PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Engagements - 21 October 2020 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I know the thoughts of the whole House will be with the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). I am sure Members from across the House will want to join me in wishing her a speedy recovery.

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.

I associate myself with those kind remarks about my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

My constituents are reeling from the 9% contraction of the economy since March this year. Unemployment has sky-rocketed and joblessness in Haringey is the highest in the capital. Unfortunately, we are at the same time facing the idea that there could be a congestion tax forced on an extra 4 million Londoners by this Government. These Londoners are already facing the double whammy of covid and financial ruin. Will the Prime Minister please immediately stop the imposition of this dreadful plan? I look forward to his answer.

I must respectfully inform the hon. Lady that the current Mayor of London had effectively bankrupted TfL before coronavirus had even hit and left a massive black hole in its finances. Any need to make up that deficit is entirely down to him. It is entirely his responsibility. Any expansion of the congestion charge or any other measure taken to improve the finances of TfL are entirely the responsibility of the bankrupt current Labour Mayor of London.

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend by telling him that the incidence in the Vale of Aylesbury is in fact less than half the England average. The way forward for constituents in the Vale of Aylesbury and everywhere else is to keep following the guidance, observing the new restrictions and, obviously, washing hands, wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces and keeping a sensible distance.

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).

Prime Minister, how does an area which goes into tier 3 restrictions get out of those restrictions?

The simplest and most effective way for areas to get out of those restrictions is, of course, to get the R down to 1 or below, and I am very pleased to say that some areas are already having a considerable effect with the measures that they are taking.

Can I press the Prime Minister on that answer? If the infection rate, R, in a tier 3 area has not come below 1, will it be possible in any circumstances for that area to come out of tier 3—if the R has not come below 1?

Obviously, the R is one of the measures that we look at. We take a decision based on a number of things including the R—also, of course, rates of infection, rates of admission to hospital and other data. But the most important thing is for areas that do go into tier 3—and I am very grateful to local leadership in the areas that have gone into tier 3, because it is the right thing for them to do, the right thing for their constituents, the right thing to save lives —when they are able to make progress, then, of course, they will come out of tier 3. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows full well, the measures that are put in place are reviewed every 28 days.

I am now confused by the Prime Minister’s answer. If it is not the R rate under 1, what is it? Millions of people want to know the answer to that question. Millions of them are in tier 3 and millions more are likely to go into tier 3. They really need to know. On Friday, the chief scientific officer said that tier 3 on its own certainly is not enough to get the R rate below 1. On the same day, the Prime Minister himself said that there was only a chance of getting infection rates down.

That goes to the heart of the issue in Greater Manchester and elsewhere. The widespread fear is that tier 3 is the worst of all worlds: it brings significant economic harm without getting the virus sufficiently under control to exit tier 3. So instead of being a solution, tier 3 is a gateway to weeks and weeks, or more likely months and months, of agony from which there is no likely exit. Can the Prime Minister not see the problem if there is not a clear exit?

I am sorry, but I have made it absolutely clear that a part of the country going into tier 3 is in there only for 28 days; we will review it after 28 days. Areas that have gone into tier 3 are, I believe, already making progress, and areas where there are restrictions in place are also showing signs of progress. We are pursuing a local—a regional—approach, which is the sensible approach for this country. That is what the epidemiology supports. It is what the deputy chief medical officer supported last night.

Again, I want to thank local leadership in Merseyside, in Lancashire, actually in London, in the west midlands and elsewhere for what they are doing. It is a bit incoherent of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to attack local lockdowns when he wants to plunge the whole country back into a damaging lockdown for weeks on end, and he has no clue about how he would propose to get the country out of that—does he?

I appreciate that there will be a review every 28 days, but if the R rate has not come below 1, then the infection rate is still going up, the numbers are going up, the admissions are going up, the numbers in hospital are going up and the deaths are going up. Is the Prime Minister seriously saying that he would take a tier 3 area out of tier 3 with the R above 1? I do not think so.

Let me spell out what that means. On Friday, thousands of people in Greater Manchester—taxi drivers, pub and hospitality workers, people working in betting shops, the self-employed and freelancers—will either be out of work or face significant pay cuts. That is the reality on Friday in Greater Manchester. But their rent and their mortgage will not be lower; their food and their heating bills will not be lower—and that could last for months.

Why can the Prime Minister and the Chancellor not understand that? They should stop bargaining with people’s lives, stop dividing communities and provide the support that is needed in Manchester.

I am very proud that this Government have already given Greater Manchester £1.1 billion in support for business, £200 million in extra un-ring-fenced funding, £50 million to tackle infections in care homes, £20 million for Test and Trace, and another £22 million for the local response that we announced yesterday. Yesterday, the Mayor of Greater Manchester was offered a further £60 million, which he turned down, having had no encouragement to support it, I may say, from the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

I can tell the House today that that cash will be distributed to the boroughs of Greater Manchester. I thank right hon. and hon. Members across the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), for Bolton West (Chris Green), for Bolton North East (Mark Logan), for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), for Bury North (James Daly), for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), for Leigh (James Grundy), for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) for the support that they have given in this matter.

This is a Prime Minister who can pay £7,000 a day for consultants on Track and Trace, which is not working; who can find £43 million for a garden bridge that was never built; but who cannot find £5 million for the people of Greater Manchester. I really think the Prime Minister has crossed a Rubicon here, not just in the miserly way that he has treated Greater Manchester, but in the grubby take-it-or-leave-it way that these local deals are being done. It is corrosive to public trust to pit region against region, mayor against mayor, council against council and ask them to trade away their businesses and jobs. We need a one nation approach to replace these endless local battles with clear national criteria and proper support for jobs. Labour’s motion this afternoon would do that. Why will the Prime Minister not support it?

I am proud of the one nation Conservative support that we have given to the entire country: £200 billion in support for jobs and livelihoods across the whole of the country already, and a further £9.9 billion now for the job support scheme. It is this Government who have cut VAT for business and deferred business rates. There is no other country in Europe where so much support and so much help has been given to the population to get through this crisis, and we will continue to do that. It is the height of absurdity that the right hon. and learned Gentleman stands up and attacks the economic consequences of the measures we are obliged to take across some parts of the country when he wants to turn the lights out with a full national lockdown, taking kids—[Interruption.] That was his policy last week anyway, wasn’t it? Perhaps he could confirm that that is still his policy. Is that what he wants to do?

At his press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister produced heat maps across the country showing that the infection rate was up in all ages and across all regions, and particularly showing regions that have been in the equivalent of tier 2 restrictions for weeks, if not months, moving into tier 3. If they are moving into tier 3, tier 2 has not worked, because if tier 2 had worked, they should be going into tier 1.

So tier 2 goes to tier 3, and tier 3 has no end, because there is no prospect of or confidence in the R rate coming below 1—and I do not believe that a tier 3 region will come out of those restrictions unless R is below 1 and while the numbers are still going up. So we now have a stark choice.

By the way, Prime Minister, Cornwall is the only place—possibly with the Isle of Wight—where the infection rate today is less than it was in Greater Manchester when it went into local restrictions, so this idea that some areas are immune is wrong.

So there is a stark choice: carry on with the Prime Minister’s approach, which will lead to weeks and weeks and months and months of prolonged agony in everyone’s constituencies for millions of people in tiers 2 and 3, with no exit; or put in place a two to three week time- limited circuit break to break the cycle and bring the virus back under control.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland—in part—have chosen that path. With half term starting this Friday, this may be the last opportunity for the Prime Minister to put in place an effective circuit break. The Prime Minister was too slow in the first phase of the pandemic; he is being too slow again. We cannot repeat this mistake. Will he act in the public interest and take the opportunity to put in place a circuit break this Friday?

We will do whatever it takes to get this country through the crisis, with or without the support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I have explained why I do not believe that his policy is the right one for the country, because it would involve closing schools and shuttering businesses, with all the psychological and emotional damage that a lockdown of that kind brings. He cannot say how many circuit breakers he thinks would be necessary. He cannot say how long they would go on. He cannot say how much damage they would do to the UK economy and to people’s mental health.

We, on the other hand, want to go on with our common-sensical approach, which is a local and regional approach, keeping kids in school and keeping our economy moving, because that is the way to get the whole of our country through this crisis together so that all the regions of the country, particularly those regions that are now, alas, under tier 3 restrictions, bounce back strongly together.

Let us head up to Cheshire, and Edward Timpson.

This is a very exciting project, and I welcome Cheshire FA’s commitment to providing a new world-class facility for women’s and girls’ football. I look forward to the proposed opening of the centre in Winsford.

My thoughts are very much with the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). I hope she makes a speedy recovery.

Next week, just as the pandemic is worsening, the Tory Government will scrap the furlough scheme in a move that will cause a wave of mass redundancies across the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, behind closed doors the Prime Minister is complaining that he cannot get by on his £150,000 salary. If the Prime Minister is finding life such a struggle, how on earth does he expect many workers to get by on just £5.84 an hour when the Tory cuts to furlough sink in?

Actually, I am proud of what we have done to support people on low incomes throughout this period and, indeed, before. It was this Government who raised the living wage by record amounts, and we have just increased universal credit by around £1,000 a year. The right hon. Gentleman makes the point about furlough; as he knows, if universal credit is combined with the job support scheme that we have just announced, workers will be getting 80% of their existing salary. We will get this country through this crisis and we will continue to support people on low incomes throughout the period.

I am afraid the Prime Minister just does not get it. Yesterday, we saw his total disregard for the people of Greater Manchester—a Tory attitude that people in Scotland are all too familiar with. Millions of families are struggling to get by and this Tory Government want to cut their incomes in the middle of a pandemic. It is clear that the Prime Minister has made a deliberate decision to let unemployment soar, just like Thatcher did in the 1980s. Time is running out. With one week left, will the Prime Minister finally U-turn on his cuts to the furlough scheme and invest in our communities? Or will he leave millions of people on the scrap heap?

I really must reject what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, because it bears no relation to the facts or the reality of what the Government are doing to support people throughout the country. It is not just the £200 billion investment in jobs and livelihoods; we are also engaged in and will continue to deliver a colossal investment in education, health, housing and infrastructure that will deliver jobs and growth throughout this United Kingdom for a generation.

Whatever the effect of the withdrawal agreement, I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that the UK’s internal market, which I think everybody on both sides of the House values, is protected and upheld by the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which is currently going through the other place. It also, of course, protects the Good Friday agreement.

Of course I will do whatever I can to help in the particular case that the right hon. Gentleman raises. I do not know whether the tricycle he mentions is eligible for a number of the schemes that I can immediately call to mind, but if he cares to write to me, I will of course answer immediately.

We now head up to Harrow for Bob Blackman to land his question.

What I can certainly confirm, as I said in my answer to the first question, is that the black hole in the finances of TfL, the bankruptcy of TfL, which, by the way, was left in robust financial health by the previous Mayor—it certainly was—is entirely the fault of the current Labour Mayor of London, with his grossly irresponsible demagogic fare policies, which, I may say, were never pursued by the previous Mayor of London, and the fault lies entirely with him. I trust that my hon. Friend will make that clear.

Order.

Order. Will the Prime Minister sit down? We must have short questions. I want to get through the list, so we must help each other.

The hon. Lady is quite right to call attention to the difficulties facing many families right now because of the crisis that we have been in. The most important thing—and I hope that this is common ground—is to keep kids in school if we possibly can. That would be vitiated by the series of lockdowns that are being proposed. I do not want to go down that route. What I want to do is to ensure that we continue to support families throughout the crisis so that they have the cash available to feed their kids as they need to do.