MIKE HILL: Government must show leadership… it’s a matter of life and death

This week the Office of National Statistics reported that the regions figures have shot up to 6.6 percent; worryingly increasing the gap between ourselves and the rest of the country.

The Government’s furlough scheme, which provided a financial lifeline to businesses and workers affected by COVID, is set to end on the 31st of this month and, as we know from recent announcements by the Chancellor, is set to be replaced by a much less generous jobs support package.

The new nationwide system represents a huge failure for the Government who, after 8 months, have clearly not learned a single lesson from this crisis. They must show some leadership before it is too late. This is a matter of life and death.

On Tuesday of this week Parliament approved a series of Statutory Instruments which effectively introduced a three tier COVID lockdown system for those areas considered to be at risk. Consequently the rest of the Tees Valley joined Hartlepool and Middlesbrough in the High Risk Tier 2 category.

While I’m not surprised that Redcar and Stockton, with persistently higher R, hospitalisation and death rates than ourselves, have been included, I remain surprised by the constant head in the sand arguments by local Tory MPs that they should not be subject to lockdown.

Now that the penny has dropped for them I am hoping they will put party politics to one side and work together for the good of the people and the local economy. With unemployment rates being so high we can ill afford the economic shock of more job losses as a result of the ending of furlough and the continuing COVID crisis.

Working collectively we have to put public health first, push the Government for an exit strategy for local lockdown’s and protect people’s livelihoods. We simply cannot afford to fall further into the abyss and collectively need to step up to the plate.