Sue Gray Report

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is a process, and we have to wait for it to conclude.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Among those who were the most isolated during the pandemic were people with learning disabilities, cut off from visits by their families and not even allowed an advocate if they were admitted to hospital. For too many, restrictions to services and the awful isolation without visitors that the Prime Minister’s rules expected them to follow were a matter of life and death. The mortality rate for people with learning disabilities from covid was eight times that of the general population. When he thinks about the damage done to all those groups who were so isolated and their families, and the serious failings of leadership and judgment in No. 10 found by this independent investigation, how can he think his position is tenable?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is entirely right about the suffering of people with learning disabilities, and indeed all vulnerable groups who were exposed to lockdowns for long periods. That is why, actually, we worked so hard to make sure that we could get this country out of lockdown and keep it out of lockdown, and that was our objective.