Public Health

Dehenna Davison Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)]

I have listened carefully to today’s debate and was going to say that I am really pleased that the House has not descended into the shouting match we often witness, but, as we saw a few minutes ago when my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) was speaking, the Opposition never fail to disappoint. However, tensions are high in this place, because each of us here cares passionately about getting this right.

As ever, I come to the Chamber with freedom in my heart and at the core of my values. I have said before and say again that I did not come into politics to restrict people’s liberties, but in the context of covid I think of the words of the preacher Peter Marshall, who said:

“May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please but as the opportunity to do what is right.”

On that note, it is clear to me that some restrictions are necessary to help protect the lives of my constituents and their friends, families and loved ones.

So, from that assumption, the issue becomes what those restrictions should look like, and today we have a very simple binary choice: vote for the new tier system or not. If we choose not to vote for the new tiers, however, what is the alternative? On the table at present I see only two alternatives. The first is that the harshest national restrictions we have been living with for the past month will continue, devastating businesses and mental wellbeing across the whole country, and the other alternative is to end restrictions completely and allow the virus to rip through our communities, with a huge human toll paid for that.

So that is the real choice that we face today. With no other alternative on the table, against the backdrop of a devastating global pandemic, and with no realistic ideal scenario, the new tier system is the least bad option, so I will be supporting it today. However, I support the system with two clear caveats that I know Ministers have heard loud and clear. First, as I have been raising now for months, we need a more localised approach. A number of colleagues have mentioned that today and pointed to the success of hyper-localised restrictions in other countries including Germany and South Korea. I believe that we must try to replicate that approach. It is almost impossible to justify placing residents in Upper Teesdale in my constituency, where cases have consistently been far below the national average, into tier 3. I ask that at the review on 16 December a more localised approach is taken, not only for fairness but to mitigate the economic damage that we know these restrictions cause.

Secondly—I have been proudly vocal on this—support for the hospitality sector must be enhanced and improved. That must be done right away to give our landlords, restaurateurs, waitresses, bartenders, chefs and others some much-needed hope throughout the Christmas period. Today, I heard from Rima, Susan, Cathy, Cheryl and many others. Given the importance of the Christmas period for annual earnings in the hospitality sector, I urge my ministerial colleagues to check the books one last time, dig down the back of the Treasury sofa and find a proper pocket of cash. The weather over the festive period is uncertain, but I urge the Government to give us the tools to say to those in the hospitality sector, “May all your Christmases be all right.”