The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (Amendment No. 19) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2020

Part of Executive Committee Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 4:45 pm on 25 January 2021.

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Photo of Jonathan Buckley Jonathan Buckley DUP 4:45, 25 January 2021

In a moment.

I thank the independent retailers for their endurance throughout this time. They realise that their sacrifice regarding their businesses, jobs and perhaps even their livelihoods is for a greater cause — to suppress virus transmission in the community — albeit that, as I mentioned, I have been sceptical, to say the least, about the evidence of community transmission in close-contact services. It has been mentioned many times in the House that illegal gatherings — house parties or whatever — are a far greater threat than independent businesses, which have probably put in place more stringent measures than the multinationals that are open freely.

We in this House have a duty to repay their faith in the Executive's response by ensuring that we chart a course outside this pandemic. Those businesses devastated by the current rules should have access to the vital financial and practical support to get back on their feet. There is a particular responsibility on Ministers to meet the needs of our independent retailers, who are rightly seeing these large supermarket retailers acting outside the spirit of the regulations in non-essential sales.

There are some areas where there should be scope to give more flexibility within the structure of the current regulations. That was mentioned at the Committee. For instance, in respect of amendment No. 24, some takeaway food businesses have highlighted the fact that the 11.00 pm cut-off point for delivery disadvantages shift workers in hospitals, many of whom work on the front line. We should be open to listening to those concerns substantively in the coming days.

As I have outlined throughout my contribution, we must collectively focus our energies on the clear path that gives us the most hope of righting the horrible wrongs of COVID-19, and that is vaccination. It has been noted on numerous occasions that a lot of the sectors that I have mentioned have been affected by the COVID pandemic. We now need to look at ways and means by which we can protect those sections of society and get them back operating again. I look to our teachers; I am sure that many Members have this thought as well. We have seen the negative impact that COVID regulations have had on our young people, and it is now incumbent on us to make representations to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to see whether we can vaccinate our teaching population, to ensure that we can get our young people back to education as quickly and safely as possible. Those teaching special educational needs children have not for one moment stepped back in this pandemic; they have stepped forward, into the breach. We now need to support them with a vaccination programme that is fit for purpose.

On that point, I commend the current vaccination programme and those administering it, because it is a leader in the United Kingdom. In fact, it is compared globally with some vaccination programmes. That is a real tribute to those administering the vaccination scheme. I take that point on board, but I would like to see flexibility within the scheme to allow for a process by which we can start to normalise society. The restrictions alone can never hope to see us through the pandemic, nor can they deflect attention from the need to ramp up that vaccination programme on a massive scale. I mentioned in Committee that we should have vaccination 24/7, if we can. I look across the trusts. This morning, we heard how trusts have got through vaccinating their staff, and now we are starting to see the slowing down of vaccination centres because there is not the same footfall coming through them. Maybe I am missing something, but this should be the very time that we should be ramping it up. At the end of the day, if there are spare vaccinations, let us see a process by which we can vaccinate teachers or those who are vulnerable. We all know them. We need to get society moving again, and moving quickly.

We now look to commence vaccination of the over-75s group, and that is a testimony to the dedicated teams of vaccinators. With over 1,000 volunteers to take up this role, the Health Minister needs to look at expanding the skill set further. As our society eventually reopens, we have to be mindful that pressures on our public servants, including teachers and police officers, will only increase. We believe that there is merit in providing those who work at high risk with a vaccination programme.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence on those points. I believe them to be pivotal in this debate. The road ahead will be long. There will be many twists and turns in relation to COVID and the regulations. I do not want to fall out with any Member of the House for being passionate about something that I feel is having an adverse impact on people who do not deserve it. I hope that, in the spirit of such debate, we can continue to confront those issues, deal with the pandemic and, sadly, deal with the long-term consequences thereof.