Covid-19

David Amess Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to be called so early in this debate. There are so many points I can speak about that no one else has mentioned.

We fought the general election on 12 December on the issue of Brexit, not on how any political party would handle the coronavirus pandemic, so the general public have not yet been given an opportunity to give their verdict on that. Of course, none of us said in our election address how we would deal with these matters. I understand what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, and I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). I feel for the Department of Health and Social Care, whose Secretary of State has worked his socks off. But what I want to hear about is a holistic approach from the Government. I want a plan from No. 10 Downing Street and some direction.

I say this to many colleagues who have just been elected. I thought I heard one or two say earlier that in war we do not need to scrutinise a Government, but that is not what happened. Judging by their emails, I feel that our constituents are getting very restless with the approach. Members of Parliament are getting restless with this approach, too. Why did we stand as Members of Parliament? We did it so that we could come here and scrutinise what the Government are doing, never mind whether we sit on the Government or Opposition Benches. This is not a real Parliament at the moment. It gives a false sense. We need only look around the Chamber to see that this is not as it should be. I say to the Government, not gently but robustly, that we need a much clearer plan.

No one has any experience of how to handle a coronavirus pandemic. If they did, we would have heard from them. It was very disappointing that in the recent World Health Organisation meeting, two of the biggest countries would not sign up to anything. I want the world to give us some leadership on this. Of course, three of the big leaders in my early years here really got the other people onside, to work together. We need the whole world to join us and come up with a solution.

I will be very quick. I have given up explaining to constituents why we are doing this. I want answers on flu jabs and the events industry. Why do we have the 10 pm curfew? I do not understand it. I am told that we do not have testing in our residential schools and foster homes. Limited company directors do not seem to be getting any help. The support for the self-employed has dropped to 20%. On weddings, I have two daughters getting married this year. It has not really happened, so I am much wealthier than would otherwise have been the case, but there is a lot of stress in my household at the moment. And poor Southend United have nil points in the league. We have scored one goal and that was an own goal. Unless we get some help soon, the beloved Southend United, which is going to be part of the moment when we become a city, are going to be humiliated and we will drop out of the league completely. So I say to the Minister, who has 60-odd speeches to respond to in her 10 minutes, that if she could get her wonderful officials to draft responses, I shall do a little chase-up letter. The point has come when we need proper scrutiny of these momentous decisions that we are taking in the name of our constituents.