The local lockdown debacle

What a mess. Ministers have today been defending the decision to place eight areas in what is being called a ‘lockdown by stealth’, after it turned out that the government had quietly published guidance to slow the spread of the Indian variant without telling anyone in those areas. 

That guidance, which pitched up on the gov.uk website at 5.26pm on Friday, told people to avoid indoor meetings and avoid travelling in and out of affected areas unless it is essential. But when journalists from the Manchester Evening News approached local politicians and public health officials, it turned out that they didn’t know about this guidance. Which rather begs the question of what the point of it is.

The point of publishing the guidance so quietly, according to Labour, is that ministers know how unpopular local lockdowns are with MPs, and so are trying to introduce them without those MPs noticing. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth made this claim in an urgent question in the Commons today, saying:

‘Does the Minister appreciate that cities such as mine, Leicester, or towns and boroughs such as Burnley, Bolton, Batley and Blackburn, have borne the brunt of this crisis over these past 15 months? We have often been in lockdown for longer than elsewhere. At times, we have felt abandoned. We did not have adequate financial support: families did their best, but they struggled. Can the Minister understand how upsetting, how insulting, it is to have new restrictions imposed on us – local lockdowns by stealth, by the back door – without the Secretary of State even having the courtesy to come and tell us?’

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi was answering the urgent question, and didn’t engage with the point about lockdowns ‘by stealth’. Instead he chose to talk about the importance of working together. He said:

‘I spoke to the M10 metro mayors this morning, and the one thing I would urge is that we all work together and take the politics out of this. Essentially, as I said in my opening statement, we are asking people in the affected areas to be cautious and careful.’

He added that Ashworth ‘has a responsibility, as do I and the metro Mayors, to communicate to our residents and constituents that this is a time to be vigilant and careful’. 

Presumably he meant vigilant about the virus, rather than paying constant attention to the gov.uk website in case new guidance mysteriously appeared. But it wasn’t clear.

It was insufficiently clear, still, for the directors of public health in all the areas listed to issue a joint statement this afternoon insisting that there ‘are no local lockdowns’, and that ‘there are no restrictions on travel in or out of each of our areas’.

So we now have two official lines, depending on who you choose to listen to. There’s the local public health line that there are no restrictions, and the Downing Street line that there is guidance on restricting travel, indoor meetings and so on. 

Given the evidence on local lockdowns has suggested that only the strictest ones make much difference, the one thing it’s probably safe to conclude is that this messy approach isn’t going to slow the spread of the Indian variant in these areas. To make matters worse, it has cost ministers more political capital than it would have done to be upfront about what they wanted to do.

Update: The government has now issued a new line clarifying that this is just guidance:

‘We will be updating the guidance for areas where the new Covid-19 variant is spreading to make it clearer we are not imposing local restrictions. Instead, we are providing advice on the additional precautions people can take to protect themselves and others in those areas where the new variant is prevalent.This includes, wherever possible, trying to meet outdoors rather than indoors, keeping two metres apart from anyone you don’t live with and minimising travel in and out of the area. These are not new regulations but they are some of the ways everyone can help bring the variant under control in their local area.’