Wes Streeting
Main Page: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)Department Debates - View all Wes Streeting's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. It was the case, entirely legitimately and appropriately, that Opposition Members were criticising us for the slow procurement of PPE, and that the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) wrote to me to encourage us to go faster and made a number of suggestions about companies that we should follow up, which we did. Now the allegation is that, when political figures pressed us to procure PPE more quickly for those at the frontline, that was a mistake. Either Labour’s position last spring was wrong, or its position now is wrong; they both cannot be right.
May I conclude by wishing my hon. Friend a happy birthday? It is, I understand, a very significant date, but the Official Secrets Act forbids me from revealing how significant.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
We all know that the delay in locking down the country in lockdown one, lockdown two and lockdown three led to a higher toll in both lives and livelihoods. What I do not think anyone expected was to read on the front page of the Daily Mail today that the Prime Minister had said:
“Let the bodies pile high in their thousands.”
The claim has been subsequently verified independently by other journalists. The Minister takes statements that he makes at the Dispatch Box more seriously than the Prime Minister does, so may I ask him again to be absolutely categorical that he has never heard the Prime Minister say those words, that the Prime Minister did not say those words, and that, prior to arriving in the House this afternoon, he received assurances from the Prime Minister that he did not use those words? Can he be absolutely clear, straightforward and honest about that?
Michael Gove
Totally. As I pointed out earlier in response to the question from, I think, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), I had been in a meeting in the Cabinet Room with the Prime Minister. I would not ordinarily go into discussions that take place in Cabinet Committees, for reasons that the hon. Gentleman will well understand, but I never heard the Prime Minister say any such a thing. We were all wrestling with an incredibly difficult decision—the decision to lock down necessarily imposes costs in other ways, as we are all aware. The Prime Minister concluded at the end of our discussion, which was a sober, serious and detailed discussion, that it was necessary not only to have that second lockdown but, sadly, to have a third lockdown as well.