Boris Johnson today failed to explain how a local area can leave the highest level of coronavirus restrictions, as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer branded the governments’ tier 3 “a gateway to agony” with no clear exit route.
As Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire prepared to join Merseyside and Lancashire in the toughest level of controls, the prime minister was unable to tell the House of Commons whether they would automatically leave if the crucial reinfection rate – known as R – drops below one.
Mr Johnson accused Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham of walking away from talks on financial support for the city’s businesses, and said that the £60m on offer would now be distributed instead to the area’s 10 borough councils.
But Starmer accused the PM of “bargaining with people’s lives”, at a time when even his own scientific advisers could not guarantee that tier 3 – which sees pubs, bars and other businesses closed and much social contact banned – will bring the virus under control .
He told Mr Johnson: “The widespread fear, prime minister, is that tier 3 is the worst of all worlds. It brings significant economic harm without getting the virus sufficiently under control to exit tier 3.
“Instead of being a solution, tier 3 is a gateway to weeks and weeks – more likely months and months – of agony, from which there’s no likely exit,” said the Labour leader.
“Can the prime minister not see the problem if there isn’t a clear exit?”
Mr Johnson insisted that all tier 3 controls would be reviewed every 28 days, and said that the R rate would be one of a number of factors taken into account.
“Obviously the R is one of the measures that we look at,” he said. “We’ll take a decision based on a number of things, including the R but also of course rates of infection, rates of admission to hospital and and other data.”
Sir Keir responded: “If it’s not the R rate under one, what is it? Millions of people want to know the answer to that question.”
In fiery exchanges at prime minister’s questions, Sir Keir said that Mr Johnson had “crossed the Rubicon” with his “miserly” refusal of Greater Manchester’s request for financial support for businesses and his “grubby take-it-or-leave-it” negotiations with other areas.
Talks with Manchester broke down on Tuesday without agreement on a financial package, after Mr Johnson refused to increase his £60m offer in response to civic leaders’ cutting their demand from £75m to £65m.
Sir Keir told the Commons: “This is a prime minister who can pay £7,000 a day for consultants on track and trace, which isn’t working, can find £43 million for a garden bridge that was never built but he can’t find £5 million for the people of Greater Manchester.”
Speaking ahead of a Commons debate on a Labour motion calling for the establishment of clear national criteria for financial support for jobs in tier 3 areas, Starmer said it was “corrosive to public trust to pit region against region, mayor against mayor, council against council”.
Mr Johnson said he was “proud” of the Government’s support to the entire country, adding: “I think it’s the height of absurdity that he stands up and attacks the economic consequences of the measures we’re obliged to take across some parts of the country when he wants to turn the lights out with a full national lockdown.
“That was his policy last week, wasn’t it? Perhaps he could confirm that’s still his policy.”
