Speech in Commons Chamber - Tue 14 Dec 2021 Public Health
"Here we are again, and this time, two weeks on, the concept of “learn to live with covid” is as dead as anything I know. In July, we were told many, many times from the Dispatch Box, and from the podium in No. 10, that we were on an irreversible …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Many of my constituents will be very surprised indeed to hear that, from this morning, anyone over 18 can walk into a vaccination centre. Will he give me an update on the Hampshire situation?
"It is clear to me that “learn to live with covid” is now as dead as the zero-covid proponents want it to be. I am pleased about the change from isolation to daily tests, as that will avoid a dangerous pingdemic, but may I ask my right hon. Friend about …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"As of last week, as feared, my constituency—like many others, I am sure—is seeing Christmas events cancelled and moved online, including all manner of festive performances in schools. Local authority guidance is often what is cited. Given that last week national Government went out of their way to ask schools …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"Obviously I will study the White Paper that has been published today, and I welcome the cap that we are introducing. Opposition Front Benchers may have turned up in force today, although they have scuttled off now, but they did not do anything about the issue in 13 years in …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"’Tis the season to be jolly, Mr Deputy Speaker. As my colleagues know and as you know, I am always jolly, but it is not particularly jolly at the moment. [Interruption.] I did not hear that—I shall pretend that I did not.
"I do not think I would call directors of public health “activists”, although I understand that some of them play it very differently from us. It is the job of this place to get legislation and regulations right, and if we draft them in a way that makes them so …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"Having been a Minister of the Crown, I hope that the regulations have been through the right-round process, albeit an accelerated right-round process, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. It will worry the travel industry that the regulations that have not been subject to a motion today are not …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, which will have been heard on the Treasury Bench.
I do not understand the timing here. What will we really know in three weeks’ time that we do not know now? This causes me to question the three-week rule. South Africa …..." Steve Brine - View Speech
"I do accept that, and I also accept that the scientists who discovered the variant said on the media at the weekend that this was often a less serious disease than the delta variant. However, notwithstanding the point that I have just made about the people whom it has affected …..." Steve Brine - View Speech