Robert Jenrick – ‘None of us’ want to return to national lockdown
This morning Andrew Marr interviewed the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, amid news that the UK’s ‘R’ number (the rate of transmission of the coronavirus) is now estimated at between 1.2 and 1.5, remaining stubbornly above the critical number 1.0. With the Prime Minister poised to announce a new series of restrictions in the Commons on Monday, and despite a warning from the deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam that the country was at a ‘tipping point’, Jenrick told Marr that the government was determined not to wind up in the same position as it had been in March:
RJ: None of us want to return to a blanket national lockdown. At the moment, there are very wide variations… So I think it is right that we try to pursue a proportionate and localised approach, and… we work very closely with local leaders.
Government will support local councils to test and trace
Marr asked Jenrick if the government was preparing to devolve control of the track and trace system to local authorities. Jenrick’s response indicated that, while councils would not receive full control, the government would be putting more resources into working with them and conducting tests closer to the ground:
RJ: We’re going to be making use of local councils to do contact tracing in particular… I think they also want to have more flexibility over where testing sites might be located in their communities, and we’ve also offered them resources like the armed forces to help them to do that.
Ministers should not become ‘victims of being a minister’
Marr also confronted Jenrick over the government’s ‘Towns Fund’, which will see 101 English towns allocated significant sums to make local improvements and begin regeneration projects. However, the fund has raised eyebrows because a great deal of the selected towns are viewed as critical electoral battlegrounds, many of which the Conservatives won from the Labour party at the last election. Jenrick, whose own constituency has been awarded £25 million under the project, tried to defend himself against accusations that the fund was being used as a political tool:
RJ: The department put in place a robust and fair methodology, which was actually designed before I became secretary of state, and that looked at a number of factors… Ministers don’t get involved in their own constituencies – that decision was made by… Jake Berry…
AM: …So you decided Jake Berry’s constituency got money, and Jake Berry decided that your constituency got money?
RJ: Ministers… should not be victims of the fact that they happen to be a minister… This is a distraction tactic by the Labour party.
Prioritising education was ‘the right choice’
Jenrick was also interviewed by Sophy Ridge, who asked if the government had been wise to allow students to return to universities now that it appears to be university towns which are experiencing the highest rises in the ‘R’ number:
JR: No, the Prime Minister chose to prioritise education and employment wherever we can. I think that was the right choice. These are difficult judgements, but… it was right to help young people to get back into face to face, full time education wherever possible.
Nicola Sturgeon – Covid-19 in Scotland is ‘spreading from a low base’
Ridge also spoke to the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, and inquired as to whether the coronavirus was starting to accelerate its transmission north of the border, with Scotland’s official ‘R’ rate put at between 1.3 and 1.7, higher than the rate of the rest of the UK. Sturgeon insisted that the matter was under control:
NS: The ‘R’ number… is spreading a little bit faster, but the number of cases per 100,000 of the population are actually at the lowest level of all the UK nations. And that is partly because over the summer, we suppressed the virus to very low levels, so the rate of spread… now is from a much much lower base.
‘I’ve tried very hard not to criticise Boris Johnson’
In May, Sturgeon rebuked the Westminster government over its guidance on Covid-19, stating clarity of message was ‘paramount’ in tacking the pandemic. On Friday, Sturgeon ceded that some of Scotland’s latest guidance had not been as crystal clear as could be hoped, with particular confusion growing over the technical difference between restaurants, which have been forced to close, and cafes, which have not. Ridge challenged Sturgeon over her inconsistency on this front:
SR: Is a lack of clarity unacceptable when it’s Boris Johnson and acceptable when it’s you?
NS: In point of fact actually, I’ve tried very hard not to criticise Boris Johnson… because all leaders are making tremendously difficult decisions… As you try to strike a more nuanced balance, it does become more difficult and there is more potential for a lack of clarity.
I can’t expel Margaret Ferrier from SNP
Ridge bought up the case of Margaret Ferrier, the former SNP MP who was suspended after a notorious train trip from Glasgow to London and back while infected with Covid-19. Sturgeon reiterated her feeling that Ferrier should resign as an MP, but clarified that the SNP was still reviewing whether to void her party membership entirely:
NS: We’ve suspended her from party membership. We now have a due process that we’ve got to go through. I can’t unilaterally decide to expel somebody… but I couldn’t be clearer – she should step down from Parliament.
Jonathan Reynolds – Covid-19 support ‘must get better’
Jonathan Reynolds, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary poured scorn on the government’s financial offerings to individuals and businesses to help them through the pandemic, referencing the situation in his own constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde, and calling on them to make substantial adjustments:
JR: It’s not good enough what the government have announced… For nine weeks now, in constituencies like this one, the restrictions have been that you cannot socialise indoors… Add that to.. the curfew – how can a business or restaurant trade viably in that environment?… We haven’t yet got sick pay for everybody… [People] deserve support if they’re asked to obey restrictions going forward.
Lisa Nandy – People feel the government is ‘working against’ the North
Speaking to Marr, the Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy voiced her objection to the way in which the government communicated its restrictions, and said that Northern communities were feeling abandoned:
LN: It’s really hard to explain how angry people are in the North of England about what has happened, not just over the last few months, but over the last few days… People feel… like the government is actively working against us… If they carry on like this… they’re going to lose trust.
David Greenhalgh – ‘Why should the North be treated any different’?
And finally, Nandy’s and Reynolds’ comments were echoed by David Greenhalgh, the Conservative leader of Bolton council, who called for an ‘exit package’ to relieve strain on Northern councils, and hinted that if it didn’t materialise, he would be offering his moral support to rebel Conservative backbenchers:
DG: I’m urging the government now to listen again… We cannot throw our local economy to the wall… [We] can’t continue with no exit package… [It] needs to, at the very least, return to the lockdown arrangements of furlough at the beginning of March. Why should the North be treated any different?
Comments