Last week I led a debate in Parliament on the economic cost of lockdown. It is estimated the country spent more than £400 billion tackling the pandemic, the equivalent of £5,500 for every man, woman, and child. This compares to Sweden at about £460, which chose a largely voluntary system and refused to lockdown. Sweden also recorded fewer deaths and cases than the UK.

While many people talk about the cost of Covid, it is actually the cost of lockdown and lockdown rules that need to be questioned.

We see the impact in the vulnerability of our country now, in the cost of living, the cost to jobs, the cost of inflation and the cost of poverty. People not seeking help for other health conditions, lower immunity in our children and the impact on the nation’s health and mental health. This is the widespread collateral damage caused by repeated lockdowns.

The first lockdown had universal support as the country and the world were entering unknown territory. However, from June 2020 onwards scientists, doctors and Ministers knew far more and other scientists and academics were offering alternative views as well as warning of the damages of continued lockdowns.

Some of us tried to warn continuous lockdowns would have consequences but no-one at the time wanted to listen. We now are living with the consequences of those decisions.

Look at the inflationary pressures we are now suffering from. The magnitude of the recession caused by the pandemic is unprecedented in modern times. GDP declined by 11 per cent in 2020 – the steepest drop since consistent records began in 1948 and based on less precise estimates of GDP going back further, the decline in 2020 was the largest since 1709.

Former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption said we are “paying the price of panic, populism and poorly thought-out knee-jerk decision-making.”

Professor Philip Thomas of Bristol University said: “Poverty kills – not just Covid.” He believes 2.5 million life years have been lost because of the loss of GDP so far. That is an astounding figure which shows the economic damage and impact lockdown has had on people’s lives.

I have been clear in my opposition to repeated and prolonged lockdowns and I believe there is a reason that well-rehearsed pandemic protocols including those endorsed by the World Health Organisation and the Department of Health and Social Care had not previously recommended lockdowns – it is because they are a blunt instrument.

People have a right to know what information was available to government when it took decisions to lockdown. No matter how painful and difficult the conversations will be, we need to have them and I hope we will get the answers we need in the Covid inquiry led by Baroness Hallett.