I used to look forward to a visit to the ice cream after school. “99”, I would cry out. Now 99 has a new meaning. It is the number of Conservative that rebelled against the prime minister on his Plan B yesterday evening. That vote has weakened his authority in his party, by which I mean the political party. A threat to his leadership now looks credible.
The North Shropshire by-election is tomorrow. It is neck and neck between Helen Morgan standing for us Lib Dems and Neil Shastri-Hurst for the Conservatives. If the Conservatives lose the seat, then surely Boris Johnson is finished.
During the debate, Layla Moran said that there is new evidence that Omicron affects children more than Delta has done. She asked: “Where is the plan for children?” She also called for more ventilation in public spaces and schools.
Daisy Cooper told MPs that the removal of restrictions on mask wearing in July was more a political move than health management. She said the UK Health Security Agency had warned that “stringent national measures” will need to be imposed by 18 December.
Wera Hobhouse supported mask wearing and warned sceptics of restrictions that our civil liberties do not include the liberty to harm others. She asked what was being done to ensure the housebound received their boosters.
Daisy Cooper
The Government should never have scrapped the use of masks on 19 July. Their obsession with removing all precautions in one go had far more to do with party management than it did with public health…
It has been reported that the UK Health Security Agency has privately advised the Government that “stringent national measures” will need to be imposed by 18 December… This drip, drip of information is causing huge uncertainty and anxiety. We need clarity and we need it now.
We Liberal Democrats welcome the ambition of 1 million jabs a day… but the way in which the target was announced, with no scrutiny and no details, was a real insult to all those who were left to scramble to pull a plan together on Monday morning….
We have called on the Government several times to call and convene an urgent hospitality summit in order to see what support businesses need right now…
We must also look after people’s mental health. We need supported isolation, not lone self-isolation. There must be financial and practical support for those with caring duties and for those who live alone—and for our schools…
For all these measures to work, there must be trust in the Government… Will the Government come clean about Christmas, or will we see another last-minute U-turn that ruins the Christmas holiday and is too late to alleviate pressure on the NHS?
Wera Hobhouse
I hope this debate does not distract from the fact that we all believe vaccines are the best way to beat covid. We will beat all the conspiracy theories about vaccines and about covid being an invention…
The Liberal Democrats have always supported mask wearing… Mask wearing is not just about keeping ourselves safe or even about keeping our loved ones safe; it is about keeping everyone safe. Yes, we enjoy our civil liberties and we should protect them, but they do not include the liberty to harm others…
The red-list system has now been dropped, but the stress and cost to people who tried to do the right thing has been considerable and needs to be addressed urgently. Will there be compensation for those who faced considerable cost and… will those who are still in quarantine be released immediately?…
I hope the Minister is able to outline the steps being taken to ensure the housebound are able to receive their booster as a priority…
Layla Moran
It took the Prime Minister potentially being on the front pages of all the newspapers on Monday morning to come out in favour of a different approach to plan B. I can only say thank goodness for party-gate. Had that not happened, I wonder how much longer we would have waited for the Government to act…
On omicron itself, the news is startling. Two-day doubling is quite scary. Even if all the population had boosters today, because it takes 12 days, more or less, for a person to develop immunity and become protected, the numbers would increase by 60 times …
Just this morning, there has been new evidence to suggest that omicron affects young children more than delta… The first plea I make to Ministers is where is the plan for children?…
During an evidence session of the APPG on Coronavirus today, @chrischirp told us indications show Omicron poses a greater risk to children than Delta. I pressed the Secretary of State on what his plans are to protect our children. pic.twitter.com/yy7BwPjCyG
— Layla Moran
(@LaylaMoran) December 14, 2021
We need to ventilate our public spaces. We need to provide support for social care… We need to ensure that test, trace and isolate works… We need to limit mixing, and if people will not do it themselves, the Government needs to act.
I urge the Government: do not hesitate, act quickly, please do not curb Christmas, and go from B to B-plus now so that we can enjoy the holiday ahead.
* Andy Boddington is a Lib Dem councillor in Shropshire. He blogs at andybodders.co.uk. He is Friday editor of Lib Dem Voice.