Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-11-04
Topic: Health
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): These are extreme measures for extreme times. I think I agreed with every word of my hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker). Against my instincts, I have forced myself to confront the reality of the Government’s arguments. I say a big thank you to the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for giving me a privileged opportunity to take scientists into No. 10 to interrogate the data. I confess it was as a red team, as I said in public. I was rather hoping that we would take the wheels off the data and thereby stop this lockdown altogether, and I am sorry that that has not been possible The best argument for the Government’s policy is the one I put in a Telegraph article earlier. With R above 1, and perhaps up to 1.5—it is, I understand, easier to suppress it to 1.5 than to below 1—and the plateauing phenomenon, there will be intolerable pressure on the NHS. Because Professor Whitty had to clarify, if not correct, the record on what he said yesterday to the Select Committee, I went back to see what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said to me about Liverpool’s cases when I intervened on him on Monday. On this complex subject, he did not get it wrong. I have checked very carefully, and I am sure that he got it right. But the reality is that there are different datasets. Professor Tim Spector tweeted: "Further evidence today from our Zoe CSS survey that we have passed the peak in second wave new cases in the U.K. there will be a four week lag before this is seen in a decline in deaths and 1-2 weeks in hospitalisation. R value close to one in most areas now" The point I want to make is that the Government’s strategy, as advocated by some of the best scientists—it has been my privilege to meet them—relies on a bet that science will deliver vaccines, improved testing and improved treatments. I am delighted that people are optimistic about it, but I am being asked to impose the most enormous costs on my constituency and my country, on a bet about science delivering in an environment in which there are contested datasets, including a dataset that suggests that R is going below one. I am not able to do it, and it is with a heavy heart and many misgivings that I will be voting no tonight. I really wish I had the clarity—on either side of the argument—that is occasionally expressed in this House, and much more routinely expressed outside it I want to make a point about compliance. If we have this lockdown and it is not complied with, it will be a disaster. We can have no more innovative eye test procedures in the course of this lockdown. There must be compliance, and a good example must be set. In 28 days, I will not behave as I have done this week. I will continue to behave responsibly in working with the Government, but there will be no equivocation about my views. We must learn to live with this virus, deliver on the new science, reform expert advice, reform modelling and improve standards in Government so that never again do we see a model such as the one that was presented on Saturday, which evaporates like morning mist under the sunlight of close inspection.