Coronavirus

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

This extension is, sadly, necessary, so I will vote for it. However, once again, this Government’s failures have meant that longer restrictions have become necessary, just as there has been more economic harm and more human suffering than should have been necessary. Time after time, the Government have got it wrong. Let us think back to last summer, when we had very low case levels. The experts said it was a chance to crush the virus, but the Government did the opposite and cases spiralled out of control. In the autumn, as cases rose again, the Government locked down far too late and released far too early, leading to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. When warned about the risk posed by new variants, the Government refused to close the border, all because the Prime Minister wanted to go to India to pose with Prime Minister Modi.

The Government claim that only hindsight can spot this pattern, but that is simply not true. The Government were warned time and again. They ignored the warnings. In the words seemingly put into writing by the Prime Minister, it has been effing useless, but it is not funny—it is not a joke. So many people have lost their lives and it is now necessary to elongate the misery further because of the Government’s unnecessary failures.

The Government are now saying that we should, and I quote, “live with it”. I do not agree. We should be suppressing the virus. That does not mean more lockdowns. To tackle this virus, the Government should finally put in place the basic public health measures they have refused from day one. Alongside the vaccine, we need decent sick pay for people who need help to isolate. We need to kick out the profiteers from test and trace. We need to invest properly in local health teams to do effective tracing. The failure to sort out these public health measures has led to more than 100,000 needless deaths. It has prolonged economic suffering, and it has prolonged the curtailment of our lives.

If we do not suppress the virus now through test, trace, isolate and support, we risk hundreds of thousands more cases and many thousands more hospitalisations, with huge pressure on our national health service. Many more will suffer from long covid—400,000 already are. It creates conditions for new variants, perhaps even those invulnerable to the vaccine.

I call on the Government today to finally sort out sick pay at real living wage levels. Government Ministers claim—this is very interesting—that the reason they refuse to properly financially support people to isolate when they have covid is that they believe that people would abuse the system. It is no wonder, given how they behave, that they think so little of other people. Just because the Tory party is gaming the system to help its super-rich donors with covid contracts, it does not mean that working people should stoop to their level, and working people would not stoop to their level. The Government’s failure to support people with covid is a moral outrage, and it is creating a public health crisis of which this Government should be ashamed. I am voting for the extension tonight because it is necessary, but without Government failure it would not have needed to happen.