One of the challenges the pandemic has presented is looking after our health and wellbeing both physically and mentally. Self-isolating and social distancing has been hard for everyone, some more than others and particularly for those shielding and living alone.

Finding a vaccine is essential if we are to well and truly defeat the coronavirus. We already have a number of promising leads, so much so we will be conducting clinical trials in the near future.

Securing a safe and effective vaccine is the only way to defeat the coronavirus. The UK has secured early access to 90 million doses of two vaccine candidates. This includes 60 million doses of the Nova vaccine and 30 million doses of the Janssen vaccine.

I hope today is a day to celebrate for many of you getting your A level results in South Derbyshire. It has been an unusual year for you and I can appreciate how hard you have all worked and how disappointing it was for some of you not to have sat your exams this year.

Children and young adults have been adversely affected by the pandemic and it is imperative we reverse this in order to help their development and to secure their future.

Bus and tram services in England will be receiving an extra £256 million of support, taking the total to at least £700 million. This additional funding is especially welcome as we anticipate a significant rise in demand in September when the children all go back to school. 

The economy is facing unique challenges with businesses having to adapt and find new ways of working. As the way we work and conduct business changes we must be ready to step in to provide help and support where we can.

Testing and tracing is essential in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, especially ahead of winter. I am pleased to see that the government is rolling out two new rapid results coronavirus tests which will be able to detect COVID-19 and other winter viruses in just 90 minutes. 

The People’s Postcode Lottery has announced funding for local organisations to support some of the fantastic work they have been doing in the community. There are four trusts offering funding for projects, this includes the following:

One of the government’s key targets was to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers and I am pleased to say we already have an extra 4,336 officers which is 22% of our target. This puts us on track to reach our target of 6,000 additional officers by March 2021.