Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

We have taken steps to mitigate the impact on the vulnerable: the new lockdown measures include allowing support and childcare bubbles, support groups and unlimited outdoor exercise, for instance, to continue. We have amended guidelines to suggest that the clinically vulnerable and the over-60s should minimise their contact with others, and the clinically extremely vulnerable should work only from home, rather than asking them and their households to shield themselves, as we did for the first lockdown. On funerals, we have changed the Covid-secure guidelines to allow up to 30 people to attend.

Lastly, we have improved how we work with local authorities to support them in responding to this crisis. My department has regional teams made up of PHE regional directors, Contain regional convenors and Joint Biosecurity Centre regional leads, who work continuously with local authority chief executives, the directors of public health and local resilience forums. I pay testimony to all those noble Lords who have brought this challenge to our attention. These groups attend local incident management meetings and outbreak boards as well as meeting more informally. They also organise meetings at a regional level to share good practice and help areas support each other through mutual aid.

In relation to those who are less privileged and in the area of financial support—another subject raised by noble Lords—we completely recognise that these measures are difficult for the general public and business, which is why we will provide support to protect jobs and get people through the crisis. This includes extending the furlough scheme until the end of November, helping with mortgages, helping the self-employed—as the Prime Minister outlined earlier this month, we are doubling our support from 40% to 80% of trading profits—extending the deadline for applications to the Covid loans schemes, cash grants of up to £3,000 per month for business premises closed as a result of the national lockdown, additional funding worth £20 per head to enable local authorities to support other business affected by the lockdown, and other measures.

My final points are on the steps out of this lockdown. I stress that these restrictions are time limited: after four weeks, on Wednesday 2 December, they will expire, and we will return to a tiered system on a local and regional basis according to the latest data and trends. As the Prime Minister set out in the other place, the best way to get R down now is to beat this autumn surge and use the breathing space to exploit the medical and technical advantages we are making to keep it low.

Our doctors and scientists have led the way in improving how we treat people with Covid, work continues to progress on developing a vaccine and we are working to continue to increase our testing capacity, most notably with cheap, reliable and rapid-turnaround tests with results in minutes. As the Prime Minister outlined, plans are already in place for the deployment of these quick-turnaround tests, which we will manufacture in this country and apply in an ever-growing number of situations to allow us to beat the disease.

By way of conclusion, I acknowledge that these measures are difficult for us all. There is not one of us who does not regard them with a heavy heart, but I know that the general public will continue to come together, as they always have done. Together, we can protect the NHS and the vulnerable, and save lives. We must place difficult but time-limited curbs on our freedom in the short term so that we ensure greater freedom and prosperity in the long term. If we act now to suppress the virus and support the economy, education and the NHS, we can restore those cherished freedoms more quickly and get closer to the lives that we all want to be living. We cannot do this with the virus growing exponentially so we must all make sacrifices now for the safety of all. It will not be easy, I know, but in a pandemic the effective steps are not always easy. We are called on to make fundamental changes to how we work, live and interact with each other, in pursuit of a common cause. I beg to move.

Amendment to the Motion

However, we now know that one has only a 50% chance of survival if put on a ventilator. We were not told that in April during the panic to get more ventilators, so advice changes. We know that only something like 320 deaths from coronavirus, every one of which is a tragedy, have occurred among those aged under 60 without comorbidities. Among the under-40s, there has been a total of about 250 deaths from the virus during the epidemic, overwhelmingly of people who were already vulnerable with comorbidities.

We know that our young people—our children and our grandchildren—will be saddled with debt for decades, as my parent’s generation spent decades paying off debt from the Second World War. Will our children ever forgive us? We know that unemployment will rocket next year. We know that businesses, large and small, will be closed in their droves. In hospitality, pubs and restaurants will close their doors tonight and many will never reopen. We know that cancer treatment has ground to a halt for hundreds and thousands of patients. We know that domestic abuse and mental health issues have increased dramatically—as, it appears, have suicides. We know that students are locked into halls of residence, ruining their time at university; they are turned into criminals if they leave. They will then face a desolate employment landscape in which to find a job. Therefore, is it not reasonable to ask for a cost-benefit or risk analysis? Yesterday, Robert Jenrick, a Cabinet Minister for whom I have a high regard, said that there had been no impact assessment. Surely we should expect such an assessment before embarking on a serious act of national self-harm, yet the Government do not appear to have done one.

The second part of my amendment calls for an explanation of the Government’s comprehensive long-term strategy. In the last century, when I was in the Army, it was a given that one explained to all one’s soldiers the rationale behind orders if one expected them to follow them. It is called leadership. I ask the Minister to tell the House what the strategy is behind government policy. The country is locked down so infections should fall, but when restrictions are lifted, it seems to me that infections may rise again, meaning a third wave. Then what? An effective and reliable vaccine may appear, or it may not. It may be only 50% reliable anyway, as I read from another expert. As I understand it, a vaccine makes the patient’s body produce antibodies, but now we are told that many recovered patients lose their antibodies within six months. Is that the case?

As a loyal Conservative, I want to believe that the Government have a strategy but my credulity has been strained somewhat. We were originally told, until late August, that face masks were essentially of no use. We have been told to go back to work. It is only two or three weeks since we were told that there would definitely not be a second national lockdown. I regret to say that an enormous amount of good will and trust has evaporated. We are told that the public support a second lockdown. I am not so sure, but the role of leadership is to lead. We need courageous leadership to explain the costs, benefits and risks surrounding this crisis and this measure. We need to a clear strategy to take us through this crisis.

I do not underestimate the extraordinarily difficult choices before the Government; nor do I envy Ministers having to make these decisions. I will listen to the 50 or more contributions and look forward to the Minister’s response, but I currently intend to divide the House on this amendment.

In a spirit of hope over experience, therefore, I shall ask the Minister some more questions. What is the current state of intensive-care hospital capacity in the south-east, where, like the south-west, the virus is rising faster? When will those beds be full? What range of criteria will be used to determine when the lockdown can be lifted on 2 December? People want certainty that it will end but if they are expected to comply, they want to know the plan and what it is based on. People also want to believe in the prospect of a vaccine, so can the Minister tell me what steps the Government are taking on all current vaccine candidates to license production in the UK to ensure that a supply is assured, regardless of which is approved? Who will get priority?

Finally, people want to be able to trust the scientific consensus and to know that the Government do too. But the Government have undermined that trust through their inconsistency, which has fuelled the scepticism that we see in this evening’s amendments expressing regret. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, in this respect: the management of the epidemic is an object lesson in the failure of leadership, governance, management and communication. However, I am sure that the House will support the regulations.

Isolating is about giving people financial security so that they do not have to worry about feeding their children or paying their mortgage or rent. It should be seen as a national and civic duty which the Government support, without more sticks or penalties. Taiwan has shown how this can be done: with Covid teams which go in and support people, not just financially but with psychological help. There is help with childcare and food, and by checking on people’s health.

So, through gritted teeth, I will support these regulations. We, the public, will do our bit. We will stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives, but over the next four weeks the Government have to do their bit—sorting out the test, trace and isolate system.

Again and again, Ministers rightly say they have to balance lives against livelihoods, but to achieve balance you need to weigh both sides of the scale. We are told that the models say we have no alternative, as the NHS will be overwhelmed. We of course have a duty to take this very seriously, but the Explanatory Memorandum for these regulations says the Government are assuming an R rate of 1.1 to 1.3. Professor Tim Spector from King’s College has suggested that R is now one in England and the UK as a whole, and Professor Heneghan from Oxford University says the infection rate in Liverpool is falling from a run rate of 490 a day over seven days to 269 and the R value is well below one, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, may not have noticed. It seems the Government’s tiered approach is not only hurting but working.

The last financial crisis was caused by groupthink and people believing models which told them they could convert lead into gold at the expense of common sense. Then, the poorest paid the price, and those responsible became very rich. The fact that we were all scared by headlines over the weekend telling us that 4,000 people a day would die, and learned within hours that this came from a discredited model which predicted four times as many deaths as occurred in real life on 1 November, is worrying to say the least. With all models, the rule is very simple: garbage in, garbage out.

We also know that, once implemented, lockdowns are hard to exit. On Saturday the Prime Minister told us it would be for a strictly limited period, until 2 December. In less than 24 hours, Michael Gove was telling Andrew Marr it could be extended. When asked about this yesterday, Professor Whitty said:

“I think that the aim of this is to get the rates down far enough that it’s a realistic possibility to move into a different state of play at that point in time.”

What are people running businesses meant to do? Do they listen to the PM and take on more debt to survive another month if they can, or do they conclude, after listening to Mr Gove and Professor Whitty, that they should throw in the towel?

The Chancellor has done brilliantly, but he knows we are heading for Carey Street. What will this lockdown cost—perhaps £12.5 billion for furlough and the self-employed alone? He will need to extend the £20 a week standard allowance for universal credit from April. When folk who thought they were in secure jobs—say, on £25,000 a year—discover that they are not eligible for universal credit because they have savings or a working partner, his colleagues in the Commons with be inundated with constituents worried about how to pay their bills and feed their families. Where will he find the money for health, welfare and social care, and for the job creation initiatives that will be needed? To paraphrase Tacitus, we will have created a desert and called it protecting the health service.