Archbishop’s call for greener future as Christmas lockdowns extended and virus deaths rise

The Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell also urges a “levelling up of opportunity, particularly for some of the poorest communities here in the North” in a column in The Yorkshire Post.

His message comes after the Government announced that further swathes of the South will be moved into the higher Tier 4 – where there is a stay at home order and closure of non-essential shops – from Boxing Day morning after 39,257 new cases, a record number, were confirmed in the previous 24 hours.

This means 24 million people – 43 per cent of England’s population – will be in Tier 4 while other areas across the South will face tougher measures as Ministers battle to stem outbreaks.

The decision intensified calls for Parliament’s recall next week – especially if MPs are required to ratify a Brexit trade deal with the European Union.

The announcement came at a sombre 10 Downing Street briefing when Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new variant of coronavirus – which is said to be 70 per cent more transmissible – was spreading at a “dangerous rate”.

A 57 per cent rise in Covid cases in the past week leaves 18,500 people being treated in hospital this Christmas for the virus, a number comparable to the pandemic’s spring peak.

Tragically, another 744 Covid-related deaths were confirmed and the UK will, inevitably, record its 70,000th fatality from the virus over the festive period as the Queen finalises her Christmas message, her third major speech of the year.

Mr Hancock tried to raise spirits – amid growing fears over a new nationwide lockdown – by announcing that vaccination had started in care homes, beginning with the Chelsea Pensioners.

It also emerged that the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford University researchers, had been submitted for approval by regulators.

Their backing would be a major boost to efforts to control Covid-19 because it is easier to distribute than the Pfizer/BioNTech jab currently being used.

The Government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with around 40 million available by the end of March.

Mr Hancock warned: “This Christmas and the start of 2021 is going to be tough. The new variant makes everything much harder because it spreads so much faster.”

Asked why the whole country has not been put into full lockdown, he said that the “new variant is highly concentrated” and the stay-at-home rule across the South is intended to stop it “spreading across the country”.

But the Archbishop of York – who is preparing for his first Christmas in the county – hopes Ministers will put environmental action at the heart of their recovery plan.

“One of the reasons Covid-19 developed and spread so quickly is because of our economic models, our endless travel around the globe, our insatiable appetite for what we want when we want it and all the environmental degradation that goes with this,” writes Bishop Stephen.

“And our environmental crisis is going to need rather more than a vaccination to be solved. We need a different, greener, fairer economy. We need a bigger investment in sustainable jobs for a sustainable world. Here in the North, we could be in the vanguard of this, if given the support we need.”

Noting that the UK’s eight most destitute places are all in the North, he adds: “We need a new route back to normal. We need a levelling up of opportunity, particularly for some of the poorest communities here in the North.

“Just as everyone needs healthcare, so everyone needs a home and a job and a meal. Not to have these things should not be thought of as ‘normal’.”

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