Lord Greaves
Main Page: Lord Greaves (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Greaves's debates with the Leader of the House
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that discussions are ongoing across government, including through the Treasury and the Business Secretary, with local leaders, local business leaders, unions and workers’ representatives. Of course, she will be aware that, as part of the announcements we have made, we have extended the job support scheme. She will also be aware that, since the beginning of the crisis, we have provided more than £200 billion of support to business. We completely understand, and by using these figures I am not trying to diminish the issues that people are facing in their daily lives, but I can reassure her that this is top of our agenda. I hope she will recognise that the Chancellor has been working fleet of foot so that he is able to bring forward support packages to help individuals and businesses through this difficult time.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I spent quite a lot of time yesterday afternoon looking at the detailed infection figures for Covid for each Lancashire district on a daily basis over the last 10 weeks. It is absolutely clear that the first main surge of infections occurred during September, particularly around the middle of September. On 1 September the schools went back, and this seems to be the topic that we are not allowed to talk about. The Government have said they are not going to close schools under any circumstances. I am not saying that the statistical correlation—which is clearly there—is a causal one; I am saying it needs to be looked at hard and investigated. I notice that Northern Ireland is closing its schools for a fortnight. Will the Minister forecast how long it will be before schools in the most affected areas in England are closed?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
Within the very high tier—the top level of the new interventions—non-essential retail, schools and universities will remain open. They remain open at all levels. As the noble Lord rightly said, we have prioritised keeping schools open as one of the key things we wish to do because, as we have heard in previous debates in your Lordships’ House, the disadvantage to young people when schools close is something that we really do not want to repeat, having seen what happened earlier in the year. I am afraid I will not make any apology for the fact that we have put that at the top of our priority list.