EMMA LEWELL-BUCK: They can’t keep moving us in and out of more lockdowns

Time and time again promises broken because of his incompetence, this time it was his delay in acting on the data regarding the Delta variant.

It took weeks before he took any action, weeks that let the virus we all worked hard to suppress re-enter our communities.

I am certain he will break his promises again.

Yesterday I did not vote in favour of an extension to the covid restrictions because as I have said repeatedly, we need to learn to live with this virus, as with all viruses it will be with us for the long haul.

There will be more variants and the solution to this can’t be to keep moving us in and out of lockdowns and restrictions.

It is not a long-term strategy and as our high death toll and dwindling economy have proven, neither do these measures without proper test, trace, and isolate and border policies in place have the full effect they should.

The NHS continues to roll out the vaccine at pace, infection rates and hospitalisations are nowhere close to this time last year.

Hospitality UK have estimated this delay will cost £3billion to the sector, yet these businesses have been offered no additional support, I know in Shields there are venues that are turning people away due to social distancing rules and losing money day after day, they can’t go on like this.

We are told by the Government this is for our own safety, and it pains them to do this to us yet they have made concessions to these rules for the leisure pursuits they enjoy, Wimbledon and Andrew Lloyd Webber have had all the stops pulled out for them but football, local theatres and other venues must remain restricted.

To vote with the Government allows them to continue in this vein.