Covid-19 Update

Lord Newby Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, our procedure at the moment is to assume that Members watched the Prime Minister yesterday when he made his Statement or have read its content. One thing I would say at the outset is that the scale and depth of the crisis mean that mistakes and misjudgments have huge consequences. That weighs heavily on those making decisions, but there is a common national interest in doing all we can to get the right judgments, decisions and policies. When making such difficult decisions, there must be an evidence base behind them, and we must take account of the immediate situation and the longer-term impact on our nation’s collective health and future prosperity. More than that, we must learn from this time and offer hope about the kind of society that we will have post Covid. We are therefore supporting the Government’s proposal, with some questions, but that does not mean that we think the Government have handled it well.

I am not clear what changed between 21 September when SAGE recommended this kind of national lockdown, 13 October when Keir Starmer called on the Government to follow the SAGE advice, and last weekend. On the day when SAGE called for national restrictions, there were 11 deaths and 4,000 confirmed cases. When the Prime Minister made his statement to the nation, there were 326 deaths and more than five times the number of daily infections. That was not unexpected, nor was it inevitable.

The basis for this decision was there in September, when the Government’s own scientists recommended a short circuit-break. That was ignored. It was there again two weeks later as new cases of Covid started to become rife across parts of the north-west and elsewhere, but it was again ignored. It was also there when my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, suggested nearly three weeks ago that the Government extend the then upcoming school half-term to tackle the spread of the virus head on. At that point, it was not just ignored but ridiculed and attacked. The weekend leak and the rushed press conference, with charts that you could not even read on the TV, must have been precipitated by something else, given that those projections had been available for weeks. Can the noble Baroness tell us what precipitated that announcement?

Given all that, I am surprised that the Prime Minister showed such little humility in his Statement. So many government announcements, such as the world-beating track and trace system and briefings of a vaccine within weeks, have proved to be enthusiastic and exuberant overconfidence. We do not need that; we need realism, honesty and an ongoing evidence-based strategy.

These proposals for a month of national restrictions are not where anybody wants to be. Let us be clear: we all know how difficult and disruptive these restrictions can be, both socially and economically. The Government have taken some action but, as Ministers have acknowledged, there is more to be done for families, individuals and businesses to help them cope now and prepare the nation for the future.

However, there are some things worse than these restrictions. One, as advocated by some, would be to do nothing; the other would be the failure to use this time to test, trace and isolate, and to prepare for a safe route back to a more normal way of living and working. Despite the huge amounts of money involved, fixing test, trace and isolate did not happen over the summer.

We will not be able to eradicate the virus via a mass vaccination programme that will be ready in four weeks, but we must have test, trace and isolate sorted. If we do not do enough tests and get the results back very quickly, we cannot trace. If we do not trace—at present, we are tracing only six out of 10 contacts—we cannot effectively isolate; and if isolation is to be effective, it has to be meaningful, with meaningful support for those in isolation.

I have a few questions for the noble Baroness about the support that is needed. First, I welcome the fact that the Government have pulled their plans to cut support for the self-employed; it is a limited extension to April, but it is to be welcomed. We also welcome the extension of furlough, but this really shows the mismanagement of the issues surrounding governing by leak. The announcement came on the day when furlough was due to end; the Job Support Scheme was meant to start on 1 November. To be eligible, employees must be on an employer’s payroll for a minute before midnight on 30 October. However, people had already been made redundant in the expectation that furlough was going to end. Employers will still be expected to cover pension and national insurance contributions, reflecting the changes made in August, not the scheme in March. Can the noble Baroness confirm that she understands that the Government need to stop these last-minute cliff edges, because they just add to the stress and difficulties for businesses and individuals?

On another related issue, given the plight of the newly unemployed, are the Government now giving any consideration to reinstating their previous bans on rental evictions and home repossessions? Also needed is a winter strategy to help food banks ensure that nobody in our country, including the so-called newly hungry—former middle-class earners—go without the basic provisions they need.

When other areas facing restrictions, including those initiated or imposed by the Government, asked for additional support, they were told in no uncertain terms that it was not available. The Mayor of Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said that the Government had been “unequivocal” in refusing to provide more than two-thirds of the pay of hospitality workers across the north whose businesses were forced to close under tier 3 measures. The First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, said the Chancellor had rejected his request to pay subsidies for wages when Wales went back into lockdown. He said:

“I got an answer quickly to say that was not possible for a number of technical reasons and so, no.”


Clearly that was not the case with the announcements that have been made now.

Rather than just apportioning blame, this tells us that what is needed is a longer-term strategy to deal with the current situation, and a longer-term exit strategy that tapers support in a way that allows businesses to plan ahead with at least some degree of confidence. We all know that nothing can be said with certainty, but can the noble Baroness confirm whether there is long-term strategic planning for different scenarios at the heart of government decision-making so that the Government and businesses can prepare?

I also want to raise something very specific about the hospitality and retail sectors in the weeks and months ahead. As we know, the festive season over the run-up to Christmas and the break itself in normal times gives a real boost to their income. They need that this year more than ever. However, with Michael Gove indicating that this will go on much longer than four weeks, what advice do the Government have for how those businesses should plan for December? Should they spend money on marketing materials, menus, staging, food orders and extra staffing, because the Government have said this will end on 2 December? If they do all this and we need an extension to the current lockdown, how might the Government support them in dealing with financial losses? I do not expect an answer from the noble Baroness on the details today, but I would like to hear that the Government have factored that in and are planning for that scenario, should it arise—we hope it does not.

We need businesses to survive and people to remain employed in order to prepare for the future. None of us has a crystal ball to predict what will come next, but there are three things that we need to do: trust the public, give them honesty and realistic predictions about what is likely to happen, and give them the support that they and the country deserve.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, in responding to the Prime Minister’s Statement, there is a great temptation simply to dwell on the Government’s sloth and incompetence in now introducing more draconian measures than they would have been required to do if they had followed SAGE’s advice in late September and introduced a short circuit-breaker lockdown then. If they had done so, many lives would have been saved, many jobs would have been preserved and many businesses, which will now go bust, would have survived.

However, in accepting the lockdown now, the important thing is to look to the future rather than the past. I have three general suggestions. The first is to be more balanced about the evidence. It is extremely difficult for the non-specialist to know exactly what the current trends really foreshadow. For example, at the weekend the Government produced a range of options, including one which spoke of 4,000 deaths a day, yet the projection on which that was based was already a month out of date last Friday and predicted 1,000 deaths a day by the weekend against the 200 that actually happened. Meanwhile, the measures on the ground in Liverpool appear to be working, with the R number now well under one. The Government need to stick to the data on the ground, which justifies the lockdown, as the Liverpool experience shows, but does not justify hyperbolic claims about future levels of deaths.

Secondly, the Government need to be clearer about what happens next. The Prime Minister said yesterday that the lockdown would end

“without a shred of doubt”—[Official Report, Commons, 2/11/20; col. 43.]

on 2 December and that the tiered system would then be reintroduced. However, they are completely unclear about the basis on which decisions on that will be taken. They should set out now the parameters regarding the prevalence of the disease that they intend to follow in making decisions on future restrictions, so that individuals and businesses alike can begin to plan ahead on an informed basis or, at the very least, will know the basis on which the Government intend to take decisions.

Thirdly, the Prime Minister needs to start acting like the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, not just of England. Frankly, it is ludicrous that the nations of the United Kingdom are so out of step in the timing and content of the restrictions that they have introduced. My colleague Ed Davey suggested recently that the Prime Minister should discuss with the devolved Administrations how to reach a common approach to Christmas. So he should, but he should also, as a matter of course, discuss regularly with them a co-ordinated approach to fighting the disease more generally. Failure to do so will not only cause further confusion but further undermine support for the union itself.

I have a number of specific questions for the Government. First, even where people are contacted by the track and trace system, the proportion who self-isolate is disappointing, with some estimates of compliance as low as 10%. A principal reason for that is the loss of earnings that people suffer if they do. The Government have introduced a scheme for paying those on low incomes in these circumstances but it simply is not working properly. Can the Government ensure that at the point when an individual is told to self-isolate, they are provided with details about how to claim the compensation, with the Government then paying up quickly?

Secondly, will the Government commit now to paying for free school meals during the Christmas period? It is simply unacceptable at this point for them to cut off a lifeline for the poorest children in the country. It is equally unfair for Manchester United fans to expect Marcus Rashford to act as the conscience of the nation as well as perform his day job.

Thirdly, will the Government give some financial certainty now to those sectors that will be unable to operate profitably for some months ahead? In particular, those offering tourist accommodation cannot expect to operate profitably, even if the lockdown is lifted, as hoped, during the winter months. Without further bridging support, many otherwise perfectly profitable businesses will simply not survive. Will the Government now provide a bespoke lifeline for them?

Finally, will they upgrade the carer’s allowance? Yesterday, in response to a question in another place from my colleague Ed Davey, the Prime Minister said that he would “look at” the proposal that the carer’s allowance be upgraded by £20 a week in line with the increase in universal credit. I urge the noble Baroness to give the Prime Minister a nudge to ensure that that happens without delay.

We will discuss the details of the new regulations at some length tomorrow. There are many inconsistencies in them that should be corrected, as the earlier discussion in the House on the opening of churches demonstrated only too clearly.

The Government’s chaotic approach to combating the virus has left people feeling confused, depressed and fearful for the future. The country knows that the Government have to perform an extremely difficult balancing act between combating the disease and permitting economic and social activity to continue. People are sympathetic with them as they face that dilemma. However, that sympathy is wearing pretty thin. People will grudgingly accept this lockdown but if even that grudging acceptance is to be maintained, the Government will need to be more transparent, fair and ahead of the curve than they have been until this point. They simply have to up their game.