Public Health — House of Commons, 2020-12-30
Topic: Health
Alexander James Jorden Norris (Labour, Centre-left): This has been an excellent debate. We have heard lots of different views and perspectives about how to wrestle with this knotty crisis—the great national question of the day—but I do not mistake the disagreement and points of difference for a lack of faith or a lack of love of community or country. All hon. Members and right hon. Members have attacked the question with a commitment to wanting the best for our country, even if sometimes we disagree on the conclusions That is particularly important today. Today has been a momentous day and the past 12 hours and five minutes of parliamentary business will be remembered—perhaps that is one for your book, Mr Deputy Speaker, and please be kind if I do anything to earn a place in there. Who knows how I could do that? There will be some for whom today is a day of great joy, and there will be some for whom today is a day of pain. Whatever people feel about what has happened here today, we have to come together. We have had four years—longer, really—of significant disagreement and division and what we have seen in the pandemic is that the UK is at its best when it is united and comes together. I hope that we will move forward from today in that spirit, and tackling the virus reminds us why we ought to do that Let me reflect on the contributions from colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) made the point about ensuring that NHS staff are vaccinated. As I said in my opening speech, that is important because it is the right thing to do and because of the sacrifices they make and the risks they run on our behalf, but also because of the need for a resilient workforce My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) made a very important point: when the right support is not in place, whether that is for the individual to self-isolate or for businesses to shut their doors in challenging times, it undermines people’s confidence and faith in the overall process. That is why the Government’s economic support package needs to move hand in hand with increased regulation to protect public health My hon. Friends the Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) both referenced an important theme about honesty. I will reiterate what I said to the Minister—the British people are ready for candour. If we are in tier 4 from now until the vaccine, now is definitely the time to tell us I am not going to itemise all the Government Back-Bench colleagues who spoke—there were too many. We really ought to do something about that at the next election; at least I can commit to that. I particularly want to mention the speech made by the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), because he referred directly to my speech and suggested that when I talked about SI No. 1646 I was a bit churlish. I do not think I was; I was a bit saddened by that. I shadowed the right hon. Gentleman when he was a Minister for international development and I was never churlish then, and I was not churlish now. My point about SI No. 1646 was that we were concerned—and said so at the time—that the three-tier restrictions would not go far enough, but in that SI in particular it is not clear how to get out of a tier. I have not heard anything in the subsequent speeches, and I doubt we will hear anything from the Minister, that gives a clear set of criteria even around the five metrics for exiting tiers. That remains a significant problem for public confidence in the process I wanted to pull out two quick themes from Government Back-Bench contributions. The first is about tiers. In the contributions from the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and the hon. Members for Bolton West (Chris Green), for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and for Buckingham (Greg Smith), they all put admirable scrutiny and pressure on their Minister, as I have heard them do before, and I know that she will be keen to respond. I would be keen to enlist that support for matters beyond tiers. Tiers are a symptom, not a cause, of the challenges of the restrictions of liberty we are making today. Tiers are put in place when we lose control of the virus. Some of that can be accounted for by the mutant strain, which is 56% more potent, but the issues existed before then. We needed tiers before that, and tiers that constantly increased in strength, because we do not have the fundamentals right, particularly on test and trace. I implore those Members to apply that level of scrutiny and pressure on their Ministers on that, too, because it would make a real difference The second theme was vaccines. Many colleagues, including the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and the hon. Members for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell)—everyone, in fact, but particularly those Members—expressed joy about the plan. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean made a particularly detailed and powerful case for the levels he felt that the Government should be aspiring to. I hope the Minister will engage with that directly and say whether it is realistic. If it is not, can she say why not and what a more realistic level is I want to reiterate the point on schools that was made by a number of colleagues. Not that Members would ever look at social media during a colleague’s contribution, but if they did, they will have seen that there is significant anxiety as a result of the announcement by the Secretary of State for Education this afternoon. It just will not do to say that some schools will be open and that some schools will not be open and then not to publish the list, and then when the list is eventually published, it is incomplete. This has caused a significant amount of anxiety. We must not forget that we are—what—five days away from those schools opening. Parents need to know. Schools need to know. It really will not do and I hope the Minister might be able to give some clarity on that and, if not, a sense of when the Government will return to finish off that job I just want to finish by reiterating three key questions to the Minister. I know that she will have an awful lot to cover, so I wanted to make sure that I left her the lion’s share of the winding-up time—whether she will thank me for that I do not know. First, we do need to hear the Government say with both clarity and commitment that, based on the best scientific evidence available, they believe that the tier system is sufficient to control the spread of the virus. This is their third go at a tier system. The first two failed and we are here today because the third one is not working either. We need to hear that explicitly, because otherwise we will have to take more significant action later. We might as well be honest about that now Secondly, when will we see the roll-out plan for the vaccine so that we can help to build confidence and perhaps to improve it through parliamentary scrutiny? The plan should include NHS staff as a priority, but, in general, it needs to ensure that we get through the entire population. It is a wonderful and joyous moment to know that we will have access to enough vaccines for everyone who wants one. It is a wonderful moment. Now our responsibility is to demonstrate that we can get them out for people in the quickest and safest possible manner Finally, there should be no extra health regulations without extra support for business. Where is that support package? When will we see it? When asked that question earlier—I think by a Back-Bench colleague of mine—the Secretary of State for Health said, "Well, I’m not a Treasury Minister, I am a Health Minister." Nobody thinks that that is how it works here. We cannot afford for it to work in that way. The two need to move in lockstep, so can we have clarity about when we will see that support package? I will sit down now, Mr Deputy Speaker. It has been a very good debate, but I hope that the Minister can now give clarity on the points that I have raised.