PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Engagements - 4 November 2020 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The whole House is talking about the result of a heavily contested election—and indeed it is a year ago to the day, Mr Speaker, that you were elected Speaker. May I, on behalf of all Members, wish you therefore a very happy anniversary, and thank you, Mr Speaker, for making the speakership great again? [Interruption.] Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

The city-wide testing trial starting in Liverpool on Friday using the new lateral flow tests will cut the time to get results, cut the spread of the virus by identifying people who are infected but not showing symptoms, and vastly reduce both the number of people and the time involved in isolating, so the benefits to the NHS, to schools and to business are profound. When does the Prime Minister think the results from this trial will be available and its benefits extended across the UK?

I thank my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right. I can tell him that the pilot is planned to last for approximately two weeks and we will keep the House updated on the results as they are evaluated.

Can I start with the elections in the United States? Whatever the results, will the Prime Minister join me in saying that it is not for a candidate to decide which votes do and do not count or when to stop counting? The next President must be the free and fair choice of the American people.

Can I also express my revulsion at the terrorist attacks in Nice and Vienna? I am sure I speak for the whole House in saying that our thoughts are with all those affected.

Of course, Mr Speaker, I join the congratulations on your one-year anniversary.

Turning now, if I may, to covid-19, on 21 September, when the Government’s scientific advisers indicated that a circuit break would bring the virus back under control, the number of people that day who tragically lost their lives to covid-19 was 11. The Prime Minister ignored that advice. On Monday, 42 days later, the number of people who tragically lost their lives to covid-19 was 397—that is a staggering 35-fold increase. Does the Prime Minister understand the human cost of his delay in acting?

In answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s opening question, of course we do not comment, as a UK Government, on the democratic processes of our friends and allies, and I do not think, in all seriousness, he would expect otherwise.

Turning to the point about covid and the decision—the difficult decision—that this House has to face tonight, I think I speak for many hon. Members across the House when I say that I do not think any Government or any Parliament would want to impose these measures lightly on the people of this country.

It was always right to pursue a local and regional approach, as our scientific advisers said. I will tell you why, Mr Speaker: because that regional approach was showing signs of working and still is showing signs of working. It did get the R—the transmission rate—down lower than it would otherwise have been. But we have to face the reality that, in common with many other countries in this part of the world, we are facing a surge in the virus, which this House must now tackle with the measures we have outlined. They will, as hon. Members know, expire on 2 December, and I hope very much that Opposition Members will support them tonight.

I am sure that nobody wants a lockdown, but it is a question of timing. Had the decision been taken a few weeks ago to put in place a circuit break, it could have been done for two to three weeks and taken advantage of schools being closed over half term. Now the Prime Minister’s proposed lockdown will be for at least four weeks, which means that businesses will be closed for longer and in the critical run-up to Christmas. Does the Prime Minister understand the economic cost of his delay in acting?

It is precisely because we understand the economic cost and the social and psychological damage of lockdowns that it was right to go for the local and regional solution, which was supported by many Members—indeed, it was supported by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as long as it was useful to him for a while. That was the right approach. By the expiry of this period on 2 December, as I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), we will be rolling out across this country new types of testing on a scale never seen before, beginning this week in Liverpool, enabling us to detect asymptomatic cases. That is crucial, because as the House knows, 70% of transmission is taking place between people who have no symptoms. That will enable us to find new ways on a mass scale to break the chains of transmission. I want to thank particularly the Labour leadership of Liverpool for their co-operation —a manner of co-operation that I commend to those on the Opposition Benches.

The Prime Minister’s delay in acting is a huge failure of leadership, and it is no good saying that there was support for the tier system. As he well knows, I looked at the evidence and made a decision three weeks ago that the right thing was a circuit break. I do not buy the argument—I do not think anybody does—that the facts suddenly changed this weekend. The direction of travel and the number of infections, hospital admissions and, tragically, deaths have been clear for weeks.

But we are where we are. Millions of people across the country are really concerned about the restrictions that will come into force at midnight tonight. I accept that we all have a duty to pull together and try to make this lockdown work, so I just want to ask some basic and direct questions on behalf of those millions of people. First, will the lockdown end on 2 December come what may, or will it depend on the circumstances at the time? People need to know that.

I am grateful for the support that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now offering, and I can answer him very simply. As the House knows, and as I informed him repeatedly on Monday, these autumn measures to combat the surge will expire automatically on 2 December, and we will then, I hope very much, be able to get this country going again and get businesses and shops open again in the run-up to Christmas. But that depends on us all doing our bit now to make sure that we get the R down. I have no doubt that we can and that we will be able to go forward from 2 December with a very different approach, but of course, it will be up to the House of Commons to decide thereafter what to do.

I accept that there will be a vote in the House. That does not tell us anything; that is the process. I want to press the Prime Minister. Is he saying that if, by 2 December, the R rate has not come below 1 and is still rising, we will come out of lockdown come what may, with infection rates going up on 2 December? That does not seem sensible to me.

It is thanks to the efforts of the British people that the R is now currently only just above 1 as it is. We are doing the right and the prudent thing at the right time to get that infection rate down, and these measures, as I have said repeatedly to the House, will expire on 2 December. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is now saying he wants to protract them beyond 2 December, then perhaps he should make his position clear.

I just want some basic honesty, and this is serious. If the infection rate—[Interruption.] We have to look the public in the eye. If the infection rate is still going up on 2 December, it is madness to come out of lockdown and go back to the tiered system, when we know the one thing the tiered system cannot cope with is an R rate above 1. That is the basic point. We can come back to it on 2 December, as we always do, but that is the point I am making.

The one thing we know a circuit break or lockdown does is buy time, and the Prime Minister needs to use that time to fix test and trace. I know he will talk about the capacity of 500,000, what is going on in Liverpool, how it is world—beating, et cetera, but we have been going round and round in circles on this. The latest figures show that 113,000 contacts were not even reached, and that is just in one week. Only 20% of those who should be isolating are doing so, and the majority of people still do not get results in 24 hours. So can the Prime Minister give a straight answer: what is he going to do in the next four weeks to fix this, because if he does not, we will be back here again?

With the greatest respect to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has stood up and said that I will brag about NHS Test and Trace and its achievement of a target of capacity of 500,000, I am perfectly willing to accept the failings of NHS Test and Trace. Of course I am, and of course I take full responsibility for the frustrations people have experienced with that system, but to go from 3,000 tests a day, 2,000 tests a day to 500,000 is a quite remarkable feat. It is the biggest diagnostics exercise this country has ever carried out, and those at NHS Test and Trace are helping to drive down the R. They are doing, in my view, an absolutely invaluable job, whatever the difficulties they face. What we now need to do is to come together as a nation, briefly—if we can—put aside party political wrangling and point scoring, and work together, as I think he will tonight, to support this package to get the R down and allow us to go forward in a different way, with the mass testing that I have outlined from 2 December.

The Prime Minister must see that if four out of 10 of those who should be contacted are not being contacted, we have a problem in the system that needs to be fixed in the next four weeks.

Finally, I want to ask about care homes, which of course were hit so badly in the first wave of this pandemic. Can I pay tribute to all those working in care homes, who have given such dedication and commitment in the toughest of circumstances? We owe it to them not to repeat the mistakes of the first wave, but, Prime Minister, as we face the second wave, there is an increasing concern about the emotional wellbeing of those in care homes and their families if all visits are stopped. It must be possible to find a way—perhaps a dedicated family member scheme of some sort—to allow some safe visits to alleviate the huge fears of isolation and despair across the coming months. Will the Prime Minister work cross-party to find a scheme that will work for those in care and their families?

New guidance on care homes and visiting relatives safely—because the point the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes is incredibly important —is going to be announced today to try to strike the right balance between people’s real, real need to see their loved ones and, obviously, the risk of spreading the disease in care homes. We are going to be publishing some guidance about how that can be done today.

I am grateful for the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s offer to work collaboratively, but I have to say that the House will generally have noted that he has used this crisis as an opportunity to make political capital and to have what I think a shadow spokesman called a “good crisis”—a “good crisis”. Can I commend a different approach, because he has attacked the Government’s strategy? Can I commend a different approach? The former Labour leader, the right hon. former Member for Sedgefield, who is not as fashionable on those Benches as he once was or should be—[Interruption.] Not with all of them; perhaps on the Front Bench, but not all of them. He had written a good piece in today’s Daily Mail, in which he supports—broadly supports—this Government’s strategy: praising UK drugs companies for what they are doing; supporting our search for a vaccine; and supporting mass testing in Liverpool, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman deprecates. I think what he should do is actually take a leaf out of the Blair book, and by the way, I can tell him that Tony Blair would not have spent four years in the same shadow Cabinet as Jeremy Corbyn, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Department for Transport is already engaged on that matter, and I am sure it would be happy to meet him and representatives from the iPort that he describes.

Let me take this opportunity to send my best wishes to our friends in the US during this anxious time. Donald Trump claimed an unsupported victory and major fraud, with millions of legitimate ballots left to count. I hope that the Prime Minister will join me in condemning his actions this morning.

On Monday, the Prime Minister agreed access to the furlough scheme for Scotland, at 80%, if lockdown restrictions require it. Subsequently, a number of his Ministers have rowed back on that promise, and the Scottish Government have not received any detail about what the commitment means in practice. Today is the Prime Minister’s opportunity to clear up this mess of his Government’s making. Will Scotland receive full 80% furlough and payments for the self-employed under current eligibility criteria, whenever that is requested by the Scottish Government in the months ahead?

I hesitate to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of failing to listen to what I said on Monday—I think he heard exactly what I said. I gave a commitment then, and I in no way budge from that. Furlough is a UK-wide scheme and it has helped to save about 10 million jobs in this country, including about 1 million in Scotland.

What the Prime Minister said on Monday was that if the devolved Administrations asked for furlough, it would be granted. That was the direct answer that he gave to the question. The Scottish Government have been waiting for clarity on whether Scotland will receive additional money as a result of increased spending from English local government, and there is also no clarity about whether the unlimited payments for business support in England will be made available on a similar demand-led basis. Will the Prime Minister clarify those two points now, and commit to confirming in writing to the Scottish Government today that access to the furlough scheme will be there if they need it?

Perhaps the most efficient thing I can tell the right hon. Gentleman is that tomorrow, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be making a general statement about all the support and provisions that we are making for this latest phase to tackle the autumn surge of coronavirus. I repeat the points that I have made about Barnett consequentials—£7.2 billion has already gone to help Scotland, and we will support people in Scotland and throughout the UK during this crisis.

I thank my hon. Friend for campaigning for places of worship in the way that he does, and I am so deeply sorry that these restrictions have to be put in place right now. We will work as hard and fast as we can to allow people to worship in the way they want from 2 December, and that is why I hope the House will approve this package of measures tonight.

If every vote is counted in the US election, it is likely that Joe Biden will be the victor. The Prime Minister has a major challenge to build relationships with any incoming Administration. Therefore, in the light of Joe Biden’s entirely correct analysis of the impact on the Good Friday agreement of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, how quickly will the Prime Minister recognise the inevitable and remove those clauses from the Bill?

The UK Internal Market Bill, which has cross-party support, is a vital part of the armature—the skeletal structure—of the whole UK economy as we leave the European Union, and it ensures that goods and services placed on the market are available throughout the UK on the same terms. It is vital for our country and the hon. Gentleman should support it.

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We stand shoulder to shoulder with France, as I have told President Macron, and shoulder to shoulder with Austria, as I have told Chancellor Kurz, in our joint war against this abominable ideology. Together, we will defeat it.

I do indeed congratulate all the voluntary organisations that have stepped up, and I am proud that this Government have also helped to fund them to the tune of billions of pounds—not just the £9 billion increase in universal credit, but of course an extra £1.1 billion going to help councils. This Government will ensure that no child goes hungry this Christmas— this winter—thanks to any inattention or inactivity by Government. Never forget that it was a Conservative Government who instituted free school meals for five, six and seven-year-olds after all the years Labour was in power.

I do indeed believe that such a deal would be massively in the interests of our EU friends and partners, as well as anybody else, but that is of course up to them. What I can tell my hon. Friend is that we are supporting green technology of all kinds, particularly hybrid and battery vehicles, and we have just put another £49 million into grants for exactly the kind of vehicles that he and I have inspected and driven together so that this country can bounce back greener.

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, in the sense that, although the absolute numbers have not gone up in the way we feared, we are unquestionably seeing repeat victimisation in domestic contexts. It is intolerable. As the House knows, we have set up helplines to tackle it, and we are investing in refuges and independent domestic violence advisers. It is absolutely crucial that we tackle the scourge of domestic abuse and also deal with the mental health consequences for the victims. That is why we are investing massively in mental health and mental health charities.

An independent study published recently suggests that the writing ability of year 7 pupils is some 22 months behind expectations. My right hon. Friend will know that it is the life chances of the most disadvantaged that are hit hardest when schools close. We have rightly said that those children are an absolute priority for this Government. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister give an assurance that, first, we will do whatever it takes to make up for lost ground and, secondly, we will never again contemplate closing our schools?

I thank my right hon. Friend. He is completely right about the paramount importance of keeping our schools open. Out of this crisis has come at least one potentially innovative idea that can really help exactly the types of pupils he is talking about: one-on-one tutoring of the kind that we have been able to support with our catch-up premiums and our national tutoring programme. As we come out of this pandemic, I want to see us keeping up with one-on-one tutoring because I believe it can make a huge difference to children’s confidence and academic attainment.

I listen to a huge range of scientific advice, and indeed there are eminent scientists and epidemiologists who say that we should not do any kind of lockdowns or measures like this at all—David Nabarro of the World Health Organisation, whom I esteem greatly, for instance. We have to take a balanced decision and make a judgment about when the right moment is. The hon. Gentleman talks about the long-term effects on people’s lives. We have to make a balanced judgment about the effects on people’s mental health, livelihoods and prospects, the prospects of young people, and the importance of saving lives and protecting our NHS. That is the balance we are trying to strike tonight, and I hope he will support it.

In a few short weeks, we end the transition period with the European Union. May I ask the Prime Minister to confirm that the transition team will endeavour to keep Dover clear of traffic gridlock, and that work will continue at pace on the proposed upgrade to the A2 between Whitfield and Dover’s eastern docks?

I thank my hon. Friend, and I congratulate her on her campaign for the people of Dover. I can tell her that, thanks to her lobbying, Highways England is now developing plans to improve Brenley Corner junction and access to Dover along the remaining single-carriageway sections of the A2 from Lydden.

I hesitate to accuse the hon. Lady of not listening to what I have just said, but I want to repeat that the furlough is a UK-wide scheme that will, of course, continue to be available to the people of Scotland. For any further elucidation of the details of the entire package of support that this Government are putting in place for the people of the entire UK, I direct her to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will say tomorrow.

A potential vaccine for covid provides us all with hope, and that hope is thanks to investment in research and development. The Prime Minister has pledged more money for research than any of his predecessors put together, to deliver on his vision of the UK as a global science superpower. Does he agree that maintaining the Government’s commitment to spend 2.4% of GDP on research and development by 2027 will also be essential for that vision?

You have asked for speed in my answers, Mr Speaker, and the answer to my right hon. Friend is basically yes. I reiterate that we are committed to that 2.4% and to increasing public investment in R and D by £22 billion by 2024-25.

I am very interested in what the hon. Lady says because, as she knows, this Government are investing massively in 5,000 low-carbon buses. I would be interested to know what type of coaches she is talking about and the details of the company that she rightly represents. That company should be eligible for bounce back loans and for all sorts of support. She is shaking her head, so I invite her to write to me with details of that company’s needs, and I will do my best to oblige her.

Northern communities, including my Cheadle constituents, have already been subject to restrictions for months, which has meant a disproportionate effect on northern livelihoods. The importance of the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda has never been starker, so today I ask him to fast-track infrastructure spending in the north, including Northern Powerhouse Rail and a new train station in Cheadle. Will the Government, with northern MPs and business leaders, formulate a northern economic recovery plan, to ensure that our region comes out of the pandemic stronger than ever?

I can certainly confirm that we are going ahead with Northern Powerhouse Rail. In addition, I can tell my hon. Friend that Cheadle will receive at least £500,000 from the towns fund to support the local high street and the local community.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think that he is raising the 1983 miners’ strike—or the early 1980s at any rate. I would be obliged to him if he could send me further particulars of his concerns, which I will do my best to address.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking teachers across Elmet and Rothwell for keeping the schools open this term, and does he share my frustration that half the laptops that he provided to Leeds City Council for distribution to the city’s most vulnerable learners remain in the storeroom at Leeds Civic Hall? What can be done to get the Labour council to pull their socks up?

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is indeed disappointing, because over 2,500 laptops and tablets and 400 routers were delivered to Leeds City Council for disadvantaged 10-year-old pupils. I will do whatever I can to spring those laptops from the cupboard as fast as I can.

Let’s head up to Manchester to see if they are in the cupboard with Jeff Smith.

They are not going to. The furlough scheme, as the hon. Gentleman knows, was extended until the end of October. We are putting in measures now to support people across the whole UK throughout this period until 2 December, and that is the right thing to do. We are putting our arms around the people of this country to get them through the pandemic and beyond.

I understand that the Prime Minister will soon receive from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Transport a recommendation that we enable quarantine periods to be cut for air passengers who have tested covid-negative. When is a decision likely to be made, and will he look favourably on this proposal, which will allow the aviation industry in this country to get back to its rightful place?

I thank my hon. Friend. He is right to lobby for the aviation industry. This country has the third biggest aviation industry in the world. It is currently having a terrible, terrible time, and my sympathies are very much with all the employees involved. One of the benefits of getting polymerase chain reaction testing up to 500,000 a day is that we have new possibilities for testing of all kinds across the country. We will be bringing forward further measures and proposals as soon they are finalised.

What has possibly undermined people’s confidence in, and understanding of, what the Government are trying to do is the constant party political point scoring, and the attempts by the Labour party and the hon. Lady to obscure what we are trying to do. The best thing would be to advise her constituents on what to do: follow the guidance, and get the virus down—and let us all do it together.

Levelling up will matter more than ever as we emerge from the pandemic next year, and I was delighted to see the first town deals announced last week. They will deliver transformative investment to places such as Darlington. Will my right hon. Friend prioritise rapid decision making in the cases of Middlesbrough and Loftus, which have applications pending for this vital fund?

Yes indeed, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on lobbying for Middlesbrough in the way that he has. I can tell him that Tees Valley is already getting £126 million from the local growth fund. The devolution deal will mean £450 million extra for transport, skills and employment, and Middlesbrough will get at least £500,000 from the towns fund, thanks at least in part to his lobbying.

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the issue. In addition to the £600 million care home action plan that we announced earlier this year, we will put further funding into care homes in the short term, while also making sure that we have long-term reform of that sector. As I said to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) earlier, we will bring out specific guidance to enable people to visit loved ones in the way that they should and they must.

My right hon. Friend and I share similar libertarian views, and I guess that some of the decisions he has taken for the country’s common good were contrary to his personal creed and feelings. While those of us with higher political morals than Captain Hindsight on the Opposition Front Bench have sought to do our collective best during recent times, what does my right hon. Friend believe are the views regarding antisemitism, following the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report, that the current Leader of the Opposition—a knight of the realm, no less—holds now? Does my right hon. Friend believe that they are any different from those the right hon. and learned Gentleman displayed when serving the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)?

The only comment I would make on all that is that I was genuinely amazed that the leader of the Unite union should make a remark of the kind that he did, and that the Labour party should remain in receipt of funding from Unite and take no steps to dissociate itself from that union after that remark. I did find that absolutely astonishing.

I am not going to pretend that every aspect of NHS Test and Trace has worked in the way that I wanted to, but as I said earlier on, it has achieved some very considerable things. What I think it has also done throughout the pandemic, from the get-go, is work with local authorities and local people. What we will be doing now, as we roll out the mass testing that I have described to the House in Liverpool and elsewhere, will be led by local people, and we will be working with those local authorities to deliver those programmes.