Coronavirus

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

May I join you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on her well-deserved honour? She is a marvellous example of a Dame, and I am pleased to call her my right hon. Friend.

My right hon. Friend and I know that the art of government, and the art of being a Minister, is balance. It is about taking conflicting lobby and interest groups, analysing and assessing them, and working out what is the right decision to take in the interests of the country. That includes money that the Government can spend—it is taxpayers’ money, not our money—but it also includes where the resources of the Government must go. It is a difficult job. Competing interests come to explain why their interest is the one that matters; they are not interested in whether someone else’s interests will be affected by their interest. Actually, Ministers are probably doing quite a good job if nobody is terribly happy, because it probably means that they are catering to all interests a little.

I have had a fear throughout the whole sorry saga of the pandemic. I pay tribute to the work that Ministers have done. They have done an incredible amount of work and acted in the best interests of the country, but “follow the science” has become the mantra and sometimes simply following the science is not enough, because the science is looking for one outcome and one single thing. It is really reassuring to have heard Ministers over the past few days say that we will have to accept that this is an endemic virus and learn to live with it, because there was a time when all we heard is that we would eliminate it, which we simply cannot do.

I ask that Ministers think very hard about not just the science but the interests of people. We have been told for so long that we must do just essential activities. For a long time that was merely sleep, eat, drink and possibly go out for an hour for exercise. Well, life is more than that. Life is so much more than the essentials. Life is those weddings, with dancing and greeting loved ones. Life is being able to see loved ones in hospital when they are sick, something that we have been unable to do throughout covid. Life is about attending the British grand prix and many other occasions. Life is about the joy that we can get from such occasions and events. We are constantly being told that we cannot have that joy because it will have an impact on the science.

The Government have to start to celebrate and take advantage of the vaccine programme. We have the most successful vaccine programme in the G7—something that I am sure the Prime Minister reflected on last week. I am very proud that in the north Staffordshire clinical commissioning group, which I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), we have the highest level of vaccinations anywhere in the country. We need to start to reap the benefits of that vaccine programme.

With a heavy heart, I say to the Minister that I cannot support the Government this evening, because I cannot find a way to explain to my constituents why the things that they are looking forward to getting back to doing have to wait. I understand how it will have been put to the Minister—“If you do not do this, Minister, it will cost lives”—but we have to accept that we cannot save every life. I might have been persuaded if the Government were able to support businesses that are unable to open, but that support is simply not there for the weddings industry, the hospitality sector and nightclubs. With a heavy heart, I will not be able to support the Government, although I will on procedural matters.