Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Andrew Griffith
Main Page: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)Department Debates - View all Andrew Griffith's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is a great supporter of the UK’s businesses and entrepreneurs. In his measures to tackle the virus, will he intercede with his public health colleagues to prioritise the businesses that generate economic growth so that when this is over we have an economy that is prosperous enough to cash the very generous cheques that we have written?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and speaks with great knowledge, experience and eloquence on this matter. We have to protect livelihoods as much as possible, in the same way that we are trying to protect education as much as possible. That does mean sometimes that we have to take measures on social contact that people would prefer not to see, but unfortunately the measures that the Prime Minister outlined yesterday, and which I set out in my statement, are, in my judgment, absolutely necessary both to keeping the virus under control and to protecting education and the economy as much as possible.