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Covid-19

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke). I had the pleasure of shadowing him when he was at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I always found him to be incredibly courteous and I wish him well for however long he is on the Back Benches—I know he has plans to return to Government at some point.

We know that Governments all around the world have faced the same challenges with this pandemic, whether that is understanding how the virus transmits, how a lockdown should occur and, indeed, under what circumstances, or obtaining PPE. For many, this was unknown territory. For most of us as politicians, no one or nothing truly prepares us for a global pandemic.

It would be remiss of me not to start by mentioning the successful measures put in place, including the public’s overwhelming co-operation with the lockdown restrictions, the unity we have seen in our neighbourhoods and constituencies, especially in offering a helping hand to

those who are shielding, and the countless community groups and volunteers who have mobilised during the outbreak. I also acknowledge and say thank you for the brave commitment of so many of our NHS and care staff, who continue to battle the virus every single day.

However, with the stark warnings offered by the Prime Minister last week about a second wave of covid-19 cases and the further restrictions put in place to keep as many of us as safe as possible, we must therefore learn the mistakes made in the earlier half of the year. It is imperative that we all move forward looking at what works best and, most importantly, what we urgently need to improve upon. It is clear that the three most difficult aspects of the coronavirus pandemic have been controlling outbreaks in social care settings, providing enough PPE to those who need it, and setting up a functional and effective test, trace and isolate system. The economic response to covid and the mental health crisis and its legacy are much bigger issues that I am sure other colleagues will focus upon. In the interests of time and of being courteous to other Members, I will confine my remarks to the public health aspects of today’s debate.

I will start with the issue of test and trace. The Scottish contact tracing system, Test and Protect, was based on traditional public health teams, who have managed to reach over 98% of cases and 97% of contacts. Unfortunately, that success has not been mirrored by the British Government’s implementation of its testing and tracing. The Times found that in England, the percentage of successful searches between 1 pm on 16 September and midday on 17 September was just 43%. In comparison in Scotland, it was 97%. The Scottish contact tracing system is the best performing in the UK, particularly compared with the outsourced Serco call centres in England, which are barely reaching 60% of contacts. People are, on average, asked to travel 27 miles to the nearest centre, and at the peak of the shortages, a fifth of all UK postcodes were being directed to sites in another nation. We heard anecdotes in the Chamber only last week of people in Bolton reportedly being told to travel 90 miles to Wales to get a test. In Cambridge, residents were being told to go to Birmingham, Heathrow or Bradford. The ineffective tracing system in England means that thousands of people who may currently be infected with covid-19 are not being advised to self-isolate and, as such, are continuing to spread the virus at a rate leading towards a second wave.

The Scottish Government have also launched the Protect Scotland app, which I have spoken about in this Chamber and have urged people to download. I have downloaded the app in England. As somebody who spends probably half the week in England, I am more than happy to use my position to encourage as many people as possible to download the app. Over 1 million people have downloaded the app in Scotland, helping to effectively trace the virus across Scotland. That figure of 1 million represents 18% of the population, meaning that the figure is already above the 15% threshold required to make a measurable impact on viral spread.

Despite the Scottish Government’s success, however, there are still challenges from the UK Government—mainly, that the Scottish NHS has increased its testing capacity considerably for hospital patients, but instead of funding testing of the public through the expansion of NHS labs, the UK Government set up an entirely separate

system organised by Deloitte. As it is a UK-wide system, we have seen an increase in demand in England, leading to appointments being cut in Scotland. In fact, there are multiple reports over the last week of people resident in England being advised to enter a Scottish postcode to obtain authorisation for a test, even though the test was carried out in the south of England. If not dealt with, this could seriously undermine Scotland’s well thought out and effective contact tracing system, and the incorrect data could give the impression that there is an outbreak somewhere where one does not exist. It is vital that we prepare for the second wave. In doing so, we must do everything possible to test as many people as possible, so that we have the most accurate figures and our contract tracing can prevent the transmission of this deadly virus.

I turn to the issue of personal protective equipment. One major challenge from the outset of the pandemic has been the hugely increased need for PPE such as masks, gowns and gloves, amounting to some 485 million items so far. In Scotland, we have had the advantage of central procurement and delivery being part of the Scottish NHS, along with having our own stockpile. Naturally, given the sheer quantity of PPE needed in the first few weeks of the outbreak, there were difficulties in transportation, especially to extra sites that needed additional equipment, including community clinics, GP surgeries, pharmacies and care homes. Our Trade Minister, my good friend Ivan McKee, worked tirelessly to maintain imports of PPE, which came in through Prestwick airport. The Scottish Government invested in the development of our domestic industry so that 50% of our PPE is now manufactured in Scotland, making our future supply more secure.

When we compare the availability, transportation and supply of PPE under the SNP Scottish Government with the situation under the Tory Government here in Westminster, in every regard the SNP Government have been better prepared. The SNP Government put in place clear plans for the future in the event that we faced a second wave—as now, sadly, seems inevitable. The Conservative Government privatised the UK national stockpile and then ran down the stock, with some items up to 10 years out of date, putting at risk the lives of key workers in the NHS—the very same workers we went out to clap for every Thursday night at the beginning of the pandemic.

In 2016, the UK Government was found to have failed woefully in pandemic preparedness. Exercise Cygnus accurately predicted that the NHS would be pushed into a state of crisis if an infectious and deadly disease ever came to the shores of these islands. It highlighted that an effect of such a pandemic could be a shortage of intensive care beds, vital equipment and even mortuary space.

Such predictions became a reality with the covid-19 pandemic, but even after the stark warnings of 2016, no action was taken. Instead, the Government chose effectively to hand out hundreds of millions of pounds in contracts to companies with no experience of providing PPE. The truth of the matter is that the British Government have used this public health crisis to benefit their friends. A contract was handed out without any public tender process to Public First, a company that is run by a former aide to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and an associate of Dominic Cummings. It should be

no surprise to anyone that millions of pieces of PPE were substandard and even unusable. Much of it never materialised and was never delivered to the countless NHS workers who needed it so badly.