Public Health: Coronavirus Regulations

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I must start with some moments of sadness, which is that, although we have heard much praise of the vaccines in development, the reality is that we do not know whether one is coming. If it does come, how effective will it be? If it is effective, which groups will it benefit? Even if it is effective in wide groups, how easily will it be made and distributed? We have so many variables and so many unknowns here.

I appreciate enormously the position that the Minister and the Government find themselves in, but it is because of this uncertainty that we need to look really hard at the decisions we are making tonight. These decisions are not just about the spread of coronavirus, or indeed its prevention, but about the health, the mental health and the wellbeing of our entire community. Fundamentally, they are not just about health today, but about health tomorrow. The impact on the economy is not simply something for the Treasury to be interested in; it is of fundamental interest to the Department of Health and Social Care and to the welfare of every person in this country. That is why I ask the Government to think very hard as they make these decisions.

The purpose of government is quite simple: it is to provide a stable platform on which people can build free and independent lives—not controlled lives, not ordered lives, but lives that are free and independent. Today, we are taking decisions that are interrupting that and making that harder. I see the position that the Government find themselves in, but I ask them to think very hard about the powers that they are asking to take.

At the moment, we are not getting the predictability and the consistency that we need. When we talk to ambassadors or high commissioners of the United Kingdom around the world, there are some countries that have easy access to the UK without quarantine and others that do not. The rules that govern which do and which do not are not immediately consistent. It is not immediately obvious which will benefit and which will not. When we look at the different areas in the United Kingdom, we see the same problem. This level of consistency, of predictability, that is so essential for a free people to know and to invest in—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

All we want from the Government is consistency. They spent all summer telling us to go into pubs and restaurants, and paying us to do so. They told us all summer to go back to our offices, and now they are telling us the opposite. Members might not agree with what they are doing in Sweden, but at least there is a consistent message. That is all I am asking of the Government.

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on this. What we are looking for is the consistency to know that, over the next two, three, or perhaps five years, we will have to live with this virus and perhaps without a fully effective vaccine. We need a system that people can rely on, can know what they are doing and can be able to plan their lives, because, at the moment, it is off the bus, on the bus, off the bus, on the bus. For those of us who have served in uniform, we know how much time that wastes, we know how much time that takes, and it makes it so much harder not just to plan for weddings and, sadly, for funerals, but to make even simple investment decisions. Even those areas of the economy that are not closed down suffer because of the lack of predictability.

I ask the Government to think very hard about the decisions that they are taking, to devolve as much as possible locally so that those who are in closest touch with the populations that they are elected to govern can make the decisions, to follow the track and trace and to understand the effects of the virus locally, and, on a much wider scale, to come up with rules that can actually be relied on not just for a few weeks, not just for a few months, but, sadly, possibly for several years.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). As he pointed out, there is some significant uncertainty about when we might have a vaccine, so there are two critical levers to tackling this virus: one is public trust, which the Government can achieve by taking people with them on the measures that they seek to implement; the other is a functioning, locally led, test, trace and isolate system.

On public trust, the Government have made much of following the science. Yesterday, we found out that there were plenty of recommendations from SAGE that the Government chose not to follow. The legislation that we are considering is before us today. That may be so, but it is up to politicians to make policy decisions and advisers to advise. To build public trust, the Government need to explain their thinking. What are their trade-offs? They need to show their working. When they have considered these measures, what are the wider health impacts of not taking them? What are the economic impacts of taking these measures? People need to see for themselves, and there must be trust from the public in following the new measures. I strongly agree that clarity of message is important for public trust.

Many Members have mentioned following the science, and my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) made a passionate argument about the curfew, which we know is resulting in other behaviours that frankly put public health and those businesses at risk. A publican in my constituency said, “We will just have to make up for the lost income by encouraging people to drink earlier in the day,” with bottomless brunches and so on. That binge drinking will happen earlier, or in people’s homes after the pubs have shut.

The Minister will have heard my earlier interventions on test, trace and isolate, and I believe that the 90 pages of complex rules and regulations would not be necessary if we had a properly functioning system. We got the R rate below one in the national lockdown, and on 23 April the Secretary of State said:

“Test, track and trace will be vital to stop a second peak of the virus.”

I know he likes to talk about his very large testing system, but we have had all sorts of issues with data, and sadly he was making jokes about that in the Smoking Room last week, apparently.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Not true.