Public Health

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The extension to the regulations in the north-east that this statutory instrument brings in will come some three weeks after the regulations were introduced in Sunderland, the city I represent. The objective is clearly to bring down the number of cases and stop the spread of the virus. The reality is that cases in Sunderland have increased by 321% since the regulations were brought in three weeks ago. They have not stopped, gone down or levelled off; they have gone up massively. The seven local authorities—the LA7—had two asks of the Government when they asked for regulations to be introduced. One was to allow informal child care, which I am grateful that the Secretary of State conceded several days later. The other was that people should be allowed to go into family members’ or friends’ gardens to see people, but that was rejected.

The reality is that people in the area I represent in Sunderland are seeing their family members; they are breaking the rules and they are going into others’ houses. Everyone knows that the virus spreads when people are in small rooms together. These regulations, and the regulations in Sunderland, are actually making the virus spread worse, not improving it, because the Government have not listened to local people or to the requests of cross-party leaders on the needs of the north-east. The Government’s regulations only work if they take people with them, and they are not taking people with them. The police are not an army. They cannot possibly stop what is going on. I have huge sympathy for people going in to see their relatives, for all sorts of reasons. I do not condone them breaking the law, but I understand it.

The other thing the local authorities asked for was financial support, to allow them to support businesses, jobs and other things in the community. They asked for some £20.5 million of support for businesses, but that has not been addressed. It has not even been responded to in the Government’s response. I urge the Minister to respond to these requests, because in my constituency in the north-east, since these local lockdown measures have come in, a third of the hospitality industry has closed down and many others have cut the number of days they are open. Furlough is coming to an end in three weeks, and there are discussions about mass redundancies going on in a region that already has significantly higher unemployment than many other parts of the country. The Government need to get a grip on this. They need to act to get control of the virus and support the economy and the people of this country.