This pandemic has put a great strain on our society and our economy, but it has also shown the strong social cohesion in the country. People have worked together and co-operated with what the science has suggested will beat this virus. As a Conservative, I do not like to see restrictions on
our freedoms any more than other hon. Members, but the measures we have put in place to combat this fast-moving novel virus have saved lives. Let us compare the Spanish flu epidemic after world war one with this one. The response to the former was driven by ineffective measures to prevent transmission and incomplete responses when it was clear that it was a fast-spreading pandemic. Spanish flu killed 50 million people worldwide and at least a quarter of a million in the UK—double the number of those who have died so far from covid.
We said we needed restrictions last year to protect our NHS and to allow it to function, and they have worked and saved lives. Of course we sympathise with everyone who has lost a friend or relative, or is suffering from the effects of long covid, but it must be clear that the situation would be much worse had we not had the restrictions. Because we have contained the virus more, we can now move along the road map, and I welcome the revocation of the all-tiers regulations with the new framework. That will allow us to reduce the levels of restriction at each stage.
I quite understand the concerns of constituents who want us to move on from lockdowns and get back on track, but we do need this framework to avoid a free-for-all at a time when we still have to vaccinate such large numbers of adults. We must keep our guard up against potential new variants and the emerging new wave in the EU and elsewhere. New mutations can develop when a virus is able to spread through unprotected populations.
My support for these regulations was reinforced yesterday at a meeting of the Hampshire local resilience forum. We heard from Dr Nigel Watson, a retired GP, who, like many others, has come back to help the NHS. He would like to continue to help with the backlog of medical cases over the next few months. Extending the regulations will allow him and others to do this. The help of Dr Watson and others is an extremely important part of getting the NHS back to normality, so I am pleased that we are extending section 2 of the Act to ensure this can continue. His story is typical of that of so many people who have helped our national effort to eliminate this dreadful disease, so let me finish by thanking him and everyone else in the NHS and the public sector who have worked so hard to support society so that we can now move on again. I will be supporting the extension of these regulations.
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