Covid-19

Before the Prime Minister addresses the Chamber, could I point out that British Sign Language interpretation of the statement is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv? I now call the Prime Minister to make his statement.

Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will make a statement on our response to the rising number of coronavirus cases and how we must act now to avoid still graver consequences later on.

At every stage in this pandemic, we have struck a delicate balance between saving lives by protecting our NHS, and minimising the wider impact of our restrictions. It is because of the common sense and fortitude of the British people that, earlier this year, we were able to avert an even worse catastrophe, forming a human shield around our NHS and then getting our country moving again by reopening key sectors of our economy and returning children to school. But we always knew that, while we might have driven the virus into retreat, the prospect of a second wave was real. I am sorry to say that, as in Spain, France and many other countries, we have reached a perilous turning point. A month ago, on average, around 1,000 people across the UK were testing positive for coronavirus every day. The latest figure has almost quadrupled to 3,929. Yesterday, the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser warned that the doubling rate for new cases could be between seven and 20 days, with the possibility of tens of thousands of new infections next month.

I wish I could reassure the House that the growing number of cases is merely a function of more testing, but a rising proportion of the tests themselves are yielding a positive result. I also wish I could say that more of our people now have the antibodies to keep the virus off, but the latest data suggests that fewer than 8% of us are in this position. It is true that the number of new cases is growing fastest among those aged 20 to 29, but the evidence shows that the virus is spreading to other, more vulnerable age groups, as we have seen in France and Spain, where this has led to increased hospital admissions and, sadly, more deaths. In the last fortnight, daily hospital admissions in England have more than doubled. Tens of thousands of daily infections in October would, as night follows day, lead to hundreds of daily deaths in November, and those numbers would continue to grow unless we act. As with all respiratory viruses, covid is likely to spread faster as autumn becomes winter. Yesterday, on the advice of the four chief medical officers, the UK’s covid alert level was raised from 3 to 4—the second most serious stage—meaning that transmission is high or rising exponentially.

So this is the moment when we must act. If we can curb the number of daily infections and reduce the reproduction rate to 1, we can save lives, protect the NHS and the most vulnerable, and shelter the economy from the far sterner and more costly measures that would inevitably become necessary later on. So we are acting on the principle that a stitch in time saves nine.

The Government will introduce new restrictions in England, carefully judged to achieve the maximum reduction in the R number with the minimum damage to lives and livelihoods. I stress that this is by no means a return to the full lockdown of March. We are not issuing a general instruction to stay at home. We will ensure that schools, colleges and universities stay open, because nothing is more important than the education, health and wellbeing of our young people. We will ensure that businesses can stay open in a covid-compliant way. However, we must take action to suppress the disease.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement and for his telephone call last night. The picture presented yesterday by the Government’s advisers was stark and cannot be ignored. Infections are rising, hospitalisations are rising and the trajectory is clear. We know from bitter experience what happens next, so it is right that the Prime Minister is announcing further measures today, and we support those measures, just as we supported lockdown in March and the more recent local lockdowns. Although we have fierce criticism of the way the Government are handling this pandemic, when restrictions are needed, the national interest lies in clear communications and cross-party support, and so we will—as we have done before—encourage people to follow the Government guidance and obey the rule of law.

Families across the country will be anxious today. Many are already living under local lockdowns; many more fear that, soon, they will be. They are worried about their jobs, their loved ones and whether they will be able to spend Christmas with their families. They will also be worried that the Government do not have a clear strategy. One day, people are encouraged to work in the office; in fact, more than encouraged—they were openly challenged by the Prime Minister for not doing so. Today, they are told the opposite.

This is a time of national crisis, and we need clear leadership, so it is right that the Prime Minister answers a number of serious questions about the next steps. First, a number of areas in England already have localised restrictions, including some that are very similar to those announced today. Pubs and restaurants in Bolton, for example, have been told to shut at 10 pm for about two weeks, and Leicester has been in localised restrictions for about three months, yet infections in those areas remain high. Can the Prime Minister be sure that the restrictions he is introducing today will be effective in suppressing the virus? If they do not work, when does he envisage further measures might be necessary?

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his support. I notice that it seems to come and go, but it seems to be here today. He criticises testing. He should know that, as I have told the House many times, this country is now testing more than any other country in Europe—one test for every five people. Actually, in spite of the massive increase in demand for testing, we have greatly increased the number of contacts reached from the indexed cases. He should pay tribute to those involved in the whole testing operation, in spite of all the difficulties they face.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentions the success of local lockdowns, and he is absolutely right to draw attention to what happened in Leicester. That was a heroic effort of local people, and it has happened in other parts of the country—local people pulling together to drive the virus down. That is what we hope to encourage throughout the country, and that is certainly part of our strategy. He asked what we are doing to support businesses, families and communities across the country, as though we had not already quite rightly spent £160 billion to support businesses, jobs and livelihoods across the country. We will continue to put our arms around the people of this country.

I am grateful, as I say, for what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says and the support, such as it is, that he has offered. However, I can tell him that, in putting forward that message of support, I hope he will also say to everybody in his constituency and elsewhere that this is a balanced and proportionate response to the crisis that we face. We are driving the virus down—that is our objective by these measures—but we are also, as I have said, keeping the vast majority of the UK economy going. That is our programme. That is what we intend to do. This is a package to drive down the R, but also to allow education and jobs and growth to continue. That is absolutely vital for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to understand, and I hope that, in his support, which I welcome, he will communicate that to the country as well.

One of the most difficult decisions a Prime Minister has to take in a democracy is to restrict our freedoms for the greater good. In the measures he has announced today, which have cross-party consensus, my right hon. Friend has sought balance and proportionality, as he has said, in protecting the economy while reducing the risk of the virus spreading like wildfire.

However, given the six-month timeframe he has announced, what does he have to say to grandparents who want to live their lives before it is too late and who cannot see their families; to worried parents and families who cannot access a test at the moment; to workers and business owners facing financial ruin; and to MPs who want to debate these matters in Parliament before they are decided, not after, so that they can help him shoulder this onerous responsibility? How can he convince all of them that he is taking the right path, and unite our country with hope of an end to this misery?

I thank my right hon. Friend. She is entirely right that Parliament should and will debate these issues. We will make time early next week, in Government time, for a full debate on these measures.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. We have reached a critical moment. The virus has not gone away, it is not going away, and it remains as deadly as ever. I welcome the fact that following calls this weekend from our First Minister, a four-nation Cobra meeting has taken place this morning. We have all witnessed the worrying rise in virus cases over the past number of weeks, and we all know the projections and the consequences our society will face if it continues to grow at the same rate.

We must also be clear about one thing: if we take the right actions now, there is nothing inevitable about the exponential spread of this virus. If we act decisively, move sharply and take the right, tough decisions now, we can get the virus back under control, minimise the time we all spend under new restrictions and, most importantly, we can save lives.

Today, Governments across the four nations are rightly asking citizens to make more sacrifices to protect our collective health. In return for these sacrifices, it is only right that citizens are provided with financial support amid the health and economic uncertainty. We are now just a few short weeks away from the end of the furlough scheme. Analysis from the Scottish Government has already shown that extending the scheme by eight months could save about 61,000 jobs in Scotland. France, Germany and Ireland have already extended their job retention schemes into next year, but the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have rigidly refused to extend furlough.

We all know, however, that U-turns and mixed messaging have come to define this Government. On 10 July, the Prime Minister said:

“Go back to work if you can.”

On 14 August, the Chancellor said it was “crucial” that we “do our bit”, such as

“going back to our places of work,”

and on 27 August, Government sources said:

“Go back to work or risk losing your job”.

The Prime Minister has changed his advice this morning on working from home. It is now time to change his mind on furlough as well. So today I have one question, and it is a question that 61,000 employees in Scotland are asking. Prime Minister, they deserve certainty and they deserve an answer. Will this Government now save those jobs and extend the furlough scheme beyond October? Prime Minister, do not throw workers on the scrapheap, through no fault of their own.

There was a great deal in the right hon. Gentleman’s question that I agree with. He is right that we need to take decisive action now, and I am very grateful for the collaboration that we have all been engaged in across the UK. Our objective is to keep businesses going, to keep the economy moving as much as we can and indeed to allow people to go back to work where they must but, of course, to work from home if they can. It is very clear what the choices are and what the guidance is.

Of course we will continue to support businesses and people who face challenges because of coronavirus throughout our United Kingdom. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, in Scotland alone, the Barnett consequentials of the support are now well over £5 billion, and across all the devolved Administrations they are about £12.6 billion. We will continue to send that support throughout the whole UK, to put our arms around the whole workforce of the UK and to protect jobs and livelihoods, but we also want to see those businesses continuing and jobs being created.

I support the measures announced today. The Prime Minister will have decided on them with a heavy heart, but all the evidence from South Korea, Singapore and other countries is that early, decisive action now is the best way to avoid a second full lockdown later. I want to ask him about testing. We have tripled capacity since May and will double it again by the end of October, so there has been a transformation, but we are not there yet. At a school in my constituency a child has tested positive, but the school has a quota of only 10 tests every three weeks, and it is worried that people may be passing on the virus asymptomatically whom it is not able to identify. How can he reassure that school and others up and down the country that are trying so hard to do the right thing?

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have massively increased testing across the country. We are now prioritising teachers, as he knows. He raises a very important point about school pupils, and an interesting fact is that the rates of infection and transmission among school pupils are much lower than in the rest of the population. But I am not going to hide it from him that the future I see for our country and the way to defeat this virus is massively to expand testing, not just for teachers and not just in schools but throughout the country. That is why I am proud that, in spite of all the difficulties that the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and others have legitimately pointed out, NHS Test and Trace is now conducting more tests than any other country in Europe. I think we should be proud of that.

There was one major omission from the Prime Minister’s statement: an apology. Will he now apologise for his Government’s gross incompetence over testing, tracing and clear communications, which has led to these latest restrictions on people’s daily lives? As families and businesses look forward, especially to Christmas, how will the Government support the millions of people who are on the brink of losing their jobs, losing their businesses and losing their livelihoods? What is the new plan for them?

The plan is that we should continue to keep the economy moving in the way that I have described and the Government have set out, which I believe is, quite rightly, supported by the Opposition, while suppressing the R and getting the virus down. That is our policy. Does the right hon. Gentleman support it?

One of the lessons of the lockdown measures in the spring was that they worked, but almost everyone ended up wishing that they had been introduced a week or two earlier, so the Prime Minister is right to act in anticipation rather than in reaction. Will he take the public into his confidence and tell them whether the six-month period that he mentioned is irrespective of the experience of infections and hospitalisation over the weeks and months ahead? What will be the criteria for lifting these restrictions and others such as the rule of six?

My right hon. Friend asks a really important question. The answer is, of course, that we must look at what the data tell us. There are several important data. The R is perhaps the crucial one, but we also look at rates of admissions to hospitals and new infections. If those facts change—if things turn around, and if the British public can do what they did before and get this virus down and get it under control—then of course we will review the measures and review the situation.

The Prime Minister is right that testing is a vital part of the Government’s response to the coronavirus. Will he join me in commending companies like Randox and Fortress Diagnostics in Northern Ireland, which have played a vital role at national level in delivering the Government’s testing programme? Randox has committed 99% of its covid testing capacity to that programme, and on 19 September it successfully reported almost 10,000 samples beyond its committed daily rate. Will the Prime Minister consider providing access to testing through local community pharmacies to expand the capacity and public accessibility to testing at this time?

I do indeed congratulate Randox and all the other businesses involved. We are massively expanding testing the whole time. However, it is very important for the House to understand that testing alone cannot fix this problem. There is a hiatus in the logic of the attacks that are sometimes mounted. The problem we have in the spread of this virus is that, alas, a minority of people have not been following the guidance in the way they might have done. What we are trying to do now is to get everybody to focus on the rules and the guidance, to enforce it strictly and to get the R down.