Covid-19

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered covid-19.

When I last spoke in this Chamber in a general covid debate, on 12 January, we faced a very grave situation. There was a very real risk of our hospitals being overwhelmed, the number of people tragically dying from covid-19 each day was in four figures, and our vaccine roll-out was just getting off the ground. As I stand here today, we have made huge progress, and while there is no room for complacency, thankfully we now face a very different picture.

That we find ourselves in this changed position is largely down to three factors. The first is our amazing NHS and social care workforce. The pressure they have experienced has been phenomenal. Their response to that pressure has been humbling to all of us: the teamwork, the resilience, the dedication. It has been truly inspiring. They have our admiration and our thanks, and we must always reiterate that, but they must also continue to have our unwavering support in the months ahead as we build back better after this pandemic.



The second factor is, of course, our national lockdown. On 12 January, the average number of cases per day was 44,302; more than 30,000 people were in hospital with covid-19; and, on average, more than 1,000 people were dying of the disease each day. Today, we see an average of just over 11,000 cases each day; just under 20,000 people in hospitals with covid; and a heartening and welcome decline in the number of deaths.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

One of the great differences between the start of this nightmare and where we are now is on personal protective equipment for health and care staff, which was a big issue at the start. There were a lot of stories over the weekend about the procurement of PPE. I know from my time as a Minister in the Department that sometimes government is not elegant, but surely what we did was to make sure that we did not run out of PPE. We should congratulate many of the officials in the Department on making sure that that did not happen, as history records it did not. For my constituents who are concerned about the process that went on, will the Minister reassure me that everything was above where it should be?

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend was a distinguished Minister in the Department for some time and rightly highlights the situation that we faced at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. It is testament to the phenomenal efforts to procure PPE of the officials in my Department, in the Paymaster General’s Department and others that we did not run out of PPE in this country. Indeed, credit for that should also go to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who ensured that throughout he put the provision of PPE and people first, even when, as we have seen, that may have led to challenges and to process not being entirely adhered to in respect of the timings for the publication of contract details. He and I have the greatest respect not only for the recent judgment, which we will consider carefully, but for the importance of transparency. I believe that my right hon. Friend did the right thing: he did everything he could to ensure that his No. 1 priority was to get that PPE procured and to the frontline to protect those who were protecting all of us and helping to save lives.

As on so many occasions over the past year, in recent weeks the British people have once again made huge sacrifices to comply with the necessary restrictions. It has been incredibly hard for individuals and businesses up and down the country, but in the figures that I have set out, we can see the impact that those sacrifices have made in helping to suppress the spread of this virus.

Despite the progress, over the past week an average of 449 people still lost their lives each day—449 families and friends who have lost loved ones. It is still far, far too many. It reminds us that, even now, as we map a brighter course forward, we must never lose sight of the threat posed by this virus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I was more content with today’s statement than I feared I might be. As I said to the Prime Minister earlier, the return of schools is a hallelujah moment for me and for many parents; the Government have done the right thing there. Primary for me in the Prime Minister’s statement was the line:

“There is no credible route to a zero-covid Britain or indeed a zero-covid world.”

This is what I do not get. We hear people say all the time, “It must be the last covid-19 lockdown. We don’t want to go back.” Well, of course we do not want to go back. Nobody wants to do that, but what am I missing here? In its analysis of covid deaths, the plan, on page 14, talks about 88% of cohorts 1 to 4. Then it mentions a further 11%, which means that 99% of deaths are in cohorts 1 to 9, so how could we go back? We have heard today about the efficacy of the vaccines, which is awesome. Compared with the flu vaccine, it is incredibly good. We have heard about the impact on transmissibility, which seems to be good as well. When the Paymaster General sums up, can she please explain what I am missing here?

On the 99% figure, how can I justify to my constituents what it says on page 39 of today’s road map, which is that there will be no legal limits on social contact, but that will happen no earlier than 21 June? We will have vaccinated cohorts 1 to 9, the 99%, by the middle of April, so by the end of April that will have taken effect and they will be protected. Look, I am open to the argument. I think I am a reasonable fellow, but surely the onus is on the Government to justify their restrictions—those in law anyway—after the end of April.

Finally, I agree with Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, when he said that covid will be with us for ever. The truth, therefore, is that so will infections and so will hospitalisations, and that, sadly, it will take people before their time—it may take me. We have to accept that the human condition includes mortality. That is really hard. When I was Public Health Minister, I found it hard that 22,000 people lost their lives to influenza. It was really hard when my own father passed away from pancreatic cancer three days after the last general election, but it was true. Let us be driven by the data, absolutely, let us be cautious, yes, and let us produce a release that is irreversible, but let us produce one that is irreversible because we are being honest with the British public, not because we are chasing a world without covid, which, as the Prime Minister rightly said, can never be.