Covid-19

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise his worries about when a vaccine will be available, but there are many who feel a vaccine could well be available next year. The key thing is that we have a process in place to ensure that that vaccine, when discovered, is distributed rapidly across the country.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I will give way, but I will not take more interventions because I am well aware that there are plenty on the list to speak.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Those who keep intervening are also on the list, which I think is unfair when others lower down the list will not or may not get in.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Briefly, does the hon. Member recognise that, although he is quite right that nobody came here to restrict liberties—in fact, most of us came to this place to promote liberties—the whole point of promoting liberty in this place is that we must balance liberties? There is obviously the liberty of individuals who are seeking to work, and he spoke about the poorest members of our community, but many of the poorest members of the communities I represent are the ones who are suffering from lockdowns in different ways. Would it not therefore be right for this House to debate—quite rightly not to reject all lockdowns, but at least to debate—the different political choices that are being made as these questions are being asked?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Many of my constituents are particularly affected by the restrictions that we have put in place—I will develop this point in a moment—but I will not take any more interventions, because I am well aware that the huge number of Members are seeking to catch your eye, Mr Speaker.

Heading into the first wave, we were too slow. The first cases reached the UK on 31 January. On 5 March, the Prime Minister talked about taking it on the chin and boasted about shaking hands with people. On 7 March, people were advised to self-isolate. A pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation on 11 March. On 12 March, testing and tracing in the wider community was paused. On 16 March, advice was issued against non-essential travel. On 20 March, pubs and restaurants were shut, but throughout, infections continued to climb. Finally, on 24 March, we went into a national lockdown. We could see what was happening in Italy, Spain and France, but we waited and waited, and, again, we can see what is happening now in parts of Europe. Let me be clear with the House: a second national lockdown would be catastrophic for society, for families who have spent so long apart, and for our economy. What is needed is action to avoid that, alongside clarity about which restrictions work and how long they will be in place.

Across vast swathes of the north and the midlands, families have been denied the chance to see each other in homes and private gardens. Restrictions have been placed on visiting loved ones in care homes. Many ask why they cannot go to see their grandmother, but can sit with strangers in the pub. There are parts of the country, such as Leicester and Bradford, that endured lockdown and that, more or less immediately on its lifting, had another four months of restrictions imposed on them. There will be huge long-term implications in terms of mental health and loneliness.

We understand the need for restrictions, but people need reassurance that there is an end in sight. Families want to know that they will be able to enjoy Christmas together. When will Ministers outline the criteria that will allow a daughter in Bradford to hug her elderly parents, or grandchildren in Leicester to cuddle their grandmother? If after a certain time limit, infections have not abated in cities such as Leicester or Bradford, where they have had restrictions for four months, will the Secretary of State instead impose alternative restrictions, so that families can visit their loved ones again? I urge Ministers to consider that.

I understand that tracing data show that infections spread in households, but that the virus is caught outside and brought into the house. The most recent Office for National Statistics surveillance report states that

“eating out was the most commonly reported activity in the 2-7 days prior to symptom onset.”

Hospitality accounts for one fifth of all covid transmissions. We support the restrictions announced last week, but many are now questioning how effective they will be in containing the virus. This weekend, we have seen pictures of people piling out of pubs at 10 o’clock on the dot into busy streets, public transport packed, and supermarkets busy as people buy more drink. How does that help contain the spread of the virus?

I ask the Secretary of State to undertake a rapid and transparent review of all the evidence on the 10 o’clock rule and to report back to Parliament this week. I also ask him quickly to publish a strategy outlining what further containment steps could be introduced to avoid a second national lockdown, keep our children in school, and allow families to see each other.

Secondly, both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State last week referred to airborne transmission. Emerging evidence now suggests that there is greater aerosol transmission than we earlier thought. That has huge implications for ventilation in sites, which often use circulated air—for example, student halls of residence. I urge Ministers to come forward as a matter of priority with new guidance on aerosol airborne transmission for buildings.

Avoiding a second national lockdown also depends on an effective test, trace and isolate regime. The problems with testing have been outlined by Members across the House for weeks now, so I do not need to repeat all the stories. We have rehearsed the arguments back and forth week after week, but, in responding to the debate later, will the Minister give us some more details about so-called Operation Moonshot? Apparently, the Government intend to deliver millions of tests a day with a plan for 4 million a day by December. It is set to cost £100 billion, which is more than 70% of the NHS England budget, with more contracts for the very firms that have failed to deliver an effective test and trace system today.

Instead of moonshots that cost the earth, why not invest in our network of NHS and university labs? I have asked the Secretary of State this before: will he validate quickly pooled PCR—polymerase chain reaction —testing, and will he invest in universities such as Southampton and Leicester to expand the saliva-based testing that they are piloting? We have urged him, and NHS providers urged him today, to introduce regular and routine testing for all frontline NHS staff? Will he deliver on that before the winter to improve infection control in hospitals?

Will the Secretary of State update the House on the plans for university halls of residence? We have seen the pictures on our TV screens in the past 24 hours.

Just as people have struggled to access tests in recent weeks, for those who receive a test, it is taking longer to get the result. Care home staff report that it takes days to receive a test result. Rather than the 24 hours to turn around a test that the Prime Minister promised us, in some instances it is now taking 35 hours. Will the Secretary of State tell us when the Prime Minister’s promise of 80% of tests being turned around in 24 hours will be met?

The Secretary of State knows that we think that his tracing system is not as effective as it should be. Ministers should have invested in shoe-leather epidemiology; instead, we got a Serco call centre. For decades, our local health protection teams kept us safe, testing, tracking and isolating infectious disease. They are trained in the fundamentals of infectious disease control, and they should be leading this work, not Serco. That would be much more effective.

Communication in a pandemic is absolutely key, but over the weeks we have had hyperbole: “world-beating”, sending it packing in 12 weeks, and so on. I urge the Government to commit to regular televised briefings from the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to be called so early in such an important debate. This is my first opportunity to address the House since leaving the Government earlier this month, so I want to pay tribute to those I worked with in local government and my former Department. It was a great privilege, and they are exceptional people.

Having stood recently in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s place, I can testify that this is a difficult time to be in government. I pay tribute to him and his colleagues for everything they are doing on our behalf at a moment of national crisis. I know how exacting it is.

This is clearly a very important moment in our national debate about our strategy on coronavirus. It is a time for clarity, consistency and courage. I welcome the measures that the Prime Minister announced last week. Covid-19 is an awful disease and it is essential that the public respect the rules that are in place for their protection, from the rule of six to the guidance on hands, face, space, which will undoubtedly save lives. I supported those measures precisely because they are limited and proportionate. Fundamentally, we owe it to the British people to be totally honest with them about the situation. Until we have a vaccine, we are going to be living alongside the threat of the virus and some of those we love may die. We do not know when a vaccine will become available or precisely how effective it will be.

Faced with that reality, we need to be clear sighted about the choices that are open to us. It is therefore right that, as the Government have chosen, we should seek to keep as much of our economy and society open as we possibly can. If we could say with confidence that by holding on for just a few weeks or indeed a few months, we would reach a certain cure, the calculus might look very different. Given that we cannot do that, to return to a national lockdown would be not only untenable but wrong.

The toll such a lockdown would exact would be stark and serious. It would manifest itself in grim statistics and it would fall to us in this House to reflect on them in the years ahead: the cancers undiagnosed, the jobs and businesses lost, the soaring demand on our mental health services. It would also creep in like sea mist in less tangible ways: the opportunities forgone by a generation of young people, the loneliness of millions parted from their loved ones again. It is therefore my firm belief that now is a time for resolution, when we must do our utmost to live without fear, even in the most dangerous times, as generations of Britons have done before us.

That is not a counsel of despair. As my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary said, thanks to the hard work of so many people, we are incomparably better placed than we were in March to live alongside the virus. From the Nightingale hospitals to new treatments such as dexamethasone, to new capabilities such as the outstanding NHS covid app, we grow stronger almost every week in our ability to defeat the virus. That is reflected in the improved mortality figures this time round.

As I am sure colleagues across the House have done, I visited my local major hospital this summer to hear first-hand from them about how they have responded to the situation. I pay great tribute to all those at The James Cook University Hospital for everything they have done.

Although I respect everything that the Government are doing, I want to raise several points about the issues thrown up by local lockdowns. Today, my Conservative colleagues from the Tees valley and I have written to our local authorities asking them not to seek to go further than central Government require when it comes to the restrictions that are currently in place. The new measures that the Prime Minister announced need time to bed in.

That leads to a very important question for the Government. As the number of local lockdowns across the north of our country continues to multiply, are we in effect seeing a national, or at least semi-national lockdown imposed by default? Some 16 million people are now living under the shadow of those restrictions. What is our exit strategy from this situation? As we look at the likes of Leicester, Greater Manchester or West Yorkshire, we see that none of them are leaving the restrictions. What hope can I offer my constituents, as we stand on the brink of further intervention in the Tees valley, that there is a way out? It will be a long, hard and lonely winter if there is no such exit strategy. That is why my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) and I have taken a stand today.

How long can we realistically expect people to comply with those measures? As lockdown fatigue worsens, we must address the growing risk that tighter restrictions will punish the law-abiding while others are unable or unwilling to comply.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Given that my hon. Friend is addressing the legal aspects, has he thought about the implications for other aspects of criminal law?

[Mr Clarke]

Indeed, the restrictions place a significant burden on our law enforcement agencies.

I will close by dealing with the slightly different local lockdowns that are in place across the country. The lack of consistency makes compliance harder and I urge my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and Government Front Benchers to reflect on possible options to try to establish the clearest possible protocol so that we can get uniformity of decision making across those areas. I clearly recognise that we are trying to make the most effective intervention in each area, reflecting the local circumstances. However, I worry that a slightly different situation in the north-east, compared with West Yorkshire and compared with Greater Manchester, risks making it harder for those who want to do their best to get behind the Government’s measures to do the right thing. Better observance must be our collective goal.

I offer my right hon. Friend and our health service every good wish as we try to overcome the challenges. At a moment when there are no easy choices, let us ensure that we enable our country to live rather than simply exist in the period that lies ahead so that the country we return to on the other side of this dreadful situation is happy, healthy, successful and free.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I want to immediately pick up on the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about mothers. This is not just about mothers; it is also about fathers. I am sure that many Members were there for their child’s first scan and the birth of their child and cannot imagine what it would have been like to miss it. Indeed, my son was very ill when he was born, and the inability to hold him that early on, when it was not immediately clear what the outcome was going to be, would have been extremely painful. I echo strongly my right hon. Friend’s words: this is about families, not just women.

This is a very difficult period for everybody in this country. In fact, it is a very difficult period for everybody around the world, but some people have done well. I do not mean that they have done perfectly, but they have done well because they have sought to do their best in extremely difficult circumstances. Those people are, of course, our healthcare professionals, who time and again have pushed themselves further than they knew they would have to. They have done better than anybody imagined they could and improved circumstances and situations that many thought lost or futile. They have taken us from a situation early on where we thought coronavirus was fatal to one where, for many people, it is survivable. They have changed the nature of the treatment, innovated and transformed the life chances of those who are suffering from this disease and those who will catch it. They have done so with extraordinary good grace, courage and professionalism.

Others have also done well. I pay huge tribute to the civil servants in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury, who have been innovative, thoughtful and creative, and to Ministers, who have listened, encouraged and no doubt innovated themselves. This debate is part of a process that is our responsibility—not that of the Department of Health and Social Care or the Treasury, but ours. That responsibility is to listen to the people who sent us here—the people we represent—and to enter into what is, I am afraid, a fundamentally political argument.

[Chris Bryant]

I would argue that one of the most dangerous innovations has been the ability of Ministers to switch on and off regulations without any say-so from Parliament. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I do agree, and that is exactly what I am coming on to. We are sent here because the decisions we are taking are, as the hon. Member recognises, political. Those decisions are about where to allocate resources, about people’s liberties and about care and treatment. They are fundamentally not party political, but political. They depend on an understanding of what is going on in this country, what people’s priorities are, where they wish to see investment, how our country wishes to be governed and what risks we are willing to take.

Because it was an emergency, many of us gave the Government the space to take those emergency decisions under the Coronavirus Act 2020. Sadly, this is less of an emergency now and more of a chronic condition. It has lasted for the best part of nine months. Although I hope I am wrong, there is a serious possibility that the vaccines being tested may not be successful and that the supplies may not be ready as quickly as we hope.

As a country, we must have the conversations that allow us to sustain the protections that we need, because the Government are right: we must protect people. We must protect the economy and education because we must protect people not just today but tomorrow. We must deter this disease. We must find the vaccines that will fix it, that will stop it, and we must rebuild because the damage that is being done to our country is serious and severe, and the damage that is being done to our world and to our friends is equally severe. The Government are right: we must protect, we must deter and we must rebuild. I absolutely agree with that, but we must do so together. As the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), knows, democracy is not just about elections, but about how we deal with each other as citizens. It is about how we talk to each other in this country. We practise democracy every day in this place, of course, but actually we practise it every day in this country, because it is not this place that is the mother of Parliaments, it is our country that is the mother of Parliaments. It is so because we believe in the freedom to discuss, to debate and to challenge.

For six months or more, we have had emergency laws because we needed them. The time is coming, I am afraid, when we need to have debated laws, because liberty matters, too.