simply allow the current restrictions to expire, for the reason he gives, with no replacement whatever. With the spread of the epidemic varying across the country, there remains a compelling case for regional tiers in England and, indeed, a compelling necessity for regional tiers.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The latest rate in my area is 79 per 100,000 people. A week ago, it was 178. We went into lockdown in tier 1 and will come out in tier 2. Pubs and restaurants in my constituency are in the worst of all worlds. In asking me to support these regulations tonight, what hope can the Prime Minister give them?

[The Prime Minister]

Indeed, and I will come in just a moment to what more we hope to do for pubs, restaurants and everybody in the hospitality sector, whose anguish and difficulties everybody in this Chamber understands and appreciates.

I hope the House is clear what I am not asking for today. This is not another lockdown, nor is this the renewal of existing measures in England. The tiers that I am proposing would mean that from tomorrow, everyone in England, including those in tier 3, will be free to leave their homes for any reason. When they do, they will find the shops open for Christmas, the hairdressers open, the nail bars open, and gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools open.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I said to the Prime Minister earlier that my area has seen a drop in the seven-day average of 55%, yet we emerge from the national restrictions in tier 2 having entered them in tier 1, so we could be forgiven for asking, “How so?” In truth, I cannot answer that one. MPs were not consulted about that decision and, according to our county and our director of public health, nor were they. That begs the question, how will that change ahead of the 16 December review point, and what exactly needs to happen among the five stated data points outlined in the Secretary of State’s written statement last Thursday to get us down to tier 1 in very short order? I am hopeful.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

It is obvious that consultation with local government leaders and MPs has been woeful.

[Steve Brine]

Woeful? It has been non-existent in many instances. I am not reassured to hear that that has been happening across the border in Dorset as well; I am not surprised.

I need to hear from the Government how this will change in the next two weeks and, to echo the calls in this respect today from many speakers on both sides of the House, I need to see a much more localised approach rather than a regional approach. My constituents are perfectly capable of knowing where they live, be that Winchester, Alresford or Chandler’s Ford in the Eastleigh borough, and of course we would go into that arrangement with our eyes wide open. We would know full well that it could work in our favour if our rate went down, every bit as much as it could work against us if the rate went up. My message to Ministers is: “Please treat us as grown-ups. Involve us in your decision-making, because by that route, you might just find that we are able to help build some consent and compliance with whatever it is that is decided.”

The reality is that for many of us, tomorrow will feel a lot like today—working from home, bans on meeting friends and family, and many other restrictions on our lives—but for many of my bars, pubs and restaurants, not so much. They are in a terrible place. I know from talking to some of them in the last 24 hours that it is not the substantial meal point that is killing them; it is the fact that tier 2 prevents any household mixing indoors. They can open, but the trade just is not there, and because they are in tier 2, the financial support is not there either. It is the worst of all worlds.

We are told that that very household mixing is where the danger lies. To quote the Prime Minister in his letter to MPs on Saturday:

“It would not take much loosening for the transmission rate to rise again”.

So why on earth—no matter how much I understand the desire not to be the modern puritans, and no matter how much I want a normal Christmas this year—are we relaxing the rules for five days at Christmas? To echo a phrase—I am sorry to say this—would that not be to trip on the last barbed wire and blow it just as the cavalry, in the form of the vaccine, comes into view? My hunch is that many people will have already decided for themselves to avoid seeing family and grandchildren over Christmas this year. Frankly, I salute their good sense in doing so.

The record shows that I did not vote for lockdown 2.0 on 2 November. Nothing that has happened since has told me that I made the wrong decision then. The tiered system, while not perfect, for some of the reasons I have outlined, is far better than a national lockdown, which, for the record—I am bored with saying it—was never a lockdown. But we are not just recreating the tiered system here this evening, because schedule 4 of the tiers regulations lists exactly where each area falls. That makes it very hard for me to support them this evening.

In closing, I will just say this. Let us just get these vaccines over the line. The MHRA is tough and will do its job as it should, but let us get them over the line and get them rolled out with the sort of British efficiency that we are supposed to be good at. Then—guess what?—the annus horribilis of 2020 will go away and these Hobson’s choices that we are being forced to make will go away as well.