This week we’ve learnt that the UK has the highest seven-day death rate in the world. That’s tens of thousands of families that have lost their loved ones. It’s an absolute tragedy.

It’s not the fault of the dedicated nurses, carers, and health care workers who’ve been risking their lives throughout this pandemic to protect ours. I’m afraid, it’s the fault of the poor decision-making and mistakes at the heart of this government.

Ten months ago, I warned that if the government didn’t take action to increase Statutory Sick Pay and make sure that people could afford to self-isolate then we would all live to regret it.

Ten months later, their advisors are still telling Ministers that self-isolation is not being adhered to because people can’t afford it and yet the government is still not taking action.

It took over a year for the government to introduce testing measures at the border. The systems that are needed to underpin an effective public health response, like test and trace, are still not effective.

The measures that Ministers have taken, the slowness in going into lockdown and the speed at which they’ve lifted some of these restrictions have caused avoidable deaths. This was foreseeable and, throughout the pandemic, it’s been completely foreseen.