I am glad we have not locked down again completely, and I am especially pleased that new measures have been announced to support jobs once the furlough scheme ends this month. Ministers are doing their best to adapt to the twists and turns of the pandemic, and so it sometimes looks like they’re putting their feet on the brake and the accelerator at the same time. I have enormous sympathy with businesses and with families affected by the new rules, and really wish they weren’t necessary. But I feel the balance the Government has struck is the right one, and so long as we all do our bit to stop the spread of the virus the restrictions may not last as long as some fear.
I failed to do my bit when, idiotically, I forgot to put on my face-mask when I jumped on a train last Friday. A kindly citizen posted a picture online, which provided useful material for the media to illustrate the news about the restrictions. I am entirely to blame and will try harder in future.
Two other measures, nothing to do with Covid-19, raised moral quandaries for MPs this week. The first was the Overseas Operations Bill. We have a lot of serving and former soldiers in Wiltshire and when I was elected I pledged to stand up for them against the scourge of vexatious litigation that sadly follows our forces for many years after active operations. We have a particular problem with lawyers pursuing veterans of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and this Bill does not cover that - we are told legislation to protect Northern Ireland veterans will be introduced before Christmas. The Overseas Operations Bill, which introduces a statue of limitations - five years - for legal cases against soldiers unless no new evidence arises, is very welcome. My concern is that we also need to increase the capacity and the duty of the military, supported by independent investigators, to properly investigate fatal incidents immediately after they happen - because that way lawyers won’t be able to pop up years later and claim the Army did something illegal. I was very pleased that, partly in response to pressure from me and other MPs, the minister, Johnny Mercer MP, announced last week that a new unit would be established to do just this.
The other moral question this week was about ‘gender identity’. The Government has announced that there will be no changes to the Gender Recognition Act: people will not, as many activists demanded, be able to retrospectively change their birth certificate to declare themselves a man or woman (so called ‘self-ID’), but will still be required to go through a legal process, certified by doctors, to change their legal sex. I think this was the right call, though I appreciate many people are deeply distressed by it. I think we need to hold the line that the difference between the sexes is meaningful, and that people cannot simply switch between them at their own behest.
This week I published my report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in June, on sustaining the community spirit of the lockdown. I was partly inspired in this by what I saw in Wiltshire in those extraordinary months, including on my weekly shifts with the Devizes Covid-19 Support Group. We have the most amazing wealth of social capital in our communities, and if this is properly backed by central and local government we have the means to ride out the current crisis and to build a more local, more human, less bureaucratic and less centralised system for the future. I summarised my report here, and you can read it (and the PM’s response) here.
In Marlborough yesterday I had the pleasure of a meeting with the legendary Dr Nick Maurice, the seventh generation Dr Maurice to practice in Marlborough, and other veterans of Voluntary Service Overseas. It was fascinating to hear about their experience serving in the Far East and Africa over many years, and about Dr Nick’s work arranging reciprocal visits with the village of Gunjar in the Gambia, whose name adorns the town signs on the entrance to Marlborough.
Have a great weekend.
Danny