Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, accused the government of playing a “game of poker with people’s lives” after Boris Johnson imposed the toughest Covid restrictions on the region without agreeing a support package for businesses and low-paid workers.
After a chaotic day of negotiations, the 10-day standoff between Downing Street and Greater Manchester’s leaders came to an acrimonious end despite the two sides being just £5m apart, or the equivalent of £1.78 for each resident.
In a televised statement, Burnham warned that local people faced “a winter of real hardship”. He accused ministers of bullying the region into accepting less than their £65m final request for support for businesses and said that walking away from the talks amounted to a “deliberate act of levelling down”.
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‘We took this stand for you’: Andy Burnham responds to failure of talks – video
The prime minister confirmed that tier 3 measures would be imposed on 2.8 million people in the region from midnight on Thursday, closing pubs and a swathe of the hospitality sector. It means one in 10 people in England – nearly 6 million – will be under the strictest measures. These are the first curbs to be imposed unilaterally, however.
It came as the UK coronavirus death toll rose by 241 on Tuesday – the highest daily figure since the first wave of the pandemic – and new cases exceeded 21,000. Last month, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, warned the UK was on course for 200 deaths a day by mid-November.
The Greater Manchester decision prompted concern from Tory MPs, some of whom are understood to have encouraged Burnham and his colleagues to push for a better deal. Graham Brady, the senior backbencher and MP for Altrincham and Sale West, told the health secretary, Matt Hancock, in the Commons: “I put it to my right honourable friend – the lockdowns themselves cost lives as well as livelihoods. Does he accept that it is better to do these things, if they must be done, by consent?”
In a sign of anger among “red wall” Tory voters, the Manchester Young Conservatives tweeted: “Boris has lied about helping us in the north. It’s time for him to go. He’s not a Conservative. He’s got no back bone or genuine deals. He’s incompetent. He has now lost all the seats we worked so hard in Greater Manchester to win.”
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said he would force a Commons vote on Wednesday demanding a “fair one-nation deal” for areas facing tier 3 restrictions.
On a day of fraught talks following a late-night ultimatum from the government on Monday, Burnham sought £90m in support for businesses and staff affected by the tier 3 measures, later lowering the request to £75m and then £65m. Johnson offered £60m.
“The mayor didn’t accept this [£60m] unfortunately,” Johnson said. “And given the public health situation, I must now proceed with moving Greater Manchester to the very high alert level. Not to act would put Manchester’s NHS and the lives of many of Manchester’s residents at risk.”
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Boris Johnson confirms Greater Manchester moving to tier 3 after failed talks – video
A No 10 source claimed a figure of £55m had earlier been arrived at after discussions between officials on both sides and accused Burnham of blindsiding the prime minister by demanding £65m during a phone call. “Burnham was the one who walked away,” they claimed.
After the talks collapsed, Johnson repeatedly failed to say during a Downing Street press conference whether the £60m would still be on the table, prompting speculation it had been withdrawn with only a £22m package for local test and trace and compliance remaining.
Hancock later confirmed the £60m fund was available. “Of course, we do not want businesses in Greater Manchester to be disadvantaged, so that offer remains on the table,” he told MPs. “Our door is open to further discussions with local leaders … about this support.”
The prime minister insisted the government had made a “generous and extensive offer to support Manchester’s businesses”, saying it was proportionate to amounts given to Merseyside and Lancashire, two regions already in tier 3.
If the package of business support for Greater Manchester was in line with the two neighbouring regions – which are thought to have received about £20 per resident after going into tier 3 – it would receive around £56m.
Amid chaotic scenes, the shadow foreign secretary and Wigan MP, Lisa Nandy, said the impression given had been that only £22m was available. “The government appears to be waging war on the people of Greater Manchester. I grew up under [Margaret] Thatcher but I’ve honestly never seen anything like this,” she said. Others described the situation as “a disgrace” and complained at the “patronising” tone of the health secretary.
The new restrictions will mean household mixing is not allowed either indoors or outdoors; pubs and bars will close unless they are serving meals; and a string of other businesses, from gyms to betting shops and soft play centres, will also be shut.
Quick guide What are the three tiers of England’s Covid lockdown system?
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Tier one – medium
- The “rule of six” applies, meaning socialising in groups larger than six people is prohibited whether indoors or outdoors.
- Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work and are not counted as being part of the six-person limit.
- Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.
- Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered by phone or online.
- Schools and universities remain open.
- Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.
- Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).
- Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors, and – if the rule of six is followed – indoors.
Tier two – high
- People are prohibited from socialising with anybody outside their household or support bubble in any indoor setting.
- Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.
- The rule of six continues to apply for socialising outdoors, for instance in a garden or public space like a park or beach.
- Businesses and venues can continue to operate but pubs and restaurants must ensure customers only consume food and drink while seated, and close between 10pm and 5am.
- Takeaway food can continue to be sold after 10pm if ordered online or by phone.
- Schools and universities remain open.
- Places of worship remain open but people must not mingle in a group of more than six.
- Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people who can attend (15 and 30 respectively).
- Exercise classes and organised sport can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with those they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport.
- Travel is permitted to amenities that are open, for work or to access education, but people are advised to reduce the number of journeys where possible.
Tier three – very high
- People are prohibited from socialising with anybody they do not live with, or have not formed a support bubble with, in any indoor setting, private garden or at most outdoor hospitality venues and ticketed events.
- Tradespeople can continue to go into a household for work.
- The rule of six continues to apply to outdoor public spaces, such as parks, beaches, public gardens or sports venues.
- Pubs and bars are only permitted to remain open to operate as restaurants, in which case alcohol can only be served as part of a substantial meal.
- Schools and universities remain open.
- Places of worship remain open but household mixing is not permitted.
- Weddings and funerals can go ahead with restrictions on the number of people attending (15 and 30 respectively) but wedding receptions are not allowed.
- The rules for exercise classes and organised sport are the same as in tier 2. They can continue to take place outdoors but will only be permitted indoors if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with people they do not live with (or share a support bubble with), or for youth or disability sport. However, in Merseyside, gyms were ordered to close when it entered tier 3.
- Travelling outside a very high alert level area or entering a very high alert level area should be avoided other than for things such as work, education or youth services, to meet caring responsibilities or if travelling through as part of a longer journey.
- Residents of a tier 3 area should avoid staying overnight in another part of the UK, while people who live in a tier 1 or tier 2 area should avoid staying overnight in a very high alert level area.
Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
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Burnham encouraged the public to comply with the law in Greater Manchester but warned the government was “grinding communities down” by failing to offer enough support to people whose livelihoods would be hit.
“I don’t believe we can proceed as a country on this basis through the pandemic, by grinding communities down, through punishing financial negotiations. We are asking a lot of the public at this difficult time. And we need to carry them with us, not crush their spirit. We need national unity.”
To cheers in central Manchester, the mayor said he was still willing to do a deal with the government but added: “It cannot be on the terms that the government offered today because on those things I could not meet the commitments I made to people on the lowest incomes, to people who are self-employed, to the freelancers in this city, who need our support, I could not do it on those terms.”
The prime minister said he was “deeply sorry” for the privations the new measures were likely to cause.
Before Johnson spoke, the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jonathan Van-Tam, showed data slides illustrating a slight fall in new coronavirus case numbers among younger people but a notable rise for older groups, particularly in north-west England.
It was the rise in cases among the over-60s “that really worries us most”, Van-Tam said, adding that deaths were set to rise. He said even tougher restrictions might be needed: “We can’t take the brake off on this, and we may have to push on the pedal a little harder to get it back under control.”
However, in a boost to the prime minister’s localised approach to tackling the virus, Van-Tam said he believed a nationwide “circuit breaker” lockdown would be hard to justify while there were such wide variations between the incidence of the disease in different regions.
“We are trying to walk a very fine line between getting the virus under control in areas where it is out of control, and incurring the minimum economic damage while doing so,” he said, saying that meant “hard measures” in areas where the virus was “out of control”.
“Do I think right now it is appropriate to insist on those similar hard measures in south-west of England or Kent, where levels of disease are very, very much lower than in the north of England? No, I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t think that’s consistent with the epidemiological picture we’re seeing, or indeed consistent with the pressures that are being seen in different parts of the health service across the country, which again are very different.”
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