Public Health

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I have just come from a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus. We were given a shocking set of presentations, about which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) will say more shortly.

I want to bring three key messages from that meeting of scientists and NHS professionals. The NHS is already beyond full stretch, and some said that it was at breaking point. They pointed out that we are not South Africa, which started its omicron wave from a low level of cases. We are starting it on top of a rising number of delta cases, so we have to get transmission rates down now. The focus on vaccinations alone, although they are vital, will not be enough. We have to focus on a range of other measures such as ventilation in schools, as other hon. Members have mentioned, and the big issue of limiting social contact.

We need to be honest and to have consistent and clear messaging about the need to reduce social contact. There is a direct relationship between the number of contacts that we have and the spread of infection. Giving guidance to work from home while still giving the green light to Christmas parties is, as the professor of primary care in Oxford suggests, akin to giving people advice to wash their hands after a meal but not after going to the toilet. We are all dreading the prospect of not seeing loved ones again at Christmas, but that is exactly the direction in which we are heading unless the Government show some leadership and tell us the unwelcome truth that we might not like to hear.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady and I share a hospital trust. She will know that that hospital is being overwhelmed at the moment not by covid cases or covid pressure but by cases of non-covid illness that have been neglected during lockdown and by the inability to release people who are medically fit for discharge. Is it not correct that, as it stands, those are the real pressures on the health service, not a torrent of covid cases coming in?

[Caroline Lucas]

That may well be the case now, but I do not see why that is an argument against needing to get coronavirus cases down. If transmission rates go up on the trajectory that we are being told they will, we can be sure that there will be massive pressure on our hospitals and NHS trusts. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is not a criticism of my argument. It is precisely because of the multiple pressures on our hospital system that we need to get transmission rates of omicron and delta down. That is why I want the Government to get rid of the disincentives that are built into the system and that stop people being able to self-isolate when they need to. Why do we still not have better sick pay for self-isolation? Why do we not have better support for our businesses? If there is going to be reduced social contact, as there needs to be, we know that has an impact, particularly on the hospitality sector.

We need VAT reductions to be extended beyond April, when they are due to end. We need businesses to be offered grants to help them through the next difficult weeks and to be given flexibility on paying back covid loans. My constituency is already feeling the impact of omicron, and the hospitality sector is extremely worried. Why can we not tell it, for example, that there will be extended and expanded business relief, with the Government ensuring that local councils do not lose even more funding? There should also be a proper support scheme for the self-employed who, as we know, play such a key part in our economy but were utterly left out of previous support mechanisms.

I regret that the Government have given MPs less than 24 hours to analyse the statutory instruments before us. Frankly, they have not advanced the scientific case for them. A Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry earlier this year concluded that the Government had not made a robust case for vaccine passports, and I have not heard anything today that has persuaded me otherwise.

Although I recognise the civil liberty arguments on the measures, with which I have sympathy, my bigger concern comes from the strong body of evidence on the impact of vaccine passports on vaccination rates. That evidence makes it clear that, although they can accelerate take-up rates among those inclined towards vaccination, they also entrench opposition among those who are hesitant.

As Professor Stephen Reicher has said, people not getting vaccinated is not a cognitive problem—it is not that they do not understand the issues—but a social problem. People are not getting vaccinated because of a lack of trust, and trying to force them into it, either through vaccine passports or through mandatory vaccinations in some settings, compounds that mistrust, as does berating them or “othering” them. If we want more people to be vaccinated—and believe me, I absolutely do—that is the bottom line, but we have to build the sense that vaccination is being done for the community, not to it. It is for the common good. Behavioural science clearly indicates that coercion undermines the relationships we need to build and the respect we must show one another in order to increase vaccination rates, and we do everyone a massive disservice by ignoring that science.

I want to end by saying a few words about the wider global situation that we face. It is supremely reckless to have so catastrophically neglected vaccination in poorer countries, and it is extremely reckless of our Government to refuse to support the waiver on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organisation. As Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, has said,

“Omicron is with us because we have failed to vaccinate the world.”

The Government should absolutely be changing their position on that TRIPS waiver: they should not be blocking it. The virus will be with us for years and years to come, and it will mutate into other viruses and variants unless we treat this as a global crisis, not just a crisis here at home. I beg the Government to look at the evidence, to look at what works, and to move forward on that basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is difficult to follow Buttons, but I will try. Yesterday I was asked in an interview whether I was plotting to revolt, and indeed I have seen my name on various lists of rebels today. Let me make it clear that I have not been plotting, I am not rebelling and I am certainly not revolting. What I am doing, in three minutes, is trying to scrutinise a really important piece of legislation affecting all our constituents—a duty that Labour Members seem to have completely abrogated by giving the Government a blank cheque here today. They have been here only in single figures for most of this debate.

What have we learned during this pandemic? We have learned that vaccines work and that they are our best defence. We have also learned that disproportionate measures have consequences. Closing schools has led to a tsunami of mental health implications for many of our children. We have also learned that when we are presented with evidence-lite and a shortage of data, some of the predicted outcomes do not happen. We have learned how brilliant the NHS is, but there have been consequences in the form of non-covid deaths as well. Covid is not the only killer. We have also learned the difference between modelling and forecasts. Modelling predicted more than 100,000 daily infections back in September, but it turned out to be nothing like that figure. Let us not confuse modelling with accurate forecasts and predictions. We have also learned about mission creep. Perhaps we saw that on Sunday. We are learning to manage risk and realising that we cannot eliminate it. Soon we are going to have the pi, rho, sigma and tau variants. We cannot head for the hills with knee-jerk emergency measures every time a new variant comes along.

To scrutinise these measures and to be prepared to vote against some of them is not to be ideological; it is to do our job. I am pragmatic. I am quite relaxed on masks. I have been wearing masks in shops and on public transport because I think that is a respectful thing to do. It gives assurance to people who are scared to come out, so I am not going to oppose that measure. The measures on self-isolation are of course progressive, but I will vote against covid passports, which are a key part of plan B. I appreciate that they are not vaccine passports, but that is the Government’s plan C, and that is what I fear. It is passport creep. We have already heard about passports for pubs and other venues. However much we want to get people vaccinated, we do not want a society where we ask for papers and deprive people of their liberty.

I will certainly vote against mandatory vaccinations for the NHS. It was crazy to do it for care workers, of whom we probably lost 40,000. There are 1.5 million people working in the national health service. It is wrong to mandate medical procedures, but it is pragmatically stupid when we will lose so many people who we need to help to fight the infection at the sharp end. I am afraid we will lose many more with that measure. We need to base our decisions on science, the holistic impact and what is proportionate and fair, and these measures are not.