I agree with the hon. Lady. I appreciate that she is a newer Member of the House but I dare say she watched our proceedings before being elected, and we cannot have spent so much time talking about parliamentary sovereignty only to then throw it out of the window in the next Parliament, so her point is well made. The shadow public health Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), and I have already agreed: he will bring the dinner, I will bring the pudding, and we will see if the Commons shop is doing crackers on discount if we meet over Christmas.
Finally, and seriously, we think there are areas where the Government can go further without impacting on people’s lives, livelihoods and liberties and should do so. On ventilation in schools, young people have borne the brunt of this pandemic and we owe it to them, to their education and to the staff who support them to make sure that their schools are properly ventilated. They cannot wait until October next year for a review to be published; we need action now. In winding up, can the Minister for the Cabinet Office say something about that? On jabs for young people, the Christmas holidays seem to us to be an ideal time to get young people vaccinated, so when do the Government think we can see action on that front?
Finally, on statutory sick pay, as we have heard very powerfully from my hon. Friends, there are people out there who are forced to choose between doing the right thing by their families and doing the right thing by public health because they simply cannot afford to isolate at home. So we again implore the Government to act by making sure that higher statutory sick pay is available to people immediately so that they can afford to do the right thing.
We have not played games with these votes: we are not exploiting the divisions in the Conservative party to inflict defeat on the Government for the sake of scoring political points. The threat facing the country is too serious and Labour takes our duty to the country seriously. The Tories may be in disarray but the public can rely on Labour to keep the country safe, to do the right thing and to support these measures today, and we trust the British people to do the same.
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