As the Prime Minister said earlier, none of us wants this. Pitting lives against livelihoods and, I would add, the quality of our lives is excruciating, uncomfortable and tugs at our values and sensibilities. The truth is that it is an invidious conundrum with no good options, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) said. We cannot escape the fact that these measures will come at a significant cost for many people in our constituencies, including mine, whether that is social, financial or from a mental health perspective.
I take a particular interest in the impact on children, who we know have had a whole range of new experiences during the first lockdown, not all of them good, that may play out for many years to come. I welcome the fact that schools will remain open for the next four weeks. That is incredibly important for a whole range of reasons, and I urge every parent to do their bit in ensuring that their child gets the education and all the other benefits from schools remaining open. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to clarify whether a child who is classified as clinically vulnerable is still expected to go to school, as I have had some queries about that.
We know about the financial damage that this will cause—the scarring of the economy, as it is sometimes known. I have highlighted previously, and I will do so again in a debate on Monday in Westminster Hall, the wedding industry, pubs, zoos and beauty salons. We cannot forget that, despite the significant package from the Chancellor to support those businesses, there are still gaps that need to be filled, and they need some hope for the future.
I understand that the figures we have—I would like to see more granular data in the future—are not good to read, in terms of the number of covid patients in hospital and the trajectory that many of our hospital trusts tell us they are on. We need to act, and I will be supporting these measures, but I urge my right hon. Friend, as other Members have, to ensure that we do not end up in a vicious cycle of lockdowns, which will do more and more damage as we try to control the virus. We need a plan for how we can live with it in the longer term and keep the R below 1 once we have reduced it, so that we can continue to reopen the economy and, most of all, give Eddisbury residents and businesses the normality, certainty and hope that they crave.
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