Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the approval of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and commend the work of scientists and those on the social care and NHS front lines.

I ask my noble friend the Minister—whose dedication and courtesy I always appreciate—whether he can confirm, as was suggested by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the stories of medical and nursing staff who have volunteered to return from retirement but who are unable to get to work due to various bureaucratic delays. Without extra staff, clearly the automatic response of calling for ever-tighter restrictions will not cease. We have Nightingale hospitals that cannot be used and we need vaccines to be administered.

Yet again, we are debating retrospective legislation which has imposed further draconian restrictions on people’s lives without trusting them to be responsible. Yes, some are being irresponsible, but that is a small minority. Yet against the backdrop of Covid cases rising and winter pressures on the NHS, plus our ageing population, clearly there are reasons for concern. But as many noble Lords have stressed, recent history and examples from around the western world suggest that lockdowns and tiered restrictions have not defeated this virus. In Wales, the two-week circuit breaker has not defeated the virus, as my noble friend Lord Robathan said.

I echo the calls of my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for the Government to ensure more engagement with Parliament, and those of my noble friend Lord Balfe for better data, and context for that data, to allow relevant comparisons, and for a proper cost-benefit analysis, including impacts on other forecast deaths resulting directly from the tier restrictions, such as from cancers left undetected or inadequately treated, strokes, heart problems or suicide.

I am delighted that places of worship have remained open, and I have tremendous fears about the impact of school closures on younger people if that is decided again.