Covid-19

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con) [V]]

A Scotch egg, Madam Deputy Speaker: is it or is it not a main meal? That is the question. It is certainly a question I never thought I would have to answer in my role as a Member of Parliament. Although I commend colleagues who ventured there and the even braver ones who moved into the fraught world of pasty politics—should it or should it not have a side salad?—I am glad we will be leaving people to make their own judgment in future.

Those may seem like trivial points, but they highlight the fundamental point that has been the hardest thing for many people to bear over the last year, which is the loss of our freedom: freedom to come and go as we please, to see our loved ones, to go to work, to run our business, to go on holiday to get married or to drink in the pub—the list goes on. Freedom is something that I think many of us have taken for granted—I know I certainly have—because we have never known life without it. I will never take it for granted again.

I strongly welcome the road map announced by the Prime Minister this afternoon and the path it sets out to restore our freedoms. I welcome the priority given to the reopening of schools. They are the best place for children to be. I also welcome the new test of two households as an alternative to the rule of six, so that a family of five can soon see their grandparents again without ending up on the wrong side of the law. I hope that the review into social distancing will enable us to end it sooner rather than later as the vaccine takes effect.

It is the UK’s vaccine roll-out, powering on at a tremendous speed, that makes the road map possible. I want to thank everyone involved, in particular the team at Gamston community vaccination centre in Rushcliffe, whom I had the privilege to meet over recess. They described to me the scenes of relief, joy and happy tears they had seen as the first cohorts of the over-80s came through the door for their vaccine. “You have given me back the last years of my life,” they were told, “I will be able to see my family again.” They are not only administering vaccines; they are injecting hope back into people’s lives.

Work is also going on here, led by Nottingham University, to develop a new type of vaccine which, if successful, will overcome any issues with the future mutation of the virus protein spike; it starts clinical trials in the next few weeks. This is a day to be optimistic, but we are well aware of the challenges that still face us. I want to thank everyone who is working to overcome them, enabling us to take the path back to freedom.