Covid-19 Update

Lord O'Shaughnessy Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as the PM’s Statement yesterday made clear, this lockdown is sadly necessary to avoid medical catastrophe, but he was also clear that it comes with significant costs, not least to schoolchildren, who face a year of disrupted education—I declare my interest as a founder of two schools and a parent of three school-aged children. Does my noble friend agree that the closure of schools if necessary is nevertheless highly regrettable? Does she commit to reopening schools as soon as is humanly possible and before any other institutions in society reopen once the vaccination programme is rolled out? Does she agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, with Robert Halfon, the chair of the Select Committee, and with others that teachers and TAs should be vaccinated as an urgent priority to make that happen?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his questions. He is absolutely right. We entirely agree that schools and colleges are the best place for children and young people to be, not just for education but for their health and well-being, which is why we tried so hard to keep them open. Unfortunately, as my noble friend said, we just could not do it. It was not that schools themselves were unsafe for either children or pupils; it is that, with the new variant, we need to use every lever at our disposal to reduce community transmission and contact. It was for that reason that schools were closed; it was not because teachers have not done fantastic work. My brother and sister-in-law, who are both teachers, spent Christmas trying to make their schools Covid secure, but we still had to close them. We will certainly keep this position under review; we will certainly try to bring back schools as soon as we can. Of course, regular testing will be at the centre of our plans. All that hard work will not be in vain; it will just be used slightly further away than we may have hoped.