From the very outset of the pandemic the objective of the Government’s policy has been to ‘protect the NHS’ from being overwhelmed with more hospital admissions than could be accommodated. The political imperative was to avoid the scenes of chaos at hospitals that we witnessed in Lombardy last February.
For this reason the restrictions were placed on human contact in order to reduce the rate of infection and so to slow the pace of hospital admissions. Stating the obvious, these restrictions have come at an enormous economic and social cost, so it is vital that they are lifted as soon as possible.
When to lift them has to be a political decision. Yet, over recent days a number of the Government’s scientific advisors have been speaking in public about the need to maintain restrictions to the end of the year and even beyond.
They need to be reminded that the main effort of the entire policy is not to eradicate the disease,  but it is to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed.
The key issue, is to identify the point in the progress in the vaccination programme where a sufficient proportion of the most vulnerable groups (which, if infected, are more likely to be hospitalised) have been vaccinated so as to reduce the risk to the NHS to an acceptable level. The job of the scientists to model the data in an attempt to match vaccination levels with the potential for hospital admissions.
It is for politicians to consider the result of these deliberations, and to balance the risk of lifting the restrictions against the social and economic costs of keeping them in place.
Scientists have a legitimate point of view, but it is exactly that: only a point of view. 

In my speech in Parliament in on 30^th December in opposition to the previous tightening of restrictions (now overtaken by the all-England lock-down) I identified a need for competitive sources of expertise on which the Government could rely, even if only to frame the right questions to put to its current scientific advisors on SAGE -which suffers from all the disadvantages of decision-making by committee.
That speech has provoked a welcome email response from scientists from all disciplines, and in particular from some of our most eminent statisticians and mathematicians. They have sent me their analyses challenging the orthodoxy with which we are daily presented.
It is of some reassurance to know that you are not alone, and that that your stance is supported by credible experts. This is especially the case as the public debate has become more strident and toxic:  The derision with which dissident professors have been treated in the media is itself a form of censorship.

Two things are clear. First, the last 12 months have been by no means exceptional in terms of total UK deaths. This is not, in any way, to fail to recognise the suffering of people mourning those who have died, but it does raise questions about the accuracy of recording any death within 28 days of a positive Covid test as being a Covid death.
If one accepts the accuracy and validity of the figures for Covid deaths, then it follows that 10 months of lockdowns have failed to reduce them. The Lancet published an evaluation of lockdown policy across governments and of varying severities, here is the conclusion: 

‘Increased mortality per million was significantly associated with higher obesity prevalence and per capita gross domestic product…. Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people’

In plain language, lockdowns didn’t impact on Covid deaths, neither did mass testing. Yet these are the two of the baskets into which we have placed most of our eggs. 

Setting aside the question of deaths, the main effort has always been to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed by the number of hospital admissions. As these have risen sharply over the last couple of weeks it is further testimony to the failure of lockdowns as a policy.
From the outset a number of us have argued that a lockdown merely postpones the progress of the disease: the moment social isolation measures are eased, then the disease accelerates until a further lockdown is ordered. Yet this failing policy comes at an enormous social and economic cost which will scar our collective life for a decade.

A sensible alternative would have been to identify the vulnerable groups most likely, if infected,  to be hospitalised and incentivise their isolation (bluntly: assist them and pay them to isolate). This would have been neither easy nor inexpensive, but it might well have delivered a manageable level of hospital admissions with very much less damaging social and economic consequences.

We expect now to be rescued by vaccines, vindicating the Government’s strategy of suppressing the virus until vaccines became available.
I would hope that the failure of lockdowns however, would be a lesson that we have learnt for the future, but the way that the critics of lockdowns have been silenced, derided and presented as mavericks, is hardly encouraging.

Regular readers of this column may recall that, looking forward at New Year, I often refer to my favourite reading: The Coffee Table Book of Doom. Here is a flavour from the advertising blurb:
“…with the apocalypse at hand, don’t fret about dying uninformed. The Coffee Table Book of Doom is a revelatory, brilliantly funny, superbly illustrated and erudite compendium of all the 27 doom-laden horsemen we need to worry about – personal doom, gender erosion, asteroid impact, pandemics, super storms, sexual ruin – and much more besides.”

So, this year we actually had the pandemic.
 Strangely however, despite a prediction of 500.000 deaths, an examination of the Office for National Statistics website shows that 2020 Spring/Winter deaths were far from exceptional over the last quarter of a century or so, and that the number of deaths have often been higher.
For years commentators will pick over the measures that we took to control the virus and history will judge. Even if I am ultimately proved wrong in the sceptical stance that I have taken, I believe the questions that I asked, and which have remained largely unanswered, have been the right ones.

Correspondents tell me to be silent because that I am unqualified to comment on science. I am sensitive to the criticism because it is true: I never got beyond O levels in 1973, indeed I failed Chemistry (having caused mayhem in the practical by using a 5 molar solution of sulphuric acid rather than a  .05 molar solution, or something like that anyway. Maths was always my weakness, although I did acquire a reputation as a boffin during a residential accountancy training course. One evening, a delegation of students came to my dormitory to see if I had managed to solve the simultaneous equation with which they were all having such difficulty. They found me relaxing with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I cast my eye over the equations and immediately came up with the solution. They looked at me in awe. I’ve never been able to account for it, perhaps just a complete fluke. In any event, it was to no purpose as I had decided that there had to be an easier way of making a living and was already planning my escape.)

We cannot allow ourselves to be led by experts. They need to make their method and their conclusions understandable and persuade us of their validity. We cannot have Doctor Heinz Kiosk ordering us about because he alone understands that it is for our own good. I fear that this is what has in fact happened throughout this pandemic. Ministers, against their natural inclinations, have followed advice to introduce restrictive measures with devastating consequences. I believe that they were ‘bounced’ by science and data-modelling that they did not understand and lacked the ability to establish its validity. That’s why I’ve advocated a competitive set of advisors to, at the very least, arm ministers with the right questions to ask.

Of Course, I acknowledge the possibility that the authors of the latest dire warnings and lock-downs may turn out be right, but it is prudent to be sceptical. Acceptance and reluctance to challenge are the worst responses for a politician.
The temptation is to remain silent for fear of revealing ignorance. I remember attending a presentation by a think-tank recommended by David Cameron’s strategy guru, Steve Hilton. I went with Greg Clark, now Chairman of the Commons Science & Technology Select Committee, who has a brain the size of a planet. It was complete gobbledygook to me. What a relief when we left and  Greg turned to me  and said “I have absolutely no idea what that was about”.
Again, I recall attending a lecture on space and time by an eminent scientist who raised the possibility of the same object being in two places at one time. When he illustrated this with a table, pointing to one leg ‘here’ and then the other leg ‘there’. I knew immediately I had wasted an evening.

Remember it was not the little boy’s  courage that revealed that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes, rather it was naiveté.

7.25pm 30 Dec 2020
That the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020 (S.I., 2020, No. 1646), dated 24 December 2020, a copy of which were laid before this House on 29 December, be approved.

Sir Desmond Swayne

This House legislated explicitly for specific arrangements to govern the celebration of Christmas, and no sooner than the House had risen itself for Christmas, the Government, by ministerial fiat, changed those arrangements. We are asked this evening to give retrospective legislative approval to the changes that they made. We are in the absurd position of being asked to vote for the ghost of Christmas past. Sometimes in a democracy, process has an importance.

I am constantly—daily—confronted by individuals and businesses facing ruin, notwithstanding the huge investment that they made in covid-secure premises and procedures. What we have never had, and what we have always been asking for, is the cost-benefit analysis that the Government made on each of the restrictive measures that make up the menu of their tier system.

I do not for one moment question the motives of Ministers. I do, however, question their ability, in exactly the way that I question my own ability.
When the House rose, the lobby of Government scientific advisers—a lobby, we should remember, that had already publicly expressed their frustration that their earlier strictures on how Christmas should be celebrated had not been fully taken on board by the Government—announced that they had discovered a new strain of the disease so much more transmissible than the earlier one. They bounced the Government. Whilst I have to accept, of course, the possibility that they may be right, but I know this: were I presented by such a lobby of eminent scientists—eminent people leading in their field—and told that they had discovered this new emergency, and that so many more people were going to die, and unless I did what they said, I would be responsible for their deaths, I would find great difficulty in having the wherewithal to identify and ask the right questions to be sure that they were on the money, or 100 miles from it.

What I would certainly want, and what I believe the Government need, is an alternative source of expertise—a competitive source of expertise—particularly statisticians leading in their fields, who would be able to furnish me, to arm me, to arm Ministers, with the right questions to ask about the validity of the modelling and the data. It can only improve the decision-making process.
But what is really galling in all this is then to hear on the airwaves Professor Ferguson being interviewed, giving his wisdom to the nation once again, to all intents and purposes as if he were still a key Government adviser. I do hope that the Minister winding up the debate will be able to assure us that that is most certainly not the case.

 I was always rather jealous of Poole, Christchurch and Bournemouth, because our infection rate in the New Forest was substantially lower than theirs, but they turned out to be in tier 2 and we were in tier 3. Now we are all together in tier 4.

Sir Christopher Chope

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we are now in tier 4, but in statutory instrument No. 1646, which was laid before this House on 29 December, we were in tier 2. Today—one day later—we are in tier 4. Is that not a mockery?

Sir Desmond Swayne

The reality is this. These are the questions that my constituents put to me, and I am reduced to saying, “It’s one of life’s great mysteries.” The decision-making process is entirely opaque. That is why I voted against it when I had the chance.

In the second election campaign of 1974, the Labour party’s manifesto offered the prospect of a referendum on our continued membership of the Common Market, which we had joined without a plebiscite and only on the strength of Parliament passing The European Communities Act 1972.
Enoch Powell, a former Conservative minister, urged Conservatives to vote Labour in that election in order to be able to take advantage of its referendum offer. I was very tempted by Powell’s advice. In the end however, I didn’t take it, but when Labour won, I was consoled by the prospect that we would -as a consequence, have a referendum.
When the referendum came in 1975 I  vigorously  supported the ‘No’ campaign. Alas, I was on the losing side, but that’s democracy.

For years previously the UK had been trying to join the Common Market in order to benefit from the free trade advantages that would accrue to the significant proportion of our trade with it’s members. Our government’s enthusiasm was based on economic gain, and our politicians persuaded themselves that the Treaty of Rome, to which we would have to accede, did not really mean what it said about evolving towards a political ‘ever closer union’.
Our earlier attempts to join were thwarted by General de Gaulle, who did not want the UK to enjoy the same competitive advantage in the Market as France. The Irony is that whilst de Gaulle was the brake on our joining, he was also the brake on the reality of ‘ever closer union’. The end of his presidential tern in 1969 opened the way to a successful prospect for serious negotiations on UK accession, but it also gave renewed impetus towards the creation of the European Union.
This trajectory was already obvious to those MPs who voted against the European Communities Act 1972 and rejected Prime Minister Edward Heath’s assertion that membership entailed “no essential loss of national sovereignty”.

The Common Market, then the EEC, then the EU evolved in exactly the way we had foreseen and warned in the 1975 referendum campaign. I joined the Campaign for an Independent Britain and I was never reconciled to our membership, notwithstanding its economic benefits. I was not however, an enthusiast for a second referendum, having been on the losing side in 1975 and I feared that the experience would be repeated. Nevertheless, when the second referendum came in 2016, I campaigned even more vigorously than in 1975, addressing 15 public meeting across the South East of England. I was surprised and delighted by the result, even though it ended my ministerial career.

 So, how will I vote on our newly negotiated trade deal with the EU?
 Well, before deciding I will want to have the chance to thoroughly digest it which, as I write, I have not yet had the opportunity to do, but here are the principles on which I will decide: First, I have to acknowledge the advantage for free trade arrangements with our closest and largest market, it was this that drew us into joining in the first place and reverting to tariffs and quotas will be significantly to our disadvantage.
Second, trading advantage however, must not be secured at the price of our sovereignty, we cannot allow ourselves any longer to be governed by people whom we did not elect and cannot remove.
Nevertheless, any trade deal comes at a price, there are trade-offs that have to be made and we have to make an assessment of the balance of advantage to be had.
If the price of this new trade deal is to be paid principally in fish, then that is a price I am, at least, certainly prepared to consider.

I was interviewed for a documentary about movements opposed to Coronavirus regulations and any kind of coercion in the vaccination programme, to  be broadcast in January.
I have voted against coronavirus regulations, and am opposed any suggestion of coercion in the vaccination programme, as will have been clear by my earlier contributions to this column.

The Programme’s producer showed me a video by an organisation which raised questions about vaccination which included extracts from a speech I made in the Commons. She asked me if I had previously known about the video or if my permission had been sought. Well, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t object: proceedings in parliament are everyone’s property. Overall, the video was, despite a rather sinister voice-over, not on the loopier end of the Anti-Vax spectrum.

Now, I don’t want to be offensive, but clearly, whilst most are sane enough, some of the anti-vax emails that I get are from constituents who are clearly deranged, some others are just a bit odd.
There is a spectrum: belief that the vaccination is an excuse to inject us with microchips to control our subsequent behaviour, is obviously at the nuttier end. Where expressions of concern about the speed at which vaccines have been tested and approved, come at the other end.
To be fair the ‘normal to nutty’ proportions do not differ significantly between anti-vax emailers and those who email me on any other subject, or indeed those who take the trouble to write to me.

I am not ‘anti-vax’. As a child, my father’s occupation took me to all sorts of remote places, as a soldier I served  where there were issues with biological weapons, as a minister I visited some of the world’s poorest and most conflicted places. Consequently, I have been vaccinated against almost every medical condition, perhaps with the exception of rigor mortis.
On the contrary, I see vaccination as the escape clause from our current enforced confinement with all its devastating economic consequences: The more people who are vaccinated the better, and the sooner the better.

The thrust of the interview however, was to explore whether anti-vax opinions, being injurious to our public health policy, ought to be censored on social media and any other platform.
I am deeply nervous about extent to which we allow the ‘tech giants’, or any other agency, to censor views of which they ( and we) disapprove.
I believe in freedom of expression, and that there is no right of ‘not to being offended’. Equally, we are under no obligation to respect opinions with which we disagree, we have every right to argue robustly against them.
And that is the proper course with the anti-vax movement: not to silence them, but to defeat them by exposing the falsehood of their claims.

Currently most of my emails are from people wanting to be vaccinated immediately, and who believe I can pull strings to get them to the front of the queue. Alas, I can’t, but I understand their enthusiasm.

last week, in this column, I explored a number of questions surrounding explicit and implicit coercive pressure to receive Covid-19 Vaccinations.
I can understand the enthusiasm from some industries to open up again -in particular hospitality (but by no means exclusively)  – so much so that they might advertise service provision exclusively  to vaccinated patrons.
It would make no scientific sense however: None of the vaccines that are available, or are about to become available have been tested with respect to their ability to reduce transmission. They have only been tested on their ability to reduce the severity of the recipient’s reaction to a dose of the virus. So, the rationale for having the vaccination is to protect yourself, we do not know if it will protect others from you.
Notwithstanding the irrationality of excluding non-vaccinated patrons from premises, does our respect for the property rights of proprietors nevertheless extend to allowing them to exercise their right to exclude any customers, however irrational: I don’t think so. As a society we have moved beyond  such an elevated view of the rights of property. For years now, equality legislation has constrained the rights of commercial undertaking from discriminating against categories of customers of whom they may disapprove. The unvaccinated should not be so excluded either. 

The vaccination process is going to be a long haul until a sufficient proportion of the population has been vaccinated to afford us ‘herd immunity’. I suspect it may well take until the summer or longer. So, I do nor depart from the position that I originally took, and still urge on the Government: Namely, that the virus is not particularly dangerous to anyone outside the groups with specific vulnerabilities, so it would have been much more proportionate to have designed measures to protect them, rather than to have imposed measures on everyone with truly devastating economic and other consequences.  

The statistical basis upon which the most damaging restrictions were made have always, in my opinion, been highly suspect. Now government itself has had to recognise that decisions were made on an insecure foundation. On 30 October the Office for National Statistics reported that infection had doubled between 2nd October, and 17 October -from 4.89 infected people per 10,000 to 9.52 infected people per 10,000. It was on this alarming basis that a second national lockdown was imposed upon us. Well, they have now revised that estimate of 17 Oct right back down, and that the rate never went above 6.62 people per 10,000 and that wasn’t until well into the lockdown on 12 November.

Last month it was reported that the Secretary of State for Health, whilst being interviewed, refused to rule out the possibility of compulsory vaccination for Coronavirus.  This week the newly appointed minister with special responsibility for the vaccine programme suggested instead, that having the vaccine would be a ‘passport’ to being able to do things that might otherwise be denied -such as visiting a pub, cinema, or using public transport.

For months worried constituents have been contacting me to voice their fears that vaccination would be compulsory. I have responded by saying that they should not worry because it is unthinkable.
Under existing law it would constitute an assault: So primary legislation in Parliament would be required to enable it, and that in my estimate a majority would not be found for such a radical departure. It would set a worrying precedent for other vaccines, medicines and medical procedures.

I expect however, that the concept of a vaccination certificate being used as a passport to freedoms and opportunities which would otherwise be denied, might be more palatable -superficially at least.
It might be done by statute setting out what may or may not be done without having had the vaccination. Or it might be left to the discretion of operators and proprietors whether to admit non-vaccinated patrons to their venues and services.

It raises an interesting philosophical question which is by no means new: Are our rights fundamental and absolute, or are they to be balanced by our responsibilities to society at large through some legislative process, democratic or otherwise?
If you take the latter view you might conclude that a citizen has a responsibility be vaccinated to protect the community as a whole, and if that responsibility is not accepted, then it would be reasonable to withhold rights and freedoms.
I have often had to produce my Yellow Fever vaccination certificate to enter those countries where it is a legal requirement.

There does seem to me however, to be something repugnant about being coerced into having a medical procedure, it would certainly be a departure from long established limits.
There is however, a practical solution without troubling the philosophers. The herd immunity that vaccination promotes can be achieved with vaccination rates that fall well short of everyone having had the jab. We should be able to make the vaccine effective whilst tolerating the non-cooperation of conscientious objectors.
Overwhelmingly, most of us will have the jab because we recognise that it is in our own self-interest, as well as the interests of everyone else.

As I said in the Commons, there are ways of promoting the vaccine without any need to coerce: line up the PM, ministers and all their loved ones to take it first, demonstrating the confidence of our rulers in its safety. Second, mount a public information campaign, fronted by our most popular celebrities and personalities.

The last thing you should contemplate is coercion of any kind. Nothing could be more calculated to play into the hands of the conspiracy theorists. It would end horribly with public disorder on a scale with which we have hitherto been relatively unfamiliar.

Happily, it appears that the minister who suggested vaccination as ‘passport’ appears to have been slapped down, but I’ll remain vigilant.

I was the Minister for International Development who shepherded the Act, which placed a statutory duty on government to pay 0.7% of GDP in Official Development Assistance, through all its Commons stages.
It is now to be replaced which is particularly worrying because, if the full payment is not made in any year, the Act only requires a statement from the Secretary of State in both Houses explaining why.
To amend or repeal the Act would appear to indicate a much longer-term intention to set aside the commitment.
I do not doubt that this measure is popular, I have had any number of complaints about overseas aid, even before we met the 0.7% commitment and protected it in statute.
Most people consider such aid to be charity and, accordingly, believe that it should ‘begin at home’ (thereby completely misinterpreting the meaning of the phrase, which was coined as a challenge to people who flaunted their philanthropy in public whilst treating their family and employees with meanness).
Charity is something you give away freely without any expectation of return.
International aid is not charity, rather it is an investment we make in the expectation that we may prosper and trade in a more stable and secure world, less prone to insecurity and waves of migration.
It is also a ‘soft power’ by which we project our influence abroad. In this respect it is much more versatile and deployable than our investment in our military capability to project power.
I do not doubt that our retention of a seat at the UN security council owes more nowadays to the fact that we are the  World’s second largest donor, rather than that we remain a nuclear power.

There are many things I would wish to see reformed about our aid effort. Jus for starters, it needs to be even more focussed on economic development and ability to trade: when I was the minister I would constantly remind people that ‘aid is all about jobs’.

But we are in queer street: the Chancellor has told us that our Economic crisis is only just beginning. We are at greater risk of further economic shocks because we are borrowing so much. George Osborne used to constantly remind us of the need to ‘fix the roof while the Sun is shining’, well now the roof’s been blown away.
So, protecting any item of public expenditure comes down to a question of priorities. I know most of my constituents will disagree, but I believe that as we re-establish ourselves as an independent power outside the EU and seek to increase our influence in the counsels of the World, then cutting our International Development Aid is a wrong priority.

 I’ve had a spurt of anti-Islamism vitriol by email demanding to know why the Government hasn’t been voluble in support of President Macron’s campaign to protect the French secular state from terrorism, and from the growth of an increasingly  separated Islamic culture and practice.
Frankly, the Government  has quite enough on its plate at present than to provide a running commentary on what is happening in France. I take the point however, and I share their President’s concerns. 

Typically, my correspondents go on to elaborate, claiming the expertise and knowledge to pronounce that Islam is, of necessity, an inherently violent creed. Here I think they are quite mistaken. Of course, its history is quite as violent as the history of any other religion, but overwhelmingly it has been characterised by contemplative sufism.
My correspondents quote blood-curdling passages claiming authentic interpretation from the Koran. Well, as a Bible-believing Christian I’m quite able to quote any number of much more blood-curdling passages from the Bible -so, straight off the top of my head, what about the savagery meted out to Achan (Joshua 7 & 8): Stoned to death with his whole clan, including women, children and livestock when it was discovered he had hidden some booty from the destruction of Jericho,  sufficiently annoying God so that he denied victory to the Israelites in their first attempt to capture the City of Ai. Having sorted Achan, the Israelites had a second shot at Ai, resulting in complete destruction -including every living thing within the city.
On the face of it we are supposed to approve of these actions, after all, surely Achan, his family, their animals, and subsequently the all inhabitants of Ai ‘had it coming’. I rather think however, that there is a subtly in the account, and ‘between the lines’ the narrator is asking us “…and do you really believe that this was the will of God?”.
I am not qualified to imagine what subtleties there may be in the Koran, I leave that to real Islamic scholars, rather than trust my correspondents. 

As to the violent history of Islam. I wonder if it measures up to the blood- lust of Christendom: Crusades, pogroms, our wars of religion including the Inquisition, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the Defenestration of Prague, the burnings during the reign of Bloody Mary, and on and on.
Secular religions, Fascism and Communism, have taken an even greater toll. 

When my correspondents go on to claim that we are harbouring an alien and increasingly dangerous religious community in our midst I like to draw their attention to the contribution of Indian soldiers made to the defence of the Empire and to point to their WWI memorial in Barton on Sea in my constituency. Then, last week, I came across this magnificent passage whilst re-reading Churchill’s history of WWII 

“…the glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops who fought in the Middle East, who defended Egypt, who liberated Abyssinia, who played a grand part in Italy, and who, side by side  with their British Comrades, expelled the Japanese from Burma, stand forth in brilliant light.
The loyalty of the Indian Army to the King-Emperor, the proud fidelity to their treaties of the Indian Princes, the unsurpassed bravery of Indian Soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine forever in the annals of war.” 

That is something to be proud of, and to continue to build upon. The irony is that some are now denouncing Churchill as a racist.