My Lords, I speak from the sunny snow-covered east Lancashire uplands, where I am a councillor. The general feeling among people as a whole here is one of dismay and gloom. Since last March we have been in a continuous period of lockdowns, the northern intervention area, more lockdowns and tier 3. We are now threatened with tier 4. Apart from a few weeks in the summer it has been a year of total gloom and, frankly, it has not been working. Despite heroic local efforts it has not worked since August. We need proper tracing, the community testing on a large scale that was promised and proper support for people in isolation. Even when we get the vaccine, we will need alternative approaches, based on putting it in the
hands of local people, giving them faith and confidence, and working for hearts and minds, not just telling them what they have to do.
It is quite clear, from looking at detailed statistics for the whole of Lancashire and all the councils every day since March, that the real stimulus and catalyst for the big increase since the middle of September has been the return of schools. Unless we tackle the problems in schools we will not tackle this virus, however much vaccination there may be. I suggest that all staff in schools should be the top priority for the vaccine, that schools should not return until the end of January, that we should scrap the examinations this summer already, that kids who need laptops at home should actually get them, and, more controversially, that we should scrap the present school year, reset it and start it again next September.
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