Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Pitkeathley
Main Page: Baroness Pitkeathley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Pitkeathley's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Baroness is quite right to ask the question, but I would say to her that it is not actually the regime that has changed, although the regime has changed; it is that the data has changed. Last Tuesday, I sat through Covid Gold, which is our big set-piece data session—a two-hour deep dive into national and local data. Every week for the past 70 weeks, that has been a very chilling experience where we have looked at the progress of and tactics of this awful virus, and I have often left it with a very heavy heart. Last week, I genuinely felt that we had reached some kind of turning point and, on Friday, when I sat in my kitchen, I felt a great weight beginning to lift off my shoulders for the first time in a very long time. I cannot disguise from your Lordships that there may well be more surprises left in this virus. I cannot promise that I will not be standing at this Dispatch Box giving bad news at some point in future, but, right now, I am more optimistic than I have ever been, and I think that the Statement by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State reflected that.
My Lords, the time for questions has now elapsed and, with regrets and apologies to those noble Lords whom I was unable to call, we must move to the next business.