Covid-19

James Daly Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.

May I say what a delight it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley)? Every speech that he gives in this place is a delight. I cannot say any words of higher praise than that. He highlights a point that I would like to make in respect of this debate. We all have different views and we all articulate those views in different ways—many of us cannot do it in the way that he can—but we come from honourable standpoints.

The debate as it has sometimes been heard in the Chamber today regarding saying “X has done this” or “The Government have done this wrong” misses the point completely. Nobody can possibly argue that the Government have not done anything they thought was the right thing to do to address a unique problem that none of us had thought we would face. The Government have done everything they felt was appropriate, and I support them in that.

I would like to talk about the evidence. In March, at the start of the lockdown, we had no evidence. It was a unique situation, and ad hoc measures had to be put in place because there was no blueprint for what to do. We now have evidence, and we can weigh the risks that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire described on the basis of the evidence we have accumulated over the months of the crisis.

I use as an example pubs, restaurants and the hospitality sector in my seat. I am sure that all Members have faced pub landlords and proprietors of businesses saying to them, “If there is another lockdown, my business will come to an end.” Nobody can fail to be touched by that. The judgment that politicians have to make between the real risk of economic hardship and the threat posed by the virus is nigh on impossible, so we look to the evidence.

It was reported in the London Evening Standard that 3.2% of covid outbreaks last week were from food outlets. We must always look to the evidence to support our judgments. If the evidence does not suggest that pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues are anything other than safe environments in which to respect social distancing and all the other guidance, we should not make an educated guess. The eminent scientists who advise the Government may take a view about the perceived threat, but I firmly believe that the pubs and other hospitality sector businesses in my seat have proved themselves to be safe, covid-secure environments. There has not been an outbreak in my seat, which has now been under restrictions for nearly eight months.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on covid. This is too important to all our constituents for MPs not to be able to debate these matters at length, but let us debate them on the basis of the evidence we have, not our gut feeling, what we think or educated guesses. Let us look at the evidence we have and where it points us. In my opinion, the evidence points to businesses that are currently at risk of being shut down being safe environments. Pubs, restaurants and the hospitality sector in Bury deserve our support, and I hope that after scrutiny of all the evidence, they will be kept open and no further restrictions will be placed on this very important sector within my area.