Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2020

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, when introducing this measure in the Commons on 13 October, the Secretary of State, Matt Hancock, made a very important statement:

“The powers in SI 1029 are therefore revoked. In practice, the effect of SI 1029 is to deliver enforcement against individual places that have been flouting the rules, which is the one of the top demands of councils in their fight against coronavirus.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/10/20; col. 199.]


Why has it taken six months for the Government to understand what it is that the people in charge of the local enforcement of these laws need both in local government and in public health?

I listened carefully to the way the Minister introduced this measure. The only data he has given us is about the increase in transmissions, and the only data we seem to have is about the Government’s failure. He talked about the fact that SAGE may regard this as being a way of controlling the virus and about the police saying that they think that 10 pm is an infection point. That is not a strong evidence base on which to curb the liberties of individuals and is not one in which the public can have faith that what is being done is the right thing.

Last week, the Minister talked about how we still do not know how infections are getting into households because the major route of transmission is within them. We will not know until our track and trace system is much better than it has been to date, for all the money that has been thrown at it, and until we are as vigorous in using the data and getting measurements that are much more granular and detailed, and then giving that information to the people who really know how to use it rather than sitting on it within the NHS Test and Trace, which clearly does not.