Education: Return in January

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Nottingham has much to be proud of: not only its students getting themselves vaccinated—over 90% of university students have now taken the vaccine, and I thank them for doing so—but being home to the largest manufacturer of lateral flow tests in Europe, which the Prime Minister spoke about earlier.

One of the ways in which we have mitigated and made sure that we deliver more lateral flow devices is by trebling the number. We used to deliver about 300,000 a day: we have increased the delivery infrastructure so that we can do 900,000 lateral flow devices a day. I recommend that people refresh the website so that they can order their devices. On supply, we have gone from 100 million to 300 million a month. As the Prime Minister mentioned, we probably have the largest testing infrastructure in Europe.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State knows that I do not like the classroom mask mandate one bit. What so many constituents who have contacted me have said—this saddens them and puzzles me—is that we are again holding children to a different standard from the one for the rest of the population. There are masks in classrooms, so why not masks in every single office where people have to go to work? We are testing, testing, testing our children; that has an impact on them and their mental health. Where does he see that in six months’ time or in 12 months’ time when they return after next Christmas? In short, I am asking him: what is his exit strategy for schools from covid?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I remind the House that it is guidance —rather than mandate—on mask wearing in communal parts as part of plan B, which we announced at the end of last year, and now on wearing masks in secondary schools in the classroom. My hon. Friend mentioned the unfairness of this. I agree—I hope my statement struck the right tone—about what children have had to endure over the past two years because of the pandemic. However, I remind the House about a slight difference: we are asking people to work from home wherever possible, so they do not need to go into the office at present, but we want to children to be in school, in a classroom, learning, because we know that that is the best place for them—for their education and for their mental health.

Our plan is clear. As the Prime Minister set out, we will review all the plan B measures on 26 January—in fact, they will sunset then—and I hope that, by then, as we see more evidence, which at the moment, clearly demonstrates that the Prime Minister was absolutely right not to go any further and lock down the country at Christmas or in the new year, we will be one of the first major economies in the world to demonstrate how we transition this virus from pandemic to endemic. I hope that we will get back to what normal life looks like for students as well as for the rest of the economy.