Covid-19

Debate between Steve Brine and Adam Holloway

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

First, I thank the care home staff and NHS staff in my constituency, particularly the medical staff at Darent Valley Hospital and Medway Maritime Hospital, who I know have their work cut out for them at the moment.

I would like to again bang the drum for the hospitality industry. If we believe that the main drivers of infection are hospital and care home settings, schools and households mixing within family homes, should we not be doing everything we can to avoid such household mixing? Regrettably, I firmly believe that many people in this country, unable to go into bars and restaurants, are mixing in unsuitable conditions in other people’s homes. We have seen since the end of the first lockdown the extraordinary and incredibly expensive efforts of the hospitality industry to make preparations to minimise the risks to their staff and customers and to stay afloat as businesses. When I look at establishments owned by friends of mine such as the Iron Pier brewery in Northfleet, the Griffin Inn in Fletching or TJ’s pub in Gravesend, I see that the driving principle of customer service for them since the first lockdown is the safety of their customers and their staff.

We have seen no evidence at all to confirm that people are more at risk in pubs than in private homes or more at risk congregating in well-run hospitality establishments. If we are knowingly going to crash the businesses and the life’s work of so many entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry, which we will be doing by knowingly restricting their ability to trade in the run-up to Christmas, when trading this month might actually save many of them, it would be nice if we could at least provide some evidence to support that.

[Steve Brine]

Does my hon. Friend share the concern of many Members in this House about so-called wet pubs? The Bakers Arm in Winchester contacted me this morning to say they are finding it difficult to take seeing the bustling high street all around them and people sitting outside coffee shops drinking cappuccinos, yet people cannot buy anything from their businesses. They are literally going under. Does he have that same problem in his constituency?

[Adam Holloway]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I said the other day that the last time I went into the Compass Ale House in Gravesend, it was literally like putting myself under the control of a manager saying, “Sanitise your hands. Do this. Do that. Sit down. Don’t do that. Why have you taken your mask off?”

I am absolutely not suggesting that pubs open as normal—in fact to the contrary, and that is the point. They are ready to operate safely in the new normal that they have arranged at such huge cost. I suggest a well-run pub is a safer environment for people to meet their friends than their front rooms, but like everyone in Whitehall and across the country, we have absolutely no idea either way. It is just a hunch.