Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2020-11-02
Topic: Health
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate that there are Members who applied for the previous debate and could not get in, so if Members will forgive me, I will take very few interventions. It would be a shame if Members could not get into this debate, as happened last time On 21 September, SAGE advised the Prime Minister to adopt a time-limited circuit breaker, and warned that "not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences" On 13 October, when we debated the tiered approach, I warned that "the embers are burning brightly" nationwide, and that "further action is going to be needed."—[Official Report, 13 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 205.] Later that day, the Leader of the Opposition proposed to work with the Prime Minister in the national interest and help to introduce a time-limited, two-week circuit break across the school half term What was Downing Street’s response to our offer to work together? Downing Street branded us opportunistic. The Chancellor criticised us, describing the proposal as "a damaging, blunt, national lockdown" that would cause "unnecessary pain and suffering".—[Official Report, 22 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 1252.] Even though this morning he defended the decision to go into lockdown, there are now briefings—I am sure the whole House will be shocked by this—that the Chancellor does not really support this lockdown after all. I have been around for a long time, and I know that when a Chancellor tells a Prime Minister that he supports him, while simultaneously letting Tory Back Benchers think that he backs them, that is definitely a man on manoeuvres Then we have the Foreign Secretary, who said that "the idea of a short, sharp circuit breaker is, frankly, something of an enigma. No one can say, if you go into a national lockdown at what point you get out of it." Well, quite That brings me to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office—a man renowned for his long-standing loyalty to the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—who, in recent days, performed a pirouette with great panache. Two weeks ago on "Sophie Ridge on Sunday", when asked whether a circuit break could be introduced, he gave an emphatic "No!" But yesterday, when asked on "Sophie Ridge on Sunday" whether the Prime Minister’s lockdown could extend beyond four weeks, he said yes. No wonder the Foreign Secretary is confused with that level of consistency from his Cabinet colleagues Then, of course, we have the Prime Minister. Two weeks ago, he said a lockdown would be the "height of absurdity" and he said that a lockdown would "turn the lights out", yet here we are on the eve of a longer, deeper and more restrictive lockdown than we proposed. Fundamentally, this is about the Prime Minister’s judgment. Since SAGE advised a lockdown in September, over 4,000 lives have been lost. Infections have increased from 4,000 a day to over 20,000 a day. The numbers in critical care on ventilation have increased from 154 to 815. Deaths have been doubling roughly every two weeks since the beginning of September Thousands more, sadly, are likely to die over the next fortnight. Tragically, this lockdown is too late for them. Andrew Hayward from SAGE said earlier today on the radio that "if we had chosen a two-week circuit break…we would definitely have saved thousands of lives and we would clearly have inflicted substantially less damage on our economy than the proposed four-week lockdown will do." On Wednesday, Labour Members will, in the national interest, vote in support of the necessary measures, but the House should be clear that this lockdown will be longer and more damaging because the warnings from SAGE in September and then from the Opposition in October were dismissed by the Prime Minister. There is a sorry pattern to this Prime Minister’s handling of the crisis.