Ashworth: Keep mask wearing and fix sick pay for “sustainable” unlocking

Jonathan Ashworth has urged Sajid Javid to “fix sick pay” and keep in place the requirement to wear face coverings in certain settings so that the country can lift the Covid public health restrictions in a “safe and sustainable way”.

Responding to a parliamentary statement from Javid this afternoon, following Boris Johnson’s announcement that the government will press ahead with ‘freedom day’ on July 19th, the Shadow Health Secretary urged caution.

“He justifies allowing infections to climb by pointing to the weakened link between hospitalisations and deaths, and that we are building a protective wall. But, of course, the wall is only half-built,” Ashworth told the Commons today.

“We know from outbreaks in Israel and research that the Delta variant can be transmitted through fully vaccinated people even if they don’t get sick.

“And the data in the last 24 hours or so from the ministry of health in Israel points to the Pfizer vaccine being just 64% effective at stopping symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission of the Delta variant.

“So, sadly, being double jabbed means you are still a risk to others. And yet he is releasing controls on transmission at a time when infections are rising and then hospitalisations will rise as well.”

Johnson said on Monday that restrictions would ease later this month, despite telling the public that new cases could reach 50,000 a day by then. Ashworth asked Javid how many beds need to be occupied before he considers the NHS compromised.

He said that the Health Secretary was right to focus on tackling the NHS backlog in non-Covid care and treatment, but added: “The rising hospital admissions that are baked into the plan, into the path that he has chosen, will mean operations cancelled, treatment delayed and waiting times increasing.”

Ashworth told Javid that the biggest barrier to an effective isolation policy has been the lack of financial incentive to stay at home, arguing: “If we are going to live with this virus, the days of people soldiering on when unwell are over. Sick pay is vital to infection control. Will he, please, now fix it?”

Labour has criticised ministers throughout the crisis for “not paying people decent sick pay to isolate themselves”. TUC research last year found that 43% of people in the UK could not afford to stay away from work after contracting Covid.

The Shadow Secretary also raised concerns that people who are vulnerable, offering those with blood cancer or those for whom the vaccine is less effective as examples, will “have their freedoms curtailed by ditching masks on public transport”.

“Let’s have a U-turn on mask wearing. Yes, let’s have freedom but not a high-risk free-for-all,” Ashwoth told Javid. “Keep masks for now, fix sick pay and let’s unlock in a safe and sustainable way.”

Javid described the questions on masks as “strange”. “There is a role for masks in dealing with a pandemic. In particular, when you have a pandemic with no wall of defence against that pandemic,” the Health Secretary said.

“When you have a vaccine and when that vaccine works and when you’ve got the best vaccine rollout programme in the world, you need to start moving away from those restrictions – including on masks.”

YouGov polling found that 71% of Brits say face masks should continue to be mandatory on public transport, just 21% say they shouldn’t. Savanta ComRes put public opposition to removing the requirement at 52%, compared to 31% in favour.

Johnson has repeatedly said the lifting of the Covid restrictions would be “cautious but irreversible“, but his own scientific advisers said at the press conference on Monday that there were “significants risks” in allowing cases to rise.

Keir Starmer declared that “simply throwing off all protections when the infection rate is going up is reckless” after the announcement and argued the decision had been made with “party management” in mind rather than public health.

“The Prime Minister has said that he’s going to be driven by the data, not by dates,” he said. “He doesn’t have the data yet – he won’t have the data until later this week so he’s not in a position to take a decision until next Monday.”