Covid-19 Update

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, Burnley has been in restrictions for a long time now. It has brought its case rate down by about half since the peak in late September. My hon. Friend has played a dutiful and impressive role in his public leadership within Burnley. I hope that we can work with Burnley Borough Council and Lancashire County Council to get the case rate down and get Lancashire down into tier 2, in the same way that Liverpool has managed to come down into tier 2: a combination of people following the rules and community testing. That is available to people in Lancashire, and I very much hope to be able to work with the team in Burnley and across Lancashire to make this happen.

The final thing I would say is that these are tough measures; I get that. I understand the impact on hospitality, but they are done for the right reasons, which is to keep people safe and stop the local NHS being overwhelmed.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Warrington will be breathing a sigh of relief that we are emerging from national lockdown into tier 2, but while I welcome the return of fans to stadiums, I cannot support the extension of the substantial meal requirement to tier 2, which will leave many pubs across my constituency closed. The pub sector faces an existential threat and it flies in the face of logic and fairness that thousands can congregate at the rugby but wet pubs that are at the heart of our community must stay closed. Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing the specific evidence that underpinned the substantial meal requirement extension and, if he cannot, to removing this requirement?

[Matt Hancock]

Unfortunately, we will not be removing that requirement from tier 2. It is incredibly important that we keep the cases under control. The local team in Warrington has worked very hard along with the Liverpool city region to get the case rate down. They went into national lockdown in tier 3 and have come out in tier 2, and the people of Warrington should be commended for that, but the measures of tier 2 are necessary to keep the virus under control because, unfortunately, the virus thrives when people get together. The hon. Member mentioned the point about events in larger scale. They will only be held where there is very stringent social distancing, so there will not be congregations, as she said, of thousands of people—I would like to reassure her of that—because these events will only take place when the capacity in normal times of any venue is much, much bigger than the number of people who are there.