It has come to my attention that, owing to an oversight in the Public Bill Office, the Government were not invited to signify Queen’s consent last night on Third Reading of the Fisheries Bill. I am satisfied that Queen’s consent is required and that it has been obtained, as it was signified for the Bill in the House of Lords on Wednesday 15 July this year. If a Privy Councillor will now signify formally that the Queen’s consent was obtained for this Bill, I will direct that the appropriate entry be made in the Journal for yesterday’s proceedings.
indicated assent.
What recent discussions he has had with the devolved Administrations on UK trade negotiations with the EU.
I have regular discussions with Welsh Ministers on a range of issues, including EU negotiations. The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations meets regularly. My Cabinet and ministerial colleagues frequently meet Ministers from the devolved Administrations.
Tomorrow is the day the Prime Minister has set as the deadline for a trade deal with the EU. So far, the devolved Administrations have been left out of the loop or deliberately kept in the dark on some details. Does the Secretary of State believe that withholding key information and detail at such a stage as this shows respect or disrespect to the devolved Administrations?
I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s accusation. Given the number of meetings I have personally been in with Ministers from the devolved nations, let alone other colleagues, it would be a difficult charge to land to suggest that they have not been closely involved with the process right from the beginning. I suspect his comments are based on the fact that he does not like the reality of what is going on, rather than being a legitimate comment.
Last week, it was revealed that the Secretary of State’s Government have actively sought to conceal information from the Welsh Government. This information included the likelihood of food shortages and their intention to grab new powers. That does not sound like inter- governmental parity of esteem. Where does his role to represent the Tory party in Wales stop and his role to build trust and mutual respect start?
The first responsibility in this particular context is to respect the fact that 55% of people in Wales voted to leave the European Union, and it seems astonishing that the party of Wales, represented by the right hon. Lady, is still so out of step with the people of Wales when it comes to that. The clock is not being turned back, and what we are attempting to do is to deliver a deal that respects that decision and all the institutions in Wales, which I thought we both valued.
Trust in politicians is sadly diminishing, because politicians are not seen to answer the question at hand. Back to the matter of trust, transmission rates indicate that Wales stands on the brink of a circuit-break announcement. Businesses in Wales, and people who need to self-isolate, seek assurance that they can trust the Treasury to back up covid-19 control measures made in Wales for Wales. Can the Secretary of State guarantee to the people of Wales that they can, indeed, trust the Government to do this?
Having seen the Chancellor ensure that the Welsh Government have had £4.4 billion-worth of UK taxpayers’ money for exactly that purpose, I hope the right hon. Lady would share my view that we are looking at the UK in the round. Covid is an international problem, and it does not respect political boundaries. The Chancellor’s announcements make it very clear that he sees all the UK as a priority, not just individual component parts, and I would think the numbers speak for themselves.
What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on covid-19 restrictions in Wales.
We have, of course, worked hand in hand with the Welsh Government throughout the covid-19 pandemic. The Secretary of State and I have regular discussions with Welsh Ministers about the ongoing UK-wide response to covid-19, and those include discussions between the Secretary of State and the First Minister and, of course, meetings between the UK Government and all devolved institutions.
Restricting the virus is vital, but the Welsh Government’s lockdown measures in Clwyd South and the rest of north Wales need reviewing. Given the difficulties they are causing, particularly for hospitality, the wedding industry and leisure businesses, by using county boundaries rather than being targeted on the specific areas with high covid case numbers, is the Minister able to outline how often the Welsh Government have invited the UK Government to participate in their covid-19 planning meetings and whether they have discussed using more detailed evidence by community rather than just by county?
That is a very good question. Although the UK Government extend an open invitation to the devolved Administrations to take part in Cobra meetings and ministerial implementation groups, the same spirit of co-operation has not thus far been forthcoming. I was invited to one meeting by Welsh Government Ministers to discuss parts that were reserved to the UK Government anyway. We stand ready to accept the same level of co-operation from Welsh Government as we have always extended to them.
With cases rising across the UK, the First Minister has called for an extraordinary meeting of Cobra to discuss plans for a so-called circuit-break lockdown. The measures are already under active consideration in Wales and would be implemented by the Welsh Government if they need to be, but of course, any such measures are more effective if we apply them with a four-nation approach across the whole UK. Will the Government now listen to their own scientific advisers and the Opposition and agree to meet the devolved nations to discuss these specific proposals?
Throughout this pandemic, the Government have listened to a wide range of scientific advisers, some of whom will be advising circuit breakers, whereas others will be suggesting that measures are too strict. The Government have listened to all and tried to steer a course through the middle of this. They have listened to Welsh Government Ministers on numerous occasions, with more than 100 such meetings having taken place. We will continue to listen with an open mind and to follow the evidence.
Unlike this Tory Government in England, our Labour Government in Wales do follow the science. The rules in Wales have stopped people taking the virus with them from high-prevalence to low-prevalence areas, thus protecting people’s lives. We want the same for visitors to Wales from across the rest of the UK, where rates are even higher, so why are this Tory Government ignoring the First Minister yet again, failing to stand up for the people of Wales and playing politics with people’s lives?
We certainly are not playing politics with people’s lives. The hon. Lady will be aware that 25% of the workforce of Wales travel over to England to work there, and playing politics with people’s lives potentially means looking at livelihoods as well. The reality is that we have followed the science all the way through this process and, more or less, the Welsh Government have followed exactly what the UK Government are doing.
The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) says we should follow the science, but 10 minutes ago, Public Health Wales told me that it did not even carry out a community-level analysis prior to instigating these lockdown measures. Does my hon. Friend agree that this virus does not respect county borders and that, once again, all the Labour Welsh Government are doing is throttling businesses and letting down the people of north Wales?
First, let me wish my hon. Friend penblwydd hapus for tomorrow. It is the case, of course, that this virus does not respect boundaries, but the UK Government do. Although I fully accept that some people may have concerns about the slightly different approach the Welsh Government sometimes adopt in this matter, the UK Government respect devolution and the reality of Welsh government, and my role as a Minister is to work constructively with Welsh Government Ministers. At this moment, I do not wish to start playing politics and criticising them.
What additional funding the Government have provided to communities in Wales affected by Storm Dennis.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote to the hon. Gentleman last week to confirm that he is expecting to provide £2.5 million needed for the tip repairs in Tylorstown, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The letter also clarifies that the Chief Secretary is waiting to hear further from the Welsh Government on an additional request to access the reserve.
That was useless yet again. I have been asking for the money for the Rhondda for months. The Prime Minister wrote to me in June saying that he recognised that Wales had been particularly badly hit by Storm Dennis and that the UK Government would look seriously at any requests for funding. I am delighted that we have got the £2.5 million for the Tylorstown tip, but we need £60 million to mend culverts and drains and to make people’s houses secure in Pontypridd, the Rhondda and across the whole of Rhondda Cynon Taf. Make sure you earn your money by getting us the money in the Rhondda.
What a contrast with the conversation the hon. Gentleman and I had last when I reported this news to him; he was charm and diplomacy itself then, yet when he gets in the Chamber with an audience, he becomes a different personality. I will remind him, just in case he has forgotten, what the Chief Secretary’s letter actually says. Among other things, he says, “I am expecting to provide the required funding.” That is in relation to the Welsh Government confirming they will make a reserve claim for 2020-21. So this process is under way. It does require the Welsh Government to come to the party, too, but they have not yet done so. Of course a lot of this is in the devolved space, so the hon. Gentleman cannot just pick and choose which bits of devolution suit his desire to make a statement in the Chamber.
What recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on financial support for people in Wales affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
What recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on financial support for people in Wales affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
I have regular discussions with the Chancellor, and we spoke only last week. He has since announced a significant package of further job support and an additional £400 million of funding for the Welsh Government.
Tourism and hospitality is the backbone of the economy of the Gower peninsula. My constituent Lara Joslin runs the Kings Head in Llangennith. She is fighting to keep her family businesses alive. Lara runs a popular rural pub with accommodation, which, like many others in Gower, provides vital part-time jobs for local people. Why is the Secretary of State not banging on the door of the Treasury to right the wrong of the job support scheme failing to support independent hospitality businesses such as Lara’s?
The hon. Lady and I have a similar dependence on tourism in our constituencies, so I understand absolutely the argument she makes about its value, but I remind her that so far UK taxpayers have contributed £1.1 billion by way of bounce back loans; £490 million in self-employed income support; £303 million in coronavirus business interruption loans; £30 million-worth of eat out to help out; future funding of £7 million—I would carry on, Mr Speaker, if only you would let me—and that is not to mention the 401,000 employees on furlough. The Treasury has gone above and beyond the international average and tried to get to every single business in every single area of the UK, and that includes Gower just as much as anywhere else.
For those who are able to access the Government’s new job support scheme—many are locked out or deemed by the Government to be in unviable jobs—a cut of a third of wages for the low paid makes it extremely hard to pay bills and feed families. Does the Secretary of State really get this? If so, will Wales Office Ministers fight to get a better scheme?
Often in this questions session we have talked about the fact that there will always be those in all our constituencies who do not quite fit every single one of the intervention measures that the Chancellor has announced over the past few months. In those circumstances, of course we want to be as flexible as possible and to try to find ways, through either the intervention schemes or universal credit, to support the hardest-hit families as best we can. If the hon. Lady brings to my attention individual examples of those gaps, I will of course do my best to address them.
Throughout this pandemic, Welsh businesses have done all they can to stay open and stay trading, with so many drawing on the support grants and loans that have been so important in keeping them afloat. But as more areas of the country come under local restrictions, with trading halted or severely limited, and amid fears about public confidence, many businesses feel that they have absolutely maxed out on their borrowing and are worried about the future. What plan do the Government have to support businesses that are now heavily in debt, to make sure that the burden of repayments in the coming months does not mean that they go under?
I start by expressing some confusion: on the one hand, Opposition Members are articulating a Welsh Government view that the existing interventions are not strict enough, but on the other, the hon. Lady gets to her feet and says that the interventions are almost imposing undue hardship. It is quite difficult to know exactly where the Opposition stand on getting the balance right between disease control and the maintaining of a vibrant economy. At each and every stage of this process, the Chancellor has been flexible and adaptable and has recognised that the situation is changing, often by the hour, let alone by the day or week. The financial interventions, which up to now have been about £4.4 billion by way of Barnettised contributions to the Welsh Government—and we could probably double that for the other interventions, which are more direct—have supported business in Wales. But of course, as the circumstances change and our reaction changes, so we will remain flexible.
Indeed, we have always said that any restrictions need to be backed up with proper financial support measures for business. To reduce the spread of the virus it is also vital that workers who are unwell or asked to self-isolate do actually stay off work, but as hours are reduced in sectors such as hospitality, an increasing number of Welsh workers will find themselves falling below the minimum weekly earnings threshold needed to qualify for statutory sick pay. To expect them to live off nothing for a fortnight is totally unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State urge the Chancellor to do the decent thing and extend the statutory sick pay scheme to all workers?
I know from my personal contact with the Chancellor over the past few weeks that he is looking at all these options. That is why the winter resilience measures were brought in a week or so ago, on top of all the other measures he has introduced, which recognise the very difficult situation in which so many people find themselves. I am not going to stand here and say that we are never going to consider another option; of course we will. We will always look at the individual circumstances, particularly of those who are hardest hit.
Further to our recent meeting, with the various covid funding measures being announced by the Government sometimes seeming haphazardly and causing some confusion—the bid for football here, the bid for the arts there and now, apparently, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy funding for universities in Wales even though the matter is devolved—will the Minister consider publishing a regular simple table of the Government’s covid funding with the consequential amounts for Wales if there are such?
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about universities. Of course, that is a devolved matter and yet hugely dependent on the Union effort. In answer to his very direct question, I can give him a very direct yes.
What steps he is taking to help implement (a) city and (b) growth deals in Wales.
I am committed to driving forward each of the growth deals in Wales and, since March, have taken part in 24 meetings with representatives of Wales city and growth deals. I recently visited Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire constituency after approving the Pembroke Dock marine development, one of the many growth deal projects that will be contributing to levelling up in Wales.
Last week, the Prime Minister outlined how we can build back better by investing in areas such as hydrogen, green energy and electric mobility. Does the Minister agree that, while it is an opportunity for the whole United Kingdom, we should particularly put Wales at the heart of that green revolution?
I am very happy to agree with that. The Prime Minister’s commitment last week was a game changer, quadrupling offshore wind energy by 2030, doubling the amount of support for renewables projects and providing £160 million to support infrastructure and one gigawatt of new floating wind projects. That is all clear evidence of this Government’s commitment to a green and resilient economic recovery from the coronavirus.
What assessment he has made of the potential economic effect on Wales of the provisions in the UK Internal Market Bill.
The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill will protect seamless trade across the United Kingdom, which will benefit people in all corners of the UK and, indeed, of this House. Our market access guarantee will provide certainty for Welsh businesses as the transition period ends and provide a firm foundation upon which businesses may flourish.
Obviously, in Newcastle-under-Lyme, the whole of Staffordshire, and indeed the whole of the west midlands, there are a number of businesses that both source from and supply to Wales. Those businesses need the certainty that standards will be observed and that what they produce will be able to be sold into different markets around the United Kingdom, and particularly in Wales. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill will deliver on that?
I can absolutely confirm that. I hope all Members of this House are listening to the wise words of my hon. Friend. The Bill provides a vital guarantee that businesses in his constituency, and in all constituencies across the UK, will be able to continue to trade confidently within our internal market as the transition period ends.
What steps his Department is taking to support Wales’s economic recovery from the covid-19 outbreak.
The UK Government have provided a support package for Welsh businesses and communities in recent weeks, including the Government’s £30 billion plan for jobs. Our ambition remains to secure jobs, stimulate growth and provide opportunities to level up Wales.
I thank the Secretary of State for his financial support for Wales and for the devolved Welsh Government. Does he agree that, if the Welsh Government want to trigger further restrictions and go beyond Government measures, which should ultimately be used as a last resort, they need to provide plans for how they will financially support the industries that will be hit as a result?
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Barnettised numbers, which total £4.4 billion so far, do give the Welsh Government a degree of flexibility in addressing issues if the evidence supports doing it in a slightly different way. There are one or two examples of where they have introduced their own interventions, courtesy of money provided by UK taxpayers, but the overriding point is that there does need to be a degree of collaboration and co-operation that straddles all the countries of the UK, because this is an international and a national challenge.
Like me, the Secretary of State will have welcomed the vision set out by the Prime Minister last week for expanding renewable energy and, importantly, the commitment to boosting floating offshore wind power, which represents such a big opportunity for us in Wales. May I ask him if he would use his good offices to ensure that all the relevant players in this—the private sector developers that have projects ready to go, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed—are all on the same page, working towards a shared goal so that we get decisions made in a timely way?
Absolutely. I agree with my right hon. Friend and neighbour’s assessment of the situation. We were all encouraged by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary’s comments just now in that respect. I can, I hope, encourage my right hon. Friend by saying that I am meeting the Crown Estate the day after tomorrow, I think, to discuss the potential delays, which at the moment look like being its problem, and we need to unblock that.
What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on support for people in Wales whose employment has been adversely affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
I have frequent discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. At least 510,000 people in Wales have been directly supported by the measures we have so far put in place. However, the best possible support we can provide is to get behind the national effort and public health guidelines to ensure that we overcome this crisis sooner rather than later.
With the UK’s unemployment rate at its highest level in three years, it is clear that many workers in Wales will need to rely on social security in order to get back on their feet. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is only fair to update legacy benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance to match the increase in universal credit that was announced earlier this year?
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. Conversations I have had with the Department for Work and Pensions, and indeed the Chancellor, have touched on this very issue. This is why the arrangements on universal credit have been as flexible as they can be. The Department is making an effort to ensure that everybody is accounted for and that those who might fall into the gaps we referred to earlier are properly looked after. That is very much uppermost in the minds of Cabinet and ministerial colleagues. I can give her that assurance.
What progress has been made on expanding Wales’s full-fibre broadband network.
The Government are committed to rolling out broadband across the United Kingdom, although we have much work to do. I am pleased that 50% of premises in Wales have access to full-fibre broadband, compared with only 14% in the UK as a whole. Only a fortnight ago, I was able to go out with the innovative Welsh SME Beacons Telecom, which is helping to deliver broadband in remote and rural parts of Wales—the parts of Wales that Openreach seemingly cannot reach.
I suspect that my question will come as no surprise. I represent one of the most remote parts of the UK, and far too many of my constituents simply cannot get decent connectivity. Could the Minister please share his experience and his know-how with the Scottish Government so that we can get this problem sorted out?
If the Scottish Government care to issue me with an invitation, I stand ready to serve and offer advice such as I can. Actually, I think my advice is that are innovative small companies out there that are able to do things that Openreach apparently cannot do. I saw an example of that in Wales, and I am sure there must be many others. I assure the hon. Gentleman that as a Government who are committed to the Union, our broadband ambitions span not just Wales but the whole of the United Kingdom, from the tip of Penzance right up to the coast of Caithness and beyond.
What steps his Department is taking to strengthen the Union.
The Government are fully committed to the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. Our response to the covid-19 outbreak has clearly demonstrated the value of Wales being a part of the Union, with a package of UK Government support that frankly goes well beyond anything that the Welsh Government could offer alone. It is clear that our four nations are safer and more prosperous when we stand together.
It is very good news that the Government have appointed Sir Peter Hendy to undertake a detailed review as to how the quality and availability of transport infrastructure can support economic growth, as well the quality of life, across the UK. Will the Minister advise on what his Department’s priorities are for this review in Wales?
Our priorities, clearly, will be better transport links, ensuring that Wales is better connected to the rest of the Union, but the Government’s ambitions go well beyond transport infrastructure. We believe that Wales is an integral part of the United Kingdom and we want to see not just good transport links but our historical links and cultural links, because we believe that one is quite easily able to be proud to be Welsh and proud to be British in this Union.
From Ilfracombe to Exmoor in my North Devon constituency, it is possible to see south Wales. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should look at the options for better connecting the two areas to strengthen the links between our economies and, ultimately, the Union?
I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. The Government are going to strengthen all links within the United Kingdom. We are a Conservative and Unionist Government, and I look forward to support from all sides of the House.
Before Prime Minister’s Question Time, I wish to make a short statement. On Monday, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) about virtual participation in debates, the Prime Minister—inadvertently, I would accept—said “I defer to you and the House authorities.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 40.] As the Prime Minister will know, decisions on the scope of virtual participation are for the House itself. All decisions have been made on the basis of motions moved by the Leader of the House I know that the House of Commons Service would be more than happy to facilitate virtual participation in debates, if the House voted for it. If the Government wished to pass me the power, I would be more than happy to accept it, but the decision to bring forward the relevant motion is a matter for the Prime Minister and the Government he leads, not for me and the House authorities.
If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 14 October.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
During this pandemic, in my constituency of North West Cambridgeshire, I have seen a number of instances of ordinary citizens doing extraordinary work helping the elderly and vulnerable, and that has been repeated across the country in every single constituency, giving true meaning to the words “community spirit”. Would my right hon. Friend take this opportunity not only to acknowledge the fantastic work that has been done by so many people, but to give a huge thank you to each and every one of these unsung heroes of our country?
I thoroughly concur with my hon. Friend, and I congratulate all the volunteers for their spirit and the achievements they have delivered for the people of this country. I was delighted that we had a first chance to honour them in the birthday honours list at the weekend, or just some of them.
On 11 May, the Prime Minister said that the Government’s covid strategy “will be governed entirely by the science.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 36.] On 21 September, the Government’s own scientific advisers, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, gave very clear advice. They said that a “package of interventions” —including a circuit breaker—would be needed to prevent an “exponential rise in cases”. Why did the Prime Minister reject that advice and abandon the science?
We will do whatever it takes to fight this virus and to defeat it, but since the right hon. and learned Gentleman quotes the SAGE advice, I might just remind him that, on page 1, it states: “All the interventions considered have associated costs in terms of health and wellbeing…Policy makers will need to consider analysis of economic impacts and the associated harms alongside this epidemiological assessment.” The advice that I have today is that if we do the regional approach that commended itself to the House and, indeed, to him on Monday, we can bring down the R and we can bring down the virus. Will he stick to his position of Monday and support that approach?
I do not think that approach goes far enough, and neither does SAGE. The Prime Minister talks of the costs. Since he rejected SAGE’s advice on 21 September, I remind him that the R rate has gone up, the infection rate has quadrupled and hospital admissions have gone from 275 a day to 628 a day in England. Yesterday, 441 covid patients were on ventilators and the number of deaths recorded was, tragically, the highest since 10 June. That is the cost of rejecting the advice. SAGE has a clear view on why that is happening. What is the Prime Minister’s view on why these numbers are all heading in the wrong direction?
I set that out very clearly in the House on Monday. The difference between this stage of the pandemic and March and April, as the House knows very well, is that the disease is appearing much more strongly in some parts of the country than others. In Liverpool, for instance, alas, the figures are now running at 670 cases per 100,000, against 33 cases per 100,000 in Cornwall. There are 540 cases per 100,000 in Newcastle, alas, against 32 in North Norfolk. That is why the three-tiered approach that we set out on Monday, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman supported, is the right way forward. We want to put in the most stringent measures necessary in the places where the virus is surging, in order to get it down where it is surging. That is the logical thing to do. Will he get on to his Labour friends in those parts of the north of England whom we want to work with to put those very stringent measures in place, in order to deliver the reductions that the whole country wants to see? Will he support those measures? He would not support them last night.
I think the Prime Minister is behind the curve again. He probably has not noticed that this morning, the council leaders in Greater Manchester that he just quoted, including the Mayor and the Conservative leader of Bolton Council, said in a press statement that they support a circuit break above tier 3 restrictions—keep up, Prime Minister The big problem the Prime Minister has, as the SAGE minutes make absolutely clear, is that his two main policies—track and trace and local restrictions—simply have not worked, and we cannot stand by. In July, the Prime Minister told me that track and trace “will play a vital part in ensuring that we do not have a second spike this winter.” Those were his words. Three months later, SAGE has concluded that track and trace is only “having a marginal impact on transmission” It goes on to say—and this is the really worrying part—that this is likely to “further decline in the future.” Let us not have the usual nonsense that anyone asking the Prime Minister a question about track and trace is somehow knocking the NHS. This is SAGE’s assessment—the Government’s own advisers. After £12 billion, let us have a straight answer: why does the Prime Minister think that his track and trace system has gone so wrong?
It is thanks to NHS Test and Trace, which is now testing more people than any other country in Europe, that we know where the disease is surging. We know that it is regionally distributed, rather than nationally distributed, at the moment, and that gives us a chance to do the right thing. The right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to close pubs. He wants to close bars. He wants to close businesses in areas across the country where the incidence is low. That is what he wants to do, and he wants to do it now, yet he voted to do nothing last night—nothing—in the areas where the incidence is highest. He says one thing at 5 o’clock about calling for a national lockdown. When it came to a vote in the House of Commons to impose more stringent measures, he failed even to turn up.
I know that, for someone who has been an opportunist all his life, this is difficult to understand, but having read and considered the SAGE advice, I have genuinely concluded that a circuit break is in the national interest—genuinely concluded. It is the failure of the Prime Minister’s strategy that means tougher measures are now unavoidable. That is SAGE’s view. SAGE has advised that a circuit breaker should act to reduce R below 1, should reset the incidence of disease to a lower level and should set the epidemic back by approximately 28 days or more. All three are vital, and that is why Labour backs it, so can the Prime Minister tell us what is his alternative plan to get R below 1?
The plan is the plan that the right hon. and learned Gentleman supported on Monday. The whole point is to seize this moment now to avoid the misery of another national lockdown, into which he wants to go headlong, by delivering a regional solution. Opportunism is, I am afraid, the name of the game for the party opposite, because they backed the rule of six—or he backed the rule of six—and then refused to vote for it. I think at three o’clock, the shadow Health spokesman said that a national lockdown would be “disastrous”; at five o’clock, he was calling for it. Let us go back to the approach that he was supporting on Monday. Let us try to avoid the misery of another national lockdown, which he would want to impose, as I say, in a headlong way. Let us work together—let us work together, as he was prepared to do on Monday—to keep kids in school, who he would now yank out of school in a peremptory way, keep our economy going, and keep jobs and livelihoods supported in this country. Let us take the common sensical regional approach, and will he kindly spell out to all his colleagues across the whole of the country that that is the best way forward, as indeed he did on Monday?
Following the advice is now, apparently, opportunistic. Presumably the Prime Minister will say the same to the leader of Bolton Council, a Conservative leader, who this morning said he supports a circuit break I have just listened to what the Prime Minister said about his strategy to get R below 1, but I cannot think of a single scientist who backs it. He will know that the chief medical officer said on Monday that he, the chief medical officer, is—his words: “not confident, and nor is anyone confident, that the tier 3 proposals for the highest rates…would be enough” That is tier 3—the highest tier. So why is the Prime Minister so confident that his approach will get the R rate below 1—so confident—or is that no longer the Government plan?
I am afraid the right hon. and learned Gentleman is misrepresenting the position, doubtless inadvertently. Our advice is that, if the regional measures are tier 3 and at all levels were implemented in full with the support and the active co-operation of local leaders, as indeed we have seen from the leader of Liverpool city region, and I pay tribute to him and I thank him for what he is doing, and if we saw full and proper enforcement and if they were able to conduct proper local test and trace, with the support of the £500 million that we are giving, then yes, those measures would deliver the reduction in the R locally or regionally that we need in order to avert what none of us wants to see—what none of us wants to see, except now the right hon. and learned Gentleman, having performed this extraordinary U-turn—and that is the disaster, in the words of the shadow Health spokesman, of a national lockdown. We do not want to go there. We want the regional approach. He should co-operate with it.
I have supported the Government on all their measures so far, and I have taken criticism on it, but I think this measure is wrong and a circuit breaker is in the national interest. I have read the advice of SAGE and the Government have rejected it This is my last question, and I am sure the Prime Minister has his pre-prepared rant ready as usual, but we are at a tipping point. Time is running out. Maybe he can seize the moment and answer a question. This morning, The Daily Telegraph quotes senior Government sources saying the chances of the Prime Minister backing a circuit break in the next two weeks are about 80%. Is that right? If it is, why does he not do it now, save lives, fix testing and protect the NHS?
The right hon. and learned Gentleman claims to be supporting the Government one day, and then performs a dramatic U-turn the next. He claims to support the rule of six one day, then pulls his support the next. He wants tough measures, and then refuses to vote for them. Everybody can see what he is doing. Labour have said it themselves. They see this as a “good crisis” for the Labour party and one they wish to exploit. We see this as a national crisis that we are going to turn around, and the way we are going to do it is—and I rule out nothing, of course, in combating the virus, but we are going to do it—with the local, the regional approach that can drive down and will drive down the virus if it is properly implemented, and that is what I believe he should be supporting. He said he would support it on Monday. This is our opportunity to keep things going: to keep our kids in school; to keep our businesses going. That I think is what the people of this country want to do. This is our opportunity to do that, and to suppress the virus where it is surging. He refuses to accept that approach today. I hope that, not for the first time, he will change his mind and think the better of his actions.
One of the great unsung achievements of the coalition Government was the recruitment of 4,200 extra health visitors. As an experienced father himself, the Prime Minister knows how vital baby-to-baby contact is, as well as support networks for new parents, yet lockdown has made that difficult. At a time when they are most needed, health visitor numbers have dwindled, and they have been diverted from face-to-face contact. Will the Prime Minister urgently look at reversing the decline in health visitors and support the parent-infant premium proposal by the Parent-Infant Foundation to help lockdown babies catch up?
I thank my hon. Friend, who is not only an experienced father himself but, of course, an experienced campaigner on this issue. I am very pleased that health visiting teams have continued throughout this crisis to prioritise vulnerable families, and that is what they are going to do throughout the winter and throughout the pandemic.
Yesterday, the founder of BrewDog warned that “the end of the Job Retention Scheme will lead to a tsunami of unemployment” BrewDog is just one of thousands of businesses across Scotland and the United Kingdom demanding that the Tory Government U-turn on their reckless plans to scrap the furlough scheme. There are just two weeks left to save people’s jobs and livelihoods, so in the next fortnight the Prime Minister has two choices: extend the full furlough scheme or inflict a tsunami of unemployment on our people this winter. Which is he going to choose?
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Chancellor has already unveiled the job support scheme, which will go through till next year. Those on low incomes will also have the additional benefit of universal credit, which again is going through, in its uplifted form—£1,000 extra per year—to next April at least.
My goodness. That really does show that the Prime Minister does not get it. Universal credit— is that really what the Prime Minister is saying to those that could be saved? People do not want to hear the boasting and the excuses that we get; they want action. These half-measures do not cover it. Thousands have already lost their jobs. The Office for National Statistics has confirmed that we have the highest rate of redundancies since 2009. We are heading towards a Tory winter of mass unemployment created by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. We know what the Prime Minister’s Tory colleagues are saying: the Prime Minister’s next job could be on the Back Benches; he just does not know it yet. If the Prime Minister will not U-turn on his plans to scrap furlough, does he realise that he will never—not ever—be forgiven for the damage that he is just about to cause to people up and down Scotland?
As I have said many times to the right hon. Gentleman, this Government are continuing to support people across the whole of the UK, with many billions of pounds in Barnett consequentials—at least £5 billion in Barnett consequentials for Scotland alone. But one thing I will congratulate him on is the Scottish nationalist party’s support for the tiered approach, which I think is still its policy, unlike the Labour party. At least it is showing some vestige of consistency in its normal gelatinous behaviour.
  On Monday, I met virtually with the Hendon Cladding Collective to discuss building safety. The EWS1 form was raised. It was designed to support residential valuation and lending on buildings over 18 metres. However, the consolidated advice notes issued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government extended the scope of the form to buildings below 18 metres. Will the Prime Minister provide specific interim advice around risk prioritisation of buildings below 18 metres, and will he extend the building safety fund to buildings of less than 18 metres?
I will look at the second point my hon. Friend raises, but what I can tell him is that we are focusing first on buildings with unsafe cladding that are over 18 metres. I understand that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is producing a risk matrix to support mortgage valuation under 18 metres, and that, led by the National Fire Chiefs Council, a risk prioritisation tool for blocks of flats will be available shortly.
By the weekend, Northern Ireland will be in an effective lockdown. Under the Chancellor’s new furlough scheme starting in November, a minimum wage full-time employee, a normal worker, will be entitled to £227 per week. I doubt that this Prime Minister could survive on that. How, and under God, does he expect ordinary decent workers to survive on that?
I am proud of what the Government have done to raise the national living wage, which this Government introduced. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that whatever happens, a combination of the job support scheme and universal credit will mean that nobody gets less than 93% of their current income.
  My constituency has the best nuclear site in the UK. Will the Prime Minister confirm to me and the people of Ynys Môn that he is 100% behind Wylfa Newydd?
Yes, indeed. I congratulate my hon. Friend on her fantastic campaigning for a nuclear future for Ynys Môn. She has no more fervent supporter in that objective than me.
  The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has a habit of hitting the headlines, and not always for the right reason. At the weekend, we discovered that his constituency had been awarded £25 million from the regeneration scheme and that that was approved by one of his own Ministers. The Secretary of State returned the favour by approving funding for that Minister’s constituency. We have one Department, two Ministers and tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Does the Prime Minister think that the approval process is appropriate, or does he think that the public might be right in thinking that this all looks a bit grubby?
All this was independently approved, but if the hon. Gentleman has some serious allegation to make against my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State then may I suggest that he has the guts to make it?
  British wool is a multifunctional versatile product, but sadly farmers across the UK and Montgomeryshire feel frustrated that this highly sustainable natural product is not properly valued and utilised to its full potential at the moment. Will the Prime Minister help to boost the export market, or indeed our domestic demand, for British wool as we build back better? For example, wool can be used as a great insulator for the next generation of sustainable housing.
I thank my hon. Friend for what he does to campaign for wool. As someone whose family used to farm sheep, I feel the pain of sheep farmers everywhere. The price is on the floor at the moment. Uses such as the one my hon. Friend identifies are extremely interesting and should be pursued. I urge everybody in this country who is thinking of Christmas presents to buy British wool this winter.
Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told me that he would support charities to be able to open covid-safe accommodation for homeless people this winter, but yesterday the Government announced a £3 million cut in the cold weather fund this year, despite higher covid-related costs. Will the Prime Minister at least guarantee that all Government funds can be used to cover anyone and everyone needing shelter?
Of course, we will make sure that local authorities get the support they need. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have already put in an extra £3.7 billion into helping local authorities and, I think, a total of £28 billion into tackling the local consequences of covid. We will continue to support people throughout the country.
May I strongly support the aspiration of the Prime Minister, set out last week, to deliver floating offshore wind capacity of 1 GW by 2030? Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a very substantial scheme being worked up in the Celtic sea that would meet a third of that target, as well as create many jobs in south Wales, Devon and Cornwall? Will he please use his best endeavours to ensure that the Crown Estate looks favourably on that project to help our country to deliver its important climate change commitments?
I am aware of the incredible prospect in the Celtic sea and I am confident that the Crown Estate, as the landlord of the seabed, will respond positively.
My constituent, Luke Thomas, has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He urgently needs to move closer to his family for support. Luke has a shared ownership flat in a low-rise building with wooden cladding, but he cannot sell it because mortgage lenders require an EWS1 certificate and Luke’s building does not have one. Estimates suggest that it could take 10 years to certify every building affected, but Luke and hundreds of thousands of people like him cannot wait that long. When will the Prime Minister end this scandal?
I direct the hon. Lady to what I said a moment or two ago to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) about trying to provide mortgage backing for those who find themselves in that very difficult position, but we must get on and remove the flammable cladding from buildings of all kinds.
Ashfield and Eastwood has been left behind, ignored and forgotten about after decades of Labour-run councils and Labour MPs. Last December, my friends, family and constituents voted for change. They want to see the glory days return to Ashfield and Eastwood, which was once the beating heart of Nottinghamshire through mining, textiles and engineering. Can my right hon. Friend please reassure me that Ashfield and Eastwood will no longer be the forgotten constituency and that he will do all he can to make sure we get the investment that we need to secure better jobs, better education, better training and a better future?
Yes, indeed. I can tell my hon. Friend, who is a fantastic campaigner for Ashfield, that they are in line for the town deal proposals, as part of the £3.6 billion town deals fund, and the £250 million growth deals announced through to 2021. I hope he will take that good news back to Ashfield.
  The Prime Minister has been asked this question before by my SNP colleagues and others but they have never received a direct response. I therefore ask the Prime Minister again: will he confirm that the temporary £20 universal credit uplift will be made permanent after April next year and that those who are currently excluded from the uplift will be included?
I know that I have given that answer many times, and that is because the answer remains the same, which is that the uplift will remain in place through to April next year. As I said, when we combine the JSS with UC people get 93% of their income. I appreciate that times are tough, but the best thing we can do is keep this economy moving if we possibly can, keep our kids in schools and avert the “disaster”—Labour’s words—of another national lockdown.
Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking the great businesses of Wolverhampton, such as Greg at GI’s Barbers and Baked in Tettenhall, for continuing to serve the community in difficult times? Will he also reconfirm his commitment to invest and level up Wolverhampton, and when we have come through this stronger, may I invite him to come and see those businesses himself?
I have happy memories of sampling some of the fare in Wolverhampton with my hon. Friend. I can tell him that the Black Country city deal has just seen an investment of £5.8 million and that the West Midlands Combined Authority was just awarded £66 million for projects across the area, including £15 million for the national brownfield institute, which is due to be located in Wolverhampton. Wolverhampton was the birthplace of the first industrial revolution. It is now teeming with opportunity in the latest.
The Prime Minister will be aware that the Northern Ireland Executive have just announced new restrictions to bear down on the virus while still keeping schools open, with the exception of one extra week at Halloween, and keeping most sectors of the economy going, but the sectors that are missing are hospitality, the associated supply chains and the self-employed. What plans does he have to announce something to help these much needed sectors that are in dire need and need assistance urgently?
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am in continuous contact, as he can imagine, with the leader and the deputy leader in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, of course, will receive at least £2.4 billion in additional funding as a result of Barnett consequentials, but we will look at further imaginative and creative measures to support jobs and to support livelihoods across the whole of the UK.
This Sunday marks the 11th Anti-Slavery Day for the United Kingdom, an opportunity for all of us to raise awareness of the heinous crime of modern slavery. Will my right hon. Friend use this opportunity to reinforce the UK’s global leadership on this issue, and can he confirm that treating victims with dignity and respect will always be at the heart of everything this Government do in response to this crime?
Yes, I certainly can confirm what my right hon. Friend says about treating victims with dignity and respect, and she is right to take pride in what this Government have done in introducing the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Thanks to that Act, we are identifying more victims of modern slavery than ever before: 10,000 potential victims of modern slavery were identified in 2019, which is a 52% increase. It is this Government, this House and this country that are leading the campaign against modern slavery.
I entered Parliament this morning and checked in using the contact tracing app, and when I return to Fife on the train tomorrow I will need to manually switch to the Scottish app, as it does not happen automatically. We are facing a second wave of infections across the UK, so test and trace is even more critical. Given the Prime Minister’s support for a four nations approach, what engagement has taken place on app interoper- ability, because that is critical, particularly in border communities?
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for pointing that out. I will make sure that there is interoperability; I will do what I can to ensure there is interoperability across all four nations. As she knows, there is a slightly different approach in Northern Ireland already, but in the bulk of the approach that we have so far taken, there is much more in common than sets us apart.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to establish freeports. The port of Immingham in my constituency is, by tonnage, the largest port in the country. Does the Prime Minister agree that it would be somewhat remiss to not include Immingham in the freeport programme?
I thank my hon. Friend for his campaign for Immingham. It is registered, but my hon. Friend should know that he is one of the most successful campaigners in this House already this year, because the new bridge that he asked for at Suggitts Lane crossing is going to be completed between the summer and the autumn of next year, so he can carry that back in triumph to Suggitts Lane.
My lovely 88-year-old constituent Mary feels foolish for falling for it. She is talking about being mis-sold green deal products by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd, a Government-approved company, in 2013. She is talking about being saddled with a 25-year loan that she must live to 106 to pay off. At the speed with which the complaints are being dealt with by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I will be 106 by the time we get any kind of resolution. Will the Prime Minister please commit to investigating why Mary, who is watching now, and hundreds of others are waiting years to be compensated for something that happened not because they were foolish, but because they were victims of mis-selling?
I am afraid to say that what the hon. Lady raises is incredibly important, and she is right to raise it. We must accelerate the process by which these complaints are upheld and dealt with and compensation is delivered, if only because that is the only way to build public confidence in all the retrofitting, insulation and improvements to our homes that we need to deliver across the whole of the country as part of our green industrial revolution, so the hon. Lady is spot on, and I will be writing to her about that case.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Remote Participation in House of Commons Proceedings Bill stands in my name and was due to have its Second Reading on Friday, and was originally tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). In the light of your comments earlier today, will you please advise me how we can best ensure that the Bill becomes a reality for the House?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving notice of the point of order. A decision to defer the Second Reading of a Bill and the Government’s position on the matters that it may contain are not matters for the Chair, as she will be aware. However, in making the point of order, she has placed her hopes on the record and I am sure that that will be listened to by those on the Treasury Bench. I am sympathetic, but unfortunately it is not my decision In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for three minutes.
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish rights to keep dogs and other animals in domestic accommodation; to make provision about the protection of the welfare of dogs and other domestic animals; and for connected purposes A home is where special moments are created—living with a family, friends or companions. Moving into a new home is a normal part of life, but what if every time you move you face the threat of being separated from someone you love? Can a house or a flat ever be a home if you are forced to abandon a family member just to move in You, Mr Speaker—an animal-loving Speaker—will know better than anyone that animals truly are members of one’s family. Having owned two Staffordshire Bull Terriers—Spike and Buster—I know how close the bonds between dog and owner can be and how devastating it is to lose them Dogs are more than man’s best friend: they are equal members of the family. For most people, being separated from their dog is no different from being separated from their brother or sister. Sadly, pet owners who move into rented accommodation face the reality that their family could be torn apart, because most landlords in Britain have unnecessary bans or restrictions on pet ownership. For those who depend on the companionship of their dog and need their loving friend to be with them—especially those who live alone—such restrictions are nothing less than discrimination, cruel to animal and owner alike My Bill would end that discrimination, giving people who own a dog or other domestic animal the right to have it live in their rented home, provided the owner demonstrated responsibility and care for the animal My Bill will henceforth be known as Jasmine’s law, after a Weimaraner who is owned by the Adams family in Surrey. Jasmine lives with Maria, but her son Jordan Adams would dearly love to accommodate Jasmine at his home apartment—if only for a few days or when his mother goes on holiday. Owing to restrictions imposed on tenants, Jordan is one of the millions of people across the UK who is prevented from having his beloved pet to stay with him Many pet owners are, like Jordan, devastated to find that moving out of the family home means being separated from an animal who is such an important part of their lives. The no-pet clause on rented accommodation means that someone cannot have a dog over for even a short period for fear of recriminations or even losing their home. Instead of a dog staying with a familiar person, often they must be placed in a kennel, which can be a deeply stressful and unhappy experience for the dog Such discrimination must now end. Some people who move to a new home are able to find somewhere for the animal to live, with trusted friends or family, but others are tragically forced to abandon their pets altogether, unable to find anywhere to live where the pet will be accepted. Sadly, these no-pet rules are cited by Battersea Dogs & Cats Home as the second biggest factor behind people giving up their dogs, with 200 dogs a year being handed in for rehoming simply because of landlord restrictions. These rules have the cruellest impact on the homeless, with many relying on companion animals for support and affection while living on the street. Too often, when they are offered housing by local authorities or housing associations, this comes with a no-pet clause. If they turn down an offer of accommodation, they are told that they are making themselves intentionally homeless and refused further housing assistance. Take the tragic case of John Chadwick, a homeless man who ended his own life after the only housing option his local council provided was one that meant separation from his pets. It is surely time to end these no-pets clauses that have caused so much pain and heartache for so many people Of course, many landlords have legitimate concerns, which I do not want to dismiss lightly. It is true that irresponsibly owned pets can be a cause of damage, misery and suffering to the animals themselves, to the neighbours and to those who manage and own properties. We must therefore ensure that landlords’ concerns are met and that pet owners pass the test of responsible ownership by obtaining a certificate from a vet before moving in, confirming that they have a healthy, well-behaved animal and are considered to be a responsible owner. For a dog, a responsible ownership checklist would include being vaccinated and microchipped and being responsive to basic training commands, with appropriate rules applying, of course, to other animals I hope that landlords, local authorities and housing associations listening to this debate today will consider overhauling their current policies in favour of one along the lines laid out in the Bill, and consider more fairly the rights of millions of responsible owners across the land. Particularly at a time when so many people are isolated, being able to own a dog can be vital to a person’s wellbeing and, of course, to their mental health. If tenants can prove that they are responsible owners and that their pets are well behaved and appropriate for the accommodation, there is no reason to deny them the right to live together with their animal companion Microchipping is also a key element of my Bill, which will stipulate that all cats and dogs kept in rented accommodation must be microchipped. It will also be mandatory for vets to scan animals brought into their surgery, ensuring that they are with their rightful owners. This will have the added advantage of helping to find both lost and stolen dogs. I commend the amazing work of Debbie Matthews and the group that she founded, Vets Get Scanning, which has campaigned for this for over a decade and was championed by her late father, the great Sir Bruce Forsyth. Part of the approval process for a pet to be moved into accommodation would be to have their microchip scanned by a vet to ensure that they were registered on a national database It cannot be right that so many pet owners in this country face the harsh reality that finding a place to live might mean permanent separation from the animal they love so much. Surely, as we take back control of our laws, now is the time to ensure that this nation of animal lovers remains a world leader in animal welfare. If France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland can outlaw blanket restrictions on pets in rented accommodation, why can we not do the same here in the United Kingdom? The Government’s intention to remove no-pet clauses from their model tenancy agreement is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. Jasmine’s law will replace the outdated and unfair no-pet clauses that many private and social landlords impose, setting out an alternative, streamlined system that will mean peace of mind for landlords, tenants and, of course, the animals themselves. At its core, my Bill represents the values of personal responsibility, individual rights and animal welfare, and today I seek to enshrine in law these important freedoms applicable to all responsible pet owners throughout the nation. I commend Jasmine’s law and this Bill to the House Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Andrew Rosindell, Robert Halfon, Andrea Leadsom, Mrs Sheryll Murray, Sir David Amess, Theresa Villiers, Henry Smith, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Chris Bryant, Tim Farron, Ian Lavery and Ms Lyn Brown present the Bill Andrew Rosindell accordingly presented the Bill Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 29 January, and to be printed (Bill 197).
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
I beg to move, That this House believes the Government should do what it takes to support areas with additional local restrictions, currently the North of England and parts of the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, by reforming the Job Support Scheme so it incentivises employers to keep staff on rather than letting them go; ensuring no-one is pushed into poverty when they do the right thing; providing clear, consistent and fair funding that goes hand-in-hand with the imposition of new restrictions, including using the £1.3 billion underspend on the grants fund to support local jobs; fixing gaps in support for the self-employed; and extending the ban on evictions We are at a critical moment for our country. Infection rates are rising, and the economic outlook is worsening. It is more vital than ever that this Government get a grip on both the health and the economic crises. There are some who seek to pit people’s health against our economy, but we all know that our country has suffered a double tragedy: the highest excess death rate in Europe and the deepest recession in the G7. The predominant reason why many expect our recovery to proceed more slowly than that in other countries is the continued severe impact of the public health crisis in the UK. It has been suggested that the Chancellor blocked proposals from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies for a circuit breaker. He can now, if he wishes to, intervene on me and set the record straight.
May I intervene?
I asked the Chancellor to intervene on me. I am willing for another Member to, and perhaps the Chancellor will follow.
The hon. Member mentioned “a” circuit breaker, but the guidance from SAGE says that “multiple” circuit breakers might be required to bring the virus under control. How many jobs does she believe those circuit breakers would cost?
I was just about to go on to say that the Government’s current stance is costing jobs and leading to reduced business confidence. If we continue as we are, without taking control of the public health situation, we will see a worse situation for jobs and businesses in our country. It appears that that will be the only intervention that I will receive It is clear that blocking a circuit breaker does not make sense for the health of our population or for our economy. Government Members need a reality check. One in four people in our country are subject to localised restrictions. We have already experienced a record rise in quarterly redundancies. Without action, we face the prospect of infections rising yet again, with more and more areas coming under localised restrictions and the Government eventually being forced into more national restrictions in any case. Every week of that inaction will hit business and consumer confidence, costing more jobs and livelihoods, with more businesses going to the wall. The question is not whether we can afford a circuit breaker. The question is whether we can afford to continue with a Government who duck taking hard choices until they are forced into them and who seem unable to stand apart from their chaotic lurching from week to week to assess what our country needs and take decisive action That circuit break must be used to fix test and trace, devolving it to local areas, so that we can protect our NHS, get control of the virus and start building economic confidence back up again, and it must be accompanied by support for jobs and businesses. We stand ready to work with the Government to ensure that that is put in place, so that no one is pushed into poverty for doing the right thing.
SAGE warns that a circuit breaker is unavoidable. I wonder whether the Prime Minister’s words will come back to haunt him in a couple of weeks’ time as he admits that and does yet another U-turn. The best restrictions in the world will work only if people have financial security and can afford to comply. Is it not the case that offering only 67% of pay to somebody on minimum wage does not cover 100% of the bills that they have to pay? That is something that needs attention, as is the £1.3 billion underspend for all those people who, so far, have had no help in this crisis at all.
My hon. Friend puts his finger on it. It appears that experts are very clear that we are facing an unavoidable situation of rising infections that will not be stemmed unless action is taken. They predict that the Government will be forced into this position eventually, so why cannot we have decisiveness at this stage. Why can that nettle not be grasped now when it will be more effective, rather than leaving this unavoidable choice for many weeks into the future when it will be less effective? I will come to the other issues raised by my hon. Friend about the paucity of targeted support in a moment Time and again, Labour has had to drag Ministers to this House to explain what they will do to tackle the job crisis, and, time and again, those Ministers have either ducked the question entirely or come up with a short-term scheme that needs to be patched up again within weeks. The British people deserve better. To protect jobs—be that during a circuit breaker or under the Government’s new three-tier scheme—we need a functioning system of wage support, a proper safety net to prevent people falling into poverty, and economic support for local areas that goes hand in hand with the imposition of additional restrictions. Right now, we do not have any of those things.
I am astounded by what the Labour party is saying today. How can the hon. Lady explain her position to my constituents in Truro and Falmouth, where the infection rate is incredibly low? The best form of support for the people working in Truro and Falmouth is for their businesses to continue as they are for as long as possible.
I respectfully suggest to the hon. Lady that she reads those SAGE papers. When she reads them—
I have.
I am very pleased and grateful that she has. She will then understand SAGE’s prediction that the infection is rising across the country, including in rural areas and coastal areas. Unless we take action and deal with that now, the problems that we are experiencing around business confidence, which are costing jobs and forcing businesses to the wall, will only continue. We need to give ourselves a fighting chance that we can approach Christmas, which is so important for businesses in this country, without the current rising levels of infection. I am concerned about the future of this economy, and I want a Government who have that long-sighted approach, rather than one who lurch from crisis to crisis We should have had a back-to-work Budget in July, but, instead, we got a summer statement, including a last-minute bonus scheme that will see £2.6 billion of public money handed over to firms that do not need it. In September, Labour set out three steps for a better, more secure economic future to recover jobs, retrain workers and rebuild business. Instead, after we summoned him to the House, we got the Chancellor’s winter economy plan and a wage support scheme that does not meet the core test of incentivising employers to keep staff on part-time rather than let them go. Two weeks later, the Chancellor was back trying to fix problems with that scheme, as it became rapidly apparent that the health crisis was careering away from the Government and economic support was not keeping pace. Last Friday and this Monday, we had yet more announcements, which create as many questions as the answer I regret that these issues were not faced up to largely yesterday during the urgent question that I brought to the House, so I will try again. This time I can ask the Chancellor directly. Why have the Government adopted such an inconsistent approach to financial support for businesses in affected areas? Leicester, Oadby and Wigston had to wait a month to get the £7.30 per head in support that they were belatedly provided with. The initial funding for Liverpool City Region, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough was, in contrast, £3.49 a head, but not for businesses; that was for covid-related action Last Friday, the Chancellor rebranded £100 million of funding for local councils as surge funding, with no details of how it would be allocated and the admission that £20 million had already been spent. On Monday, the Prime Minister spoke of more funding to local authorities, but again without details of how that money would be allocated—although apparently not to support local businesses. This situation is a mess. When local leaders are crying out for certainty, they need to know that if additional restrictions are coming, there is a clear and agreed formula for how much economic support they receive and how it will be deployed.
The hon. Lady mentioned Oadby and Wigston in my constituency; the Chancellor moved incredibly quickly to provide extra business support to my constituency. We had a different lockdown from that everywhere else and it worked: we have brought cases down from 160 to 25 per 100,000. That is an example of why the local approach is the right one and why her colleague the shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), was right to say yesterday that what the hon. Lady is now suggesting would be disastrous.
I regret to say that the hon. Member, for whom I have a lot of respect, is sadly confused. It would have been useful if he had listened to the point that I just made, which was to provide contrast to the support that was provided to the Leicester area, specifically focused on businesses. I believe that negotiation occurred through the local business improvement district, the local enterprise partnership and local authorities, to ensure that that support was there for businesses—for his area, yes. Can he please intervene on me now to say which other areas of the country subject to additional restrictions have received funding specifically focused on businesses of that type? No, he cannot, because that support has not been provided to other places in the same manner as it was provided to Leicester. This lack of consistency is causing enormous problems for local authorities.
rose—
Perhaps the hon. Member has discovered another area; I am happy to take his intervention.
The hon. Lady invited an intervention; I thought it would be unchivalrous not to provide one. Money was provided for my constituency because pubs had been shut. Yesterday, the Labour party voted against shutting pubs at 10 pm, but in favour of shutting down the entire economy instead. The idea that that is a proportionate response is absurd.
I regret that the hon. Member did not answer the question that I asked him, which was whether he knew of any other area of the country that had been treated in the same way as his constituency by being provided with business-related support. He could not answer that question; the reason why is that it appears that no other area has been. A radically different approach is being taken to different parts of the country, so local leaders and local businesses cannot plan because they do not know whether or not support will be there.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will make a little progress, if my hon. Friend does not mind We need to find out from the Government why they have not used the £1.3 billion underspend from the grants programme, which was already allocated as business support, for local areas to direct at businesses that need that help. Yesterday, the Chief Secretary said that the money was not available for use now because, in his words, “the need” had been “met”. That beggars belief. The need clearly has not been met. The Government should reallocate that funding on a consistent basis, so that businesses in the hardest-hit areas can get support What possible justification can there be for local areas getting control of test, trace and isolate only once they are into tier 3 and thus facing rapidly rising infection rates? As the debate following this one will indicate, the Government have poured vast amounts of public money into private contracts to deliver a system that is simply not working. Labour-run Wales has shown how locally delivered tracing is vastly more effective than a contracted-out system. When will the Chancellor’s Government stop dithering, follow the evidence and get a grip on test, track and trace?
One of the key benefits of the Welsh system is that it allows local government to track and trace where people may have had the virus and been in contact with someone. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the UK Government could apply that to England, it could save many people’s lives?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I believe that, actually, the contact rate is radically higher—above 90%, which is very significantly different. We are in a peculiar situation where our Government appear to believe that it only makes sense for local areas to get those powers, and the resources necessary to deliver them, once infections are already at an extremely high rate—once they are in tier 3. I find this very peculiar. Perhaps the Chancellor can explain why that support is only provided once local areas are at a high infection level Adequate support must be provided to those at the sharpest end of this crisis—those working in businesses that have been closed for public health reasons. The expansion of the job support scheme to closed businesses acknowledges an obvious gap in the original scheme. The Government maintain that, with their changes to universal credit, the lowest-paid workers will receive up to 88% of their previous income, but that ignores the continuing problems that the Government refuse to fix with universal credit and allied areas of policy. Why have they still not uprated the local housing allowance to median market rents so that affected people can cover their housing costs? Why will they not extend the ban on evictions? Why have they retained the benefit cap, now affecting twice as many people as at the start of this crisis? Why have they not abolished the two-child limit on universal credit and tax credits? Will the Government follow the previous Labour Government and reduce the waiting period for support from the mortgage interest scheme The list of questions goes on and on. It includes really significant ones about firms that have not been legally required to close but whose business has been heavily impacted by the imposition of new restrictions, so they will struggle to keep staff on for even a third of their hours. For those firms, the Chancellor’s job support scheme too often fails to incentivise businesses to bring back more staff part-time, instead of keeping some full-time and letting others go.
When the hon. Lady talks about Government intervention and support, will she welcome the eat out to help out scheme, which meant that ceramic tableware manufacturers in Stoke-on-Trent saw orders massively increase? Will she personally write to them to apologise for saying that she wants to shut down the hospitality sector and therefore make sure that the kilns never start up again?
I have been very grateful to representatives of the ceramics sector, with whom I have had a lot of dialogue. I am very concerned about their situation. I am concerned about the lack of targeted support that has been provided to maintain our manufacturing capacity. I regret that the hon. Gentleman did not listen to what not just Labour but SAGE experts had been stating clearly: this Government will end up being potentially forced into a situation where they must apply additional restrictions. Why wait until a time when restrictions will be less effective when we will have had many weeks of reduced business confidence for the very restaurants that I, too, am deeply concerned about, which will have suffered from week upon week of reduced demand? I say: take decisive action now; that is what is needed In key sectors, the cost of keeping on more staff on fewer hours is higher in the UK scheme than under comparable initiatives in Germany, France and the Netherlands, even when the poorly-designed job retention bonus is factored in. Businesses want to do the right thing by their staff, but the Chancellor is pushing them to flip a coin and decide who stays and who goes. When will he fix the flaws in the job support scheme The Government have also left yawning gaps in their offer for the self-employed. From the start of next month, the support available will fall from 70% of pre-crisis profits to just 20%. That might be an appropriate policy if we were seeing a healthy economic recovery and rising consumer demand, but that is, very sadly, not the case. We need a targeted scheme that works for those self-employed people for whom business is still nothing like back to normal. Months on from the start of the crisis and the first package of economic support, there are still too many people who have fallen through the gaps. The Government’s message to those people is just, “You’re on your own—sink or swim.” That is not good enough. So I ask again: what will the Government do to help those who have been excluded from support so far?
I will take one last intervention. I am aware that there are many who want to speak in this debate.
The hon. Lady makes important points about the difficulties faced by so many people in the economy. Will she explain how they will be helped by closing down the entire economy? It is the madhouse of fixing the windows or knocking the whole house down.
Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman does not appear to be aware that the windows are already broken and that, in a quarter of this country, we see those businesses having been subject to additional restrictions. None of them has moved out of that, aside from in Luton, which appears, sadly, to be in a difficult situation again now We see the Government’s own expert advisers saying that they are likely to be forced into a position where additional restrictions have to be applied in the future, when they will be less effective, because by that point infection will have been spread further across this country. So the question is whether action is taken decisively when it can be most effective or whether we push this back, the costs increase, business confidence continues to erode, people continue to lose their jobs and businesses continue to go to the wall. That is the question this Government need to answer. If we are to avoid the bleakest of winters, this Government have to get a grip. We need a national reset. For that to work, we need an economic package that acknowledges reality and gets ahead of the problems we face; a wage support scheme that works properly; a safety net worthy of the name; and financial support that goes hand in hand with the imposition of extra restrictions.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I will not, because so many Members want to come in on this debate We brought this motion to the House today because the Government have not been doing what it takes to support areas under additional local restrictions. Currently, those are in the north of England and parts of the midlands, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Members representing those areas know that that is the case. So I appeal to them to put their constituents’ jobs and livelihoods first, and support this Opposition motion. [Interruption.]
Shut up!
Order. The hon. Members for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) can both be quiet. I want to get on with the business, and I do not want one person to start to entice others. Let us see whether we can make some progress. Let us have a good, well-mannered debate, as that might be helpful to this House.
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and add: “welcomes the Government’s package of support worth over £200 billion to help protect jobs and businesses through the coronavirus pandemic, including the eight-month long Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, £1,000 Job Retention Bonus, unprecedented loan schemes, business grants and tax cuts; further welcomes the pledge to protect, create and support jobs through measures in the £30 billion Plan for Jobs such as Eat Out to Help Out, VAT and stamp duty cuts and the £2 billion Kickstart Scheme; acknowledges the further support for jobs with increased cash grants and the expanded Job Support Scheme to support those businesses legally required to close due to national or local lockdowns; and further acknowledges that this is one of the most comprehensive and generous packages of support anywhere in the world.” I very much welcome the opportunity to update Parliament and the country on the economic challenges we face and our plan to tackle them. My message to hon. Members in all parts of the House is simply this: we must not shy away from the burden of responsibility to take decisions and to lead. We must do this with honesty and co-operation. We cannot allow the virus to take hold. We must prevent the strain on our NHS from becoming unbearable, but we must also acknowledge the stark reality of the economic and social impacts of another national lockdown. The costs of doing that are not abstract—they are real: they can be counted in jobs lost, businesses closed and children’s educations harmed; they can be measured in the permanent damage done to our economy, which will undermine our long-term ability to fund our NHS and our valued public services; and they can be measured in the increase in long-term health conditions that unemployment causes This is not about choosing one side or the other. It is not about taking decisions because they are popular. It is not about health versus wealth, or any other simplistic lens we choose to view this moment through. The Prime Minister was absolutely right when he set out our desire for a balanced approach, taking the difficult decisions to save lives and keep the R rate down, while doing everything in our power to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people. The evidence shows that a regional tiered approach is right, because it prevents rushing to another lockdown the entire country would suffer rather than targeting that support and preventing a lockdown in parts of the country where the virus rates are low This is an imperfect solution. We have been consistently honest about the difficulties and hard choices that this moment presents. We have heard a lot about the SAGE advice. The SAGE minutes themselves say that Ministers must consider the “associated costs in terms of health and wellbeing” and the economic impacts alongside any epidemiological assessment. It seems like the only people not prepared to confront that reality are in the Labour party, which is surprising given that just days ago the shadow Health Secretary said a new national lockdown would be “disastrous” for society and “would cause unimaginable damage to our economy and…wellbeing.”
The Chancellor’s response would have more credibility if he was not stood there following month after month of failure by a Government whose testing and tracing regime—whose entire approach—got us to this point in the first place. We all recognise how expensive this is going to be, but it has happened because of the failure that he and his party have facilitated.
The debate following this will address test and trace. It is worth bearing in mind that more than £12 billion has been invested in our test and trace capacity. Testing capacity has increased from simply 10,000 a day at the start of this crisis to close to 300,000 today, on its way up to half a million, and ours now ranks as one of the most comprehensive testing regimes anywhere in Europe.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, faced with a choice between a national blunt instrument that would wreak enormous economic damage, and something that is more finely calibrated region by region based on the science, there is no choice to make?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a blunt instrument. It would cause needless damage to parts of our country where virus rates are low.
Having spent weeks indulging themselves with political attacks on this Government’s efforts to protect jobs, Labour have now flipped and support a blunt national lockdown. They will not say how much damage that will do to jobs or livelihoods, they will not say how they plan to support businesses through it, and they do not seem to care about the long-term stability of the public finances. If they did—[Interruption.]
Order. I am sorry, Chancellor. Please, I cannot hear the Chancellor. I want to hear him, and I am sure people outside the House want to hear him, so please, if he is going to give way—the Chancellor is a generous man—he will give way. In the meantime, I do not need people shouting.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. If they did care, we would hear from the shadow Chancellor how many jobs Labour’s lockdown would cost.
I am grateful to the generous Chancellor for giving way. Today, the North East Child Poverty Commission said that 35% of children in the north-east region are living in poverty. As a direct result of Conservative policies, we are going to see that number increase. What is he going to do about those children?
The most vulnerable have been at the forefront of our mind throughout this crisis, which is why it is clear from the distributional impact of our interventions, which was published over the summer, that they have benefited those on the lowest incomes the most. It is there in black and white: a Conservative Government making sure the most vulnerable are protected through this crisis Any responsible party of government would acknowledge the economic cost of a blunt national lockdown. The Labour party may say it has a plan, but be under no illusion: a plan blind to the hard choices we face—a plan blind to and detached from reality—is no plan at all.
In the Liverpool city region, which contains my constituency of Wallasey, there is £40 million of unspent support for business that the Chancellor generously granted in the first wave of the pandemic. Given that we are in tier 3, will he say today at the Dispatch Box that he will release that £40 million so that the local authorities in the Liverpool city region can apply that money to help their local businesses during this highest level of lockdown that we are suffering at the moment?
I know what a difficult time this is for the hon. Lady and her constituents. With regard to underspends—I will come on to this later—I think it is wrong to think of them in that way. That was the Government giving an advance to local authorities to make payments to businesses. That was done on the basis that every local authority will have a wildly different degree of overspend or underspend, which we true up at the end of the process. We could equally have asked local authorities to make payments themselves and reimbursed them afterwards. There is significant financial support both for her local authority and the businesses in her area that have closed down. That was announced by the Prime Minister and I will come on to address that in detail later. It is right that that support is there Let me reiterate our plan. The House will be well aware of the gravity of our economic situation. The latest figures show that our economy grew by 6% in July and 2% in August, but it remains almost 10% smaller than it was before coronavirus hit. Business investment suffered a record fall in the second quarter of this year. Consumer sentiment remains well below its long-run average. Despite the significant support we have provided, the data is beginning to reveal the true extent of the damage that coronavirus has caused our labour market. The latest statistics published just yesterday show employment falling, unemployment rising and welfare claims rising. The revisions that the Office for National Statistics has made to its previous estimates show that unemployment was higher than it thought over the summer I have talked about facing up to the difficult truths clearly, and we are facing an economic emergency, but we are acting on a scale commensurate with this emergency as we address my single biggest priority: to protect people’s jobs and their livelihoods. We have put in place a comprehensive plan to protect, support and create jobs in every region and nation of the United Kingdom. Through more than £200 billion of support since March, we are: protecting more than 9.5 million jobs through the job retention schemes; strengthening our welfare safety net with an extra £9 billion for the lowest paid and most vulnerable; granting more than £13.5 billion to those who are self-employed, with further grants to come; and protecting over 1 million small and medium-sized businesses through £100 billion of tax cuts, tax deferrals, direct grants and Government-backed loans.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to protect jobs is to keep the economy open wherever possible? Most other nations are using a local-restrictions approach to deal with this situation, including Germany, which is using lockdowns at a district level, not even at a state or county level. Does he agree that that is the best way forward?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The only sustainable way to protect jobs in the long run is to have an economy that is open and functioning. No amount of support can make up for that There are other things we have done: eased repayment terms on those loans through pay as you grow; delivered on our promise to give the NHS what it needs; backed hundreds of thousands of young people to find good jobs through the kickstart scheme and new investment in training and apprenticeships; created green jobs through the £2 billion green grant programme; showed that we are here for our cultural sector, with the cultural recovery fund and a further support package for charities; and invested hundreds of billions of pounds in the largest, most sustained programme of infrastructure investment the UK has seen in decades. That is comprehensive action to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the British people. It undermines the credibility of the Labour party that, in the face of all that support, it continues to pretend that insufficient action is being taken.
Will the Chancellor give way?
I will make some progress As the crisis evolves, our economic response will also evolve. What we will see over the winter is a complex picture of some businesses able to open safely and others being ordered to close to control the spread of the virus. Our winter economy plan provides a toolkit to protect jobs and businesses over the difficult weeks and months to come. The plan has three parts. First, the job support scheme will protect jobs in businesses that are open or closed. If businesses can open safely, but with reduced or uncertain demand, the Government will directly subsidise people’s wages over the winter, giving those employers the option to bring people back to work on shorter hours rather than making them redundant. We are expanding the job support scheme to give more support to businesses that are ordered to close. For people unable to work for one week or more, their employer will still be able to pay them two thirds of their normal salary and the UK Government will cover the cost. This national programme will benefit people the same wherever they live and whatever job they do.
There seems to be a basic dishonesty at the heart of these tier 2 plans. There is no support for pubs. They are being told that they are allowed to stay open, but the measures being brought in are making them unviable. At least with our approach what we would see is a short-term hit, but then a reduction in the rate and more of a chance for us to return to normality. Will he at least admit that those pubs in tier 2 areas are not going to have viable businesses and say something about what he will do to support them?
I am glad that there has finally been some acknowledgment that there will be a hit to businesses and jobs from what the Labour party is suggesting. It is right that there is support provided for hospitality, which is why the Government have provided a VAT reduction, a business rates holiday, direct cash grants, eat out to help out and now the job support scheme that is directly there to support those businesses that are open and operating but not at the same levels that they were previously. To give those businesses and their employees certainty, rather than the weeks that I heard about from the hon. Member for Oxford East, this scheme will run for six months through to the spring. This job support scheme is in line with those in most other European countries and, to support the lowest paid through this crisis, we have made our welfare system more generous and responsive too.
The Chancellor will know from York’s economic base and the complexity of our economy that unemployment may rise to 27% in our city. What additional measures will he put in place to build the bridge to get us through this really difficult period? The job support scheme will just not deliver for my constituents.
The job support scheme was widely welcomed not just by businesses groups such as the CBI and the Federation of Small Businesses but by the TUC, which I was happy to work closely with to design the scheme. However, she is right. That is not the only thing that we will do to support jobs, which is why we have put in place the £2 billion kickstart scheme to provide fully funded job placements for those young people most affected by this crisis and most at risk of unemployment. Thousands of those young kickstarters will be starting their new jobs this autumn.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, while we all want simple solutions to this crisis—whether that is the Opposition suggesting full lockdown or an unlimited extension to furlough—there are no simple solutions. This is a highly complex problem. Every intervention and every support scheme will be nuanced and will have to be regionally effective There are no simple solutions. We should not be looking for simple solutions; we should be looking for the right ones.
As ever, my hon. Friend is spot on. It is not leadership to shy away from the hard choices and real trade-offs that these decisions take. She is absolutely right The second part of our winter plan is to support businesses that are legally required to close, and we heard about that previously. Those businesses will now be able to claim a cash grant of up to £3,000 per month depending on the value of their property. Those grants can be used for any business cost and will not need to be repaid. I have also guaranteed £1.3 billion of funding for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Administrations so that they can choose to do something similar. The hon. Member for Oxford East asked whether other areas had received that support, and was under the impression that none other had. I can correct the facts. Bolton is the only other area that has faced hospitality restrictions in that way and Bolton Council has received, at the last count, I believe almost £200,000 of support to compensate its businesses because they have been closed in a similar way.
I fear that the Chancellor is confused. I was not talking about the much-trumpeted local restriction support grant. He is right; it has been applied so far only to that one area of Bolton. I was talking about the business support that was delivered to Leicester, Oadby and Wigston, which I believe has not been provided to any other part of the country.
It is the same type of support—support provided to the local authority to help their businesses. That was the question the hon. Lady asked my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), and I am happy to answer it The third part of our plan is to provide additional funding for local authorities. Again, I am happy to correct what may be a misunderstanding of the situation for the hon. Member for Oxford East. It is not the case that that support is only for local authorities in tier 3. There is a scaled structure. All local authorities placed into different tiers will receive extra financial support on a per capita basis, using the funding formula that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary is implementing. That funding will be worth up to almost half a billion pounds on a national basis, to support local areas and their public health teams with their local response, whether that is more enforcement, compliance or contact tracing. That comes on top of the almost £1 billion announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that we will provide to all local authorities, as we talk to them about their needs over this difficult period, to ensure that they can provide the services they need to. That also comes on top of the £3.7 billion already provided to local authorities This Government are dealing with the world as it is. While the hon. Member for Oxford East may not wish to confront that reality, I do not have that luxury. We cannot just let the virus take hold, but nor can we blithely fall into another national spring-style lockdown, as the Labour party wants to, rather than following our regional, tiered and localised approach. We are dealing with a once-in-a-century event, and I can assure Members on both sides of the House that the Government are doing all they can to support the country through this crisis We need a balanced approach, we need a consistent approach, and—as you will have seen, Mr Speaker—we also want a co-operative approach. But any responsible party calling for a shutdown of our entire country should be honest about the potential economic and social costs of such a dramatic measure. At the very least, they should have the integrity to acknowledge that what they are proposing will cause significant damage to people’s lives and livelihoods. I have never said that there are easy choices or cost-free answers. This is the reality we face, and it would be dishonest to ignore that truth. So no more political games and cheap shots from the sidelines. The Labour party can either be part of this solution or part of the problem. It is called leadership, but from them, I am not holding my breath.
There will be a four-minute limit on speeches after the SNP spokesperson. I call David Linden.
Recently the Government have quite rightly given stark and serious warnings of a second wave of coronavirus cases, with the numbers in hospitals increasing, the infection rate rising and further restrictions being put in place across the UK. While my SNP colleagues and I welcome what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said recently, it is clear that he and his Government are not acting with the urgency that the situation deserves. Quite simply, the plans that he has set in place do not go far enough I have had countless constituents get in touch over recent weeks who are concerned about potential job losses and financial insecurity, with many wondering how they will get through the tough winter months ahead. The SNP has consistently warned the Chancellor that his economic plans, as they stand, are inadequate. We have repeatedly called for support for the industries suffering most during the pandemic, for an extension of the furlough scheme and for the increase in universal credit to be made permanent, but those calls have, I am afraid, fallen on deaf ears. It is my hope today that the Government will listen to what needs to be done, especially considering the recent serious warnings about the devastating impact of the second wave in which we find ourselves The SNP welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement that further support will be given to businesses being forced to close in new local lockdowns. However, that scheme, like the other financial packages that the Chancellor has announced, does not go far enough. From 1 November, the Government will pay two thirds of each employee’s salary for businesses forced to close in new local lockdowns, but that does not apply to workers whose employers cannot afford wages due to poor trading conditions, rather than any new Government lockdowns. For them, from 1 November, the furlough will be replaced by the new job recovery scheme, whereby the Government will pick up a maximum of just 22% of pay. To be eligible for the job recovery scheme, a company must pay an employee to work at least a third of the contracted time, and the remaining wages are split into three. The UK Government and the company pay a third each and the worker loses the rest. That is, I am afraid, completely absurd. Most people simply cannot afford to lose a third of their salary. They do not get a third off their rent, a third off their fuel and a third off their shopping when they go to Tesco I turn to the issue of hospitality. Yesterday, James Watt, the owner of BrewDog, had a conversation with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to discuss supporting jobs in the hospitality sector, which is a massive priority for us. He was very clear in his agreement with the First Minister that the end of the job retention scheme will lead to a “a tsunami of unemployment”. He continues to urge the Chancellor to extend the scheme, stating: “The proposed ‘Job Support Scheme’ will not protect jobs.” This is not me, as an SNP MP, saying to the Chancellor that this is inadequate. This is somebody who is highly respected in the hospitality sector, and the Chancellor would do well to listen to him and not fiddle on his phone.
It is surprising to hear the hon. Member talk about the need to support tourism and hospitality sector when the SNP is putting forward rather puritanical bans on alcohol sales, no longer helping pubs and no longer helping the businesses in that sector. How can he lecture the Government on what form of support they should be giving after everything that they have done on the 15% cut?
That was a wonderful addition to try to be a nice Parliamentary Private Secretary, but I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman clearly has absolutely no idea about the £40 million package put forward by the Scottish Government for the hospitality sector. Perhaps when he is sitting on the south coast of England dreaming up these lovely interventions to please his Whips, he would do well to read the full briefing paper The leaders of businesses across the UK agree that ending the furlough and job retention scheme is a very irresponsible and reckless decision, so to avoid mass redundancies, the UK Government must extend the furlough scheme in full. With the huge rise in covid-19 that we have seen so far with the second wave, and with the winter months approaching, now is not the time to be taking chances on job losses.
The hon. Member is absolutely right about the appalling health and economic consequences of this. Do he and his party support the advice from SAGE for a two-week circuit-breaker so that we can get on top of this health crisis and try to give the Government time to get test and trace to work? Does he support what the Labour party has called for?
One of the things that we are seeing in Scotland is that test and trace is working a lot better, and that is because we have not hived it off to, for example, Serco. We have been very clear that we will follow the scientific advice and we will do our very best to get that balance. That is what we have seen with the restrictions that came into place last week in Scotland. We will see how that goes. We are always keeping things under review, but the reality is that we need to follow the advice and get a balanced approach. That is exactly what we are doing, and I am sure that we will see that bearing fruit I turn to the issue of the excluded 3 million. The SNP has consistently and continually raised the 3 million who were excluded from the Chancellor’s initial financial support packages back in the spring. Let us be clear that the Treasury continues, I am afraid, to exclude artists, freelancers and the newly self-employed from these recent economic plans. Three million people were shut out of the vital financial support that they desperately needed during the first wave of the pandemic and they were left to face huge financial insecurity, with their livelihoods and businesses put at risk. Rather than listening to the calls of these 3 million people, the Chancellor has decided to leave behind the self-employed yet again in his economic plans, with a 70% replacement of profits being replaced in November with just 20% Another group that has repeatedly been excluded from the Chancellor’s financial packages has been the arts and culture sector. We saw this week the closure of all Cineworld theatres across the UK, including the one in my constituency in Parkhead. I again call on him to provide sector-specific support for the arts and culture sector, which we know will continue to suffer during the second wave of the pandemic. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) chuntering away that the Chancellor has just done that, but many people in our constituencies in the arts and culture sector make it clear to us that that support does not go far enough. If the Chancellor has done that, why is Cineworld in Parkhead closing I have described thus far a very tough image of countless jobs being at risk. Many sectors are vulnerable and some businesses are wondering if they will make it to the new year, but the rising cases should emphasise to the House that we are still in the midst of this pandemic, which has already delivered severe blows to people’s incomes and financial security, with the most vulnerable people facing a disproportionate economic hit. That is why the SNP has repeatedly called upon the Government to make the £20 increase to universal credit permanent, especially after the latest findings from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warning that 4 million families could see their support slashed if the Tory Government refuses to make that £20 uplift permanent The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has highlighted that nearly three quarters of a million more people, including 300,000 children, could be forced into poverty if the uplift is not made permanent. That must serve as a wake-up call for the Government. The Chancellor cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the vast inequality that exists right across the UK. With the winter months approaching, the poorest and most vulnerable people will suffer the most from the Chancellor’s economic plans, and it is quite clear that he has a choice in front of him and that he needs to do much better by them.
Is that not exactly right? One way or the other, the Government are going to have to pay for this. They are going to have to meet the costs, and they can either do that by extending job support schemes by looking at really imaginative, creative, long-term support such as universal incomes, or through universal credit and all the social consequences that come from long-term unemployment and taking us back to the Thatcherite 1980s.
I agree with my hon. Friend, but I have to say that I did give the UK Government a degree of praise at the beginning of the pandemic, because it did seem that they were moving in a way that perhaps was not part of traditional Tory ideology, with a lot more state intervention and a lot more Government support. I think there were quite a few of us in this House who, while we would disagree enormously on the politics, welcomed the fact that the Chancellor was willing to be innovative and try new things One thing I would say is that nobody prepares us for a global pandemic. Politicians and people in this House have seen recessions and people have seen wars, but nobody prepares us for a pandemic. Yes, there has to be a degree of flexibility on the part of all of us in this House, but the thing I am most concerned about is that the British Government seem to have moved away from those creative, innovative solutions they had at the beginning of the year. We now find ourselves in the midst of a second wave, and all of a sudden that dynamism and creativity the Chancellor has been credited with seems to have gone away, because of the pressure that comes from people on the 1922 committee. I do not think that people on the whole are going to forgive that.
Does the hon. Member agree with the Opposition that there should be multiple circuit breakers, and if so, is that what the policy will be in Scotland?
I am not sure that the official Opposition are proposing multiple circuit breaks, to be fair to them, but it is not my job to defend the policy of the Labour party. However, what I will defend is the approach of the SNP Scottish Government, who are trying to do this in a balanced way, but we would like to see a lot more financial flexibility to do that. It would help if the UK Government gave us those financial powers. That is what I would say to the hon. Gentleman on that I want to come on to that very point, and highlight the work that the Scottish Government have done in supporting business during the second wave of the pandemic. The Scottish Government’s total package for businesses is over £2.3 billion. That is more than the consequentials received from the UK Government. As I mentioned to the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), the Scottish Government are making an additional £40 million available to support businesses that will be affected by the new measures, and will work with affected sectors in the coming days. I am in no doubt of that. My city of Glasgow is one of those that have been under local lockdown restrictions, and the restaurants and bars in my constituency have had to shut down, but we have recognised when we have asked them to shut down, which is a way of trying to reduce the spread of the virus, that support must be coming The Scottish Government will continue to discuss with businesses how the support package we have offered can mitigate some or all of the employer’s contribution to the UK job retention scheme. We have put in place a £230 million “restart the economy” capital stimulus package to help stimulate the economy following the pandemic. We have announced details of a £38 million package of support for innovative early stage businesses. We have committed £2.2 million of funding to the Music Venue Trust, which will provide stability to grassroots music venues over the coming months What all this should highlight is that the UK Government’s financial plans have been and continue to be inadequate—excluding the self-employed, freelancers and artists; prematurely ending the furlough scheme; and refusing to make permanent the £20 increase in universal credit. Where we have had the power, the Scottish Government have spent £6.5 billion on tackling covid—above the Barnett consequentials—and they are doing all they can and all within their powers to support businesses across Scotland That is the issue at hand. There is only so much that the Scottish Government can do when the vast majority of Scotland’s tax and spending decisions are taken here in Westminster. The fact is that the Government cancelling the UK Budget simply demonstrates that Scotland remains an afterthought for the Tories. I would be more than happy to give way to the Chancellor if he can stand up and give some sort of clarity to Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Finance about what budget we are supposed to set when the Government have just gone ahead in this way.
I have addressed this previously, in this place and others. There is absolutely no bar on the Scottish Government setting a Budget in advance of the UK Budget. The fiscal framework itself allows for that very possibility. That is exactly what happened at the start of this year, so there is simply no reason why that cannot happen. The OBR forecasts were provided as normal this autumn. Those forecasts are used by officials to make all the necessary calculations. It is simply wrong to suggest that the Scottish Government are unable to set a Budget until the UK Government have.
Conservative Governments used to be really good on upholding the rule of law, and Conservative Governments used to be really good when it came to managing the economy, but we now have a Chancellor who appears to want the Scottish Government to set a completely blind Budget. For somebody who tries to advocate the idea of fiscal responsibility, that strikes me as rather bizarre People in Scotland are increasingly aware that the only way to move forward in terms of protecting our economy, managing our own finances and standing on our own two feet is with the powers of independence. With the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill destroying their hard-fought devolution, more and more Scots are supporting the SNP in calling for independence An Ipsos MORI poll revealed yesterday that 65% of people in Scotland think Britain is heading in the “wrong direction” compared with just 12% who think Britain is heading in the “right direction”. If we want to continue looking at polling, and I know the UK Government are doing quite a lot of polling on this issue at the moment—they are being a bit coy about releasing it—Ipsos MORI released a poll today showing that 58% of Scots now support Scottish independence I suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that that backs up the point that people in Scotland can see this UK Government are not doing enough, and therefore they want to see these powers being transferred to Scotland so we can take our own decisions on these issues.
Does my hon. Friend not think the Chancellor’s intervention was rather peculiar? The Chancellor is, of course, absolutely right that the Scottish Government can set a Budget, notwithstanding that it would be blind, but, depending on the Chancellor’s decisions, it may lead to subsequent in-year cuts or in-year changes. I am sure this Chancellor would not tolerate it if someone else was setting part of his Budget.
I thank my hon. Friend for putting that on the record I do not want to detain the House too much. In conclusion, SNP MPs have stood up in this Chamber and made calls for the UK Government to do the right thing and support the public through the second wave of covid-19 cases. What they have put on the table so far does not go far enough, and that is why we will vote for the motion before the House tonight. I am grateful for the House’s forbearance.
Hospitality is one of Britain’s biggest employers. Some 3.2 million people across the country rely on hospitality for their jobs, including 4,300 of my constituents in Dudley South. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has always been a real and true friend of the beer and pubs sectors, in particular. He knows how much they have been affected by this pandemic, and he has delivered a comprehensive and unprecedented economic support package. Without such a support package, many thousands of pubs and breweries would simply not have survived the spring. They would not have got through the first phase of this outbreak I do not know whether the Chancellor has seen his rather fetching likeness on posters in pubs up and down the country, recognising the contribution that many of those support measures have made to making our pubs and other hospitality viable over the past six months but, as we are now firmly in a new phase of the pandemic, new measures are vital for those businesses that are not necessarily legally compelled to close. For those that are required to close their doors, the grant he has announced, although it may not cover the whole rent and all the fixed costs, will make a substantial contribution to the costs those businesses incur even before they pull a single pint or serve a single meal. However, there are also enormous challenges facing venues that are not legally compelled to close, those in tiers 1 and 2, where the legal restrictions that have been introduced make it impossible for them to operate. We know that one in 10 pubs has never reopened since March’s lockdown, and about two thirds of those that did reopen were already trading at a loss last month. That was before the introduction of 10 o’clock closing, mandatory table service, and of course the new restrictions that have come into effect today.
Simon Longbottom of Stonegate, one of the largest pub groups in the country, has written to me about this, and he could have been making the speech that the hon. Gentleman is making now. He is very concerned that in tiers 1 and 2, he gets no help with his business costs whatsoever. Can the hon. Gentleman give the Chancellor some direct advice on what he needs to do about that?
I would not presume to attempt to direct my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, beyond saying that pubs and hospitality cannot, of course, continue to operate with almost no income and without additional support that is proportionate to the legal restrictions they face. Those restrictions may not be in their immediate area. I have heard today from Titanic Brewery, a brewery in Stoke. The majority of its customers are in Liverpool and Merseyside, which are tier 3 areas, but that brewery will not receive support even though that is where its customers are based. These pubs need urgent additional support; otherwise, many of them are going to close their doors for good and never reopen, which would be a huge loss to not only our economy, but our communities.
I rise very much to support the motion that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) has moved, particularly the part that says “this House believes the Government should do what it takes to support areas with additional local restrictions” My own constituency is in the Liverpool city region, which is under tier 3 restrictions. The Chancellor might not know the unemployment figures for my particular constituency, but I can tell him that probably not unlike many other places, they have doubled this year. That is about 5,000 people I also have 15,000 people still on furlough in my constituency. I understand that when the Chancellor introduced the national furlough scheme, he wanted it to have an end point, but surely he anticipated that it would be ending when the pandemic was waning. In Liverpool, the pandemic is surging. We have no intensive care unit beds in Liverpool’s main hospitals: they are now full, and covid is impacting on other critical care, so the health service in Liverpool is already being impacted severely. Furlough is going to end in two weeks, and those 15,000 jobs are severely at risk, right in the middle of a huge resurgence in the virus The Chancellor has introduced his local furlough—that is the colloquial term—for those businesses that are forced by law to close, such as pubs, gyms, and other such businesses. I think it is wrong that those people who benefit from that, especially if they are on the minimum wage, should only get 67% of it. The Prime Minister said today that the figure was 93%, but they should get 100% of the national minimum wage. There should be a floor—let us be clear about that—and I hope the Government can do something about that. One does not have to pay 67% of the bills when furloughed, and food does not cost only 67% of what it normally does, so something needs to be done to help those people However, the Chancellor should also be very clear that there are many other businesses in my area, such as restaurants, that have not been forced to close but whose business is severely impacted. They have to close at 10 o’clock, and they have fewer tables. In my area, there is advice against non-essential travel. It is not essential travel to go to a restaurant, so people are advised not to go there, but these businesses are not going to get any support to keep their restaurants open through the local furlough scheme, and many of them will go bust.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I am afraid I cannot give way, because I have only four minutes and some points to make. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. The point is that many businesses and many thousands of jobs are at risk. They will not be getting extra support—I am sorry that the Chancellor is not listening—from any of his schemes in a tier 3 area. Those jobs and businesses are going to go. Those people will be unemployed and the Government will still have to pay towards their support May I also make the point in the short time I have left that 77,000 people in the Liverpool city region have been excluded as self-employed people from any Government support? They are barely hanging on and now with tier 3 restrictions yet again there is no support for these people or these businesses. What is happening will turn this pandemic, by the time Liverpool comes through it—and we will—into a cause of severe poverty and penury. It is not right that the Government are not doing enough to help.
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. It is right that we have this debate and that across the House we talk about our national economy. It also gives me a great opportunity to thank the Chancellor on behalf of thousands of Grantham and Stamford constituents for the colossal support we have received. Some 16,000 of my constituents were furloughed, 99 of my large businesses received coronavirus business interruption loans worth £33 million and 1,527 small businesses received bounce back loans worth £44 million. We had £23 million of grants and, just last week, we received £230,000 of cultural funding, so I thank the Chancellor on behalf of literally thousands of my constituents There was a £200 billion package of support, which was unprecedented and globally competitive, and we must be mindful of our public finances. In the first five months of this tax year, our tax receipts were down 35%. At the same time, our debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest since 1963. That is a potent combination, which must be a sobering fact for everybody across this House, regardless of party politics. Therefore, it is right that we have a job support scheme that targets support to those who are facing depressed demand I encourage the Chancellor to continue with his £30 billion plan for jobs that will see the creation of green jobs through the green homes grant and new jobs for young people through the kickstart scheme. I encourage him to double-down and continue with that package of support I also encourage the Chancellor to focus on economic growth. That is what ultimately will benefit all of our country. There are three aspects to that for me. The first is to release businesses from the burdens they have had for so many years. We saw the success of the Chancellor’s policy to reduce VAT on hospitality businesses. We saw how well received the VAT tax deferrals were by the CBI. I encourage the Chancellor to look at regulations to ensure that we manage our national regulatory budget to ensure that any new regulation meets robust cost-benefit analyses The second thing I highlight is the mobilisation of private investment capital. The future fund—it is not spoken about in this place enough—is one of the truly innovative policies of this Chancellor and this Government. It directly intervened and supported pre-revenue, pre-profit businesses. We are the start-up capital of Europe, and this Chancellor and this Government supported those start-up entrepreneurs. The key aspect of that policy was the fact that it mobilised private capital. We shared the risk with private finance. They brought efficiency to those investments, and I again urge the Chancellor to look at initiatives such as a British development bank, which would help mobilise more private capital for infrastructure investments in the future Finally, the issue of productivity has been pervasive throughout the decades. Whichever Government are in power, productivity has been weak compared with our international competitors. Infrastructure investment is critical to this, but so, too, are skills. I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s efforts and his announcement around the lifetime skills guarantee. This will help constituents such as mine in Grantham, Stamford and Bourne and in all our villages to get the skills they need for the jobs of the future. I warmly applaud the efforts of this Government to date, and I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to lay that out.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate in what has been a horrendous week for all in Merseyside. I would like to pass my thanks, through the Chancellor before he leaves the Chamber, to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury for agreeing to meet Merseyside Members of Parliament on the 20th of this month. Just as the Chancellor walked out of the Chamber now, it has felt to us in Merseyside that it has just been too difficult to get the attention of the Treasury during what has been the most extraordinarily challenging week. I ask the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to flag up to all his colleagues inside the Treasury how very difficult this situation is for us. We have uniquely been placed in the top tier of restrictions, and that surely demands a unique level of attention and a unique set of interventions to ensure that our economy does not go under. I know that the Minister will take those comments very seriously I want to take the short time that I have to make a couple of comments about Merseyside, but before I do so I just want to thank all those businesses in my constituency that have been in touch with me. I have had sobering conversations with the management of the Thornton Hall Hotel, and with James, who runs the Rose And Crown pub in Bebington. They have made it absolutely clear to me what the consequences are of this situation. They have done everything that could possibly have been asked of them. This situation is not of their making, and I hope that it is a cross-party endeavour in this House to back our hospitality industry. That is particularly important for the Liverpool City region. We have spent 20 years working to ensure that our visitor economy replaced much of what was lost in de-industrialisation. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you had said to me when I was a child that, one day, people would come for a mini-break to Merseyside, I would have laughed. Most people in the country—well, they did not think that much of us. All that work could go down the drain if we are not careful, so I say to the Minister: “Don’t do it. Help us.” I urge him to make sure that this place of opportunity, with these young and growing businesses, has the chance of an economic future that says to anywhere in our nation: “It does not matter how far down or out you are, Britain offers you hope.” There is a way to do that. Although our businesses are young and they do not have huge cash reserves, they are incredibly creative and, crucially, fast growing. If the Treasury wants to see growth, I heartily recommend it backing the creative, cultural and visitor economies such as Merseyside.
indicated assent.
The Minister is nodding, and I thank him for it We really need that practical support now, so, if the Minister is prepared to work with us to help Merseyside—I know that I speak for the shadow Chancellor here as well—we will be there. We never want to go back to the dark days. I simply ask everyone in this House to work together to help.
It is a pleasure to follow such a good and impassioned speech Let me start with two important bits of context. The first is that this country and this Government are providing much more support to the economy and to preserve jobs and livelihoods than comparable countries. According to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies earlier this week, while France, Germany and the US are spending about 7% of GDP to support jobs, the UK is spending about 12% of GDP, so it is a much more powerful intervention to help people and preserve livelihoods. That is quite right, because, of course, we want to avoid the scarring effects of unemployment and to keep businesses that are viable together The second bit of context leads on from that, which is that, according to the IFS, we will borrow £350 billion this year, or 17% of GDP. It is the case not only that we have never borrowed so much before in our entire peacetime history, but that it is more than we have often borrowed in wartime—more than we borrowed in the first year of the second world war. Although the vigorous action that the Chancellor and his Ministers are taking is quite right, we would be wrong to think that this is consequence free. We must spend on a grand scale and we must spend quickly, but we must also spend wisely. Although many Members may suggest different things we could do additionally, it is important to take stock of what we have done so far. We have had the furlough scheme and its equivalent for the self-employed, which have helped 18,300 people keep their jobs in my constituency alone. That is an amazing achievement: a huge public sector IT project delivered by civil servants without any problems. We should be thankful to them for that fantastic achievement. We now have the job support scheme, which is more generous than the equivalents in France and Germany. Unlike in the US, where no such scheme exists and people are just on their own, we are going to help people to keep their jobs. In addition, there are all the other things we are doing to keep jobs: the £57 billion-worth of loans across the different schemes, with £51 million handed out in my constituency alone; the VAT cut for hospitality and the deferment of VAT across the board, which has put £30 billion into businesses’ cash flow; the grants of up to £25,000 for businesses, and £20 million going to businesses in my constituency in hospitality alone; the business rates holiday; and the eat out to help out scheme, which has pumped half a million pounds into cafés in my constituency alone As well as protecting jobs, we have also protected incomes. We have boosted universal credit by £1,000 a year; we have spent £8 billion in total on extra welfare and a hardship fund; we have introduced a mortgage holiday that has helped one in six people with a mortgage in this country; and, most importantly of all, we are taking steps to create new jobs, with £2 billion for the kickstart scheme and a £1,000 bonus to take on new trainees. We are also abolishing stamp duty to get the housing market moving and creating new green jobs with home insulation schemes. We have the brilliant, visionary policy of giving every adult over the age of 23 the opportunity to get an A-level qualification wherever they are in their life course and not writing anybody off any more. That is a huge levelling up policy that we can be proud of A recent report for the think tank Onward pointed out that schemes such as the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme and the job retention scheme had helped to keep one in eight businesses in this country going and avoided a rise in unemployment of 5 million people. The Treasury can be rightly proud of averting that disaster, and I encourage the Chancellor, who has been so unorthodox in response to this unorthodox situation, to keep being unorthodox and keep thinking about ways in which we can create jobs. A lot of young people have lost out on their education and a lot of young people are looking for jobs, and perhaps we could bring the two of those things together. There is still more we can do to create employment and new opportunities The last thing I wish to say is about the big picture. Local lockdowns do work. Leicester’s did work, as we brought the cases down from 160 per 100,000 to 25 per 100,000. If we can make that work, it is much the best way for this country to go in order to avoid real hardship. There have to be real lockdowns. We have to crack on with it and act quickly, and I am frustrated that some leaders in the north are not doing that. If we can make a targeted approach work, that is must the best way to go and that is the best future for this country.
On 10 May, the Prime Minister announced that the country would be easing out of lockdown, despite analysts highlighting that his calls were coming early, and that without a vaccine and a proper track and trace system we would fail to reduce the rise of the virus. In July, he set out plans for significant normality by Christmas and said that people should start going back to work if they could. He talked about opening sports stadiums and big venues by October. In August, the Chancellor announced his flamboyant flagship policy for people to eat out to help out. At the end of August, the Government launched an entire ad campaign to try to get people back into their offices for work. Three weeks later, the Government’s message changed to say that people in England should work from home if they could and that pubs and restaurants were to be placed under 10 pm curfews to reduce social mixing and slow the spread of the virus. If businesses, employees and this country needed one thing they could have hoped for during this crisis it was some sort of clarity in communication, but the Government and this Prime Minister failed to provide even that For those in constituencies such as mine, which have spent the past two and a half months in further local restrictions, the impact on the local economy has been far more drastic. The unemployment rate in my constituency is the highest in Yorkshire and the Humber, and seventh highest in the country, Figures released today by End Child Poverty show that Bradford West has had the highest rate of rising child poverty in Yorkshire and the Humber over the past four years The Government were late planning the furlough scheme. The first reported case of the coronavirus confirmed by the chief medical officer in England was on 31 January. The Treasury did not announce plans for significant funding to support businesses and individuals until the Budget on 11 March and it was not clear to the Treasury until the following week that the furlough scheme would even be needed. The furlough scheme had gaps where people who had started their new job after 11 March were not eligible for the scheme and were missed out. The self-employed income support scheme has failed many, especially the new businesses that have started up, as the scheme pays out based on profit made, not on actual business turnover, and most businesses make very little, if any, profit in the first few years, yet they still have expenditure Let me share some examples of people in my constituency. We have Art of Acoustics in Clayton. According to Musicians Union research, 87% of musicians will be earning less than £20,000 this year, well below the UK average income of £29,600, while 65% are facing financial hardship right now, 47% have been forced to look for work outside the music industry, and 36% do not have any work at all. John and Lauren, landlords of The New Inn pub in Thornton in my constituency, said today: “It’s the local situation. Our turnover is massively down, the pub’s appeal has changed, people feel uncomfortable coming into the pub.” The Government need to listen to businesses more and seriously rethink this, as they are currently at risk from a health and safety perspective as well as facing the economic risk. The Image Mill in Thornton, which provides photographers, says: “We have fallen through the gaps as most do not have premises and are not eligible for business grants. With the 15-person wedding restriction, there are less weddings. We have missed the wedding season and we’re waiting until next year.” That has a real domino effect Becky from Thornton Furnishings says: “People feel the Tories are the party of business but their catastrophic mishandling of this crisis only proves they are the party of incompetence and one that does not care for small businesses or the health and wellbeing of people. I can say with certainty as a business owner I will not be voting Tory at the next election.” I think Becky really sums it up for the whole of my constituency regarding the failures of this Government Bradford West needs more support. I urge the Chancellor to address that. I said this yesterday and I will say it again and again: Bradford West needs some targeted support not just for its businesses but if we are not to fail the next generation.
These are without doubt uniquely challenging times. Every Government around the world has had to shut down their economies to save lives. The consequences and impact of having to do this have been brutal not just for our economy but the world’s economy. Covid-19 is a medical force majeure unlike any we have known in the modern era. Scientists and policymakers alike are still trying to get to grips with its medical and economic consequences. No one has the holy grail in these many regards. We simply do not know enough about it But what we do know enough about is this Government. They are a Government who put people and their livelihoods at their very heart, who have been resolute in their response to this pandemic, and who have put in unprecedented measures to protect jobs and businesses with their economic support packages, for which my constituents are truly thankful. In my constituency alone, we have seen 13,000 jobs protected by the furlough scheme, over £9 million to support the self-employed, over 1,000 bounce back loans worth over £30 million to small companies, 64 loans worth over £11 million through the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, and over £15 million of business grants paid out. This has all come from a £200 billion package of support that has been committed since the beginning of this crisis This is a Government delivering world-leading measures to protect jobs and support businesses through this crisis. We know that we are facing demand-deficient unemployment and the risk of structural unemployment. Just hearing the words “recession” and “unemployment” inspires dread, particularly having seen the harm done by welfare dependency in the past. We should not forget that before this pandemic infected our lives, it was the Conservatives who had a history of protecting, supporting and creating jobs. In 2019 we saw the highest figures on record for employment, and roughly 3 million jobs were created in the decade before the pandemic. We should not lose sight of that. Nor should we lose sight of the political opportunism of others who blame and criticise, as we have heard today from the Opposition, but without their own plans This is a Government interested in responsibility and accountability because it is the right thing to do, with the Chancellor launching a £30 billion plan for jobs in July, including measures such as the £2 billion kickstart scheme to help young people. It is very clear to me where the commitment lies. They are a Government focused on providing new work opportunities and not pretending to people that there is always a job to go back to in perpetuity. We cannot, after all, as a society of taxpayers, fund what would be the Opposition’s classic policy of letting people fail. This is a Government prioritising support and resources for jobseekers and the provision of retraining for those who need it. Unlike the Opposition, who seem to thrive on the perceived delights of hindsight, the Government thrive on foresight: as the crisis evolves, their policy evolves. The Government have put people’s livelihoods at the very heart of the covid-19 policy and continue to act in the national interest while balancing the simultaneous objectives of keeping schools open and the economic engine firing and saving lives in more ways than one The Conservative party is the party of economic competence and sound financial management. This Conservative Government have stood up and protected jobs, incomes and businesses with unprecedented measures. They have not cowered under the weight of the pandemic; they have not abstained under the weight of the pandemic. At their heart they have enterprise to create, support and extend opportunity to as many people as they can.
In my speech in the House yesterday I said that something remarkable happened in my city of Peterborough during the recent lockdown and covid pandemic. We looked after the vulnerable. We ensured that those shielding had food and supplies. We housed and fed our rough sleepers, thanks to restaurants and takeaways. We came together as one city. That made me very proud not only to represent the city but to have grown up there Having said that, I do not want to go through that again, but Labour Members would hit poor people in my city with another national lockdown, and it is for them to tell us how many jobs that would cost in Peterborough The remarkable resilience of my city is down to its people, but we did not do it alone. The Government protected jobs and businesses and provided the economic security needed to get us through this. They put their money where their mouth is: 15,600 jobs have been protected through the furlough scheme; 4.500 people claimed grants through the self-employment income support scheme; 2,185 bounce back loans were awarded; 70 coronavirus business interruption loans were awarded; and business grants worth more than £22 million were awarded What does that mean on the ground? It means that Eve Taylor, a fabulous historic skin and body care products company in Britain, has brought manufacturing capacity back in-house, expanding the business and employing more people. The Bottle & Board bottle shop in central Peterborough has been able to survive during this tough time. My friend Lisa Aldridge owns and runs Loxley Barbers, which had the dubious privilege of giving me my first haircut after lockdown. A bounce back loan has helped it to survive. My friends Billy and Tony Kertolli, who run a carwash in Carr Road, gave free car washes to NHS workers. There are countless further examples—all businesses that my office has helped. These are real people, real jobs and real businesses, and these people are my friends. Peterborough is a small but big city and we depend on one another, and when we needed Government support they were there for us The cultural recovery fund has been a lifeline for my city. We needed support and the Government listened. It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the businesses that could not be supported, including those who were moving business premises just before lockdown, sole traders with not enough money and those who paid them through dividends. I wish we could have done more, but this was one of the most generous schemes in the world, and I am pleased that the support will be there for businesses and individuals in Peterborough when we need it The job support scheme has been expanded to provide temporary and localised support to businesses whose premises are legally required to close as a direct result of the restrictions. The last thing my city needs are localised restrictions. They are not needed or wanted, as my city has done the right thing and rates are, thankfully, still low. Labour Members would put Peterborough back into national lockdown misery, whatever our successes and whatever our individual circumstances. I am going to make sure that local people in my city know who it is that wants to restrict their freedoms, take their jobs and make their businesses go bankrupt when there is no reason to do so. This is typical Labour, and we are going to make sure that the people of Peterborough know who would put them back into national lockdown misery.
At the start of this crisis, the Government promised to do “whatever it takes” to get our country and our economy through covid. They have broken that promise. My constituents, who have been subject to the tier 2 restrictions for weeks now—before the term was coined—are being left behind. We are in the frankly perverse situation where many pubs and hospitality venues would see more support to close that they would to stay open. This cannot continue. We need a financial package for tier 2 local authority areas and businesses to protect jobs as a matter of urgency Many sectors need additional targeted support, but the Government have so far been unwilling to stump up anything like the amount of investment required. Sector-specific support for aviation has not been forthcoming for my constituents who work at Liverpool and Manchester airports and in our local supply chain. Equally, sectors with large employment multipliers that are ready to create the kind of highly paid skilled jobs our country is crying out for are being stymied by Government inaction. The nuclear sector is perhaps the most egregious example of this. It directly employs almost 4,500 people in Warrington North alone, a growth of 700 on last year. It wants to grow further, but the Government’s tardiness in publishing the energy White Paper and making the necessary commitments to the next generation of new nuclear, including Sizewell C, is holding it back. If decisions are not made soon, we could lose those jobs forever, and at the worst possible time for our economy and the environment Just as whole sectors of our economy are being let down by this Government, so too are the lowest paid in our communities, from the new starters and newly self-employed who have been excluded from support to those expected to live on 67% of the national minimum wage. Do the Government not understand what “minimum” means? It is a rate independently set as the least that a person could get by on. I know that I could not get by on £5.84 an hour, and I do not know why anyone in this House thinks that a single one of their constituents should have to do so. For those not on the full rate of the national minimum wage, 67% of their salary could be as low as £3.04, which is less than the full rate of the minimum wage when Labour introduced it in 1998. If the Government will not commit to supporting all those on the job support scheme with a package at least as generous as furlough, the very least they can do is ensure that no one is being asked to live on less than the minimum wage The response to covid has been the worst of all worlds. The lockdown that was announced too late, that was too lax and that finished too early, ostensibly to protect the economy, and the social distancing purgatory that is failing to stamp out domestic transmission have hurt our economy far more than a national lockdown ever could. We could have modelled our response on New Zealand. It adopted a zero-covid strategy that meant short-term pain and enforced quarantine for all visitors, but its economy is now back open and people are allowed to hug their friends and families again. That should be our aspiration, too.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am one of the 5.7 million business people in this country for whom this is not a theoretical concept but an existential crisis. I listened carefully to the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), when she talked about business confidence. I agree with much of what she says, although probably not that much in this debate One thing that really damages business confidence is when you flip-flop. To say on Monday that you are willing to support a local lockdown strategy and then to say today that it has to be a national lockdown is totally wrong. That damages business confidence, and it damages consumer confidence. One thing that has bolstered business confidence has been the unprecedented levels of support we have seen from the Treasury and the Government. This is the third recession I have been through in our business, including in the years following 2008, and I have never seen support like this We need to be honest with people when we talk about a national lockdown and a circuit breaker. Are we talking about just one circuit breaker, one hit? The reality is that the SAGE advice says we might need multiple lockdowns, multiple circuit breakers, to keep the virus at low levels. Imagine the devastating impact on businesses and consumer confidence. The shadow Chancellor has to be honest with the business community. She needs to say that this might mean—[Interruption.] I did not hear it in her speech. She needs to say that this might mean multiple lockdowns, multiple hits and multiple costs to the taxpayer, and a devastating impact on businesses. A circuit breaker will buy 28 days. It will put us back in the same place in 28 days’ time—that is what it says. Please be honest with the people. What I would like to hear from the Opposition are some ideas on how we keep the economy open. I have not heard anything from them about how we tackle this public health crisis while keeping the economy open. I have not heard that If we cannot look to the Opposition, we should look to best practice internationally. There is no European country I am aware of that has gone back to a national lockdown. The leader in managing this crisis is Germany, which uses not just a local lockdown policy but a sub-local lockdown policy. It closed down Gütersloh and Warendorf, with 300,000 people per district. That is what we should look at. We should stop looking at wide regional lockdowns and look at sub-local lockdowns. The hon. Lady is looking at a national lockdown, which is the antithesis of what we are talking about.
I regret the fact that the hon. Member, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, particularly when he campaigns on banking and other issues, has not listened to what the Opposition have consistently said about test, trace and isolate. He is absolutely right about Germany. We wish we were in the situation where test, trace and isolate was working effectively. That would mean we could have a fine-grained response. We do not have it in the UK and that is why we need a reset to fix that system. He should be honest about that.
I agree with that, but it is not either/or. Of course we need to improve test and trace, but that should not mean we have to lock down the entire economy. That is absolutely the wrong thing I have three solutions. The number one thing is that we look at this on a super-local basis. We know that the rate of infection in Liverpool is 670 per 100,000. It is 60 in parts of North Yorkshire, but it varies significantly across North Yorkshire. We need to look at a district-based approach that would increase the amount of ownership and responsibility local people have for managing the crisis through peer pressure and from understanding that their actions would be effective I fully support having different tiers. I supported them on Monday and I support them today. Having said that, the two higher tiers do lead to a difficult situation. Bars and restaurants in tier 2, and restaurants in tier 3, are not required to close. That means they cannot access furlough support. There are two things we could do: extend the furlough support, which is a hit on the taxpayer; or, instead of coming down from six households per table, as it was last week, to one household, we could go to two households. That concession would have a very important effect for lots of pubs and restaurants, which would then be viable The third solution is business support. We need a new iteration of the bounce back loan scheme and the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, which has been so successful. As my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury knows, we also need to make non-bank lenders part of that new tranche of business support. We need forbearance for SMEs. We should phase support back in, so we move VAT from 5% to 10%, and not back to 20%. We should also phase back in business rates and perhaps stamp duty.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). He made some interesting points, although he will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with most of them I am delighted to take part in this important debate, which, regardless of what the Chancellor says, is not about cheap shots and getting at the Government. I believe that all of us in this place are united in our determination to tackle covid-19, and to see the impact on the people’s health minimised, and their businesses and economy prepared for recovery. That is why I wish to make it clear today that the Liberal Democrats support the motion from the Labour party. More than that, we repeat our call for furlough to be extended to June next year. I know that that will cost £10 billion, but it is what the country needs, and it is a drop in the ocean compared with what will have to be spent if we get this wrong. The scheme also needs to be reformed and expanded to include the 3 million people in this country who are still waiting for any help from this Government; that is not good enough I also support the Labour party’s call for the Government to take on board the scientific advice and bring forward a two to three-week circuit breaker. I know that the thought of us all having to endure that again is not what any of us wants to hear, and particularly not businesses. My constituents in Edinburgh West, like individuals, companies and families up and down this country, have already endured unimaginable stress about their futures and their health, and some have endured very real hardship The situation that we face could have been avoided if this Government had used the summer to create a world-beating test and trace system—not one that they tell us is world-beating, but one that is. I am one of the people that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) talked about who jump from one app to the other when they travel. I worry that I may be on the wrong app when I need to be traced; how will they find me? A circuit breaker must be used to ensure that test and trace can and does deliver. The Government also have to provide the support for a sustained and fast economic kickstart when the circuit breaker period is over Let us be clear: it is not the virus that is solely responsible or to blame for where we are. It is the Government’s incompetence and inability to use the time they had over the summer effectively. We need a strategy that sets out not only the support available but a plan for recovery—a route map out of this—to provide the certainty that every sector of the economy craves. That brings me back to the extension of furlough. The Chancellor said that we need to take responsibility, and he is right, but the Government are not leading; they are responding. There is no strategy or consistency. There is no improvement. What we have instead is an astonishing chop and change, knee-jerk reaction to support for business We were understanding in March—we had not faced this before—but seven months down the line, enough is enough, with 635,000 cases, more than 43,000 deaths and the mourning, the job losses and the suffering that people have already had to face. Unprecedented does not have to mean impossible. The Chancellor asked us to look at the numbers. We learned this week that the economy has grown by less than half the amount expected, and the Bank of England has warned of 3 million unemployed, which will only be exacerbated by leaving the EU without a trade deal. Just in case those on the Government Front Bench think that, because I am Scottish, I am nationalist, I am not. This is not about saying that the Scottish Government are wonderful, because they are not, even though they say so. It is about asking for what the country needs—
Order.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). The UK Government have spectacularly failed to use the time that we had to get a grip of this virus. It need not have been this way. The UK Government have failed to work collaboratively with all four nations to implement a coherent national strategy, putting people first and protecting lives. This is not for want of trying by the Welsh Labour Government, whose repeated efforts of co-operation have been ignored The UK Government have failed to produce a joined-up and effective test, trace and isolate system in England to halt the spread and shield the vulnerable. Where this Tory Government have squandered millions on failed attempts by companies such as Serco, the Welsh Labour Government, in contrast, have introduced test, trace and protect, delivered by local health boards and local authorities, with a success rate of over 90% When nations across the world such as Germany were extending and strengthening support to protect jobs and livelihoods and provide the level of flexibility needed, this Treasury was whittling away economic support, reducing the furlough scheme and failing to support the excluded 3 million. I recently asked my constituents in Cardiff North what they thought of the current crisis and how they were managing, and the overwhelming majority of businesses that took part were worried beyond belief. They are worried about their future. There needs to be a flexible economic approach that truly supports our businesses, families and people’s livelihoods so that they are not in fear for their future. The job support scheme needs to be reformed so that it incentivises employers to keep staff on rather than letting them go. That is what constituents and businesses in Cardiff North are crying out for—an economic package that allows people to isolate if they have to and provides security and peace of mind Businesses in Cardiff North such as Tom at Mr Brightsides café in Llandaff North, Alwen at Iechyd Da in Whitchurch, the fantastic Birchgrove pub run by the brilliant Welsh Brains brewery, and Sue and Laura at Selah café in Llanishen, as well as the self-employed and local traders—local people who support local jobs and are at the heart of our community—have all told me that what they need is sustained economic support. The Welsh Labour Government have already brought forward a wave of measures to protect jobs and livelihoods, including the most generous package of support for small and medium-sized enterprises anywhere in the UK, and a resilience fund that has supported 13,000 companies and helped to secure 100,000 jobs in Wales Earlier, the Chancellor called what he is doing leadership. Really? My constituents do not see leadership; they see incoherent messaging, confusion and a Chancellor who is worried more about maintaining his brand than about showing real leadership, which means changing tack in the national interest even when it is uncomfortable. They see a Cabinet at war with itself on whether to protect health or protect the economy, failing to grasp that the two must go hand in hand. That is not leadership. People are suffering. Livelihoods are being ruined, and loved ones lost. We need a reset. Stop playing games and put people’s lives first.
This was never going to be easy—no Government were ever going to put everything right—but as millions of people face the prospect of Christmas without a job, the facts speak for themselves. Britain’s economic downturn is now the worst in Europe, and the OBR forecasts that unemployment will reach 11.9%. As a consequence, extreme poverty is set to double. In the first half of this year alone, the UK endured the worst recession of any G7 country, with GDP falling by more than 22%. We are left mired in the worst recession in our history Just this week, an Institute for Public Policy Research report revealed that 2 million jobs are at risk, but the job support scheme will save only 10% of them. That is because, in its current guise, the scheme simply does not incentivise businesses to retain their staff. Other countries, such as Germany and Denmark, have offered far more comprehensive packages that save a significant number of jobs. That report was followed yesterday by the announcement that redundancies are up by a record 114,000 this quarter and that the unemployment rate is at its highest for three years, leading the Office for National Statistics to revise its own estimate of the current employment rate to 4.5% That is why it is incredibly worrying that the support package recently unveiled by the Chancellor fell well short of what is required. Just days before the furlough scheme ends, it is forecast that between 10% and 20% of those on furlough will likely end up unemployed when the scheme ends. That means a minimum of 4,500 people in Ilford South alone losing their jobs. All this at a time when support for the self-employed will collapse next month to just 20% of profits, down from 70% currently More than 33,000 voters in my constituency are on some form of job support, be it furlough or the self-employment income support scheme, as a result of the pandemic. That is more than one third of the entire constituency. What am I supposed to tell those workers who are already struggling to put food on the table for their families? How many more people have to lose their jobs before this Government get a grip on the health and jobs crisis? Is the Chancellor honestly saying that, after decades of austerity, the infrastructure is in place to retrain all those who have lost jobs? Does he even know how long it would take a waiter who lost their job in Ilford to retrain as a Python computer coder? The Government’s new skills training initiative will not even be ready until April. They have their head in the clouds It should come as no surprise, therefore, that there is significant public backing for a new way of running our economy. A recent Survation poll found that 74% of the public are in favour of the wealthiest in our society paying more tax. I am sure Government Members will want to know that 64% of Conservative voters are in favour of that, while YouGov found that a staggering 94% of the UK public believe there needs to be a change from the status quo of the pre-pandemic economy The Government are simply burying their head in the sand and carrying on as though we are not still in the middle of a global pandemic. That is simply not the answer. We learned that if we had locked down the country just one week earlier during the first wave, the death toll would have been halved. The Prime Minister suggested on Monday that only very high-risk areas will get additional funding for local test and trace. I wonder whether he agrees that we need to fix test and trace across the country Redbridge has one of the worst infection rates in London. Time is simply running out to tackle this health and economic crisis. The UK Government have lost control of this virus and lost control of the message. They are no longer even following scientific advice. That is why Labour is calling for a circuit-breaker lockdown, coupled with the package of economic measures that we need to support and lift our people, and stop another generation going into poverty.
The covid pandemic has exposed and exacerbated an already broken economic system that is rigged in favour of the wealthy while eroding workers’ rights and remuneration. The system is broken My constituency of Cynon Valley is a case in point. The local authority has endured £90 million of Tory Government cuts since 2010 and austerity. Some 23% of the population are living in poverty while child poverty rates are even higher—at 35%. Alongside that, we are one of the areas that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus like other of the poorest communities elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We have one of the highest rates of covid and of death from covid in Wales and, in certain points, one of the highest in the UK. Tory austerity measures have left people in my constituency poorer and therefore more susceptible to the virus Since the 1980s, we have experienced the demise of traditional industries and unemployment rates have risen sharply recently. A quarter of the workforce have been furloughed and workers are fearful for their future. Figures for universal credit claimants have almost doubled this year and they are above the UK average. The future is also bleak for our young people. The number of benefit claimants doubled between March and July this year The UK Government’s original furlough scheme was welcome and did provide a lifeline for many businesses but it fell short of what was required. The Chancellor’s belatedly announced job support scheme is woefully inadequate and is applicable only to certain groups. We have done things differently in Wales and the Labour-led Welsh Government have put in place an extremely generous package of support for businesses—the best in the UK. This includes the economic resilience fund, which is providing further grants to enable businesses to adapt to post-covid realities, to support the foundational economy and to assist businesses adversely affected by the local lockdown But the purse strings remain with the UK Government, and that places severe constraints on what we can achieve in Wales. The current arrangements between central Government and Wales are insufficient to meet our needs. We need a genuine four-nation partnership approach not only to eradicate the virus from our country—it can be done, because other countries such as New Zealand have done it—but to develop the right economic strategy and end the poverty trap that damages so many communities and individuals both financially and in terms of health. We need to end the dead hand of financial inflexibility from the UK Government so that the Welsh Government can carry over moneys from one year to the next and ease borrowing limits The current situation is not an inevitable consequence of the pandemic; it is the result of a political choice. With the UK entering the worst recession of any OECD country with estimates as high as 4 million unemployed, action is needed now and I urge the Government to stand by their commitment to do whatever it takes and provide an economic package that will cater for everyone. This could include reforming the job support scheme to reimburse everyone at 80% of wages or higher, provide sector-specific support, provide support for specific groups and end precarious working arrangements. Alongside that, we desperately need welfare reform to provide a safety net, and we can begin by reversing the £30 billion cuts in the social security budget since 2010 We can afford that by taxing wealth. It is estimated that if wealth were taxed at the same rate as income tax, it would raise £174 billion a year. In 2008, the Government paid £500 billion to bail out the banks. We can do this if the political will is there. Do this Government have the political will to act to help people in communities like mine or will they continue to help the millionaire cronies with juicy contracts so they can profit—
Order.
It is a pleasure to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) Yesterday, I received a message from a beauty salon owner, and she told me: “5 out of 8 appointments cancelled today due to clients being in contact with someone who may have Coronavirus.” Incidentally, before either of the Members on the Conservative Benches start patting themselves on the back that that was because of the track and trace system; it was not. It is all linked to a local outbreak in a local pub. This woman is a successful business owner, who is now left wondering how long she can sustain this level of cancellations without financial support. Having only been open for two months following the extended forced closure of the industry, she has been attempting a new normal turnover, which is already considerably less than prior to the pandemic. The spike in cases means that, this month, she is looking at being down 20% on that new normal. She is struggling; she is worried; and she is asking when the Government will recognise this industry, which has been constantly overlooked and undervalued throughout the pandemic, and offer it some financial support. My response to her is that I am wondering the very same thing Over the past six months, I have asked on countless occasions for support for this industry. I have sat in this Chamber while the Prime Minister openly sniggered when asked a question by one of his own MPs about supporting these businesses. His trademark flippancy and ridiculing of a sector struggling to survive is not welcome, and it has left some 370,000 employees, mostly women, feeling belittled, undervalued and angry As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on beauty, aesthetics and wellbeing—with my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins)—I have heard heartbreaking stories of job losses, businesses collapsing and financial insecurity for those who work in this sector. I have asked in this Chamber for the beauty and wellbeing sector to be taken seriously and to be treated with the same respect as other industries. I have written to Ministers, to the Chancellor and to the Prime Minister, and I have asked for a support package to help these businesses survive, but I feel my pleas have constantly fallen on deaf ears This multibillion-pound industry is currently on its knees. It is great to see the Chancellor outlining the money that will be available to support other businesses to help them survive, and I wholeheartedly support this, but where is the help for our beauty and wellbeing sector? The hospitality and leisure sectors have now had a VAT reduction to 5% for more than three months. It has been a real boost to industries that have struggled due to closures at the first peak of the pandemic and reduced income as they started to reopen At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I ask again: can this VAT reduction be extended to the hair, beauty, spa and wellness sectors? Can they, too, be given this financial support to help them survive with further measures looking increasingly likely, and if not, can the Minister ask the Chancellor please to tell me and the 370,000 people who earn their living from the sector, why not?
I am pleased to be speaking in the debate today. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) raised a pertinent question with the Chancellor regarding the economic support available to individuals and businesses in the areas subject to additional public health restrictions. We have repeatedly spoken in the House about the Chancellor being out of touch with the financial needs of the businesses, employees and employers in our constituencies, and he is proving us right yet again. I ask him: what good is the job support scheme to businesses in Coventry North West if it does not provide crucial support to employees in tier 1 and tier 2 lockdown areas if businesses choose to close because of coronavirus restrictions? I will tell him: it does absolutely nothing The Chancellor’s sink-or-swim approach to the job support scheme is letting down my constituents who will not be able to access it. The job support scheme provides less security to employees than the furlough scheme. My constituents will go from receiving 80% of their wages to just 66% on the job support scheme—and that is only if people can work a third of their stipulated hours. If they cannot work, they do not receive anything. What does the Chancellor think will happen to people on lower incomes and people on zero-hours contracts? I will tell him: it will push them further into poverty, and possibly into financial destitution Financial support will apply only to businesses in regions under a tier 3 lockdown that are forced to close. The Chancellor has called the scheme a safety net for businesses, but it will not be a safety net for businesses that choose to shut down; nor will it be one for businesses that are told to close by local public health authorities. I do not know what the Chancellor considers to be a safety net, but this is not it. The financial support offered by the Government will do nothing for those who have been excluded from support from the very start of this pandemic, and it will do nothing for businesses that are not forced to close but need to. This is not fair and not right Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that there are several hundred thousand fewer people on payroll since the beginning of the pandemic, and economists expect unemployment to increase, so what is the Chancellor doing to safeguard employees? We have already established that many people will fall through the gaps in the new financial scheme on offer. The Bank of England has estimated that the unemployment rate may well be 7.5% at the end of 2020. In Coventry North West, unemployment claimant figures have risen to 4,815, and I fear that number could rise more The Chancellor needs to ensure that economic support goes hand in hand with the imposition of local restrictions. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all tier system: it is doomed to fail from the very start. Were Labour in government, we would put in place a job recovery scheme that fixes the problems with the Government’s scheme, so that employers can keep more staff on rather than having to let people go. This would ensure that no one on the scheme would fall into poverty, and it would be open to all businesses impacted by the restrictions. A tightly designed and targeted scheme would also ensure that money is spent where it is most needed.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) It is with something of a sense of déjà vu that I rise to speak with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury sat on the Front Bench, having had exchanges with him yesterday in a Westminster Hall debate on financial support for the events industry. I do not intend to go over the same ground today—I am sure that he will be glad to hear that—but, as with so many issues, the lack of support for those in the events industry extends much further. As I said, though, we covered much of that yesterday These are businesses that we just cannot abandon—businesses that are successful and will be successful again very soon. If support could be made available, it could see them over the hill. We cannot pretend that 22% of the wage bill will be even close to enough for employers to keep on staff when many are in a worse position than they were in March and when restrictions are still preventing them from carrying out their main business Many fantastic high-turnover businesses, such as Saltire Hospitality in my constituency, have seen the major events that they normally supply cancelled—they simply have not been able to take place during the covid pandemic. Saltire Hospitality has changed its business—it has pivoted and tried different ideas—again and again to adapt to changing circumstances, and it will have a full diary when events and conferences get up and running again. But where is the support from the Government to get it there? Such successful and viable businesses are put at real risk if the Government fail to listen. I welcome the recognition that some extension of support was needed for wages, although it came late in the day, and I welcome the continuation of the 5% VAT rate for hospitality until 31 March, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) suggested, we would like to see that extended far more. Sadly, this support is simply not enough to halt the frightening tsunami of job losses that we can all see on the horizon The self-employed have all been abandoned, with the 70% profit replacement reduced to just 20%, and there is still nothing for the 3 million excluded from any support at all. The financial support available is half-hearted at a time when we need the Government to stay fully committed to doing “whatever it takes”, as the Chancellor said The Labour party is today asking the Government to go further, and I support that. The Scottish Government are already taking action to plug the gaps in support where they can, providing tailored packages above and beyond the Barnett consequentials, including the new £40 million fund for firms that are having to close. They are finding resources from a very limited budget and spending them wisely, something that this Government are not best known for; they could do much to learn from the Scottish Government. One wonders how many businesses could have been comfortably supported with the botched billions that have been blown on dodgy private contracts with Tory cronies and the unnecessary costs of building the Brexit border However welcome Scottish Government action is, without serious rethinking of the job support scheme, they are papering over cracks in a sea wall just before the tsunami hits. If this Government will not act, they should provide the Scottish Government with the fiscal levers that Scotland needs to take the right decisions to protect jobs and lives wherever necessary. Decisions on available support are not carved in stone; they are made by a small group of people with big responsibilities on their shoulders. It is a political choice, and based on the actions this Government are not taking at the moment, it is a short-sighted one. The Scottish Government calculate that extending furlough would save 61,000 jobs in Scotland. The good news is that these are decisions that can be rethought, and I urge the Government to do so for the sake of all our futures.
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson); I share a lot of his concerns, and I think it is vital that we recognise that the numbers often quoted in this place relate to real people, with real bills to pay and real children to look after Given the Chancellor’s absence yesterday, he may not be aware that my local authority of Rhondda Cynon Taf has been under local coronavirus restrictions for some weeks now, so I can speak from specific experience. Hundreds of people across Pontypridd feel utterly failed by the Chancellor and this Government. As colleagues from across the House will know, this is not the first financial hardship my community has faced this year. Pontypridd, along with the communities represented by my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), was hit only eight months ago with some of the worst flooding ever recorded. Storm Dennis decimated parts of our constituencies earlier this year, and the Prime Minister said that funds would be passported to help us rebuild. Where is that money? It just shows how much stock can be placed in a promise from this Government: all these months later, we and our communities are still waiting. That is absolutely disgraceful, and shows just how little care this Government have for the people of Wales This Government are still pursuing a one-size-fits-all approach to protecting jobs during this pandemic. For months now, the Labour party has been calling for a sector-specific support deal, and still this Government have not accepted responsibility and have not put in place a plan to support these industries. We know that the aviation sector is facing specific and substantial challenges because of the virus. In Pontypridd, major employers including GE Aviation in Nantgarw and British Airways in Llantrisant have sadly been forced to make redundancies. Across this country, 1.6 million people’s jobs and livelihoods rely on the aviation sector. We cannot just let those jobs disappear The coach industry, too, is facing specific challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Like aviation, this is a seasonal industry that is very reliant on tourism. Industry experts estimate that up to four in 10 companies could go bust and 27,000 jobs could be lost if no support is made available. This will hit communities hard, as many of these companies are family-owned small businesses, such as Edwards Coaches and Ferris Coach Holidays in my constituency. It really does not have to be this way: this Government have the opportunity to save jobs with sector-specific support packages, but have instead decided to proceed with an economic support package that is clearly not fit for purpose The high street is also feeling the strain. Just this week, the group that owns Peacocks, a significant employer in my constituency, announced that it is appointing administrators. That puts 24,000 jobs across the country at risk, and other well-known high street brands are also feeling the strain. River Island recently closed its store on Pontypridd’s high street after being doubly hit, first by flooding from Storm Dennis and then by the coronavirus pandemic, and Pontypridd’s high street is sadly not alone Then, there is still the problem of all the people who have been left out of Government support altogether. Earlier this week, I asked the Minister about support for people who have been excluded from the Government’s support schemes. His response was that the Government had covered the issue. Well, the 3 million people who have been excluded from UK Government support during the coronavirus pandemic do not feel like this issue has been covered at all. When will the Government take some responsibility? They cannot govern with eleventh-hour announcements and leaks to the press. People in areas under local restrictions need clarity and guidance, not slapdash announcements that have not even been thought through. I urge the Chancellor and the Minister to consider their priorities deeply going forward, because our constituents all deserve a secure economic future, and people across Wales deserve better than to be consistently forgotten and betrayed by this Government.
The Government have already conceded that fighting the spread of this dangerous covid-SARS virus in our country requires extraordinary levels of state action and support, but now, just as the fight is intensifying, it is clear that they have lost their nerve. We are not only battling this deadly virus; the Prime Minister is fighting his libertarian instincts and the right-wing ideologues in his party. They are opposed to the collective state action that is necessary to save lives and mitigate the damage from the pandemic. The delay that this fight caused in March left us with a double whammy of the highest per-capita death toll in Europe on top of the largest economic hit in the G7, and now, this unforgivable dereliction of duty looks like it is happening again As the Prime Minister dithers, the virus spreads. His failure to take timely and firm action will cost more lives and wreak more damage on our economy. As he courts his mutinous Back Benchers and abandons the science to keep them sweet, all the warning signs are flashing red again. He is behind the curve and he knows it, and since the SAGE minutes were published on Monday night, we all know it, too The Government have lost the trust that they need to lead the fight against this deadly threat. Their partisan, high-handed behaviour has made it worse, excluding Parliament completely. There are constant briefings to the media, and an obsession with outsourcing and centralisation has caused the failure of Test and Trace and the scandal of PPE supplier contracts to Tory donors. And: “We will do whatever it takes”— has now turned into the inadequate furlough-lite proposals that the Chancellor has recently come up with. Just as the virus returns, he has packed up the safety net For my constituents in Wallasey, who are now in tier 3 and facing a local lockdown, vital support disappears at the end of the month. In Wirral, 31,000 people are still on furlough and it will disappear at the end of the month, just as the virus comes roaring back. What replaces it is completely inadequate, as the Chancellor knows only too well, and those who are losing their jobs or their business do not want a lecture from him about how much he has already spent. Those who are excluded completely from this support in the first place—the freelancers, some of the self-employed—do not want that lecture either. They want a Government who will recognise the hardship that the pandemic has caused and be there to help. The least that the Government could have done was to repurpose the £40 million in unspent support allocated to the Liverpool city region, which is now in tier 3, to support local businesses, but again today the Chancellor has refused even that modest request Those forced to self-isolate to stop the spread of the virus need the support to do so and not to have to choose between feeding their family and obeying the rules. Wirral Council, which has been at the forefront of the fight against the virus, has not been reimbursed for what this has cost and, like many other local authorities, it is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy So what do we need? We need an increase in generosity of the furlough-lite scheme. It has to pay more to those whose jobs are affected. We need wider eligibility; it has to go to businesses that are affected, not only those that close. We need to include the excluded, which means freelancers and the self-employed, and we need to pay adequate sick pay for those forced to isolate. If we do not do that, the virus will roar back, and the economic cost will, in the end, be far greater and the cost in lives will be unbearable.
Today I want to focus on the forgotten—those who have been forgotten by this Government in my constituency and right across the country. There are 3 million people who are excluded, not to mention the 4 million who are now reliant on the flawed universal credit system In Oxford West and Abingdon, the claimant rate has increased by 255% since March, and what scares me is that here we are again. They all suffered when we went into lockdown. We had meeting after meeting to raise these issues with the Government, and we were told that if we come together and clap for our frontline workers every Thursday, we will get through it, yet here we are with a three-tier system that will inevitably lead to another lockdown We are hearing that the Government have begun to abandon listening to the scientists and are instead following a strange balancing act, which they are trying to present as Goldilocks—the best of both worlds—when, in fact, we have some of the highest case numbers per capita in Europe and some of the poorest performing economic metrics. It is the worst of all possible worlds, not the best In my constituency, like many others, there are some horrific stories. The director of a small gym in my constituency pays himself via PAYE and dividends, and he is petrified of what he sees happening in the north, with the closing of gyms. He is wondering what is going to happen. Will there continue to be no safety net? He is worried about going out of business altogether These are the 99% of businesses in this country that form the backbone of our economy, and once they close, as the Minister and the Chancellor well know, it will be difficult for them to start up again. I have a constituent who is working two jobs, because neither pays enough to cover the cost of living. She gets nothing now, because 47% of her income is from self-employment, and the most striking thing in her correspondence with me, and in the correspondence of my constituent Christopher who works in the creative arts industry, is the real sense of fear and deteriorating mental health Reading the emails from the beginning of March to now, they are tetchy. They apologise to me for the tone of their emails, but it is not they who should be apologising. It is the Chancellor, the Minister and this Government who should be apologising to them for the stress they are under. Christopher has not earned a penny since March, and he makes the point that he has spent his whole life paying his taxes and that he has a contract with this country, and I totally agree We need to improve furlough. We need sector-by-sector bail-outs where needed, but Christopher has received absolutely nothing. He is supporting his wife and two children, and he has paid taxes his whole life, and he feels completely abandoned. He is now talking about feeling depressed and anxious. The long-term effect of the lack of Government support on people’s mental health is one consequence of this pandemic that we are not taking seriously enough, so I hope those constituents and others across the country who are hearing the speeches from the Opposition know at least they are not forgotten—even if they might be excluded by this Government. All I would like to say is a plea on their behalf. Please, this is not dealt with. Yes, there are support packages for others, but it has not reached them.
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). I agree with so many of her points In my constituency of Jarrow, people have been living under local restrictions for over a month without any clear support package in place. The Chancellor’s indecisiveness has left workers and businesses across all constituencies, particularly in areas under local restrictions, in complete limbo and often confused by ever-changing rules and regulations. It is no secret that wealthy areas, including the Chancellor’s own seat of Richmond, are avoiding being locked down, despite higher covid-19 rates than in less wealthy areas that are subject to restrictions It begs the question: if London and the south of England had been asked to live under the same restrictions as those implemented in the north, would the Government have found new strategies a long time ago? This utterly stinks of classism and serial incompetence at the heart of this Government, and the empty Government Benches tell me how much the Government are not listening The Chancellor has made a U-turn of sorts, but people in my constituency have already suffered, and for many this has come far too late. It feels to many like an intentional managed decline. This is not levelling up; it is levelling down Let us take the example of Kieran, a bar manager in my constituency who got in touch, heartbroken that his bar has turned from a hiring business to a firing business in the weeks since the local restrictions were introduced. Kieran’s business saw infection rates staying stable for the two months after reopening, so like many of us he is at a loss to understand why the hospitality industry is being made a scapegoat for the rise in cases, when no concrete evidence has been produced by the Government to prove that, despite Members from all parts of the House asking repeatedly for that evidence There is nothing new for the self-employed, nothing again for those who have been excluded from the start and nothing for businesses that are not forced to close, but are suffering because of their local restrictions. In fact, some local hospitality businesses and others have told me they would rather be in tier 3 than tier 2 due to the lack of financial support. The Chancellor’s chaotic habit of trying to fix problems of his own making at the last possible minute is costing jobs and causing chaos. The UK is on course for a 1980s-style jobs crisis, and the Chancellor’s name is all over it I fully support the proposals by the shadow Front Bench team that would put in place a job recovery scheme that fixes the problems so that many employers can keep more staff on. If the Chancellor’s current plans are not reformed, millions of people will be pushed into unemployment, yet the Government will still be required to offer financial support through many benefits, such as the inadequate universal credit. Households will feel the squeeze and the prospects for recovery will be hampered by a lack of income and low confidence among British households. The legacy from the last period of mass unemployment already casts a shadow over the British economy, particularly in the north, and I can only imagine what the legacy of the Prime Minister and this Government will look like. Nobody is asking for the furlough scheme to go on forever, but workers and jobs must be protected if we are to return to any kind of normality when we finally defeat this virus. The Government should put the correct levels of support in place, make the correct political decisions and save jobs by supporting all businesses, no matter the size or the sector.
It is a pleasure to follow a fellow north-east MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne). The UK has one of the highest covid-19 death rates in the world, with thousands of lives lost and families torn from their loved ones far too soon. The UK is also on track to have one of the worst recessions, with millions out of work and people looking for employment in the most hostile conditions imaginable. Yesterday, it was announced that the UK unemployment rate had surged to its highest level for over three years at 4.5%. The disastrous mix of the pandemic and Tory incompetence continues to decimate our jobs market While the national picture is devastating, what is happening in the north-east of England is utterly catastrophic. We have among the highest mortality rates for deaths involving covid-19 and our unemployment rate has soared to 6.6%, the worst in the UK. As Niamh Corcoran of the North East England chamber of commerce said yesterday: “The North East now finds itself with the highest unemployment rate, the lowest employment rate and the lowest average hours worked of all British regions…Although the Government’s amendments to the Jobs Support Scheme offers some support for our region in the event of tighter restrictions, it does not go far enough.” For thousands of families, their income is precarious, dwindling or has disappeared, and new child poverty statistics released today by the End Child Poverty coalition show that the north-east has seen the biggest rise in child poverty. In my constituency and next door in Stockton South, the proportion of children living in poverty has risen to 34% and 29% respectively, with others in the Tees valley higher still. Those are not empty statistics, but represent thousands of living, breathing children plunged into poverty as a result of poorly paid jobs or no jobs at all for their families The Tees valley is haemorrhaging jobs. Some 12,565 have been lost since March, and thousands more are now destined for the scrapheap thanks to the Tory response, yet businesses in tier 2 lockdown, such as those in my constituency, have no safety net whatever. They are not legally mandated to close, yet we know for a fact that many of them will, and many will not open again. They will have few, if any, customers, but they will get no proper support from the Government. Simon Longbottom, CEO of the Stonegate Pub Company, which has 10 pubs in my constituency, said: “Whilst we are continually working to protect jobs, with every new instruction from Government our delicate business balance fractures further.” Even businesses that are mandated to close will only get partial support for wages, which can only mean another wave of job losses Across the Tees valley and the north-east, we are crying out for serious and sustained economic investment. Our Tory metro Mayor promised job creation for the Tees valley, but he has spent £100,000 on each job he has created in the last three years. Then there is Houchengate. The Tory Mayor proudly donned his hard hat to announce that he was spending £1 million on a new gate to an industrial estate, with few, if any, jobs. That £1 million could have provided 100 vulnerable businesses with a £10,000 lifeline and probably saved many of them from closure. Sadly, it has been spent on a gate. There is no protection scheme for jobs. For every job announced in the last three years, five have been lost in the last six months We need a serious vision from the Government—one that is not just about creating a few eye-wateringly expensive new jobs but about protecting the good jobs that already exist. If the Government do not act, not only will we see the poor suffer even more in communities like mine in Stockton North, but many families who have never experienced poverty in their lives will experience it for the first time. That is not a place that we as a country want to go.
The last seven months have been extremely difficult for individuals, families and communities across our country, so I want to start by paying tribute to those in my constituency who have kept our economy and our community going. Key workers and community groups have pulled together in an incredibly resourceful and compassionate way to get us through these difficult times, while local businesses have turned their hands to manufacturing PPE at the drop of a hat and showcased an amazing amount of skill and flexibility. It has been an inspiration to witness However, many of my constituents have been badly let down by the cracks in Government schemes or by incoherent UK Government communications. For instance, holidays are not seen as a reasonable excuse to leave a lockdown area, yet because the flights are going ahead, some travel companies and insurers are refusing to give refunds or pay out. One constituent of mine lost £1,800 on a trip to Turkey by trying to do the right thing in staying home, and another faced hardship over a trip to Portugal. I would like to hear what the Government are doing to apply pressure on those firms and to compensate customers where a firm has gone bust There is still a lack of support for self-employed people during local lockdowns, and many of Aberavon’s pubs and hospitality firms are increasingly concerned that they are not receiving sufficient compensation. The Chancellor needs to recognise those problems and listen to those on the Opposition Front Bench, who have been constructive and consistent throughout this process. Labour has stated clearly that the Government should put in place a job recovery scheme that fixes the problems with the Government’s schemes, so that employers can keep more staff on, rather than having to let people go; that ensures no one on the scheme falls into poverty; and that is open to all businesses impacted by the restrictions We need the Government to recognise the large number of holes in their recovery plan and actively strive to fill in those holes, rather than simply ticking the boxes and turning away. That is why Labour is stating clearly that a two to three-week circuit-breaker lockdown should be accompanied by the reopening of the Government’s closed £1.3 billion fund, using the underspend to support businesses in need By far the biggest employer in my constituency is the Port Talbot steelworks, yet Tata Steel has fallen through the cracks in Government schemes and is yet to receive a single penny of covid-related support. Steelworkers are key workers. The steel industry continues to operate and serve Britain through the crisis as we look to rebuild our economy. It is the foundation of our entire manufacturing sector. We need our steel, but the industry can only get through this crisis with urgent support from Government Make no mistake about it: steel underpins our entire manufacturing sector, from defence to aerospace, automotive and construction. It builds resilience and reliance into our economy. It is also far greener to make steel in the UK than to import it. There are some fantastic projects such as SPECIFIC in my constituency, which is about creating photovoltaic cells with a steel-based film. The Government must offer long-term support to steel in the form of a sector deal, such as the one that aerospace and construction have, but they must first offer immediate short-term support to get us through this crisis. The message is clear: we need our steel. Steel is a 21st-century industry that forms the backbone of our economy, and there can be no post-pandemic recovery without a strong and healthy steel industry.
Yesterday, I received the latest claimant figures for my constituency, and its rate of claimants has doubled since the pandemic began in March. The level of joblessness in my constituency is one in five, and this includes those, like many of the ExcludedUK members, who do not feature as they are unable to claim any support whatsoever. Now that Liverpool has been declared a tier 3 zone, our leisure facilities and gyms, and our hospitality sector, are being forced to close. Across Liverpool, approximately 30,000 people are employed in this sector and they all face at least four weeks without work. The job support scheme offers less support than comparable schemes in other countries; it will provide only 67% of earnings, and this will force many people into poverty. The point has been made this week by colleagues that bills, rent and food costs are not reducing by 67% to match that. The support for those who are self-employed and reliant on the hospitality and leisure industries for business reduces to just 10% I watched the interview with Natalie Haywood on ITV this week. She is the owner of Leaf and OH ME OH MY, two of our city’s leading hospitality independents, and it was heartbreaking to watch her despair at having fought hard to recover from the first lockdown and now being faced with losing the iconic businesses she has built up, and worse, possibly having to lay off her staff. She is far from alone. Another interview was with the owner of Lunya, a business that has paid more than £10 million in taxes in its 10-year history and employs dozens of local people. The business has been adapted to ensure its survival throughout this first lockdown, but he now risks losing his business and his home. Yellow Sub, one of the best-loved children’s indoor play areas, was one of the last businesses allowed to open. It missed the busy summer season and will now miss the half-term, with the business being put in jeopardy, jobs being axed and more people without work. Many of these businesses accessed the Government grants in the first lockdown and saved their businesses, and they reopened, even on a limited capacity basis, in September. This unforeseen enforced lockdown, without that support, has left them reeling and looking at the bleakest of futures Liverpool’s hospitality and leisure industries are critical to our economy. In one of the top five UK destinations, the sector contributes £5 billion to the Merseyside economy and sustains 50,000 jobs. Forcing this entire sector to close for an indefinite period, without the financial support that was available in the first lockdown, will decimate our city and our region I must thank our metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram, and the six local authority leaders for pulling together a £40 million support scheme for the sector, without which we would undoubtedly be facing a domino effect of shutdowns in our city centre, but we need more. The local restrictions grant scheme will not provide enough to cover the overheads of most of our small independent businesses, the ones that make Liverpool so unique. I call on the Government to repay the city the unspent discretionary grant fund and allow us to invest in our economy. I am a very proud Scouser and I am privileged to represent such a resilient city, which always fights back to protect its people. But let us have a fair fight. Give us the money we need to protect jobs and livelihoods, and keep our economy going, and we will respond by supporting our businesses and workforces, and we will come back stronger.
Never has a relationship between the health of a nation and the wealth of a nation been laid quite so bare as it has over these past six months. We were promised “world-beating” by this Prime Minister and his Health Secretary, and we got it—the UK has seen not only the worst rate per 100,000, but the worst economic impact among G20 nations. In response to calls from Labour and the TUC, the Government wisely introduced the furlough scheme, and the initial financial support from the Government was a lifeline to many of my constituents. Some 16,000 people in Warwick and Leamington were furloughed. Business grants and loans kept our local economy going, and the district council was superb in how it did that. Why then, as we head into a second wave, are the Government hellbent on pulling the plug on that support? On 11 March, the Chancellor promised to do “whatever it takes”, but the job support scheme incentivises keeping on one employee instead of two. People working for businesses that have closed under local lockdowns will receive no more than two thirds of their salaries, even on a minimum wage—imagine that, the minimum wage is no longer a minimum. The winter economy plan offers no additional support for those businesses that are required to close. There is no support for those viable businesses severely hampered by the ongoing situation. There is still no answer to the calls of the 3 million taxpayers who have been largely excluded from financial support since the beginning of this crisis, and the offer to self-employed people at 20% of average monthly profits is miserly The chart and data published by the OECD, an independent international body, shows how the UK was the hardest hit of any major economy from April to June. Growth is slowing and the economy is still 9% smaller than before the pandemic struck. Our unemployment rate has hit the highest level in more than three years. Our young people have been hardest hit, but across our communities we know that there are many more job losses to come. The number of claimants in my constituency is already up 135% since the start of the pandemic. Whole sectors have been flattened. Automotive manufacturing, which is so important to my constituency and to many others, was brought to a standstill. It has had its worst September sales this century, and this is resulting in the UK industry facing massive financial pressure Across the economy, from our assembly workers to our energy engineers, our brewers to our baristas, our dancers to our designers, all too many fear losing their jobs, but it did not need to be this way. If we look at the countries that have the strongest economies now, they are those that took clear early action to suppress and eradicate the virus. China, Taiwan and other Asia-Pacific economies are on course to grow in 2020. They took early action to suppress covid-19 to extremely low levels and put in place highly performing track and trace systems. The only consistency from this Government was their inconsistency. Barbers could work, but beauticians could not. We could spend four hours alongside 300 people on an aeroplane, but not with 50 people on a coach or bus The Government had the whole summer to produce a plan for schools, a plan for universities, a plan for care homes and, most importantly, to fix test and trace, instead of which they spent their time telling us to eat out to help up and they blew their budget. We could have eradicated the virus with a proper strategy, but the Government dithered and delayed. They ignored the approaches from personal protective equipment manufacturers in my constituency—businesses such as Staeger Clear Packaging in Coventry and Tecman more locally to me. These businesses could have helped us through, but they were ignored The Labour party has called for the Government to follow the science and immediately implement a circuit breaker to regain control over the virus and implement a proper strategy to protect public health and therefore the economy. I just hope that they listen.
This debate is about fairness, because the costs and sacrifice faced by businesses in certain sectors are clearly not equal. That is often just down to definition and description contained in regulations. The word “unprecedented” has been used an unprecedented number of times in this House throughout 2020, but asking businesses in sectors that have remained closed since March to keep their doors closed for the winter months ahead really is unprecedented. Their simple guilt is that they supply the events and hospitality sector. They supply the flowers, the laundry and the lighting for events. I do not challenge the science. These businesses understand their responsibility, and the extraordinary circumstances that we are in, but their sacrifice cannot continue to go on unsupported Although the businesses that I am referring to today are from my constituency in south London, where additional restrictions are not yet faced, they are reflective of businesses and industries right across the country. I quote directly from an incredibly sad letter from Mary Cole, managing director and founder of Skyline Whitespace, a very successful modular reusable exhibition production company in my constituency. Mary, a single parent, has built the business up over 20 years while having leukaemia and a bone marrow transplant. She employs 52 people and had a substantial turnover and profit in 2019, but the closure of her industry means that sales have plummeted and, with winter events now ruled out, her company is in freefall. Put simply, it is on the brink of collapse. Government-backed adverts crassly suggest that she should rethink, reskill and reboot, but that is hardly welcome news for her staff, who may face imminent redundancy. The Chancellor promised to do everything that he could, so can the Minister make it clear to me how the business is expected to survive? I quote directly: “We do not expect special treatment as a sector. We simply want to be treated like all others that have been allowed to reopen under Government-approved guidance. We currently do not feel like our industry is being treated fairly.” That is no isolated case. I have been contacted by actors, musicians, dancers and organisations that support the events industry—floristry, lighting and linen businesses: Larry Walshe Studios, Just 4 Linen, Dash Linen, Crystal Everest Linen, Tuxedo Express, Lightwave Productions, White Light Ltd, Focus Lighting, Oxygen Event Services, La Credenza, and so many more. They are all unable to open, yet they are receiving little or no support This is about fairness. How are they supposed to survive? Stipulations and support must come hand in hand, so what message does the Minister have for those businesses today? A harsh winter appears on the horizon and must not be made even harsher. The entire sector is on the brink of collapse.
This pandemic has hit our country hard. It has hit families, businesses and communities back home in Newport West and many other communities across the UK The motion has my full support. We need the Government to do whatever they can to support people through the crisis. I say this with no relish, but the Chancellor’s dithering over whether and how to support people living under local restrictions has put jobs at risk, left workers in limbo and, as we have heard today from many colleagues, created a sense of chaos, fear and concern in the midst of a pandemic Over recent months so many people from across Newport West have got in touch about their experiences. I have listened carefully to each of them and made many direct representations to Ministers, some of which remain unanswered. I think of John Atkins, who owns the Events Agency, a business based in Newport West. His business is part of the exhibitions and events sector, which now finds itself on the brink of extinction. John’s business has been closed since March 2020 and unlike other parts of the economy it has not been able to open since We need proper financial support for businesses such as John’s. He is part of the creative arts sector and his business will be viable once we have resolved the current crisis. He does not need to retrain, as the Chancellor has suggested, because his business will be back up and running, and he will contribute to the local and national economy by paying taxes and shopping locally. He needs financial assistance now to ensure his business is able to continue in the future I think of Sam, who runs the pub in Newport city centre—a pub and social enterprise that employs people, helps those in need of food and contributes to the local economy. Businesses in the hospitality sector such as Sam’s need a Government on their side, not one who walk on by I think of Charlie Magness, a wedding photographer living and working in Newport West. Three years ago, she set up her own business and has been reinvesting and building it up ever since. As a result, she is not eligible for the financial support she so desperately requires—another local viable business that will thrive in the future but needs financial support at the moment John Lewis is a local electrician who gets his salary through dividends in the limited company he was advised to set up. As a result, he has received no financial support during the pandemic. His is a vital small business giving a great service to the local community that again has had no help, and he has fallen through the financial safety net Many of my constituents are hurting and need Ministers to wake up—and wake up fast.
The Chancellor told us in March that no one would be left behind, but that has now become: Government support is not a universal scheme I very much associate myself with Members who have spoken of the excluded: the newly self-employed, many of whom are on zero-hours contracts; freelancers; and artists, including comedians. You would think that the Government would have shown some solidarity with comedians, but, no, they have not. I make a serious point, which was made very well by the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) about the creative arts. The creative arts sector is very important, particularly in bringing young people into work who do not want to go into a conventional office environment, factory environment or the rest. The creative arts has that place. It is important that the Government reflect on the support that they could give the creative arts, but also on the support that they are going to give, and should give, to those who have not received anything at all since March I very much agree with the criticisms of the job recovery scheme and what it means for individuals who are currently being paid the national minimum wage. Now that we are in this crisis, I ask the Government to look at poverty-proofing their policies. I hope that the Minister might want to say something about that. I have a very real concern that the lack of support they are giving will put more people into poverty That brings me quite nicely on to universal credit and making the temporary £20 uplift permanent. I am a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, which will be looking at this and we hope that it will be debated in the Chamber in future. I hope the Minister will reflect on this because we are in the middle of a global pandemic that has delivered a severe blow to people’s incomes and livelihoods right across these islands, and vulnerable households are taking a disproportionate economic hit. Far too many people are living under the constant threat of poverty and the coronavirus pandemic crisis is only exacerbating the financial challenges facing those families and the impacts on their health, particularly their mental health The findings are that 4 million families could see their support slashed if the Government refuse to make the £20 uplift to universal credit payments permanent. I hope that they will reflect on that. Making the £20 uplift permanent is the bare minimum that we would ask them to do to rebuild social security, with the findings showing that it would undo, at most, two thirds of the benefit cuts made since 2015, let alone those made during the time of the coalition. With mass unemployment on the horizon and other key support schemes being prematurely ended, it is critical that the Government heed the warnings from anti-poverty charities and strengthen that support by extending the £20 uplift. I hope that the Government will also look at sector support, particularly for aviation; I have many constituents employed in that sector It is ludicrous that there is not going to be a Budget. That impacts not just on the Scottish Government but on local government, which will have to be in the dark in trying to put its budgets together next year. That is a ludicrous position and I hope that the Government will reflect and think again.
I was really frustrated by the sense, in some of the interventions on my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor, that the Labour party, in making this extremely serious suggestion, was taking lightly the economic consequences of going into a circuit-breaker arrangement. We should not be starting from here. We have all been saying throughout the course of the past seven months that the approach the Government are taking was not working. They failed on PPE. They were slow into lockdown. The testing and tracing regime has been an expensive fiasco We have seen the approach that the Government have taken that has got us to this point and has been failing, and they then turn to us and say, “Don’t you realise there are costs to the economy of trying to get on top of this health crisis?” Of course we know that it is costing the economy: we have been saying that throughout the course of the past seven months. But we have now reached a point where the Government have lost control of coronavirus and only the measures proposed by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, recommended by SAGE, are likely to get us back on top of the virus. So there is no naivety from our perspective about the costs that are attached to this, but we also see the costs that are attached to constantly, inch by inch, surrendering ground to the virus, as we have done over the course of the past seven months Many people are confused. They do not know which area they are in. We look at Sky News and it tells us that Derbyshire is in tier 2. In actual fact, only a very small part of Derbyshire is in tier 2. The majority of it is in tier 1. I have people saying, “Well, am I allowed to travel into tier 2 to get a meal? Can someone from tier 2 come into tier 1?” because they have booked a table and want to meet their friends in an area where they are allowed to do that. There is utter confusion about what is actually happening out there As I have said to the Chancellor previously, saying that pubs can stay open in tier 2 areas, but you cannot meet anyone there other than your own household is really disingenuous. All the publicans I speak to say that moving to that approach, on top of the other restrictions, simply makes their businesses unviable. In most cases, they would be better off not paying staff and staying closed than they would be opening under those terms, yet the Government say, “You’re allowed to open, so we do not consider we have anything else to do.” The Chancellor is fond of saying how much he has spent, but how much has he wasted? My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East alluded to a variety of things that are leaving people out in the cold. We all know 3 million self-employed people have been excluded, but what about all the self-employed people who were given money unconditionally when many of them were carrying on working? There was no conditionality on the self-employed scheme which said, “The money is there for you if you are forced to not work, if you are in a business that is unable to carry on,” yet 3 million people are left out in the cold The Government have let people down. The strongest sign of that fact is how few Conservative speakers there have been in this debate. Just six Back-Bench Tories wanted to stand up and speak up for the approach the Government are taking. That speaks louder than any speeches we have heard.
We have heard today from many Members on the Opposition Benches, but, sadly, rather fewer from the Government side. Owing to time constraints I am afraid I cannot mention every Opposition Member who spoke in today’s debate, but the House will have heard the despair that so many of our constituents feel at the prospect of their jobs disappearing, the very real difficulties their businesses are under, and the growing anger that while the Chancellor thinks it is too hard for the Treasury to provide targeted support, he is very happy to write off businesses and jobs as unviable. What all those contributions have in common is the need for the Government to provide clarity and consistency. Health restrictions and economic support must go hand in hand, or else the restrictions will not work and the costs will spiral What is extraordinary is that we are having to have this debate at all. At the start of the pandemic, the Chancellor—what a delight it is to see him with us today in the Chamber, gracing us with his presence—set out an economic support package for individuals and businesses. The Government were clear, and our party supported them, that, if restrictions on people’s ability to earn a living were necessary as part of a national endeavour to bring the virus under control, support was also necessary to prevent destitution and the collapse of businesses across the country. But since June, as area after area has been placed under local restrictions, we have seen the Government slowly retreating from that obvious common sense Today, millions of people, not just in England but in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, find themselves living under fresh restrictions. They may be local in scope, but the people of my constituency, and all the other areas facing such restrictions, rightly look to this House for answers. The restrictions strike at livelihoods, whether they are employed or self-employed. For others, it strikes at the heart of the viability of family-run businesses that for so many years they have put their life and soul into building up. It is heartbreaking to hear their stories and to hear the fear in people’s voices about whether they will still have a job by Christmas Families and businesses do not expect handouts from the Government; they expect fairness. They expect that, if the Government stop them working, the Government will step in to make sure they do not go hungry or lose their homes. As the shadow Chancellor rightly said, we cannot see people left to sink or swim. As well as the support needed to stop people’s jobs disappearing, the shadow Chancellor set out the Government’s failure to provide a safety net worthy of name for those whose jobs have already gone. I am aware that time is short, so I will not repeat her questions, but I note that, sadly, none of them was answered These are not new concerns. In July, we warned the Government that what was needed was not a stopgap statement, but a full back to work Budget. We warned that removing furlough too soon—a one-size-fits-all approach—failed to recognise the very different challenges faced by different sectors in the months ahead, with so much uncertainty about the future of the pandemic. We warned then that what would be needed was targeted support, and that the Government should be planning on that basis. We asked the Government then what they planned to do to support the excluded—the people who fall between the gaps of the Government’s schemes The refusal to think and to plan ahead and the refusal to fix problems until it is too late is becoming a theme of this Government. Five weeks ago today, Conservative Members argued and voted that “any deviation from this Government’s proposed plan will cause damage to the United Kingdom economy” Only a fortnight had passed before the Chancellor was dragged to this House by the shadow Chancellor and deviated from his plan—to announce a winter plan, a replacement for furlough. Within weeks, he was at it again, on television this time, announcing yet another deviation. Of course, we cannot claim perfect foresight, but I do not think anyone in this House would have foreseen, even in our darkest nightmares, that the test, trace and isolate system would still be such an almighty mess almost seven months after the start of this pandemic. Whatever our frustrations about the mishandling of this crisis, what matters above all else are the jobs and livelihoods of the people we represent, and Labour’s alternative is clear. We would put in place a job recovery scheme that fixes the problems with the Government schemes so that employers can keep more staff on, rather than having to let them go; that ensures that no one on the scheme falls into poverty; and that is open to all businesses impacted by restrictions. We would ensure clear, consistent and fair funding to every local area as soon as local restrictions are applied. We would reopen the Government’s closed £1.3 billion fund to support businesses in need. We would fix the yawning gaps in the Government schemes for the self-employed. We would stop wasting money on failing private contracts to deliver test, trace and isolate. The money should instead go to local areas, and should not be delivered only once infections have skyrocketed. Our scheme would be designed and targeted so that public money was spent where it was most needed, not splashed on unnecessary bonus schemes or without proper safeguards for workers It is not too late for the Government to listen—to the Opposition, to businesses, to families, to trades unions and to everyone whose livelihood and business is now at risk—and I urge the Government and the Chancellor once more to stop, to listen, to think again and to put in place the support our country desperately needs.
It is a privilege to close this debate on behalf of the Government. First, I thank hon. and right hon. Members across the House for their insightful and considered contributions. From listening to those contributions, it seems to me that we can agree about the nature of the challenge, which is to find a flexible and sustainable response to the twin health and economic emergencies caused by the virus. This Government have designed and implemented such a response. The Chancellor called for a toolkit to protect jobs and businesses over the difficult weeks and months to come, and in closing today’s debate, I will outline its newest elements and respond to some of the points made by Members across the House On Monday, the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, observed that we face two potential harms: “a harm for society and the economy on the one hand and a harm for health on the other hand.” In other words, the decisions we take are about finding that right balance. The need for balance as we evolve our economic response was expressed eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who has provided wise counsel over recent months and set out very clearly how the Government’s intentions are to keep as much open as possible for as long as possible. In formulating the Government’s economic response to the pandemic—the subject of today’s debate—my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has sought that balance. He said earlier that we must not shy away from the burden of responsibility to take decisions and lead. We have not, and we will not The primary goal of our economic policy remains unchanged: it is to support people’s jobs. That is why we have progressed the next phase of our winter economy plan with the express intention of laying the track for economic recovery by protecting jobs through the coming months. As the Chancellor said, the new phase of that plan has three key elements: the job support scheme; cash grants for businesses that are forced to close; and additional funding for local authorities. These more targeted measures will come into force as the furlough scheme winds down at the end of the month. That scheme has supported more than 9 million jobs, but the House will understand that it cannot continue indefinitely, as the Chancellor made clear from the outset First, we will expand the job support scheme. This will help to protect jobs in businesses that can continue to operate as well as in those that cannot. For those businesses that can open safely but where there is reduced or uncertain demand, the Government will directly subsidise employees’ wages, meaning that those employees can work shorter hours rather than being made redundant. Businesses that are forced to close will also be aided by the scheme. In circumstances where staff are unable to work for a week or more, they will still be paid two thirds of their normal wage up to £2,100 a month. This will be covered by the Government and will apply right across the whole of the United Kingdom. Crucially, because the scheme will run for six months, it will give people and businesses the certainty they need. We have intentionally designed the scheme so that there is no gap in support for employees. Staff can remain on the furlough scheme until 31 October and will benefit from the new job support scheme from the following day Throughout this crisis, we have not forgotten about the self-employed, which is why we are extending the existing self-employed income support scheme for a further six months. This is in addition to the support through initiatives such as business rates relief, bounce back loans and the local restrictions support grant. For those who question the generosity of the job support scheme, we have looked closely at schemes implemented by our friends in countries such as Germany and Italy, and they are very closely in line Importantly, businesses can also access a wide spectrum of other help that we have made available in recent months. As the City Minister, I have been most closely involved in the temporary loan schemes that have been rolled out at pace to meet the needs of businesses large and small and recently extended to ensure that businesses that still want to access them can do so. As of 20 September, more than £57 billion has been provided to businesses of all sizes through Government guaranteed loan schemes At the same time, the welfare safety net available to those most in need has become more generous and responsive. Treasury analysis shows that covid-19 welfare changes, together with Government interventions since March, have supported the poorest working households most of all, reducing the scale of losses for working households by up to two thirds. I note the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who is no longer in his place, about the continuing need to address carefully the needs of the most vulnerable. The universal credit standard allowance and working tax credit basic element have both been increased by £20 per week for 2020-21, and given the way in which universal credit replaces 63% of lost income for the lowest earners, this means that someone on the job support scheme at 67% of their original earnings will see universal credit make up at least 63% of the 33% they have lost. This will mean that they will end up, in many cases, with nearly 90% of their original income.
Can I take the Minister back to the loan schemes, which were delivered at pace and were a fantastic success? Does he agree that we will need a new iteration of those loans scheme to take us through the next phase and that, wherever possible, we should make those loans available to all businesses, regardless of where they hold their business account, including those that hold that account with non-bank lenders?
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. That is something that the Chancellor and I are working on as a live issue, and we will report back to the House in due course The second element of the winter economy plan is cash grants. Businesses in England that are required to close for health reasons can now claim a grant of up to £3,000 depending on the value of their property. That is a cash grant, not a loan, that they will never need to pay back and they can use for any business cost. Should the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales adopt a similar approach, we will make an additional £1.3 billion available to them to help—part of a £7.2 billion total package—further demonstrating the importance of the Union as we face these challenges together I turn to the third component: local authorities. I pay tribute to the efforts of local authority leaders and their officers throughout the crisis, and I pay particular tribute to my own in Wiltshire. Up to £465 million will be made available to those local authorities at high or very high alert to support public health and local economic initiatives. That is on top of the £1 billion to protect vital services, which itself is in addition to the £3.7 billion we have already provided since the spring Let me conclude by saying that, as we have throughout this crisis, we will continue to listen carefully to represent- ations of hon. and right hon. Members on behalf of their constituents, keep the whole of our support package under review and, where necessary, adapt and evolve our response. Members from across the House have made representations today, and the Government will reflect carefully on them I vividly recall coming to the House in March, 209 days ago, prior to the launch of the furlough scheme, to answer an urgent question on jobs. The House made its view plain on that occasion, as it has today. We were listening then, and we are listening now. We will do everything possible to carry this country through the crisis, in the knowledge that we can and we will succeed. We need what the Chancellor has called a consistent, co-operative and balanced approach. The Government will continue to strive for that crucial balance, protecting lives and livelihoods flexibly and sustainably for as long as it takes. That is why I urge the House to support the Government amendment Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This afternoon during Prime Minister’s Questions, the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said: “this morning, the council leaders in Greater Manchester that he just quoted, including the Mayor and the Conservative leader of Bolton Council, said in a press statement that they support a circuit break above tier 3 restrictions” The leader of Bolton Council has since clarified that he made no such remarks, nor was the press statement unanimous as the Leader of the Opposition suggested. The press statement also qualified support for a circuit break, which the Leader of the Opposition inadvertently failed to represent. Madam Deputy Speaker, could you advise me on how I can secure a correction from the Leader of the Opposition so that the record accurately reflects the statement made by council leaders in Greater Manchester?
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for having given me notice of her intention to raise this matter. I trust that the hon. Lady has informed the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras.
indicated assent.
I see that she is nodding, so she has informed him. It is very important for good order in the Chamber that if a specific criticism is being made, the Member being criticised should be informed. That is perfectly in order The hon. Lady asks me how she might draw attention to—excuse me, please stay back there. I am addressing the hon. Lady; you have to sit down. [Interruption.] Yes, no matter what is going on in here, it is important that we keep social distance, and are seen to keep social distance, at all times The hon. Lady will be well aware that the Chair is not responsible for remarks made and points brought forward by right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber, nor is it for me to adjudicate as to whether what has been said is or is not accurate—which is fortunate, because that would be a full-time job. However, the hon. Lady has asked me how she might draw attention to the point that she has made, and I would say to her that she has already done so.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the spirit of making corrections, this morning during Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister suggested that 93% of the current income of people in pubs and the hospitality industry would be ring-fenced or supported, which is actually untrue and is very confusing for my constituents. I did not have the honour of informing him, but given that Twitter is awash with it, I am sure that he is well aware of this.
First, I must say to the hon. Lady that she heard my answer to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe). This is a matter for debate, not a point of order for the Chair. I have to say to the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) that as she was criticising a Member—whoever that Member might be—she ought to have informed the hon. Member that she was intending to do so. Once again, it is a point of debate and it is not for me to adjudicate on the accuracy of statistics, but she has drawn her important point to the attention of the House and, indeed, to those on the Treasury Bench.
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hear what you say, but my understanding was that you did not have to notify Ministers. Ministers are, as it were, fair game, because they are accountable to the whole House. That has never been the rule that has operated previously and, of course, there is a specific reason for that, because Ministers have an opportunity to correct the record. The Prime Minister, if he wanted to, could correct the record, but as you say, he might spend all day every day correcting the record.
And I might spend all day every day adjudicating between one side of the House and the other, and that is not what I am here for, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the point that he has made. I am very anxious not to eat into the time on the important motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which we are about to debate.
I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
I beg to move, That this House notes the consistently high performance of local contact tracing systems when compared with the centralised system established by the Government; notes the wealth of evidence that the considerable sums of public money spent so far on the national system would deliver better public health outcomes if devolved to local authorities and public health experts; and calls on the Government to extend the additional funding for contact tracing available in Tier 3 areas to all parts of the country and ensure that councils and local public health teams receive the resources and powers they require This Government are obsessed with a failed model of outsourcing. It is failing to reach people who come into contact with someone with the virus, it is not getting information to local councils who need to act on it, and it is wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that could be spent on a local response using local expertise. It is not too late for the Government to change course, and I urge them to do so today Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made the case for a short, sharp circuit break of restrictions lasting two to three weeks to firmly apply the brakes on the rising infection numbers that we are seeing. A crucial aim of the circuit break is to drive down infections, but there is another purpose as well: it would buy the Government some crucial time to fix the failures in contact tracing The current model of contact tracing is broken and it will get worse, not better, while corporations such as Serco are allowed in the driving seat rather than local public health teams. We might ask: how bad is the Government’s approach to contact tracing One director of public health said: “It needs someone with the courage to say” it “isn’t working”, and it was described as a “catastrophe…the very worst system I’ve…seen” Well, we do have the courage to say that it is not working and I urge the Government to have that courage, too.
My hon. Friend is right to highlight Serco. Does she agree that another problem with test and trace is the number of consultants being employed, with more than a thousand from one firm alone—Deloitte—that charges several thousand pounds a day for its senior consultants? Should we not be told how much it is costing and what these people are doing?
My hon. Friend makes his point well. He has been a staunch advocate of transparency and value for money in the delivery of public services. The Government’s own Minister in the Cabinet Office in the other place has made those points as well, saying that the Government are spending too much money on consultants when that work could be done in-house with better value for taxpayers. I very much agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. The minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies meeting from three weeks ago on 21 September, as well as suggesting a circuit break to deal with the rising infection numbers, reflected on the performance of the Government’s approach to test, trace and isolate. The minutes said that “relatively low levels of engagement with the system…coupled with testing delays…is having a marginal impact on transmission” All that money spent, yet this key part of the Government’s system to keep us safe is only having a marginal impact on transmission.
Does the hon. Lady not accept that this is a unique situation? This is one of the worst crises that this country has ever faced, and I invite her to assist the Government, rather than constantly opposing every measure that the Government are taking in what is an extremely challenging situation.
That is exactly why I am urging the Government to use the local expertise we have in all our local authorities around the country. We should not reinvent the wheel, but use that local expertise, rather than wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money The Prime Minister promised a world-beating test and trace system, yet we have one that is barely functioning. We have a system that is now so broken that SAGE is saying it is making next to no difference. We are all paying the price for these terrible mistakes. The truth is that as soon as the Government looked to a privatised solution, a political choice was made about how to respond to a public health crisis Serco is not integrated into the fabric of any of our communities. Ministers could have spoken to the Local Government Association. They could have spoken to the Association of Directors of Public Health. Instead, they chose to speak to Serco. There is a cosiness between the Conservative Government and these outsourcing companies, despite their failures to deliver Let us look at Serco’s record. Last year, Serco was fined £23 million as part of a settlement with the Serious Fraud Office over electronic tagging contracts. In December, two former senior executives at Serco were charged for that offence. In 2018, Serco was fined £2.8 million after it was revealed that it was providing asylum seekers with squalid, unsafe slum housing One would think that whenever Serco bids for a contract, sirens would be going off all over Whitehall, except that Serco did not bid for the contact tracing contract. It was handed it on a plate, with no competition, no rigour and no transparency. Ministers may claim that it is a coincidence that hundreds of millions of pounds of public contracts have been awarded to companies with clear links to the Conservative party, including Serco. That would be a heck of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?
I am glad to see the old tendency is back in the Opposition of private bad, public good. With the hon. Lady’s proposal around local authorities wanting to do more on test and trace, presumably they would not be doing it for free. They would have to be paid, and it would cost a lot of money. Presumably she has costed that. Will she just put on the record for the House at what price she has costed that?
Let us be clear: there are places that are doing this—for example, Wales, to which I shall come later—and the difference between what we see with Serco and what we see when it is done in-house is that with the latter more people are being traced, which means more people are going into self-isolation and a slower spread of the virus. That protects all our lives and means that our economy can get back on track. The Government are the ones who are wasting hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on a system that is failing—a system that is letting us down Outsourced contact tracing is part of £11 billion of public procurement in this pandemic that has not gone out to competitive tender. The Government do not even know whether they are getting value for money because they do not even bother to test it in the marketplace or against what local authorities can deliver. For the outsourcing companies this is a gold rush. I have called for the National Audit Office to investigate, and I look forward to its findings later this year. I am sure that all Members will look forward to the findings from that investigation so that they can check for themselves that they are getting the value for money that they seem to believe they are getting One issue that I hope the National Audit Office addresses is the murky subcontracting of the Government’s contractors. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) asked the Government how many companies Serco has subcontracted its work on contact tracing to; the answer was 29 companies other than Serco. The amount subcontracted to other firms represents 80% of staffing. Who are these businesses? The Government have refused to say—because Serco decided that it was too commercially sensitive. We now have a Government that outsource even decisions to private outsourcing companies. The situation is frankly ludicrous It has taken investigative journalists, whistleblowers and the Good Law Project to start to piece together the jigsaw. Why the shyness? Presumably because if the Government revealed what was going on, it would not stand up to public scrutiny. One business to which Serco has subcontracted work is Concentrix, which was previously involved in scandals relating to tax credits In September, it was reported that another Serco subcontractor, Intelling, was paying bonuses of £500 to staff despite poor contact rates. One contact tracer employed by Intelling was reported to have said: “I couldn’t believe it when I got my bonus. It’s an absolute disgrace…I’m getting paid and now given a bonus for doing nothing…I really want to help and be involved and make calls and be useful. But I’m not being given anything to do. The system is on its knees.” This evidence is devastating because it shows that people who should have been contacted are not being contacted and that, far from what the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said, the Government are handing out money to companies without getting the value for money that we should all be demanding I challenge the Minister today to name all Serco’s subcontractors and to publish details on how much they have been paid and for what. I will give way to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), if she would like to tell the House that information. This is revealing: either they do not know, they do not care, or they will not say. I fear that the more we know about what is happening under the bonnet in contact tracing, the worse it gets.
I fear that the hon. Lady may have inadvertently misled the House earlier. She told the House that the Government did not speak to local government authorities throughout the country, but on 22 May, many months before Labour even started to talk about involving local authorities, the Government provided £300 million for local authorities to set up local test and trace services, so what she said at the Dispatch Box was patently untrue and she should apologise.
Local councils are desperate to take on the responsibilities from Serco. They are begging the Government: “Hand over the resources and the responsibilities, because we can do it better than you.” I will come later to the issues relating to what the Government are doing with tier 3 compared with the other tiers.
My hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour is making an excellent speech. If local authorities undertake similar procurement, they have to utilise best value and have a social value framework. If they conducted procurement as the Government have, the Government would bring in commissioners. This is an absolute scandal.
I could not agree more. My hon. Friend will know that in Leeds, which we both have the privilege of representing, with the expertise we have on the ground, our local authority and director of public health could be doing a much better job than Serco is doing. Indeed, when we have had local outbreaks in Leeds, it has been the local authority going out and knocking on doors to ensure that people know what is going on—something that Serco cannot or does not do.
The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that £300 million had been given to local authorities to do tracking and tracing. My recollection is that it was not given for that purpose. It was given to local authorities to help them develop outbreak control plans and set up outbreak control committees. There has never been any general amount of money given to local authorities to do tracking and tracing. That has been a demand, but it has not been responded to by the Government.
I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, who is better informed than most in the House In the last Parliament, I had the honour of chairing the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and it was a privilege to see the work of so many businesses, which are the backbone of our economy. I also chaired the inquiry into the collapse of Carillion—a house of cards built through outsourced contracts from Government. When I see the endless contracts and the enormous sums of money handed over today to outsourcing companies, I cannot help but conclude that the Government have learnt none of the lessons from that collapse and that failure. It makes me really angry that, despite all the work done and all the evidence presented, the same thing is happening again There are clear alternatives, and there always were. The World Health Organisation issued clear guidance for contact tracing, which states: “Critical elements of the implementation of contact tracing are community engagement and public support” That should have been the model for England, so why was it not? We do not need to travel halfway round the world for a successful alternative. We can look to Wales—a model where contact tracing is devolved to local communities. In the most recent figures for Wales, of the 2,190 positive cases that were eligible for follow-up, 91% were reached and asked to provide details of their recent contacts. Of the 10,516 contacts, 83% were successfully contacted. That is in stark contrast with the Government’s Serco model, in which just 69% of contacts were reached—a figure that is getting worse week in, week out Perhaps if the Welsh Government were a private outsourcing consultancy, the Government would have paid them a small fortune to take over the system in England. Instead, the Government turned to outside consultants, paid £563,000 of public money this summer for producing a report on test and trace—a report that we have all paid for, but none of us has seen. The Government could have learned valuable lessons for free. They could have gone to Mark Drakeford rather than to McKinsey Knowing all this, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) and I wrote to the Health Secretary in August, urging him not to renew Serco’s contract and to put public health teams in charge. However, Serco’s contract was not terminated—it was extended. Out of necessity, with Serco tracing failing, many councils have had to create their own tracing systems with a fraction of the money. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government knows that this is a problem. On Sunday, he said that local councils are “bound to be better than Whitehall or national contact tracers.” That begs the question, why not give those resources, powers and responsibilities to local government if even the Secretary of State realises that they would do a better job and deliver better value for money? Instead, the Government have wasted over half a year on a system that is failing, with mounting evidence of that growing by the day It is quite simple. As Liz Robin, director of public health in Peterborough, has pointed out, people were always more likely to answer a call from a local phone number, and unlike national contact tracers, local tracers are able to knock on doors and visit people if they are not responding. Peterborough has managed to contact between 80% and 90% of the cases that the national tracers were not able to. As the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “Council leaders in many regions have been relying on volunteers but this cannot continue. It can’t be done on the cheap—councils have to be given more resources to employ expanded, trained teams.” The resources need to be shifted from Serco to our local authorities. The Minister will argue, I am sure, that local and national teams are working perfectly well together, but if she were to show some humility and some honesty, she would admit that it is clear that local services are delivering better. In fact, the national system is hugely flawed, in that it is totally disconnected from the communities while hoovering up most of the resource. This week the Government said they would provide funding to councils for contact tracing in areas with a tier-3 alert level, but what about tiers 1 and 2 to stop them ending up in tier 3? It is a bit like a fire brigade handing out smoke alarms to a family whose house is already ablaze. They needed that support some time ago. If they had had it, they might not have ended up in this situation.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will make some progress and conclude to give others time to speak Ten years of austerity, fragmentation and privatisation have left our country less resilient to face a pandemic like this. Public health budgets have been slashed by cuts from central Government. Sustained new investment is needed to rebuild our public services during this crisis and beyond. The Government have squandered enormous sums of money on a centrally dictated outsourcing model, and Ministers should hang their heads in shame because it has failed The consequence of this failure means we are not getting the virus under control after months of sacrifice by the British people, so my message today is simple: sack Serco and give those resources to local councils, save lives, protect livelihoods and learn these lessons before it is too late.
Before I call the Minister to respond, I give notice that we will start with a time limit of five minutes for Back-Bench speeches, and it is likely to be reduced quite soon.
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “when” to end and insert “working in conjunction with NHS Test and Trace; welcomes the huge expansion of testing to a capacity of over 340,000 tests a day; applauds the efforts of all involved in testing and contact tracing both at a national and local level; recognises that 650,000 people have now been asked to isolate thanks to the work of NHS Test and Trace, and supports the Government’s efforts to expand testing and tracing yet further.” I agree with the final sentence of the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) that this is about protecting people. The entire focus of the Government from day one has been on driving a system that can protect people. It is not a zero-sum game, and it is not an either/or This pandemic is the most unprecedented public health emergency we have faced in a generation. We knew that our response would require a phenomenal national effort and that we would need to work closely with others. Local authorities and directors of public health have played an enormous part thus far, including in the delivery of test and trace. They have worked exceptionally hard to prepare and support their communities throughout the coronavirus outbreak, protecting the most vulnerable and saving lives I take this opportunity to say thank you to all the public health teams and local authority staff for their hard work thus far, and I know I speak for everyone in this place, irrespective of where we sit, and beyond when I say how grateful we are that they have been there Local partnerships have been at the heart of both covid and of the NHS Test and Trace response. As this House knows, Test and Trace was stood up at incredible speed and has developed at scale and pace. As would be expected, the Government responded at pace The hon. Lady mentioned Serco on more than one occasion but, as she well knows, having reacted to the changing situation at pace, Serco and Sitel went through a full tendering process to became one of the suppliers to the Government, and they can be drawn down at short notice. They gained their place through fair and open competition via an OJEU procurement process. Value for money and capability are part of those assessment criteria On 8 May, the Prime Minister announced that we were bringing Test and Trace into a single service, listening to those people who were asking us to respond, and it was formally launched on 28 May. We have brought together a huge range of people and organisations into the system, from the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS, Public Health England, local authorities, academia, epidemiologists, the private and even the not-for-profit sector. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) will be speaking. Milton Keynes is just the most glowing example of using people’s skills.
The Minister mentioned the private sector. Three weeks ago in named day questions, I asked her Department for details of the private consultants working at the Joint Biosecurity Centre, but she still has not answered, even though some of the information has been published in the press since. What have they got to hide about the employment of consultants and their cost? Will she now answer those questions and publish that information?
As the hon. Gentleman can imagine, in the current circumstances the Department has a vast amount of correspondence. I will chase his inquiry personally when I return As I said at the start, it is not a case of either/or, as the Opposition motion makes out. The pandemic requires us all to work towards that common goal of beating the virus. Contact tracing is an excellent example of partnership in action. We have Public Health England’s epidemiology expertise to ensure that the operationalisation of the tracing model is built on a strong scientific base. Through NHS Test and Trace and its partner organisations, we can do it at scale. The national framework enables us to reach tens of thousands of people a day. It would not have been possible to do that on the existing infrastructure without placing an unbearable burden and strain on the system. To support this, we have local health teams who know their local areas and can provide expert management locally. Probably one of the finest examples of that was the response in Leicester, where local teams responded phenomenally to the challenge presented to them earlier in the summer, with the national oversight identifying that there was a problem and then the local response. We know we need people on the ground locally who can reach the most vulnerable and those who are disengaged from local services The local health protection teams form the first tier of the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing service, consisting of public health specialists. NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England work with local government colleagues, including the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Local Government Association and UK chief environmental health officers, on part of this programme. It is, therefore, simply untrue that contact tracing does not include those experts front and centre, helping us deliver.
I very much welcome the plan in the Liverpool city region, where the local authorities have been given £8 per head to take over responsibility for tracking and tracing. It recognises the most serious problem in the country, the Liverpool city region, and the funds have been given to local authorities. If that is the case, why does the scheme not extend to at least tier 2 regions, such as Sheffield, so we can avoid becoming a tier 3 region in due course?
The hon. Gentleman is correct to say we have provided £8 per head, giving Liverpool some £14 million to assist with its local public health attack on the virus and to help drive down the rates. Tier 3 local authorities get that help. The Government will work with local areas to accelerate local roll-out and to allow conversations to be ongoing, with additional money to protect vital services. Further details, I am sure, will come from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in time As I said, it is untrue that public health experts are not there front and centre. There are about 1,000 tier 1 contact tracers working within the core contact tracing system in health protection teams and field services across the country. More local recruitment is under way. We have more than doubled the size of local health protection teams since the pandemic began. The next layer of the test and trace contact tracing services is NHS clinicians, who signed up to contact people who have tested positive and talk them through the process to find out where individuals have been and who they may have been in contact with. Those clinicians do the most phenomenal job every day, stepping forward with their wealth of expertise to assist Today’s motion refers to local contact tracing and that has, in fact, been getting rolled out to local authorities across the country since August of this year. Has it always gone seamlessly? Has it always been perfect? I am always the first at this Dispatch Box to say that nothing ever does, much as we may want it to. Nothing ever does. We put the best efforts into making sure that individuals at a local level are supported in this difficult work every day.
The Minister is right to say that we want everything to go well, but what we can do is learn the lessons. In my constituency in Brent, people were trying to get access to the NHS database—the Contract Tracing and Advisory Service—and they were met with just “No, no, no” so many times. Will the Minister tell the House the average wait time for local authorities to get access to CTAS? That is vital if they are going to do local test and trace.
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I will be coming on to access. As she rightly points out, it is hugely important that local and national systems are in lockstep so we get a better picture of the virus and how it is affecting our local communities.
Will my Hon. Friend give way?
I will push on a little and then I will give way to my hon. Friend Today’s motion talks about local contact tracing, which has been rolled out since August and is something that NHS Test and Trace is actively driving forward in its commitment to local systems. Since August, NHS Test and Trace has provided local authorities with dedicated teams of contact tracers working alongside local public health officials to assist and give a more specialist service. Local public health officials can access and use the data shared by the NHS on a daily basis. Together we can increase the number of people contacted. We have more than 95 lower-tier local authorities across the country that have gone live with local tracing partnerships. There are more going live in the coming weeks, and any local authority that wants to be involved can be. The national programme is doing an unbelievable job of helping people who might unknowingly be putting their loved ones at risk, but so is the local programme In England we have reached more than 650,000 people who have tested positive and their contacts and advised them to self-isolate. Every person who tests positive is contacted by NHS Test and Trace, which consistently reaches more than 80% of contacts when details are given. Because everybody, whether national or local, is locked on to the same system—this is vital—we can see how the virus is spreading. It gives us important knowledge. All the data that we publish on NHS Test and Trace include data on local performance. At this point, I recommend to everyone the coronavirus dashboard, which has been improved and updated, and gone live only this morning. It gives fantastic information about what is happening locally. As local testing partnerships are rolled out, we expect to see performance improving further.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) set out, the system is not working. The statistics speak for themselves and, while the system in Wales is delivering, it is not in England. Will the Minister say why the private companies do not just hand the test and trace system over to local directors of public health? Are there any financial penalties or anything in their contracts that preclude them from doing so?
We are better together. It is as simple as that. It is about a national programme. Let us imagine that the national programme is the spine and the local authorities are the ribs that wrap around us. The combination of the rigid spine and those solid ribs protects the organs, and this is what test and trace will do. We need both elements of the system.
Clearly, this spine is very important, and one of the key elements is the app, which 17 million people have downloaded—that is a great success. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is in stark contrast to other systems, such as the StopCovid app in France, which has been an abject failure, as only 2.6 million people downloaded it? When we compare that with the figure of 17 million people in the UK, we see that we are getting it right compared with other countries.
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point and highlighting that 17 million individuals have downloaded the app. I am sure many in this House are using it frequently, because that helps us to test and trace. He also raises the point about talking to other countries, which we do in order to learn. When we have spoken to other countries, they, too, have reinforced the fact that this is not only about local systems and it is important to have an overarching national system and local systems as well As the Secretary of State said to the House yesterday: “Local action has proved to be one of our most important lines of defence.”—[Official Report, 13 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 198.] Beating this virus is about a series of building blocks. Every day, week in, week out, we are in constant dialogue with local areas to make sure there is support on the ground for extra measures and that the local perspective is combined with the wealth of data we now have, and share, on the spread of this virus. The next evolution of this, thanks in large part to the wealth of data and the insight of Test and Trace, which we did not have at the early stage of the pandemic, is introducing the three covid alert levels that the House voted to approve last night, demonstrating our commitment to respond on a much more targeted and local basis, working closely with community leaders and communities Over the past few months, we have built a massive national infrastructure for testing. That work has involved local authorities identifying and setting up testing sites that work for their local areas, and deploying mobile testing where it is most needed. I wish to place on record my thanks to the Army, as we know that its deployment and mobility around the country has given us another tool in the toolbox in order to be able to fight. It is with great thanks to the local authorities that we now have more than 500 testing sites; many more are local walk-in sites to make it easier and quicker for people living in urban areas. The median distance travelled in person to a test is just 3.7 miles.
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I have already given way to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), so I will give way to the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda).
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point, as I wish to ask her to investigate something for me. In Reading, we have been waiting for some time for a new testing centre, and this is in a university town that is currently in the bottom tier but which could rapidly progress to the second tier or even the top tier if the spread is not arrested now. Students have been told that they will have to travel only 1.5 miles to the nearest testing centre, but in fact the nearest testing centre is in Newbury, which is more than 15 miles away. I know of residents of Reading who have had to go as far away as the Welsh valleys and Tewkesbury to get a test. Will she now investigate the need for speeding up the provision of a testing centre at the University of Reading?
I believe that the Minister for Universities answered an urgent question in this House last week, and I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman refers the challenges he has on the university to her, she would be more than happy to work with him. I just refer him back to the fact that we are working with all local authorities While talking about testing, I would like to take the opportunity to remind the House about the scale of testing. It was 2,000 people a day when the pandemic began in March, and when NHS Test and Trace began our capacity was over 128,000. The capacity is now over 340,000. We have processed over 25 million tests, and one in eight people in England have been tested for the virus. I am really keen that we understand the size of this challenge. We have built the largest diagnostic network in British history, including five major labs, 96 NHS labs and Public Health England labs, and we are expanding further. We have pilots going with some of our greatest universities. We are working with hospitals, with the addition of new Lighthouse laboratories in Charnwood, Newcastle and Bracknell, as well as new partnerships only last week with Birmingham University and Health Service Laboratories in London, so we are expanding Right at the start of NHS Test and Trace, we worked with all 152 local authorities to help them develop their local outbreak plans. We have ensured access to data, and when it was highlighted that there was a need for better data flow, we worked on it to provide them with additional support to respond to outbreaks, such as with enhanced testing. We have also published the covid-19 contain framework—the blueprint for how Test and Trace is working in partnership with local authorities, the NHS, local businesses, community partners and the wider public so that we can target outbreaks. We introduced new regulations to give local authorities additional powers when they ask for them to stop the transmission of the virus, giving them the ability to restrict local public gatherings and events, and the power to close local business premises and outdoor spaces if it is deemed necessary. This includes more support for local test and trace, more funding for local enforcement and the offer of the armed services in areas of very high alert.
I feel sorry for the Minister and her colleagues now that constructive opposition has ended, but let me ask her about the local tracing partnerships she mentioned. She will remember the thousands of volunteers who signed up to help during this pandemic. Have Ministers given any thought to using that army of volunteers for the local tracing partnerships?
I thank my hon. Friend. Those local volunteers were in some cases employed in other jobs and have returned to those jobs, but where they have indicated they are available, obviously they have been used.
Will the Minister give way?
No. I am just coming to a conclusion, and I did give way to the hon. Gentleman In a few short months, we have made huge strides forward to tackle this deadly virus. It has been a collective commitment. It is not about us or them; it is about all of us—one team, working day and night together in the different areas, and using expertise to bring the virus under control. We will keep working side by side with our important local partners in the months ahead Some quotes from directors of public health have been bandied about, and the hon. Member for Leeds West said they supported the motion. I would merely like to say that the Association of Directors of Public Health “supports the need to implement, at scale, a contact tracing programme. No single organisation or agency, whether national or local, can design and oversee this operation alone. The success of contact tracing will depend on a truly integrated approach between national and local government and a range of other partners across the UK.” That is from its press release. On that note—I think it very firmly puts the Opposition motion where it needs to be today, which is to be defeated—I commend our amendment to the House.
It is often said that the principal duty of Government is to keep their citizens safe and secure. That applies not just to law and order. If my recollection of policing history is correct, the City of Glasgow police, formed before Sir Robert Peel’s Metropolitan police, had public health duties, not just the duty to address violence and crime. Then, of course, the scourge was cholera, but it remains true today not just in the ethos of Police Scotland: Governments and agencies have a public health duty and that is at the core of keeping citizens safe and secure It follows on from that that actions and ideology are used and need to be scrutinised and investigated. It is the duty of the Administration to deliver, but it is the duty of the Opposition to challenge. At the heart of this debate and, indeed, at the root of the subject under discussion lies the charge that the Government have supplanted good governance with ideology and that the choices they have made were based not on best practice, let alone best value, but on ideology; on how they fitted in with their free market ideology and, worse still, how they benefited their friends and cronies; it was not just about the underlying ethos regarding centralised or local systems Why are we having this debate? It is because there has been, and is, clear policy failure. Let us remember that, at the outset of the pandemic, our never knowingly modest Prime Minister boasted that we would have a world-beating test and trace system. Why? Because, then and now, test, trace and isolate is key to addressing this pandemic, as it is to addressing other such viruses. Previous pandemics show that that was fundamental. Indeed, all the evidence from abroad, where many, if not most, countries are doing significantly better, shows that it remains fundamental. But what was bragged about by the Prime Minister is far from the reality and experience of those on the ground. Monday’s minutes from SAGE, released shortly after the chuntering broadcast by the Prime Minister, when, once again, soundbite rose over substance, were not just critical, but fundamentally caustic. They disclosed that the scientists—indeed the scientists behind the science that the Prime Minister claims to be following—had neither faith in the strategy nor faith in the direction being taken. The current situation on test and trace, let us remember, is critical and is, in the Prime Minister’s words, meant to be world beating. Importantly, some insurers may argue with those seeking to claim some recompense that this is an act of God that negates any pay-out for what they have been paying in over months and years, but this strategy most certainly is man-made and the fingerprints of the Prime Minister are all over it. It is a deliberate policy choice that has been made and it is a consequential failure that is rooted in those ideological choices, for there were, and are, other options, as the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and others have commented on. It was not forced on the Government by events; it was chosen by them through dogma, as they have disclosed in other policy positions throughout their tenure. They could, had they wished, have gone with the experienced practitioners who were tried and tested and who had done this before, but they rejected them and accordingly that failure is their policy—their political choice, on the basis, sadly, of their political prejudice Let us look at the evidence. In Scotland and Wales, test and trace is built on the public health experts who are in place. They are the local officials on the ground who have been tested over previous pandemics such as flu. We have, as others have mentioned, a 90% success rate. In England, through Serco, it is 61%. That gap threatens lives. It cannot be explained away by the greater population of England, or indeed by the greater urbanisation or density of England. Why is that? If we look at pillar 1 in England, which is being delivered by Public Health England and by public health officials, there is a success rate of 95%, which exceeds that of Scotland and Wales. Therefore, it is not England per se, but the system that England is using for pillar 2 that is failing. That is clear, as the public health-based systems in Scotland, Wales and England are delivering, and it is the privatised Serco-based model in England that is failing That brings me to the next subject: speed. Speed is an issue in this debate. It is an aspect of health actions and of the delivery of policy choices. Speed is essential for infection control. It is also vital to changes in normal Government procurement rules, yet it seems that what should be a mitigatory factor for changes to the usual competitive tendering rules is, in fact, a condemnatory matter for Government policy choices based on ideology Speed is vital in health actions with regard to this virus. That is clear in all pandemic control, but especially for covid. Why is that? Because people can be infectious two or three days before they are aware of the symptoms. Hence test, trace and isolate is fundamental, or, as we are sadly seeing, the R number simply increases exponentially. Speed is also acknowledged in competitive tendering rules. Latitude is understandably given where urgency is required in cases of emergency, such as we face at the moment, but value for money is still to be sought even if the best-value rules are overridden. However, as with the need for safety and security in policy that I have detailed, there also needs to be probity in office and in the actions of Government. Let us look at what has happened. The Government are charged with failing to deliver an accurate or speedy response, as the 61% showing testifies to. The reality is that they did not deliver a speedy response to the pandemic, but they delivered an entirely inadequate testing system based on a procurement system that has used speed as an excuse, if not cover, for making ideological choices. If truth be told, they have failed to secure their citizens, but they have certainly satisfied their cronies. Transparency and clarity there must be, but probity and competence are also required Let us consider the facts, because that is where I believe the Government are found wanting. Pillar 1 in England, as in Scotland and Wales, has delivered. Why is that? Because it is built on Public Health England, and on local public health agencies in Scotland and Wales—the same people who have dealt with viruses in the past; those who have dealt with meningitis outbreaks and norovirus, and indeed, in past generations, the cholera that I mentioned. In public health emergencies, they come to the fore; they are trained for them, they prepare for them and they are experienced in them Of course, that does not preclude the private sector or deny the need for recruitment of additional staff. That is self-evident when we face a crisis on this scale. But all that should be done under the guidance and the direction of those skilled and experienced staff who are trained in public health, who know what they are doing and—this is core to the motion—know the area that they are serving However, ideology has overridden that. The most damning evidence is from the independent adviser to the independent SAGE, Sir David King, who said that the Government claim to be following the science but have ignored the scientists. Instead of those tried-and-tested experts and others—new and old, experienced and not, but working with and to them—we got an army of consultants. Not medical consultants, who would have been welcomed by the population at large, but management consultants and consultancy firms who are neither qualified nor—again, this is fundamental to the motion—local, such as Sodexo, Serco and Deloitte We got 50 Deloitte testing centres, which then subcontracted to Serco, Sodexo, Mitie, G4S, Boots, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all to carry out their mandate and, indeed, to staff and resource them. What should have been a local response delivered by public health officials has become a centralised service, divvied up and shared out among corporate pals—given to their pals; their family and friends, without going into other aspects; their corporate friends, and indeed big business donors. Who cares what their experience is in public health as long as they are on side politically? Why let public health get in the way of old pals’ needs It gets worse. On 9 October, Sky News mentioned 1,114 consultants from Deloitte employed on test and trace, as well as 144 from McKinsey, BCG, PwC, KPMG and EY. Who cares what the acronym is, what knowledge they have, or where they are based? To be in charge of public health is a beanfeast and a bonanza for consultants when it should be about caring and providing for our citizens. It is management over medical and it is centralised, not localised. If it was not so tragic, it would be farcical, if not comical. If only the percentage of tests delivered met the increasing percentage of consultants being hired. Neither public health nor public procurement is being satisfied with the current policy. Daniel Bruce of Transparency International warned, regarding the circumventing of competitive tendering proposals, about a blank cheque, but it is not a blank cheque for public health officials—it is a blank cheque for consultancy profits. It is not a de minimis amount, either, for we know that the magic money tree has been found and is being well and truly plundered. Although much is welcome, this most certainly is not. There have been 117 contracts worth £1.7 billion, 115 of those under fast-track rules dispensing with normal competitive tendering requirements, and two contracts of £200 million administered by Whitehall Departments. We even have contracts going to firms with Tory MPs as paid consultants. I am implying nothing, but when less scrutiny is required, more care should certainly be taken by those in office. This plethora of deals to family, friends and cronies does a political disservice and is as unhealthy as the virus in terms of the public good. While best value has been dispensed with, value for money is still required, not just by Daniel Bruce but by civil service rules. Fundamentally, as ever, probity and rectitude should be followed in government This debate is not simply about localised versus centralised. At its heart, it is a question of strategy by the Government, who have chosen, in addressing this pandemic, that it should be seen, and rather tragically has been seen, as increasing the percentage of consultants rather than the percentage of public health officials. Instead of seeing increasing largesse in public contracts going to consultants, not public health officials, we should have been seeing it going to those on the frontline who are dealing with need. Truncated procedures are needed, and they are acceptable, but the fact is that taxpayers are paying the price and citizens are bearing the cost, while, at the same time, corporate profits are being increased and public health officials undermined. It has become corporatism, with centralised cronyism, when it should be public health, localised and competent. It is, frankly, a national scandal.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in this important debate Effective contact tracing is going to help us to tackle this virus, and all of us here want the best possible version of that tool in the toolbox. The question is how best we do that. Despite what the Opposition might have people believe, there are no easy answers to this problem. It is easy to stand up in this place or go on TV and say, “Fix it”, but anyone with any real-world experience of organising any kind of project or undertaking that is even a fraction of the scale and size of this one understands the incredible challenges that are inevitably faced. Over recent months, the Government have built a huge testing regime capable of processing 340,000 tests a day that has tested over 7 million people in a matter of months. At the start of this epidemic, the yardstick for all this was Germany. Now that we are testing more people than Germany, France, Italy and Denmark, and many others, that yardstick has quietly disappeared Yes, there are challenges. Supply and demand are not uniform across the country and supply needs to be increased, but, whatever Labour Members think about the Government’s approach to testing and tracing, if they describe testing 69% as a complete failure, what does that say about the Welsh Labour Government’s programme? To be brutally honest, I am struggling to understand what exactly Labour Members are trying to say today, beyond of course, “We could have done it differently. It would all have been different and fantastic, and nothing would have gone wrong.” That is basically their position on everything to do with the coronavirus Let us talk about some of Labour Members’ common criticisms. They say we should not have the private sector involved, and that there is insufficient capacity. At the same time as criticising the Government for not having enough testing capacity, they are telling them that they should immediately and drastically cut out a chunk of that capacity because it does not suit their ideology. This is all based on their blinkered mentality that if the private sector does something it will automatically be bad and if the public sector does something it will automatically be good That brings me to the question of whether doing everything locally would have been the right approach at the outset of the programme. I simply do not accept that asking all 152 directors of public health to go off and set up their own approach at the outset would have been in any way feasible. Were they all supposed to come up with their own laboratories, their own contracts and their own apps? That just is not a credible solution in the short term. It was common sense to begin with a central programme, although even at the outset, when it was clear that something centrally driven was needed to kickstart the process, the Government recognised that local systems had a role to play. Many months before Labour was calling for it, £300 million was provided to help local authorities to develop their own test and trace programmes and, importantly, we have now 93 local authority test and trace regimes up and running So what is it that Labour Members are saying? Is it that we should immediately hand over everything that is being run nationally to local authorities?
No.
Well, it is Many of us in this place who have had dealings with local authorities—as well as lots of our constituents and probably millions of people across the country—would agree that getting everything done by the local authority is by no means a guarantee of success. Just this morning, in news that I am sure was greeted with groans in the Labour Whips Office, it was revealed that Birmingham City Council’s local programme dropped off 25 used swab kits to homes in Selly Oak. Does that mean that local authorities are incapable of delivering? No, of course not. We have problems in the private sector, and that should not bar them from involvement, and we have problems in the public sector too Local authority solutions are not a magic bullet. The quality of leadership, management and organisation varies enormously among local authorities. We all know this, and the Opposition know it. At the election, so many bricks in their red wall fell because residents were fed up not just with Labour at national level but with inept, Labour-led local authorities. After decades in power, they were taking people for granted, with leaders and councillors who were not even up to the job of taking away the bins on time, let alone organising a test and trace programme. The national programme inevitably has challenges, but do Labour Members really think that each and every one of the local authorities will deliver on this flawlessly Local leaders are political. Sadly, time and again we see Members on the Opposition Benches putting politics first. In the past 24 hours alone, they have said that they support local lockdowns but then did not vote for local lockdowns; that national lockdowns were a disaster, but now they want a national lockdown—and they cannot even make up their minds whether they want a two-week or a three-week lockdown. And they want the country to believe that if they had been in charge, all this would have been going smoothly. That is not accurate. When it came to getting children back to school, the national Labour party was kowtowing to national union leaders and doing what they said, and we all know that the local Labour parties are just as likely to be influenced by the unions. I absolutely recognise that there is work that needs to be done, but I am afraid the idea that if we just flick a switch and give it all to local authorities everything will be fine is complete and utter nonsense.
For months, the Labour party has been calling on the Prime Minister to get a grip of the crisis, yet, characteristically for his Government, all we have seen is dither and delay, U-turn after U-turn and a failure to provide effective testing and tracing of this deadly virus. Back in February, the World Health Organisation advised nations that a key component of their pandemic response should be “test, test, test”, but despite spending over £12 billion of taxpayers’ money, this Government have failed spectacularly to deliver even a functioning test and trace system, never mind the Prime Minister’s self-avowed “world-beating” programme. Instead, they have blamed the public for wanting too many tests, misplaced records for 16,000 positive cases, and launched their app months late While Ministers continue to bore us ad nauseum with their soundbites about world-beating capacity, they ignore the reality that the system is broken and, in the words of SAGE, is having only “a marginal impact” on controlling the virus. They continue to hand over billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to private companies—many with Conservative party connections—trying to paper over the cracks without addressing the failures of a privatised and centralised model. Just last week, only 68% of contacts of those who had tested positive for coronavirus were reached by the Government’s central system. That is the worst weekly figure since test and trace began, while cases are among the highest. In comparison, 97.1% were reached by local protection teams, so the picture is pretty clear In my constituency of Slough, because of Government failures the council was compelled to set up its own tracing system to protect our local community. This came after the Department of Health and Social Care significantly curtailed the working of our local testing centre, causing absolute chaos. I have been contacted by constituents who were directed to drive hundreds of miles, or even to catch a ferry to the Isle of Wight, just to get a test; by parents unable to send their children to school after waiting an entire week for test results; and by key workers simply unable to book test appointments. One of my own staff, a key worker helping me provide support to the more than 1,400 constituents currently requiring my assistance, had to self-isolate for two weeks because one of her relatives at home was taken to hospital by ambulance with a high temperature and struggling to breathe. No test was offered, either to my colleague or her relative; instead, they were instructed to self-isolate for two weeks. It is just not good enough Without effective and timely testing, contact tracing is rendered useless, and this is part of a pattern. Local councils have been failed at every turn; there is diminished national testing capacity; there has been no blanket additional support to set up local track and trace systems; and only limited financial support has been offered, with all this coming after a decade of austerity that has stripped much-valued public services to the bone. How can they effectively respond without adequate Government support Whenever the likes of me ask basic questions that are of serious concern to our anxious constituents, the Health and Social Care Secretary decides to gaslight or even wag his finger around, accusing us of using divisive language. Given that he does not seem to know the answer, perhaps the Minister can advise us and the good people of Slough as to when our test centre will go back to being a drive-through and walk-in facility, so that locals can actually access a test when they desperately need one The British people want to do the right thing—get tested and follow Government advice—but they are being badly let down by a Government whose dithering and incompetence has resulted in our Slough now sadly having seen the largest unemployment increase in the whole of the UK since the start of this outbreak. It is incredible that while some nations prioritised their public health, and others their economy, this Conservative Government have managed ineptly to sacrifice both.
It feels like a world ago when I was taken aside by my hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), and told that Milton Keynes would be hosting a coronavirus quarantine centre for the repatriation of British nationals and their dependants returning from Wuhan. Shortly after that, we heard the sad news that one of the first deaths of a hospital patient who had tested positive for coronavirus had occurred in Milton Keynes University Hospital. I think about that moment a lot Since then, the world has changed. We learn new things about this virus and our ability to deal with it every day. We have had challenges, and we have overcome them. There will be more challenges ahead. We know that this virus thrives in cold, damp environments with low levels of ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and that transmission overwhelmingly occurs indoors. Cold, damp environments where we are overwhelmingly indoors are known in the UK as autumn and winter. These seasons are against us, and positive cases are rising That is why we all have a part to play. We must control the virus, protect lives and protect livelihoods until a vaccine can keep us safe. A big part of that is the app. The good people of Milton Keynes are famously tech savvy, and I am sure that many have already downloaded the NHS covid-19 app, but I must strongly encourage everyone to do so. It is a huge part of dealing with the virus and a huge part of test and trace It is not just about downloading the app; it is about what we do with our lives. It is about hands, face, space; the rule of six; understanding the rules and restrictions in our local tier; and, crucially—I say this to Opposition Members—it is about working together to defeat the virus. With winter just around the corner, now is not the time to be promoting alternative test and trace systems or undermining public confidence in the work of our NHS and public health professionals. We continue to expand our support for the local approach with a national framework. The experience of other countries shows that we need a national approach, because otherwise, the local test and trace operations simply will not join up My hon. Friend the Minister referenced the Lighthouse lab in Milton Keynes. I am immensely proud to represent Milton Keynes North in this place. We have robots, e-scooters and driverless cars. We have companies that are mining for water on the moon, and we have the most fantastically productive and brilliant people in this country. Of course Milton Keynes was selected to host one of the first Lighthouse labs. We now have robot freezers capable of processing up to 150,000 test results a day. Milton Keynes makes a fantastic contribution to our national effort The stunning achievement of getting that lab up and running has been down to amazing co-operation between the public sector, the private sector and the military—all working together, as we should in a national emergency. The Labour party wants to remove the private sector from test and trace. We have been able to ramp up testing to more than 134,000 a day only with the support, co-operation and innovation of the private sector. Some 22,000 of the 30,000 ventilators were produced by the private sector. The vaccine trials are being run by the private sector, including the potential game changer in Operation Moonshot. Dexamethasone, the first proven therapy for this horrible disease, is being produced at scale by the private sector. Thirty-two billion items of PPE have been provided by the private sector, keeping our health and social care professionals safe as they do their heroic work. Now is not the time to play ideological games with our response to a public health emergency. Now is the time to work together. Now is the time to use every lever possible to save lives, protect the NHS and beat this virus.
Order. I am afraid I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes—[Hon. Members: “Three minutes?”] Yes, because the debate ends at 7 o’clock. Members should not be surprised because they can see the call list. I call Dawn Butler.
I will try to keep my contribution to factual information, unlike some of the speeches that we have heard today. I would like to thank the Prime Minister for acknowledging and apologising for the failures of the test and trace system the other day Here are some general facts. The minutes from SAGE on 1 May reported that any delay beyond 48 to 72 hours before the isolation of contacts results in a “significant impact” on the R rate—so every time this goes wrong, there is a significant impact on that rate. SAGE also reported that “at least 80%” of contacts of confirmed cases would need to isolate to ensure an effective track and trace system Therefore, every time it is said that Serco has reached 60%, that means that it is failing because it is not an effective test-and-trace system. It also states that 65% of people who test positive have no symptoms. It is wrong, therefore, for the Secretary of State to say that people who have no symptoms are not entitled to go for tests Randox won a £133 million contract—unopposed—for a test-and-trace system. It disposed of 12,401 used swabs in a single day, voided more than 35,000 used test kits and disposed of 750,000 unused coronavirus kits owing to safety standards. Even though there is an ongoing investigation it is important that we know where taxpayers’ money is being wasted. I would like the Minister to confirm whether Randox is charging the taxpayer for voided tests. How many tests has Randox voided to date, and how much is the taxpayer being charged for each voided test Professor Jon Deeks says that New Zealand tests people at least three times, whereas we in the United Kingdom have a leaky testing problem in contact tracing and run the risk of missing the disease. That is the problem. There has been a backlog of 185,000 Covid-19 tests, and some tests have been sent to Germany, and some to Italy. How many of our tests are processed in the UK, and how many are processed in Europe, which, incidentally, said we are not a priority? I wonder why Serco is one of the top outsourcing companies. Serco and Sitel are going to be paid £1 billion for their work. I would say that the money should be given to local authorities The BMJ released details of a leaked Government briefing stating that there will be 10 million Covid tests a day as part of a £100 billion expansion. That £100 billion should be given to local authorities.
I know that in some early listings I appear as the hon. Member for Ipswich. I am not the hon. Member for Ipswich—I never could be!—but if he was here I am sure he would agree that the Opposition’s brass neck takes some beating, in a week when we have seen craven, callous political opportunism of the worst kind from Labour Members. First, they were anti-10 pm closures; then, they were for 10 pm closures. First, they were against the tiered system; then, they were for the tiered system. First, they were against a circuit-breaker approach; then, they were for a circuit-breaker approach. I hope that Labour Front Benchers have cleared their position with the Leader of the Opposition, because for all we know he will be on TV in half an hour announcing a different position from the one they have taken here today. The Opposition’s tone in opening the debate was quite depressing. We could have spent these few hours talking about how we work together to address the issues with the test-and-trace system, but, no, all we heard was typical Labour public good, private bad. Labour might have a new leader, but it is the same old Labour As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the Government’s aim and objective is to save lives. We accept that there are issues with the test-and-trace system, which is why we are working with all stakeholders—public, private, not for profit and local and national organisations—to get this right. It is not either/or. It is not public or private. It is not local or national. We are working to create a system that uses the best of all worlds We are providing £300 million to help local authorities to set up local test-and-trace services. We are extending the partnership between NHS Test and Trace and local authorities to reach more people who test positive—[Interruption.] They say we are not, but we are: it is a fact. We are bringing together the efforts and data of local and national services so that we can spot local flare-ups and take measures to control them more easily NHS Test and Trace—the Opposition would not say this—is delivering results. We are testing more than any other comparable European country today, and that is something of which we should be very proud. Test and trace plays a crucial role in our fight against coronavirus. It is not a question of national or local, but rather both working together to control and suppress the spread of this virus, and I really hope that the Labour party drops its recent approach and moves back to where it was in March, working constructively with the Government so that we can defeat this virus and save lives.
The world-beating test and trace system set up to control covid-19 has been an expensive failure. Covid-19 is having a devastating effect on lives and livelihoods at the speed we saw back in April, especially in less affluent areas and communities, such as Liverpool city region. The Government have difficulty admitting that, when the system has cost £12 billion, but recognise it and act they must, as lives are at stake For test and trace to work, the Government must learn lessons from the experiences and outcomes to date. Local knowledge is the key to success. When a business is looking to expand into new markets, local expertise is hired to help. This situation is no different. One centralised, outsourced system was destined to fail. For months, many people have called on the Government to support local authorities and public health and expand their role. Their teams have proven to be successful at controlling the outbreaks, once they have got over the business of testing and the lack of PPE in care homes in those areas National Test and Trace teams contact positive cases by phoning and leaving a message, but many do not get back to them. Sometimes, they pass those failures on to local government, and local government goes out, knocks on doors and gets responses, and that has been proven. These teams have invaluable knowledge of the people and places where they are working year in, year out. Higher contact tracing rates lead to reduced covid-19 spread. It is the only way to get it under control. Local authorities do not have the capacity to do it all themselves—they are already beyond stretched. One outsourcing company subcontracted 28 different companies with no knowledge or experience to succeed, and that has proven to be a failure Often, the solution is simple. We currently have too much of a disconnect between local and national teams. By the time the subcontractors contact local teams to help, days have passed with covid-19 on legs, spreading. Effective information-sharing leads to faster contact tracing. Redeploying the national pool of contact tracers directly with local teams would help that. That is how the country can get a test and trace system working, which is what we all want Local authorities and their public health teams should be given the lead on test and trace and the resource to do so. Adequate funding is necessary so that they can expand their teams, but it takes time to recruit, and that is why I urge that the 25,000 tracers employed by the private sector are redeployed somehow into local teams.
I am sorry, Marie, but we have to leave it there. I call Margaret Greenwood.
A comprehensive and effective track and trace system is essential if we are to tackle this virus. Sadly, the Government have failed to deliver on that. Wirral headteachers have written to me about the damaging delays in receiving test results, which have meant teachers in local schools being absent as they wait to find out whether they have covid-19. One NHS doctor wrote to describe how she, her husband, who is also a doctor, and other family members had multiple phone calls from different people giving them different advice on quarantine periods. Another individual told me how he received a letter dated 3 October that told him he had to self-isolate until 8 September In the latest weekly statistics, more than 51,000 people tested positive for covid-19 nationally, but only two thirds of those were transferred to the contact tracing system. Council officers in Wirral tell me that the national system is only reaching 63% of close contacts in Wirral, meaning that 37% are not being provided with timely advice. I have written to the Secretary of State three times since May calling on the Government to share the vital data that Wirral Council public health department needs to aid it in its test and trace measures and outbreak plans Instead of putting contact tracing in the hands of councils or local public health teams who know their communities well, the Government have decided to award huge contracts with eye-watering sums of money to private companies to run test and trace. The Government have allowed their obsession with privatising the national health service to overshadow the need to provide a comprehensive and effective system. The public are quite rightly angry about that Serco was initially given a contract for £108 million for 14 weeks with the option to extend for a longer period, with a value of up to £410 million in total. However, we need to know how Serco’s performance is being measured and whether it has been subject to deductions for failing to meet standards of delivery. That transparency is denied to us under this Government. Along with the additional restrictions that have come in for the Liverpool city region this week, the Government have at last confirmed £14 million for the region for a range of activities, which include enhanced contact tracing, but we need clarity from the Government. Will the Minister clarify how that money will be spent, and will she commit to an expansion of our local authority public health teams It is time that the Government took a sober look at the landscape in which we find ourselves. They must once and for all hand over control of contact tracing to councils and local public health teams across the country, and that must be backed up with the necessary resources, so that we can defeat the virus and save lives.
Arguing about what restrictions should be in place is no use—it is completely irrelevant—unless we have an effective contact tracing and tracking system. We will not get the R number down. We will not control the virus. I am just asking for an effective system, not a world-beating one. It should not be too much to ask The Minister mentioned walk-in centres—great. Darnall in my constituency had a high level of infections. A walk-in testing centre was introduced. Within a few days, people could not walk into it anymore, but they could phone up. When constituents phoned up to make an appointment at the local centre, they were diverted to another centre many miles away. That is no way to run an effective system. And then, of course, people wait days for the results to come back, meaning that other people are either walking around when they are infectious, when they should be isolating, or isolating when they have no need to. What a waste of people’s time. What a risk to health The Sheffield Star has done an excellent job in giving local people information. The other day it said that on the most recent figures, only 60% of people who should be contacted because they have been in contact with an infected person are actually being contacted through the track and trace system. Towards the end of September, only 60% of infected cases were being put in the system in the first place, which means that only one third of those who should have been contacted were actually being contacted. This is a major failure—a system that is not effective; it is simply failing. Compare that with the 97% contact rate that has been achieved where contact tracking and tracing is being done at a local level by local authorities and local directors of public health I am not against a national system. I am not saying that everything is going to be invented locally. I argued to the Prime Minister, however, when he came to the Liaison Committee on 27 May, that when the national system was developed, it should have been developed in co-ordination with and with the advice of the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health. That advice should have gone into it in the first place I have believed from the beginning that we should have had more stringent penalties in the national system to ensure that people complied with the requirements, and people should have been compensated for a loss of income when they isolated from the beginning. I am not against the private sector being involved, but it is about where the expertise is. The private sector’s expertise is clearly in developing a vaccine. It should be allowed to do that, but the expertise for contact tracking and tracing is with directors of public health. That is what they do as a profession—control infectious diseases—and very simply, if we are going to be effective, it is much more effective for a director of public health to recruit a local person to go and knock on someone’s door than for that person to get a phone call from someone else 200 miles away who does not understand the local area.
My constituents’ experience of the test, trace and isolate system run by the UK Government is that it has been a complete and utter fiasco at every single stage On the tests, when people go on the website, regularly there are absolutely no tests available anywhere in the whole of the United Kingdom, or if they are lucky, they will be sent from the Rhondda to Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, presumably because that is alphabetically at least close to Aberdare, even if it is not physically close to the Rhondda at all There are no home test kits nearly all the time. A high percentage of my constituents have no car, but they are not allowed to go on public transport, so it is pretty difficult for them to get to any of the test sites. Even today, people had booked a walk-in appointment in Treorchy—they walked 6 miles there and were going to walk 6 miles back—but when they arrived they were told that they could not have their test because they were not in a car, even though it was meant to be a walk-in site The results service is shockingly poor: according to the Government’s own figures, just 2% of people got their results within 24 hours last week. Just 2%—how on earth could someone intend to keep a contract with a company that was failing so badly? Why is it that this company cannot do what hundreds of other private sector companies in the country do, which is allow people to track their result? People can track their Amazon delivery—I have never had one because Amazon does not pay its taxes properly—by can logging on and finding out exactly when it is going to arrive. Why can this company not do the same? It would save hours and hours of time—not least in constituency MPs’ offices, I suspect—if there was a proper system for that The isolate system has also been a complete failure, because the Government do not seem to understand that for many people, including many tradeswomen and tradesmen and people who work on an hourly or daily basis, the cost of self-isolating is a complete disincentive to doing the right thing. People simply cannot afford to put food on the table for their kids and be able to self-isolate for two weeks. The system the Government are introducing is far too late. It came into place only on 12 October, and so far I am not sure whether anybody has actually managed to use it. And it is not generous enough, either The tracing system has been a complete disaster. The target that the Government set was 80%; they have never met it in a single week—and last week it was the worst result ever. I do not understand why Baroness Harding is still in her job. It is an absolute mystery to me. Incidentally, it is a constitutional aberration that a Member of the House of Lords who votes on party political issues is also working in effect as a civil servant I hate this concept of “world-beating”. Every time the Prime Minister tries to look Churchillian, he just looks like Neville Chamberlain to me. Lockdowns are a sign of the failure of this system, but I bet that is where we end up.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I support Labour’s motion. This is not about ideology; it is about what works. In the midst of a public health emergency and an economic crisis the likes of which we have never seen before, it is about not politics but what works. We in the Liberal Democrats have been calling since April for tracing to be locally led, because we understand that local authorities know their communities best and local directors of public health have the expertise to do the tracing There has been a lot of talk about testing and I have talked a lot about testing, so I shall not go over that, given the time available, but the one thing I will say about it is that we must—must—turn around tests within 24 hours. That turnaround time has dropped to around 25% and tracing is not effective if the tests are not turned around quickly enough I have heard about local tracing for myself from directors of public health and local councillors. In Watford, they have a 93% local tracing rate. This morning, I talked to councillors in Liverpool, where they have a 97% local tracing rate. Until today, they had had only £300,000 to do that tracing, yet on average they have to trace around 5,000 contacts a day. Yes, more resources are now going to tier 3, but that resource needs to go everywhere Sky News has just broken the story that it has uncovered Boston Consulting Group contracts that suggest BCG consultants are paid £7,000 day rates to work on test and trace. Just imagine how far that money would go if it was given to local authorities. These consultants are being paid weekly the equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year. I do not have an ideological issue with the private sector, but, as the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), said, it is about having the right expertise in the right place On isolation, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, it is important that we have in place the right package of support, both financial and practical, as we have seen in other countries, including Korea and Germany. There is a local element in Italy and Iceland, where local service providers are also supporting enforcement with their local populations. It is not about slapping £10,000 fines on people for not self-isolating, as this place has legislated to do I say to the Minister humbly: please recognise that you cannot get everything right in a pandemic. Change tack or we will be stuck in this yo-yo situation forever. The only way to keep the virus under control is by testing, tracing and isolating, so for the sake of the British people, to save lives and to save jobs, turn around tests in 24 hours, devolve tracing locally and double down on isolation. That should be the ultimate condition if there is to be a circuit breaker. We need a major overhaul of the system.
The only thing I agreed with in the coalition Government’s reform of the health service was the devolution of public health to local councils. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) says, that is because they know how to do it. They do it every week for sexually transmitted diseases, TB and other outbreaks The hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) and for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) accused those of us on the Opposition Benches of being ideological. Let me put it on the record: I have no ideological issues with using the private sector when it adds benefit. It is this Government who have been ideological. Their national test and trace system ignored local authorities. With the school meals vouchers, they did not give the money to local authorities to put systems in place; it was a national system. PPE was a disaster. Even the national volunteering programme, where people who signed up were unable to volunteer, was all done nationally. That national approach has been the biggest failure throughout this crisis. That has been the ideological mindset of the Government. The issue with getting test and trace in place has become all about the number of tests. No, it is not. It is what you do with those results afterwards. For example, in Cumbria test and trace is being done locally. It has lower rates and those rates are going down The system is broken. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that the Government have given local authorities £300 million. So what? They have put billions of pounds into the hands of private companies, which have then completely failed. If we were employing them ourselves directly, we would have sacked them a long time ago The Government can bring in as many tiers and as much information as they want, but there are two things that have to be done with public health messages: make them clear and explain why they are being done. On those two things, the Government have failed completely by chopping and changing. They can bring in as many fines and restrictions as they like, but unless there is effective testing and, more importantly, tracing of individuals, they will not get on top of this crisis. Added to that, the national contract means that my constituents who work in care homes are waiting seven days to get a test result. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work It is no good the Government saying they are working with local authorities. They are not. They are basically throwing over to local authorities the positive test results they cannot trace themselves. In many cases, it is too late. My local director of public health says she is getting information 48 hours late. That is of absolutely no use. So, come on Government! Wake up! Get out of your ideological bubble and actually ensure you engage with local authorities.
It is very difficult to convey the real strength of feeling across Liverpool at the utter failure of this Government on care homes, PPE, and test and trace. Constituent after constituent has come to my office with heartbreaking stories. One was sent to south Wales on a 70-mile journey, two-and-a-half hours in the car with an autistic child, only to find that the test and trace centre had closed for the day because it had run out of tests. The petrol cost them £40 that they simply did not have The anger and frustration are not just at the fact that the response is failing, but that it is failing because the Government refused to enable and invest in local authorities and public health teams, and instead chose to pump billions into scandal-ridden Government contractors that have a record of failure after failure. Under the cover of this pandemic, billions of pounds of public money has been handed to faceless corporations, including Tory-linked firms, without competition or transparency, and without democratic accountability—or any accountability to the public, for that matter. It is money that should have been invested in our national health service and that should have left a legacy for the British people by building up the properly funded public services we can all rely on in the future, but instead it was siphoned off The most egregious example is the eye-watering £12 billion of public money handed to private companies, including Serco, for this failing test and trace system. The failures of Serco are well documented so I will not repeat them, but when I asked the Government what penalties will apply to private sector companies that fail to meet the terms of their contract, the answer came back and it was clear: none whatsoever. In fact, Serco is being rewarded for its failure with more and more lucrative contracts. The cronyism is well documented as well. Conservative Baroness and business executive Baroness Harding was appointed as the head of Track and Trace. The Serco chief executive officer is the brother of a former Tory MP, and Tory MPs are on the boards of companies winning contracts. If we have a problem with any of this, why not take it up with the Government’s anti-corruption champion—Dido Harding’s husband and a Tory MP? The whole thing stinks. This Government’s incompetence, cronyism and ideological obsession with outsourcing and rip-off privatisation have undermined our NHS and put lives at risk.
We are at a crossroads in this crisis and the Government, rather than knowing which way to turn, are instead caught in the headlights. This Government have had seven months to get their test and trace system in place, but, tragically for the almost 50,000 people who have lost their lives already since this pandemic started, it has failed. There can be no excuse when our European partners have had an effective system in place since May This is a deeply worrying period for my Stockport constituents, given that Greater Manchester and the north-west are witnessing some of the highest infection rates in the country, and we are now in the Government’s tier 2 category. Indeed, in the borough of Stockport alone, there are now more than 4,000 cases of coronavirus, and it is being reported that the Government will today convene a gold command meeting where Greater Manchester may be moved into tier 3—the highest category Despite this, the Government are offering little beyond lockdown measures to stop the spread of this deadly disease. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has been calling for proper funding for test and trace for months, and only today the leaders of all 10 councils in Greater Manchester and the Mayor, Andy Burnham, released a statement in response to the new restrictions. In it, they call for testing “to enable targeting of known or emerging points of transmission.” They also raise valid concerns about this Government’s attempt to bounce Greater Manchester into the higher risk tier 3 category.
To pick up the hon. Member’s point about specific venues and contact tracing, in my constituency, pubs and restaurants have been successfully using track and trace now for several months. Venues such as Candid Beer, the Bird in Hand and the Market Vaults are already using contact tracing very well. Does he not agree with me that contact tracing is actually playing a vital role in helping keep our hospitality industry open for business?
I understand the points the hon. Lady is making, but I think contact tracing in Greater Manchester and places with very high rates of infection has not worked as well as it should have. I am pleased to hear that in her constituency it is working well, but I think the Government need to come forward with a proper package to support jobs in the hospitality sector if they are going to force regions like the Liverpool city region or Greater Manchester into tier 3 The Government are dangling the carrot of local control of test and trace. However, this should be on offer for all areas, and is more likely to be effective in areas that are in tier 1 and tier 2. If this Government pursue their current strategy, they will leave large parts of the north of England trapped in tier 3 for much of the winter. Given that cases are forecast to rise sharply as this Government lose control and refuse to provide the substantial economic support that tier 3 areas will need, I fully support the call by a number of local authority leaders in Greater Manchester for a national circuit break. This would also create the conditions for a reset of the test and trace service into a more locally controlled option, which will hopefully drive cases down to a lower level and be more likely to succeed The only way to defeat the virus is for national and local government to work hand in hand, upskill the local test and trace system, delegate sufficient powers and provide the financial support that is so desperately required after 10 years of austerity and having stumped up millions during the first phase of this pandemic. But instead of addressing the failures of a privatised and centralised contact tracing model, this Government choose to keep pouring hundreds of millions of pounds into the likes of Serco to lead the effort on tracking and tracing. This is despite the recent poll by Survation revealing that 74% of the public wanted to see local public health teams, rather than profit-making companies, leading on this. Our European partners have had systems in place since May, yet almost six months later this Government are rushing to hand the nearest contract to big business with no track record of delivery or success It is clear is that we cannot have more of the same from this Government such as the shambles of being informed by a Health Minister that a new testing centre was being opened for my constituents on a University of Greenwich campus 240 miles away in Kent. I have already made it clear to the House that I am willing to accept that the letter was an error, but it further exposes the Government’s complete mishandling of this crisis. In the absence of any effective form of test and trace, frontline staff, including all workers in hospitals, schools and local authorities, must be provided with access to adequate personal protective equipment.
It is nearly nine months since the first case of covid came to my constituency and, in that first instance, we had an effective test and trace system. But my goodness, what has happened since? We know from across the world that effective test and tracing is beating the virus but here in the UK the virus is beating us. That is why it is essential that we get on top of the essential ingredients of an effective test and trace system. Filling the pockets of all these private companies with contract after contract is failing, and we know why that has been done—the lack of investment in our NHS and in public health for years. That has meant that they are bereft of the resources they need We need to turn this round and we have the opportunity of this debate to address the issue effectively. We know from the statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) set out earlier that, if about two thirds of people who have been tested are then transferred to the contact tracing system, only 17% of them are reached. That means that fewer than half the people are effectively contact traced. That simply is not good enough in the midst of this pandemic. Time is of the essence and we need to address this now Any transfer that we see to local authorities must also see the transfer of resources. We cannot just see the transfer of risk without the money coming with it to back it up and enable local authorities to run effective systems locally I have talked to my local director of public health and she has led an excellent fight to put the case not only for local testing but for saying where we need the centres to be. We need another testing centre in York and we have been working with the university and a local lab to prove that we have a test processing and trace system for our city. That is what we need for a fast turnaround of results. Time is of the essence with this virus and the faster we get the results, the faster we trace people who are potentially carrying the virus. We will then be able to lock the virus down, which is what we want to do I am confused, and I am sure I am not the only one, as to why York today is in tier 1 when the infection rate there is higher than in some of the places in tier 3. It does not make sense. I want the Minister to explain the rationale for that. Yesterday, there were 95 infections in York, and 246.4 per 100,000 and growing fast. We need to understand the rationale, not least because the infection is transmitting in our city and we know that because we have been holding a mirror tracing system that has seen it go from household to household. Yet tier 1 does not bar such contact. If we are really serious about understanding how to stop the virus, we need to go through the proper processes and involve the local directors of public health who could tell the Government that we need the controls to stop the spread at this critical time before it gets completely out of control It is because of the failures that I have described that the Labour party has been saying that there will be a need for a circuit break. If the Government could respond with proper measures, we would not need it. The Government only need look in the mirror to see why we are in this place Some incredible science is being done in our universities and local labs, and I look forward to my meeting on Friday with the Minister on what is being done in York, where the capacity, efficiency and effectiveness of testing can seriously outstrip many of those procured labs which the Minister and her Government have already engaged in This is a real opportunity. We have to use the best science, and I trust that we will be able to do so.
I am glad to be called in this debate, so thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will make one point before speaking about tracking and tracing in the Wirral It is disappointing to listen to Conservative Members criticising a political party’s position or what its briefings might have been earlier this week or last week, before SAGE’s minutes and reports were published on the next steps that are needed. I would far rather that the Labour party had to correct its press releases than that we fail to save lives that we otherwise could. I am sorry that Conservative Members take a different view My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) spoke about the need for improved, larger public health teams, particularly in the Wirral. I am thankful for Julie Webster and Elspeth Anwar, our director and deputy director of public health in the Wirral, who have been absolutely first-class public servants. They have explained to me that, although they now have much more data about the outbreak in the Wirral and the rest of Merseyside, we do not have enough analysis That is to say that we cannot easily understand the story the data is telling us, because we do not have enough specialists working on this, particularly in the Wirral. I have learned through three years on the Treasury Committee and wading through reams of economic data that it is not actually about the figures in front of you; it is about understanding the story that the data is telling you and acting accordingly. It is not numbers for the sake of numbers; it is the instructions those numbers give In an outbreak like this, we need a hypothesis about the methods of transmission so that we are able to test it against the data. I say to the Minister that we not only need to help local authorities with the data; we also need analytical capacity in every town hall in Britain, because this virus travels through local areas in different ways. In London, many people are able to work from home. In a manufacturing environment, as we have in the Wirral, that just is not possible. People cannot make cars and airplanes from their front room The virus travels differently in places where public transport is more frequently used. Some places use buses rather than trains, and they are a different environment. That is why I say again to the Minister: give us data analysts in every town hall in Britain, so we can understand how this virus is travelling through our country and put a stop to it. If we had proper analysis and local understanding, we would have half a chance of finding out how this virus works.
I agree with everything my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said NHS Test and Trace is not working. Billions of pounds have been poured into a system that has sidelined existing local expertise in primary care, public health and science. The resulting system is labelled NHS Test and Trace, but it has hardly anything to do with the NHS. Stop denigrating the NHS by associating it with this failing system We are stuck in this world of uncertainty, with a rising infection rate and the virus out of control, and we are without the ability to properly track it, as my hon. Friend has just described. It is like “Groundhog Day”. Until we have a vaccine, we will not get out of this without a functioning track and trace system We are the fifth richest economy in the world, and we have one of the best healthcare systems. We have leading science research universities, yet we have spent all this money contracting out the system to Serco. Now, on top of that, we are spending millions of pounds bringing in private contractors to try to sort out the mess. It costs more in one week than we pay an experienced nurse in a year. It is a disgrace, and it feels like a wasted opportunity to build on the existing expertise and experience to strengthen the local systems in primary care and local authorities. Doing that now is the only way out of this nightmare scenario The outbreaks we have seen in the universities in Newcastle, for example, were not identified by the national system—it seems incapable of doing that at present. The outbreaks were identified based on local intelligence and local knowledge, and by piecing the pieces together. We know that co-operation between local health services and authorities is the way to control infectious diseases. GPs, NHS and public health laboratories, and local public health officers all play a key role. Winter is approaching and GPs will be the people who can see the overlap in covid symptoms such as fever and a dry cough, and the classic flu symptoms of fatigue, sore throat and headaches. We need that integrated public health expertise to truly make this testing and tracking system work. We have 1,200 primary care networks in England. They will be best placed not only to run test, track and trace, but to deliver the vaccine when we finally have it—we will be ready for it.
I hear time and again from this side of the House people talking about giving more to the primary care networks. As a GP, I worry that this could be a concern for my public health colleagues as well because they already serve a function—of non-covid health service. I would be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this concern: what happens if we keep putting more pressure on public health and GPs, who are already dealing with non-covid stuff? How do we deal with this? It makes a lot of sense to bring in a national service to try to do that; we did that with the Army to help with test, track and trace. What does the hon. Lady think about the possibility of extra pressure there?
Absolutely, spend the billions of pounds that we have wasted—spend it on bumping up the capacity and ability of our local GPs and health services, which can do a better job. I wish to say a word about asymptomatic carriers. Research published by University College London last week found that 86% of those sampled who had tested positive for covid-19 between April and July had had no symptoms—that includes cough, fever or loss of taste and smell. So many people who are asymptomatic test positive, as we have seen at Northumbria University, and that is hugely concerning. It shows that we need a much more robust and expanded testing strategy to control the virus What are the Government doing to ensure that we can capture these silent spreaders? Is the system anywhere close to having the capacity to address this, given that we cannot even test those who have symptoms and have been instructed to take a test? The Government wasted the time we spent in national lockdown and failed to get the apparatus of proper track and trace system in place once those restrictions were finally relaxed. We are now living with the consequences of that decision. As we now appear to be entering another era of harsher restrictions across much of the country, the Government owe it to the people who continue to endure hardship, uncertainty, loneliness and bereavement not to waste this time again.
May I start by placing on the record my thanks to my local director of public health, Sarah Muckle, and her team for all their hard work during this pandemic? Labour has been calling on the Government to learn the lessons, help curb a rise in infections and save lives. The Government continue to use this phrase “NHS track and trace system”, which is more widely and truthfully known by the British public as, “Huge amounts of cash going to big private companies”—companies with links to the Tory party, and companies with truly abysmal track and trace records and poor results: in short, Serco and Sitel. The Government are doing this instead of funding local contact tracing and addressing the failures of a privatised and centralised contact tracing model Bradford, which contains my constituency, consistently seems to perform bottom on tracking and tracing the contacts of those who test positive for covid-19. The average percentage of contacts reached in Bradford over the last nine-week data period was 48.1%, but some weeks the figure has been lower than 40%. That is half the Government’s target. The rising infection rates are the direct result of a broken track and trace system, the Government’s inability to use straightforward communication and sheer incompetence on the part of this Government Here are some examples to illustrate how poor the Government’s communications have been. Two days ago, the Secretary of State told me that Bradford will be in the high tier of restrictions. Later that same day, in the press conference, the chief medical officer praised Bradford for our response to the situation. Then yesterday, we heard that the Government had started discussions to place Bradford in the highest tier of restrictions. Today, there is a pre-paid, pre-booked full-page Government advertisement in the Telegraph and Argus, Bradford’s local paper, saying that Bradford is in the medium tier of restrictions. So which one is it? Are we in the medium, high or higher tier? Hold on—there’s more. On a Zoom call two days ago, I asked the Secretary of State what his Department was doing to address the issue of low numbers of people being tracked and traced in Bradford. Two days later, I still have no response, and yet the Secretary of State expects Members to be on a call with 20 minutes’ notice, and that is if they are lucky enough to get the email and not be on a train travelling down here The privatised track and trace programme is not working. My constituents deserve better. We need to get ahead of this virus. I will come to this Chamber time and again to highlight the Government’s incompetence and hold them to account for the sake of my constituents, because my constituents deserve better.
I spent an early part of my career in the sales industry, selling in the IT sector. I just wish that at some point I had come across a customer with as much money as this Government, and one so easily impressed and willing to give money to suppliers and then to defend them when they let them down. I never came across a customer nearly as naive as this Government Occasionally, a story seems to demonstrate a much wider point. So it was today with the scoop revealed by Ed Conway of Sky News that the Government are paying £7,360 per day to the management consultants at Boston Consulting Group, who are in charge of test and trace. That is the equivalent of a £1.5 million salary to preside over this shambolic system that is letting down all the people in my constituency and so many others. We will not find dedicated public servants being paid £7,500 a day or £1.5 million a year, but we will find a basic competence, a knowledge of their area and a desire to ensure that systems work before they are implemented. That is what we need right now in our system It is telling that, in a debate of this importance, with every Back-Bench Member of Parliament invited to contribute, just three Conservative MPs wanted to put their name on the list and say, “I will go in and speak up for the Government, because I think they are doing a good job.” That is because people in their constituencies know what is happening, and Conservative Members do not want it to be on their record that they were the ones speaking up for the Government, so they leave it to us to come here and expose the reality. That is what is happening. There are 365 Tory MPs—where are they? They are off in their offices hiding, while people in my constituency are being let down. [Interruption.] I accept that three have turned up, and I thank them for that, but I am talking about the rest of them We all remember when Leicester first went into lockdown and everyone said, “Oh my God! The rate in Leicester is appalling—those poor people.” The infection rate was less than 100 per 100,000 then.
Does my hon. Friend share my worry that the proportion of people being reached by Test and Trace has decreased over the last three weeks and is now at a level similar to the one seen in the first week of the programme?
Yes, I do, and I had an experience of that recently. Leicester had a rate of 100 per 100,000 when it went into lockdown. In Chesterfield, we have a rate of 143 per 100,000, and we are still in tier 1. The scale of how bad this must be before the Government are shocked is changing all the time I was recently in self-isolation because a friend told me that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus four days before Test and Trace got in touch with me. The date that Test and Trace had was nine days after I came out of self-isolation. The whole system is not working, and when you experience it yourself, you can see why this failure is happening.
The purpose of test, track and trace is to save lives. Despite the Prime Minister’s promise of a “world-beating” system, the system that we have is shambolic. Health contracts worth £830 million have been handed to private companies using public money to run ineffective systems, instead of investing in our public services. In Wales, we have established a successful public sector “test, trace, protect” system, and recent figures show that 96% of close contacts have been reached—much higher than the Serco private sector system. Currently, however, testing in Wales is still partly dependent on the UK Government’s privately run and centrally managed testing system, which has caused confusion and placed people at risk I will illustrate the point with my experience in Cynon Valley, which has one of the privately run centres. It is a case study in how not to do things. On 17 September, because of a worrying increase in covid cases in my constituency, serious local restrictions were placed on us that meant that people could not travel in or out of the local authority area without a reasonable excuse. A Serco covid-19 testing site was established in the village of Abercynon, where it became apparent that operational failures were compromising the new restrictions brought in for the area. There was a shortage of testing kits, which resulted in the site being closed for several hours, and there were problems with the administration of the testing regime I was astounded to find that the centrally administered, privately run system was allocating appointments that required people to travel hundreds of miles across the UK, including families with children and vulnerable people. That was unacceptable and extremely dangerous to those coming into the high-incidence area, as well as to the local population in my constituency. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on that day in September with a series of questions, but I have yet to receive a response. That is totally unacceptable Thank goodness that in Wales we have a measure of independence from this Tory Government, and that we were able to act to address the problems through a system co-ordinated by a proactive local authority health board and the Welsh Government. As the public are asked to make sacrifices to reduce the transmission of covid-19, it is imperative for the Government to keep their side of the bargain and get the test, track and trace system right. Most importantly, I know from experience that local decision making in action is best, as are publicly owned services. Let us learn the lessons of Abercynon, invest in our public services and not let private profit and greed override the health needs in our communities.
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Deputy Speaker. I simply must use this opportunity to echo the sentiments of my constituency neighbours and hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) about the Welsh Labour Government’s approach to contact tracing. In Wales, contact tracing is managed by local authorities and health boards and allows for a more cohesive approach to contacting those at risk of contracting the virus I truly feel sorry for my colleagues who represent areas across England, both in this place and at local authority level. Shockingly, councils across England are rapidly losing faith in the Government’s shambolic track and trace system and are being forced to take action themselves. By contrast, the Welsh Labour Government have taken a cautious yet clear approach to the coronavirus, with local contact tracing at the very heart of their policy. I have said it many, many times and I am happy to keep saying it: where Wales leads, England should follow. I sincerely hope that after this debate the Minister will be able to convince England’s Health Secretary to follow the localised approach of track and trace, which is clearly the best option if we are ever to get a grip on this virus Sadly, even with our fantastic Welsh Labour Government, this Government’s chaotic handling of the coronavirus has still had a significant impact on people in Wales. Colleagues will have heard that the First Minister of Wales has now had to announce that he has been forced to introduce new regulations to protect the health of the people in Wales, after this Government have yet again stood back. The Prime Minister fails to engage with the Welsh Labour Government, and in doing so he has failed the people across Wales. Hundreds of people in my constituency of Pontypridd have been pushing for restrictions on travel into Wales for people who are living in coronavirus hotspots in England, yet the Prime Minister ignores them The UK Government are cherry-picking what they want and when they want to support the devolved nations, but on coronavirus testing, tracking and tracing, they are causing more delays, damage and destruction. It simply is not fair to the people in Wales, and we deserve better. The Minister may also be aware that there are a number of coronavirus testing sites in Rhondda Cynon Taf, including one in Treforest in my constituency. I do not believe that any of us in this place are in a position to refuse help for local authorities with coronavirus testing, but I am flabbergasted that the UK Government have gone ahead and launched the site without consulting the Welsh Government. I could get over this if I had faith in the UK Government’s system in the first place. Thankfully, in Wales we have the Welsh Government, who have been able to step in where possible, but this simply should not be the case I fully support the collaborative approach to tackling the virus, but this can only work when the UK Government can admit, acknowledge and act on their own mistakes and failings. I hope that ultimately the Minister sees sense and acknowledges that the system for track and trace across England is on its knees. Only when we have a robust, local authority-led track and trace system in place across the UK will we ever have any hope of seeing coronavirus rates reduce across all our nations.
The wind-ups will begin at 6.46 pm.
Let us be clear from the start: the test, trace and isolate chaos that we are currently facing has been caused by outsourced companies running what should be public services for their own private profit. The current restrictions were never inevitable; they became inevitable as a result of this Government’s failure to get a properly functioning test, trace and isolate system in place. The system has been given to private companies with no qualifications for this work, overseen by business executives with no experience in public health. Just days before local restrictions came into place in the north-east, my Jarrow constituents were asking me to find out what has happened with the “shambles”, as they put it, that is the covid testing system. One constituent, Tracy, told me how a family member did a 110-mile round trip from Gateshead to Hawick in Scotland for a test. This was while there were appointments in Newcastle just a few miles along the road, but the centre had IT problems and the QR code was not being generated. She was rightly furious that her family member, while displaying symptoms, had to drive this distance. My Jarrow constituents are right: it is an utter shambles This Government’s approach to contact tracing is not just shambolic—it is dangerous. The evidence shows that contact tracing works much better on a local level. Both the South Tyneside and Gateshead local authorities covering my constituency have been constantly telling the Government this, but they are just not listening. I pay tribute to Alice Wiseman and Tom Hall, the directors of public health for those authorities, and their teams, for their dedication and hard work From Oldham to Peterborough, from Manchester to Cumbria, and across Wales, we have seen how local councils bring back much higher contact rates and can curb the spread of infection far more than the outsourced model that the Government keep throwing money away on. The Government know it is not working, yet the same old Tory ideological commitment to outsourcing continues. According to the Government’s own data, local health protection teams are reaching 97% of contacts and asking them to self-isolate, while, in contrast, outsourced cases handled online or by call centres return 62.4% contact rates. The most striking thing is that the Government have had plenty of opportunity throughout the summer to address the failures of a privatised and centralised contact tracing model, yet they have chosen to keep pouring money into the likes of Serco to lead the effort on tracking and tracing.
There must be a common-sense approach at both ends of this. Does the hon. Lady accept that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) said, the NHS and public health authorities do not have the capacity to cope with the vast number of tests, and we need this national approach as well as local involvement?
No, I do not. The Government can put this right by putting more money in, of course As my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and for Bradford West (Naz Shah), among others, have said, we have to stop calling it “NHS Track and Trace”, as it clearly is not. It has failed, it is wasteful, it is throwing taxpayers’ money down the drain, and the people of this country deserve better. In fact, only this afternoon, as already highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), I heard that the Government paid Boston Consulting Group about £10 million for a team of 40 consultants to do four months’ work on this failed testing system between the end of April and late August. Yet our local public services, hollowed out by 10 years of austerity, are being left with no support to pick up the pieces of a failed system Our local authorities in the north-east were crucial in the frontline against the first wave of this virus. That is why the Government must recognise their value by extending additional funding for contact tracing available in tier 3 areas to all parts of the country. The Government must ensure that local authorities and public health teams receive the resources and powers that they need.
The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which I chair, led hearings all through the summer; the very first ones we held back in July were on test and trace, and then we did it again last week. It was saddening to see that a lot of the predictions many of the experts made about the issues with test and trace back in July have since come to fruition. The things they were saying were very much common sense First, and I hope this is self-evident, this stuff is not easy. It may seem easy when we have read a briefing from the Library or whatever else, and the basic principles are easy, but the specifics of running a massive lab are very niche and require a lot of expertise. There are very few people in this country who can do this incredibly well, so when we say it should be a locally led test and trace system, of course it needs to be backed up by national capacity, but it should be led by those who are closest on the ground. We also took evidence from experts in Italy, who were also pointing to what Germany has done, and what they have in common is that that is how they run it: the people closest to the ground lead it, backed up by national systems and national resourcing. That is what we are asking for; it is what we have been asking for for the past three months, and here we are on the verge of what is likely to be an inevitable second national lockdown, because yet again we are not listening to the scientists.
It is not inevitable.
Well, we will see. I sincerely hope I am wrong, but unfortunately, we have not done enough listening to the experts Speaking of experts, I want to put on record my thanks to Oxfordshire’s public health director and his team, but also the councillors, the councils and the lab technicians—the people behind the scenes, who very rarely receive thanks. They do an incredible job, and one of the things I would like to highlight while the Minister is in her place is that concerns have been raised about pillar 1 and pillar 2 testing labs not talking to each other. There is not enough transparency coming out of the community testing Lighthouse labs, and we cannot be assured of their quality. Those concerns have been raised by people who are really expert in this area and would like to be able to help, so I have a plea to the Minister: can we please be more transparent about what is coming out of the Lighthouse labs, so that it can be scrutinised by real experts in the field I will end with a heartbreaking story of what this means. I heard from the mother of a disabled child in my constituency whose carers were unable to receive tests, so the mother was not able to visit them for two weeks during September. That child is unable to read their facial expressions owing to PPE and therefore struggles to interact with them; and because the carers were unable to receive tests, the mother is incredibly worried and that child is left without the proper care. This all comes back to real stories and real people.
Today, Sheffield’s director of public health, Greg Fell, said that it is not a matter of if, but when, Sheffield heads into tier 3 lockdown. Yesterday, he reported that the number of cases in the city stands at 450 in 100,000, taken as a rolling seven-day average Sheffield has two fantastic, world-class universities. Since the return to teaching, we have seen a large spike in cases among the 15 to 25-year-olds in my city, but the virus is spreading beyond that group. Our public health team is reporting a significant increase in cases among the over-65s. We have also seen more people admitted to hospital, and more people given oxygen and ventilation. I am sure there are Members from across the House who can report very similar experiences Sheffield’s local public health team is clear that getting this under control needs a quick turnaround of test results, and rapid and complete contact tracing. People in my constituency and across the country desperately need a functioning test, track and trace—and do not forget isolate—system, but the Government are failing them. Many people in my constituency have contacted me to say they have struggled to access a test, and that when they have finally got hold of one it has taken far too long to receive results, with one in four people receiving their test results later than the 24-hour period promised by the Prime Minister I am one of the few Members in this place who has experience as both a biomedical scientist and a deputy leader of a council, so I am in a pretty unique position to talk about the research that is going on at the moment in our universities. In research conducted by Unite, we heard some shocking reports from NHS scientists about the under-utilisation of NHS testing labs. Meanwhile, the privatised network of Lighthouse labs has seen backlogs of 185,000 tests.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
No, I will not give way because we are short on time Why are the Government prioritising those private labs over our NHS to implement the testing system when those labs are clearly failing? We have seen some really good success in our labs in Sheffield, which have been testing staff at the teaching hospitals, and that could have been a lesson learned and applied across the country. I have conducted polymerase chain reaction tests. I know that it is not that difficult. Moonshot is a complete and utter dream. I can safely say that I have been watching the testing system with frustration and I have suddenly become very popular with my ex-colleagues. They have been very enlightening when describing the conditions in which they have been working—often as volunteers while they are furloughed from their other labs In Sheffield, we heard that a recruitment drive was requested by the Prime Minister in September—a little bit late and a little bit after the horse has bolted. By that time, the planning for teaching was well under way and the contracts of many of them had ended and the seconding of staff was no longer available I have much more to say on this issue. I could go on and on and on, but the last thing I wish to say is that the numbers speak for themselves—
Order.
Liverpool is proof, if proof is needed, that the Government’s privatised test and trace system has failed. The Government have had months to get an effective system in place, but we are still waiting for it. The proportion of people being reached by the test and trace system has decreased over the past three weeks, coinciding with the sharpest increase in infection rates that we have seen since the first wave in the spring. We cannot afford to have an ineffective test, track and trace system.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
No, thank you. I cannot give way Let us be clear: it is not the NHS test and trace system that is failing us because the NHS has not been given the contract. It is a privatised system, wasting billions of pounds, that is failing us and the people of this country. We can no longer depend on a national system that 74% of the population believe is not working. Contracts are handed out without competitive tendering, which is what happened with the company that was set up on 12 May 2020 by an associate of a Conservative peer. It had no track record and received a £122 million contract. There are all those favoured Government companies with a track record of failure, such as Serco, which was fined £23 million by the Serious Fraud Office last year for overclaiming on its tagging contract, or its subcontractor Concentrix, which was previously involved in scandals around tax credits. Millions of pounds have been gifted to privatised companies, whether or not they are successful. Serco’s track and trace programme is reaching only 68% of close contacts. My local health protection teams have managed to communicate with 97% of contacts. People’s lives are dependent on an effective and swift test, track and trace programme Half of the wards in my constituency are in the top 20% of deprived neighbourhoods. Poverty is strongly linked with the incidence of covid-19. We have a large black community who are more susceptible to the virus and prone to a disproportionate number of deaths. As of this afternoon, Liverpool has no intensive care unit beds in the city, and the virus is impacting other critical care wards. It is time that this Government stop playing ideological games with people’s lives and handed responsibility back to local authorities, regional public health directors and our NHS to run this critical programme, save lives and protect our NHS.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate on local track and trace in England, which is highlighting the failure of the centralised, private, not NHS, track and trace system Public health has been embedded in local structures since the Public Health Act 1848, which came about following the devastating cholera outbreaks. Directors of public health have been tracing and tracking, and so tackling, outbreaks of disease in England since then—tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases and food poisoning to name just a few. Experienced DPHs are embedded in the local councils and work alongside the local NHS, the voluntary sector, care providers and employers. They know their communities. In communities such as mine, they have people who can speak the various different community languages, too. They work within regional and national public health networks The Minister said earlier in this debate that Government and local government are better together, but councils’ competence in infection control was actually only fully acknowledged by the Government on Monday in a statement by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. After months of asking, it was July before directors of public health in England were finally sent the contact details of residents known to be infected. Even now, Hounslow’s director of public health says that data sent from the national system is still often inaccurate, meaning that some people are contacted twice, so feel harassed and alienated by the system, and, worse, others are not contacted at all. We know that similar countries, such as Germany and South Korea, can do track and trace effectively. Neighbouring Wales traces 97% of contacts, against England’s 62.4% and declining I have long experience of leadership roles in local government. I am not ideologically opposed to procuring from the private sector when it can do something better, but at the core of public sector outsourcing is, or rather should be, proper commissioning—how much, how many, by when and to what standard—and procurement from those with proven competency, through competitive tendering, providing value for money. We cannot have sanctions for non-performance if we do not set standards in the first place. We know from answers to written questions—after my own experience, I have asked about the loss of tests—that the Government do not actually set standards for most of these contracts In outsourcing test and trace, the Government have broken every procurement rule that they impose on councils and other parts of the public sector. They should stop shovelling money to their unaccountable and incompetent friends, work with established public health directors and public health systems, and be serious about what works to slow the reproduction rate by up to a quarter.
I would like to make three brief points in support of the motion. First, as I mentioned to the Minister, I have direct experience from Reading and Woodley that supports the motion. Residents have recently been sent as far as south Wales—to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), in fact, which is a six-hour round trip from Reading. To make matters worse, we were promised a new testing centre, which has not arrived. This is in a university town, which obviously is particularly at risk. Ministers promised that students would have to travel no further than 1.5 miles for a test.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I will not, I am afraid, because of the time pressure I have reported these matters to the Universities Minister, who is trying to help, but the current system means that she is unable to move quickly Secondly, we know that a local approach to contact tracing works. We have heard this afternoon that evidence from around the country, including Wales, and around the world clearly demonstrates that local systems work. Their tracing rates for contacts of those infected are far higher than that of the national outsourced system Thirdly and crucially, there is no time to lose. We must take action now if we are to have any chance of stemming the rising tide of infections. Once up and running, a local tracing scheme could play an important part in keeping the virus under control until we have a vaccine and more effective treatments.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the issue of track and trace. I and other Opposition Members are rightly furious at the amount of money being spent on private companies that could have been invested in our own NHS and in local public authority systems This issue is of huge interest to my constituents in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. More than 100 people have written to tell me about where it has gone wrong with testing and tracing, and more than 700 people have signed my joint letter with my hon. Friends the Members for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), asking for a permanent testing centre in Wandsworth borough. Deloitte has been sent to find one, but it cannot find a place, so we do not have one; we rely on the Army to pop up every now and again. One mother was left in a car park, having to travel to another testing centre. She could not find a QR code on her app. The testing centre was almost empty, but she was not able to go in The Minister talked about a spine and ribs, and the whole system working together. We have a spine in this country: it is the NHS. It is a national health system. We should have used that from the start rather than spending £12 billion on systems that have entirely failed us. SAGE has now said that track and trace had a minimal effect on stopping the virus, but it should have been the core of our reaction and our action to stop the virus The existing privately outsourced system has failed. We have no permanent testing area in Wandsworth—will the Minister meet me to talk about that? My constituents have told me it is not working; local councils have told the Government that it is not working; and now scientists are telling the Government it is not working. It is time to give Serco a reboot; in fact, it is time to give Serco the boot. I ask the Minister to trust our local authorities and give them the contract for testing and tracing.
I call Chris Stephens, who is to resume his seat at 6.47 pm.
Thanks very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. You had signalled to me that you were not going to call me, so I am a bit surprised To allow time for the Front-Bench speeches, I will briefly continue the Serco theme. I am concerned to hear that Serco got a contract without any competitive tendering. My real concern is that last year both Serco and the Home Office argued in court—sadly, they were successful—that because Serco was a private contractor delivering a public service, it was exempt from the Human Rights Act. To give Serco a contract like test and tracing, with all that could happen with data, and for it to be exempt from the Human Rights Act, is very dangerous territory for the Government It has been said before that Serco has now subcontracted to 29 other companies, including those that have failed on HMRC contracts and in other places. That is of real concern. There is a lack of scrutiny here and I will be supporting the motion.
I apologise to Matt Western and Zarah Sultana for their not being able to get in even though they were present.
Our country faces an unprecedented health crisis as we battle covid-19. No Government could be expected to get everything right first time, but a competent Government would learn as they go along, recognise their mistakes and put them right. Tragically for our country, this Government’s incompetence continues to put lives and livelihoods at risk. I am grateful to the Members who have detailed that failure up and down the country—there were too many on the Opposition Benches to name them individually, but was it not notable how few Conservative MPs came to speak in defence of the Government’s record of failure A second spike in infections was never inevitable, and nor were the restrictions and lockdowns that are now necessary to consign it. They are the result of this Government’s failure to control the spread of the virus. There are two reasons why the Government keep getting it wrong: the first is their urge to over-centralise control, so that they fail to use the experience and expertise on the frontline; the second is their dogmatic urge to marketise everything, bypassing procurement rules to hand out multibillion-pound contracts to Conservative party cronies who lack the skills to do the job. That is how they got it wrong on PPE distribution, on testing, on shielding and on contact tracing. They keep repeating the same mistakes because they refuse to listen. I have been listening to council leaders since the start of the pandemic. As far back as April, they told me that the Government were not listening to them about contact tracing, even though local government is where the country’s experts work. Public health directors and their teams have years of experience of mapping how infections spread, contacting those at risk and containing the spread. They know how their local community moves around, they know where the transmission hotspots are and they know how to communicate best with their local communities on how to keep safe. The expertise exists up and down the country, but the Government chose to ignore it Instead, the Government wasted months and millions of pounds on the shambolic development of an app on the Isle of Wight that never worked. They spent more than £11 billion on outsourced contracts and an army of management consultants, including Serco, whose contact-tracing system SAGE now tells us needs a major overhaul because of its “relatively low levels of engagement” and “marginal impact” They spent £11 billion on that. And as we have heard this evening, some Boston Consulting Group managers are paid the equivalent of annual salaries of £1.5 million for their role in this Government failure. It is a disgrace The Government knew that they could not open up society or the economy safely without a functioning track and trace system. Without it, a second spike and a second lockdown became inevitable. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet chased the headlines rather than chasing down the virus, and we have ended up where we are today. The only thing this Government are world beaters in is incompetence. Nineteen of the 20 areas that have been in local lockdowns for more than two months have seen infection rates rise, not fall, because contact tracing is not working. We all have constituents who have tested positive telling us they are contacted only towards the end of their period of self-isolation, when it is too late to stop their contacts spreading the infection. That is why the R is rising Without a functioning track and trace system, the Government’s tiered system of restrictions is too weak to stop the virus spreading, but severe enough to cause economic harm. They have managed to find a way to lose on both fronts: damaging the economy, but without fully protecting the public. The answers are there if only the Government would listen. We have already heard how a locally led tracing system contacts over 97% of affected people in Cumbria, while the Government’s failing national system contacts barely two in five people in Slough The way to fix track and trace is to put the experts on the frontline in charge of public and private partnerships. We cannot let this Government’s blinkered over-centralising dogma stand in the way of public health. This is a great country and we can revive the economy after the pandemic, but we cannot revive the dead. This Government’s incompetence is lethal. We need them to get a grip, recognise that they have failed, and set free those who are best placed to fix contact tracing and stop the virus spreading in every community up and down the land.
It is a pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the Government, and I would like to thank all hon. and right hon. Members across the House for their varied and considered contributions this afternoon. NHS Test and Trace is one of the strongest weapons in our armoury in this fight against coronavirus. In the last seven days alone, we have processed more than 1.8 million tests, with 219,000 just yesterday. That helps us to break chains of transmission through testing, contact tracing and outbreak management in an end-to-end service to help to prevent the spread of the virus, protect local communities and save lives and livelihoods. As we have heard today, it is both a national and a local operation, with close working already taking place with local authorities. Like others here, I would like to pay tribute to those local authority leaders and directors of public health who have been in the heart of their communities helping to inform both those important strands If I may, I will take a moment to reflect on some advances. We have built the largest diagnostic network in British history. Has it been seamless? No. Are we getting there? Yes, absolutely. It is developing all the time.
Will the Minister give way?
I am afraid that time is short, so I will continue if I may The network is developing all the time, and at the moment includes five major Lighthouse laboratories, 96 NHS labs across 29 pathology networks, and over 500 testing sites. This is a tremendous undertaking in such a short period, and in a period of national crisis. We are doing more testing per head than almost any other major nation. Yesterday, capacity sat at more than 344,000, and we are expanding capacity further to meet a target of half a million tests a day by the end of October. This will include our NHS labs going even further to reach 100,000 tests a day. More labs are joining the network, and we are investing in new technology to process results faster. We are also automating parts of the process, installing new machines and hiring more permanent staff.
May I make a simple suggestion? It would be really helpful to the vast majority of people who are waiting for tests if there was a simple means of them being able to track where their test had got to, just as happens with Amazon and many thousands of other companies in this country. It would also save vast amounts of time for the company.
I will take that suggestion back. We have listened to a lot of what has been said today, and there has been a lot of constructive feedback. I just want to let the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) know that we are going to be opening a testing site on the campus in Reading next week As many have said, the work that we are doing on test and trace is absolutely critical. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is a doctor himself and one of the many Conservative MPs who work in the health service, made a superb contribution using his experience of the system. He rightly pointed out that the vocal comparisons made at the outset of the pandemic with other European nations have suddenly faded away now that the UK is testing more per capita than those same nations. He encouraged us to be realistic about the capacity of the public sector and talked about the challenges of making things happen in practice, rather than simply lecturing from the sidelines about theoretical magic bullets The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) said that we must test, test, test, and we are. As I mentioned, we hope to be able to do 500,000 tests a day by the end of this month. On the points that he raised about the Slough testing centre, it is critical to underline that people must make sure they have booked their appointment before they arrive on foot or by car. I understand that that test centre is still accessible by both methods My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) talked about the huge role that his town has played in the national effort, from the initial quarantine of British citizens from Wuhan to the incredible Lighthouse project that is employing robotics to boost our testing capacity. We are grateful for that contribution at this time of crisis. As he said, from vaccines to ventilators, medication to PPE, all have been produced at scale very quickly by the private sector, and British companies have achieved tremendous things I welcome those Opposition Members who recognised the challenges that we face as a Government and who made constructive contributions, highlighting genuine concerns from constituents. We are working through some of those concerns. However, I share the regret of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who pointed out that the era of constructive opposition from Labour Front Benchers appears this week to be over. It is important in this public health crisis that we reflect on criticism and try very hard to improve. However, this afternoon, they have sought to divide local from national, public from private, UK nation from UK nation, and to undermine public confidence in the system for their own political ends. That is a matter of deep regret for us all We recognise that contract tracing needs to reach as many people as possible and we are working hard to make sure that that happens, but this is about partnership, with a national framework and local support. Indeed, we are rolling out that strengthened partnership to more local authorities. We also now have the covid-19 app, downloaded over 17 million times in England and Wales, identifying contacts with those who might have tested positive for the virus, including people you might not know. Work is ongoing to make the Scottish app interoperable It of course remains critical that everyone does their bit and follows the rules—hands, face and space, and self-isolating where necessary to prevent the spread of the virus. That is why on 28 September, we introduced financial support to help individuals to self-isolate, meaning that those on low incomes who cannot work from home but need to self-isolate do protect themselves and others. They will receive £500. This is an important step forward in helping enable people to take the action that they should to prevent the spread of disease. We have also put in place requirements for businesses not to stop employees self-isolating if they need to. NHS Test and Trace is also making follow-up phone calls to those who are self-isolating to ensure that they are aware of what local support is available to them and signposting them to local services Alongside that, we have set out a series of tougher enforcement measures, targeting those who repeatedly flout the rules, including fines of up to £10,000, but testing and tracing is only one of our lines of defence, so I reinforce once again: if you have symptoms, you must self-isolate in line with public guidance and get a test. Even if you are feeling well, wash your hands regularly, wear a face covering in confined spaces and follow the 2 metre rule on social distancing, because it is these little things that can make a big difference In conclusion, we are entering a new and crucial phase of our fight against coronavirus, where the number of cases is rising and we can see that once again, the virus is spreading among the elderly and vulnerable. But we are also in a very different position as a nation from where we were when this virus first hit our shores. We have better data, better treatments and the testing and contact tracing that will be instrumental in getting the virus under control. There is a genuine partnership approach—a national framework with tremendous local support—and I commend the amendment to the House.
During the Division, Front Benchers must leave via the door in front. Everybody else must leave via the door behind me—socially distanced, please Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
I rise on behalf of my constituents who work in the travel, aviation, aerospace and tourism sectors, and who are rightly worried about their livelihoods and the lack of targeted action to date by the UK Government The petition states: The petition of the residents of the constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Declares that the economic consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic have had a devastating effect on the travel and tourism sector; notes that, normally, outbound and inbound travel is estimated to generate approximately £65 billion to the UK economy; further notes that an estimated 12,000 jobs are already lost and approximately a further 75,000 jobs could be at risk; further declares that no more operators should be pushed to bankruptcy; and further declares that any work by the Secretary of State for Transport to support the travel industry should be in coordination with the #SaveTravel Campaign organised by Trade Travel Gazette The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to immediately bring forward additional measures to support the travel industry, including the aviation sector, coach companies and travel booking agencies And the petitioners remain, etc [P002609]
I am grateful for the opportunity to open this Adjournment debate on an issue that I know is of great importance to not only communities in Ceredigion, but, as is evidenced by the attendance of hon. Members in the Chamber this evening, communities across these islands We face many pressing challenges as a society: the health and economic consequences of the covid-19 pandemic have been debated today, but just as pressing are the devastating impacts of climate change. If we are to meet these challenges and, ultimately, emerge stronger, more secure and more prosperous, it is vital that we transition rapidly to a society powered by energy generated from renewable sources. The Committee on Climate Change has been clear that the UK is off track to achieve our commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and meet our obligations under the Paris climate agreement. At present, renewable electricity generation accounts for only 11% of all UK energy use, and our transport and heating networks need to be electrified to decarbonise our economy. If we were successful in doing this, new policies and regulations would be needed to ensure that the resulting rise in electricity demand was met by renewable generation There is good news: villages, towns and cities across the land possess incredible potential for community renewable energy projects, such as solar arrays in fields, wind turbines, and hydro units in rivers. Such schemes support local skilled jobs and offer local economic opportunities.
Does my hon. Friend agree that to fully realise our local energy-generating potential we must invest in grid-integrated, locally situated batteries? They will smooth out the problems that hamper the grid supply in so many of our rural communities.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point. She anticipates a few of the arguments I wish to make this evening, but she is right to emphasise the role that batteries and improving storage will play in the future. If we are to balance local generation and local demand, being able to store a lot of this renewable energy will be key. These local, community-owned renewable energy projects support local skilled jobs and offer local economic opportunities, which will be very welcome in the face of the covid-19 pandemic’s impact on so many of our communities.
Bath and North East Somerset Council is working closely with Bath and West Community Energy, and such partnerships are incredibly important for getting local buy-in. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to get that local buy-in, this really has to work financially as well for the people?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. She rightly says that this has to be viable for these community schemes and partnerships if they are to fully realise the potential that so many of these schemes possess. I have put on record details of one local energy partnership in Cardigan in my constituency that I know is trying to grapple with some of these challenges.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I agree with his comments about community groups and the opportunity here. Does he agree that the monopolies of service provision by greater companies must be brought to an end, as we see many local people who are attempting to expand business being precluded from doing so by legislation that seems to be put in place only to frustrate, rather than to allow for competitive provision?
The hon. Gentleman has got to the nub of the issue and has anticipated the main thrust of my argument. At present, the regulations and the way in which legislation has been structured may be outdated and disadvantage some of the smaller generation schemes. His point will be key if we are truly to capitalise on the potential that the smaller projects possess.
What are the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on partnering with local authorities, at whatever tier? He mentions community projects at village level, but what about town councils? I am thinking specifically of Newport Pagnell Town Council, which is very keen to get involved in such initiatives.
The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point. We must not think that community-owned projects are necessarily just at parish council level; towns and municipalities can also play a part. If we make any changes, we will do well to ensure that we better empower such projects, because I believe that they will be key in moving to a decarbonised economy.
I concur with the point made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt); Warwick District Council is similarly interested. Does the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) agree that we have to ensure that local authorities can develop projects through the planning system, work with grid operators and start generating at scale in the immediate area?
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. As is often the case, if we are to transition as rapidly as is necessary, we will need to bring together so many aspects of regulation and different Departments A lot of the points made by hon. Members touch on the fact that since the 1990s we have seen a transition in how energy and electricity have been generated and transmitted across the country. It will need to change even further, of course; we are moving from an electricity system that consists of a small number of quite large power plants, serving a passive operation, to one with potentially thousands, if not millions, of smaller generators with storage and active demand, complementing huge numbers of large-scale renewables.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Cornwall has a vital role to play in battery storage technology, with our recent discovery of lithium in our Cornish tin mines? We will be able to use that Cornish lithium to build the battery technology that he describes.
I am grateful for that point, because one of the heartening news developments of recent weeks has been about the lithium in Cornwall. It is clear that those deposits will be crucial if we are to make this transition The question that arises from the shift that I described is whether a system with potentially millions of moving parts could be managed in a centralised way even if we wanted it to be. I believe that local generation to meet local demand offers a possible answer.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, which is of the utmost importance. Does he agree that fantastic community projects such as Sheffield Renewables should be better supported by the Government to provide local renewable energy, and that that support should be enhanced as we try to tackle the climate emergency?
The hon. Lady’s point is an important one: we need to make sure that community schemes are supported. It also anticipates where I want to take my speech next, so I am doubly grateful The potential capacity of local community-owned energy is quite astounding. A 2014 UK Government report stated that community energy projects could contribute as much as 3,000 MW of electricity generation capacity by 2020. Unfortunately, we have not quite met that target, but the potential is striking nevertheless That potential is frustrated by the antiquated rules that govern our energy markets, which were designed primarily in the 1990s and were suited to a different system of large power stations and a handful of utility companies. Unfortunately, those rules still rule the roost, and they create insurmountable cost barriers to any community energy initiative that wishes to sell the electricity it generates directly to local households and businesses A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that the technical and operational challenges involved in becoming licensed to supply energy to customers lead to initial costs exceeding £1 million. There have been attempts to address that. A few years ago, Ofgem launched Licence Lite, which was aimed at creating a less onerous set of supply licence conditions for specific types of new, innovative supply business models. Unfortunately, that has proved complex and has not been well used to date. To its credit, Ofgem has also launched an expanded Sandbox service to allow innovative companies to apply for derogations from the traditional licensing regime and stipulations, and it has extended its ability to grant those derogations to certain local generators However, the most effective solution would be to introduce greater proportionality to the licensing system, to ensure that the costs and complexities of being a licensed electricity generator are proportionate to the scale of its supply. If the costs are proportionate, it becomes financially viable for smaller-scale renewable generators to supply electricity, and, in turn, new community-owned schemes would become viable.
The hon. Member may be aware that I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group for left-behind neighbourhoods, and there are many opportunities for this in those communities. In my constituency, for example, there is heat from mine workings. Does he agree that these sorts of innovation can come through this channel much better than others?
I am grateful for the hon. Member’s intervention. He makes a key point: the transition to a decarbonised economy also has a lot of benefits in terms of economic development in areas such as his and mine, which have been left behind. This offers so many opportunities, and we would do well to make more of them.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. As we hear from the interventions, there are local groups and bodies around the country that are desperate to have these opportunities. Partick Community Council in my constituency, which is a very concentrated urban area, is keen to find out how it can innovate and use the abilities being proposed.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is right: there is so much potential across these islands. We just need to sort out some of the obstacles that are currently faced.
I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. He refers to the obstacles. Does he agree that one way to overcome those obstacles is for the ten-minute rule Bill that I presented in the summer, which is due to have its Second Reading on 29 January next year, to be passed into statute, whether through the private Member’s Bill route or the Government adopting it?
I thank the hon. Member, who has done incredible work in bringing forward that ten-minute rule Bill, which has the support of a great number of Members on both sides of the House. I very much want to put my support for that Bill on record, and I hope that if it does not progress as a private Member’s Bill, the Government will look to adopt its provisions.
Members have talked about left-behind communities and the real desire for many communities to get involved. I want to mention those who are left out and how important it is that the community energy sector is inclusive. Right now, 4% of practitioners in the sector are black, Asian and minority ethnic. Will the hon. Member join me in paying tribute to the organisation Power for People, which is working to ensure that it represents those groups that are currently under-represented in the sector?
I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention, and it gives me the opportunity to place on record my gratitude to Power for People. This debate probably would not be taking place tonight if it was not for the support and leadership that Power for People has shown in recent weeks, so I am pleased to put that gratitude on record The ten-minute rule Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) would allow electricity generators to become local electricity suppliers by applying for a new form of supplier licence designated for local supply. In advance of the debate, I have been contacted by Members from all political parties who are supportive of such measures but who unfortunately were not able to attend. They include the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), and the hon. Members for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Glasgow East (David Linden), to name but a few. There are, as I say, 210 in total A right to local supply would help support local energy businesses to create jobs by selling energy to local customers and retain significant additional value.
I do not want to anticipate where the hon. Gentleman is going with this list, but one of the key opportunities that a right to local supply would present to our communities right across these islands is to allow for more entrepreneurial councils to generate electricity locally for communities, as the chief executive of Angus Council has suggested. Does he agree with that ambition?
I do agree. The opportunities are many, and if we were able to address some of the regulatory barriers, it would be a win-win for all involved To draw my remarks to a conclusion—Mr Deputy Speaker, you have been very patient, and I am grateful for it—if we were to introduce a right to local supply, it would help local energy businesses and municipalities, as was mentioned, it would retain a significant amount of additional value in local communities and it would inject much-needed resilience.
On that particular point about additional value to local communities, in my constituency the Corwen hydroelectric project is part of a wider series of community efforts. The benefit of what the hon. Gentleman is proposing is that it would not only help the hydroelectric project, but would incentivise wider activities within the community as well.
I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman, because there would be a range of benefits. We would have greater public support for the transition to sustainable energy forms, we would improve equality, and we would have nature friendly renewable energy generation. Obviously just as important is that we would have a secure energy supply less dependent on imports, let alone a more effective energy system that would perhaps see consumers’ energy bills decrease as well I hope the Government consider establishing a right to local supply and specifically the workable mechanism for it laid out in the ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Waveney, which as I said earlier is supported by more than 200 Members of this House. I am sure that together we can enshrine this right to local supply in law and make the most of the many opportunities that it offers.
The number of interventions might be a record. Congratulations. I call the Minister.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I was going to make very much the same point. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) on securing today’s debate, and I will make the same point: I have never seen an Adjournment debate with so many interventions. They were all extremely gracefully and graciously accommodated in his speech, so many congratulations to him The hon. Member has spoken eloquently about the need for local communities to be able to supply electricity, and I think there are strong arguments in its favour. I know that similar views have been expressed to me and the Department by many Members. I am fully aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) has also done his bit to try to drive the issue of local supply up the agenda I know that the hon. Member for Ceredigion supports a campaign for electricity generators to sell directly to local consumers, for all the benefits he suggested in terms of local employment. I think he or one of the many intervenors used the phrase “local buy-in”, and those arguments are fully appreciated In my remarks today, I will address the matter in quite a technical way and give the specific reasons why we as a Government feel that this particular provision is not something that we would adopt, but I suggest to him that local community participation has to be on the agenda. It is certainly something that I as the Energy Minister will be willing to engage with and have a discussion about With regard to the licensing—we will talk a little bit about that—changing the licensing framework to suit the business models identified by his campaign appears attractive, but the danger—and we always have to be mindful of dangers in government—is that it would create wider distortions elsewhere in the energy system. I will talk to those directly. Instead of the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, I would urge stakeholders and hon. and right hon. Members across the House to engage with the ongoing work that the Government are undertaking with Ofgem to support flexibility and innovation more generally. Then perhaps we can come to a view about how the local element can play its part in the solution.
Is the Minister not aware that the main problem is the lack of a level playing field? Basically, the smaller providers cannot compete with the bigger providers, and therefore we need this change.
I am fully aware of that, and I will come on to it. I have only 10 minutes, so I ask the hon. Lady to bear with me; I will address that point later in my remarks Electricity and gas supply licences, as I am sure everybody in the Chamber knows, are usually granted on a Great Britain-wide basis. However, Ofgem has powers to award supply licences for specified areas and specified types of premises, and that can allow licensees, once they have the licence, to specialise and offer more targeted and potentially innovative products and services. The holder of such a licence could supply customers only in the specified geographical area and specified types of premises, with the full terms and conditions of the licence applying otherwise. That means that there is already provision through this licence to have local provision. Electricity suppliers can apply to Ofgem for a derogation from a particular provision of the supply licence, and if it is granted, provisions of the supply licence will not apply to them. There is already some degree of flexibility.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I am afraid I am very hard pressed for time. I may have time later to take an intervention, but I need to press on with my remarks Ofgem, as I have suggested, has been consulting widely on how to use such facilities more effectively to bring innovation to the specified locality, as it were, in this retail market. I understand that the consultation closed on Monday 12 October, and I hope that small-scale generators who wish to supply local communities have responded fully to the consultation The hon. Member for Ceredigion mentioned, very ably and relevantly, the Licence Lite provision, which allows aspiring suppliers or local generators to apply for a supply licence and receive relief from compliance with industry codes. On existing mechanisms, the Electricity Act 1989 already allows the Secretary of State to exempt, by scale, electricity suppliers from having an electricity supply licence if they meet certain conditions. There have been examples, certainly in my tenure as Energy Minister, of people successfully applying for exemptions Being an electricity supplier, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, confers the right of the licensee to supply electricity to customers, but it also bestows certain obligations, and that is very important to remember. Those obligations include payment of a proportion of network costs. Clearly, if one is operating in a situation where one is not a licensee, then one can avoid paying the costs on which the whole system depends. That is a critical issue. In some instances, the Licence Lite regime can remove this burden, but clearly we would not want to go down a route where large numbers of suppliers are simply exempting themselves from those obligations Network charges, as people will understand, are levied on all users of the network, and they send signals that reflect the costs that users impose on the network. There are a range of signals to encourage generators to locate close to sources of demand, and placing a source of generation close to areas of high demand will mean that the generator gets paid credits for helping to avoid further investment in the high-voltage transmission network. Essentially, that means suppliers are incentivised to be in areas of high demand. There will be a commensurate problem in areas of low demand, because how would they attract the relevant suppliers? Ofgem is working to reform these signals through improvements to network charges, and it is also working to develop local markets for flexibility, which goes to the core of what I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about I do not believe—and I think the Government, thankfully, are of the same opinion—that artificially reducing network costs for local electricity suppliers is going to be highly efficient, because it could distort the market. One is essentially incentivising a behaviour that may not be economical in the first instance, and that would mean higher costs falling on other consumers, which would increase as more local suppliers were subsidised. Creating a special category of local supplier brings its own complexities, and there may well be unintended consequences as a result. Having said that, I commend the hon. Gentleman for thinking very deeply and creatively about this issue. This is part of an ongoing conversation. He was quite right to say at the beginning of his remarks that a lot of the structures that we have today reflect the conditions and circumstances before we legislated for net zero, and in many cases reflect conditions that operated 30 or 40 years ago. There is an ongoing discussion to be had about how best to adapt our institutions to modern circumstances.
My right hon. Friend has highlighted some of the challenges that the Government face. As we have heard from Members around the Chamber, we have shown enormous potential for local community energy supply to play a full role in decarbonisation and the covid recovery. Will the Government be setting out in the forthcoming energy White Paper how we fully realise this potential and meet these challenges? When can we expect to see that White Paper?
My hon. Friend is straying into ground that is not necessarily covered in this debate. I am very hopeful that the energy White Paper will be published soon. I think the Secretary of State said in front of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that it would be published in the autumn, and we are still in the autumn, so I am hopeful that it will come imminently.
Should legislative changes be required—I think there is support across the House for that, as has been demonstrated this evening—how best can we work with the Minister to carry through any opportunities that are identified as necessary?
Well, a very good start is a debate such as this. It has been a real eye-opener for me. I am delighted to see so much interest. I would suggest that people engage with the Department and engage with me. I am very happy to discuss these issues, which are absolutely fundamental to the energy transition that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. As I said, this is part of an ongoing conversation. I am hopeful that the energy White Paper will come hastily enough for my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney We have to focus on the flexibility of the whole system in terms of the current regulatory regime. If we get that right, then we can bring the innovation and perhaps some of the centralisation that the hon. Gentleman, and other hon. and right hon. Members, want to see. The prospects are considerable. We could see innovation and growth. We could see cost reductions and, most fundamentally, carbon reductions. I think that with a co-operative spirit, we can get very far. The hon. Gentleman’s actual proposal perhaps creates more problems than it solves, but I am very willing to debate and discuss that with him on a subsequent occasion I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion for raising this issue and thank all Members who participated in this short but interesting debate Question put and agreed to.