Covid-19

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Like a lot of Members, I am delivering a speech tonight that is not quite what I would have imagined last week. I know that many people in Stoke-on-Trent South will be apprehensive about further lockdowns. People have already been through so much and it has had such an impact on mental health.

The choices we face are almost impossible to contemplate—either to put our economy, jobs and livelihoods on hold or to risk overwhelming our NHS and costing potentially thousands of lives. The tier 2 restrictions that Stoke-on-Trent was already under are now going to be tighter still. The daily case numbers in Stoke-on-Trent are in three figures, and Royal Stoke University Hospital is almost entirely full. The number of covid patients is higher now than at the first peak. We have seen locally just how fast this virus can spread, more than doubling in a week. Thankfully, these figures have started to improve, and I hope that this slowing of the rate continues, thanks to people’s efforts locally.

I thank all our health professionals who have done and continue to do so much to care for those who have fallen victim to covid. All our NHS and care staff—our key worker heroes—have our enduring gratitude. We all need to support them now by following these measures, continuing to use our health services when we need them, and making sure that we access the right services at the right time.

Those in education—teachers, lecturers and classroom assistants—also deserve huge thanks for all their work. I visited Ormiston Meridian Academy in Meir recently, and when speaking to young people there, I was struck by the fact that they urged me to do everything possible to keep schools fully open. Nothing can replace our children being in school.

We must all look to the future in hope and confidence that we can defeat this virus. We have already seen remarkable progress in treatments and the development of a vaccine. Equally, getting the testing infrastructure right is absolutely key. We have heard from a number of colleagues about the contact tracing system and how that needs to improve further. I have also had issues raised by constituents in my area about accessing the £500, because of problems with the app system releasing an ID. It is important that those problems are addressed.

I want to commend the work of the Secretary of State and the Department on testing. Having the highest testing capacity in the whole of Europe is an absolutely massive feat. The additional national testing facilities opened recently at Fenton Manor in my constituency are very welcome. This is a very promising development, and more rapid testing in particular is a game changer, if we can get it right. This can be the basis for reducing restrictions on our everyday lives.

I know many people across Stoke-on-Trent South and Stoke on Trent as a whole will be particularly concerned about the impact on their businesses, jobs and livelihoods. The proposed continuation of the furlough scheme is certainly welcome and necessary, as is the direction to work from home if people can, while being very clear that manufacturing and construction industries—there are many such industries in Stoke-on-Trent—can continue to open.

I also welcome the doubling of support for the self-employed, and the grants that will be available to those industries most affected. I would ask that consideration is given to those manufacturing industries that depend on hospitality and retail, such as ceramics. Drawing the line in the right place is not going to be easy for any Government, but I hope that the Government will continue to engage to ensure that support is focused on the sectors most impacted.

It is the everyday level that will continue to control the spread while we wait for the extraordinary developments of science to enable us to ease the restrictions. For our market traders, cafés, restaurant workers and retailers not dealing in goods covered by the list of essential items, I cannot emphasise enough the urgency of returning to the tiers as soon as it is safe to do so.