Newspaper column 23 December - Christmas message

Well Parliament has now risen for the Christmas Recess and this is my penultimate column of 2021.

What with the new Omnicron variant and the additional measures it has sadly been necessary for us all to take to help prevent its spread and assist our NHS in getting as many people to get their booster as possible, December has been a challenging month to cap off a difficult year.

Again, in the past week I have been blown away by the continued work of our local NHS, community pharmacies, and volunteers in doing their best to ensure the vaccine programme has been running at full capacity. I have requested and received walk-in booster sites in Truro and Falmouth that have been in operation regularly over the past week, and we must all do our bit to get behind the vaccine programme to ensure we can all be protected.

As of Saturday, national figures showed that more than 27million people have now had their booster vaccine, with daily figures of more than 800,000 people getting their booster jab a day. 47.2% of the population over the age of 12 have now had their booster vaccination, a colossal acheivement, and I would like to thank all those who have played their part in getting us this far.

In the last week of Parliament as well as my normal work as MP, I also spent time sitting on the Committee for the Finance Bill, the mechanism for renewing annual taxes, delivering new tax proposals and maintaining administration of the tax system, I met with the Health Minister to discuss additional support for Treliske Hospital, had the last meeting of the year of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Baby Loss, and met with the team at the Knowledge Spa at Treliske. I also had my final constituency advice surgery of the year to discuss everything from climate change to Brexit with local residents.

As Parliament has now risen for the Recess, I will be hoping to spend some time with my family over Christmas, not just celebrating the meaning of this festive holiday but also reflecting back over the past year, while looking forward to what is to come in 2022. I hope you are all able to have some time to mark the day and celebrate it in the way you choose to.

My thanks as ever, to those who will be working over this time, our emergency services, NHS, carers, and armed forces (who have also been of magnificent service with the additional booster measures), as well as others, who do their bit, now and always to keep our country running all year round.

May I wish all readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy and health New Year.

My office will be closing from midday on Thursday 23rd December and will reopen on Tuesday 4^th January. I’d like to thank my excellent Constituency and Parliamentary team for their hard work on my behalf over another difficult year. You can still email me at cheriyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk and my team and I will get back to you as soon as we are able to.