Public Health

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I would like to echo what many have said by wishing the House staff a very happy new year and thanking them for what they have done. I also thank those on the frontline in the health service, who have worked so hard for so many months. They may have had a little respite in the summer, but since then they have not stopped, and I know that many are feeling very tired indeed.

I should like to start my few remarks on a positive note by talking about the AstraZeneca vaccine. Everybody in the country must have welcomed waking up this morning to find that it had been licensed. We need to roll it out as fast as we can. I agree with many other Members, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who has said that we need to vaccinate 2 million a week. We need to do that to get ourselves out of this desperate situation of lockdown that does not work and all sorts of problems with businesses, schools and the overwhelming of the NHS, which is what Ministers are extremely worried about. We have to do this as fast as we can. I would like the Minister for Care to look into how well Derbyshire will do that, because I am not convinced that it is ready to go full pelt and vaccinate all the vulnerable and elderly. It is right to aim to get those above 65 vaccinated within seven weeks. That is really important.

I am going to change tack slightly and say, “Bah, humbug!” I felt very disappointed earlier this year when we went into lockdown. In Derbyshire, we had voluntarily gone into tier 2. We then went into the second lockdown, came out several weeks later and were immediately put into tier 3. We are now going into tier 4, from a minute past midnight tonight. When we were put into tier 3, the same as many other constituencies, why were we not called back, since the decision was made the day after we left for our Christmas recess? We could have operated remotely, as many of us are doing today. Looking at the Chamber now, there are very few Members in there, so most of us are working remotely. We could have done that on the day after we had gone into recess. It would have been simple to do, because the staff were still around. We could have made the decision and voted on it then. We are now being asked today to vote on a decision that was made several weeks ago, but we will not be voting on the decision that has been made today. That does not seem logical. Some areas moved into much higher tiers just a few days after the previous decision, but none of us will be voting on the decision today whereby people have gone up to a higher tier and we do not have a clue when we will be coming out of it.

Since coronavirus first started and we started having all the lockdowns and the different tiers, I have been very concerned about businesses. Hospitality businesses spent tens of thousands of pounds, in some cases, on making themselves covid-secure, but they have never been allowed to open. There are small craft breweries in my constituency that are having real trouble because they cannot sell to the pubs as they are not open, so they are selling to the public. There are artists, actors, musicians, singers and dancers who have no job at the moment, and many other self-employed people who are really struggling. We have to look at how we can support those people. We have to look at how quickly we can get this vaccine out so that we know that we are going to be covid-secure and covid-safe and people can get on with their lives.