If my hon. Friend will allow me, I just want to deal with the specific issue of the Government’s argument.
Some Members rightly say, “MPs shouldn’t treat themselves any differently from the rest of the country.” I 100%, wholeheartedly agree. All too often, we adopt an exceptionalist position for Parliament, which I think our voters and our constituents do not understand or accept, but I think that on this particular issue, the Government have simply got it wrong and do not understand their own rules.
The Leader of the House said last week that the rule in the country was, if you can, go to work. That is not the Government’s advice. It was not last week and it is not this week. As the Prime Minister categorically said yesterday, the Government’s rule says specifically:
“To help contain the virus, everyone who can work effectively from home should do so.”
Everyone who can do so should do so. The Prime Minister reiterated yesterday that when the present lockdown in England is completed, even in tier 1, the rule will be work from home if you can. In addition, the Government rules specify—this is in relation to employers, so this is the responsibility of the whole House:
“COVID-19 is a public health emergency. Everyone needs to assess and manage the risks of COVID-19, and in particular businesses should consider the risks to their workers and visitors. As an employer, you also have a legal responsibility to protect workers and others from risk to their health and safety. This means you need to think about the risks they face and do everything reasonably practicable to minimise them”.
The House can do something “reasonably practicable”, and that is to allow a significant number of Members to take part in debates remotely, because they are clinically extremely vulnerable. An additional number, which I believe to be a smaller one, could take part remotely for a public health reason in their own family or community.
I will make another point to the Government. I have felt a sense of deep frustration all year. I sometimes worry that the Government think that they are a Government of England, not a Government of the United Kingdom. I will lose some people in the Opposition now, but I am a passionate Unionist. I want the Union to hold together. As a Welsh MP, it has constantly been difficult this year to explain differences between sets of arrangements in Wales, Scotland, England and all the rest of it. Broadcasters have been particularly bad at explaining them, but the truth is that on this specific issue of whether people should work from home, the rules vary at different points in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland .