Covid-19 Update

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that. It is a very difficult situation, as of course I think everyone in this House understands. It is one of the reasons we are increasing capacity—there is new funding and support—and it remains a priority.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Could I start by extending my condolences and, on behalf of my party, those of my right hon. and hon. Friends to the Prime Minister and his family today?

Children and young people have done everything that has been asked of them through this pandemic, as have their parents, yet children have paid a high price in lost learning and mental health particularly, and they have been an overthought for the Government throughout. It is all very well announcing today that the power to close schools in the Coronavirus Act will be expired—it makes a great headline—but the Health Secretary is well aware that that power was never used previously to close schools; it was just guidance from the Education Secretary. Will the Health Secretary give pupils and parents across the country a cast-iron guarantee today that his Government will not close schools again this winter?

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Lady would agree that we are as a country in a much better place today with covid than we were even at the start of this year. That is down to many factors, and I referred to a number of those in my statement, but I believe that with the measures we have set out today, we can be confident that our children will not have to go again through the kind of disruption they have seen in the last couple of years.