Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, because I am former chair of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance. I shall speak very briefly in support of Amendments 164 and 178 in his name and that of my noble friend Lady Wheeler.

Every reorganisation of the NHS leaves patients who have a rare or less common condition anxious about how their particular needs will be assessed, how they will be met and even how they will be noted. It is sadly true that the rarer or more specialised a condition, the more it comes down to a postcode lottery whether the patient will be able to access care in spite of established national standards. Not only is it harder to access care, it is also harder for these patients to access the support groups or information networks which are vital when finding out the sometimes rare information about these conditions. The suggestion in Amendment 164 that the CQC assess the provision by ICBs of care for those with rare or less common conditions would provide the assurance that is so badly need.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in part because I listened to the lecture with which we started this session but more because it is an old anecdote, I shall forbear from telling my hospital food horror story. However, I will pick up on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about hospital food and how hard people are trying to improve the situation. This relates to the answer the Minister gave me on Monday in Oral Questions. Of course, it is dependent on the budget that caterers have and the quality of the food that is available to them. I was pleased that the Minister then said that the Government are looking to tackle government procurement to improve the quality of vegetables and fruit. In terms of joining up the dots, that is a useful point to make.

On Amendment 243, I offer the Green group’s support and note that, having been in your Lordships’ House for only a little more than two years, I have debated a very similar amendment at least once before—I think it must have been on the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill. We have all seen briefings that are very much a cry from the heart from the nursing profession for this to happen. Surely we can get this into this Bill.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

46: Clause 16, page 13, line 28, leave out “it” and insert “the Secretary of State”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, with the new Clauses before Clause 35 in the name of Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, restores the duty on the Secretary of State to provide or secure the provision of services to that in the National Health Service Act 2006.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 46, I will speak also to Amendments 168 and 169 in my name. In an earlier group this morning we were talking about democratic accountability at the local or ICB level, particularly in relation to Amendment 23 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. We were also, through the agency of Amendment 45 from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, looking at the risk that people in England could be left without NHS cover. Those amendments were about the ways in which this Bill could go horribly wrong—certainly, I have no doubt, in terms of what the public want, if not necessarily in the unintended consequences of where the Health Secretary and the Chancellor are apparently thinking of taking our NHS.

A couple of hours ago, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, talked about how the Government are centralising power, with ICBs having to look upwards to the hierarchies above them. He used the phrase that they will be “beaten up by the centre”. As he was saying that, I was struck that a briefing arrived in my inbox at that moment from the NHS Confederation, NHS Providers and the King’s Fund, which very much focused on that concern about the Secretary of State’s power to direct. It is clear that the Bill will give the Secretary of State enormous power potentially to interfere in the most minute aspects of healthcare locally. That concerns a great many people. I think it is already clear that your Lordships’ House will keep talking about this and, very likely, try to change it in future, but we know we are unlikely to be able to entirely transform this Bill and the relationships between the centre and the local.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, as I was about to say, the 2012 Act does provide for the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene when that is necessary for the smooth and effective running of the system. Furthermore, we should not exaggerate the extent to which this Bill modifies the 2012 provisions. As the noble Lord said, we will debate the powers of direction on a future occasion but, when we come to do so, my colleagues and I on the Government Benches will contend that the powers of direction, such as they are, are very narrow and specific in their scope. They have been deliberately framed in that way to reflect experience over recent years. I would not be in favour of reopening this piece of drafting, given its history and the effort that noble Lords from all sides of the House made to build an effective consensus in respect of the 2012 Act.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about dental access. The department is working closely with NHS England to increase levels of service as quickly as possible. Practices are continuing to prioritise patients based on clinical need. Dental practices are now being asked by NHS England and NHS Improvement to deliver at least 85% of contracted units of dental activity—UDAs—between January and March 2022 to provide improved access for patients. These updated figures are based on what many practices have been able to deliver to date. They take into account adherence to the latest infection prevention and control guidance. I hope that this is helpful to the noble Baroness.

I hope also that I have explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, why I cannot entertain her amendments, but also that I have reassured her that the accountability chain between health services, Ministers and Parliament, which lies at the centre of her concerns, remains intact.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her support. She stressed how this is very much about restoring a public health system with full public accountability.

I was a little surprised, not so much by the direction as by the emphatic nature of the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, given that it was members of her party who moved the amendments in the other place. To address the Minister’s comments—this also picks up the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—we are talking about a significant change in relation to power of direction; a power that we will be discussing further, at great length, and about which we have seen considerable expressions of concern. I come back to the way I framed my speech: if you have more powers, you have more responsibility. If you say, “We covered all this in the 2012 Act—it’s all fine”, once could argue that the 2012 Act did not work out fine, but we are in a new situation, creating very new structures.

Thinking about the success or otherwise of accountability, some issues where we have failed in terms of accountability—and we will see amendments on these later—are workforce planning and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, highlighted, dental provision.

This is about ensuring that people have faith, know who to look to and cannot be fobbed off, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, by this terrible, complex diversity of funding and arrangement structures. Like other Members of your Lordships’ House, I took part in the public debate in 2012, not in this place but in the public domain, and I have given many speeches on this issue. The complexity must not be allowed to cover over the fact that what people want to know is that the healthcare is there when they need it, and if it is not that they know who to point to.

I will of course withdraw the amendment at this point, but I reserve the right to consider this and come back to it at a future point.

Amendment 46 withdrawn.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a brief word in support of the amendment on innovation in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton.

Having just been the Minister for Innovation, I can tell noble Lords that they could fill their entire diary travelling the country and seeing fantastic innovation in the NHS up and down the country. Noble Lords could fill their Zoom calls speaking to countries around the world that look to the NHS for some of the best innovation and partner with it on innovative programmes. However, that innovation is often extremely isolated and rarely spread evenly across the whole country. In fact, I often thought that my job title should have been not Minister for Innovation but Minister for Adoption because my role should have been to take the best that the NHS does and spread it across the country more evenly. That is the objective of the Government’s health policy at the moment: to see a much more even spread of best practice right across the country.

Although we cannot legislate for culture, we can give signals to the system about what we think is important. I therefore think that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is on to something in suggesting this amendment. It should be given careful thought by the Minister.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to offer Green support for all the amendments in this group. I will split them into two groups internally. First, I will speak to Amendments 6, 19, 60 and 215; I will then deal with Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, separately.

All these amendments are about transparency and targets. When we look back to when targets were a particular focus—when the NHS was under the control of the party on these Benches—there were concerns that targets could sway provision and medical judgments. There was a concern that this was about the management of targets rather than the outcome for the patient. However, if we think of targets as foundations and basic standards that need to be met, it is really important that we ensure that there is enough funding for local priorities and concerns to be addressed to reach a higher level.

Amendment 215, which refers to an annual report, is particularly interesting; I know that it has full cross-party support. This is about people knowing what the NHS is achieving and, importantly, whether there is enough provision in it. Of course, your Lordships’ House is not in a position to demand that more money goes into the NHS; by constitutional norms, we cannot deal with spending. However, I think that we should frame this debate—this is my first contribution in Committee—by looking at the pre-Covid figures. The UK was spending £2,989 per person on healthcare; this was the second-lowest in the G7. France was spending £3,737; Germany, £4,432.

Of course, the great outlier in this is the US, spending £7,736 a year. It is worth noting that we seem to be chasing so much after the US healthcare model, which is so absolutely disastrous. Most of the amendments in this group are a way for your Lordships’ House to give the public the tools to say that we need to improve the resources of our NHS.

Covid-19

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, we have not had anyone from the non-affiliated Benches yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, which is why a huge amount of work around NHS reform is going on in government. The integrated care White Paper and other things will be coming down the line.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister addressed ventilation and air filtration in schools but the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, asked about stepping the issue up more broadly. In her response, the Minister said that antiviral drugs were the key to the next stage of dealing with the pandemic, but surely we need to get beyond treating infected people. As a ballpark figure, air sanitation provides a 70% reduction in the transmission of disease. This is a long-term, systematic solution that should be implemented not just in schools but everywhere, particularly in public buildings. Should we not be getting ahead of the viruses rather than continually chasing after them?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness’s last point but I think that she miscategorised me slightly. I did not say that antivirals were the only answer; I said that they are one part of a suite of things that we need to be doing, from ventilation through to hygiene and cleanliness. There is a whole range of things that we will need to do, but she is absolutely right: we need to understand how we can live with Covid and not continually chase our tails, because we can see the damage that it causes.

House of Lords: Governance

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wei. I very much agree with his desire to get greater public involvement in, understanding of and engagement with the operation of your Lordships’ House.

Today, we have the rare luxury of a seven-minute speaking slot, despite the subject, the operation of your Lordships’ House, being what some might dismiss uncharitably as navel-gazing—this being, as we are always told, the unelected House, limited in power and so unable to block the Government doing things, even when we know they are wrong. That is, of course, two minutes longer than we had yesterday to speak on the enormous changes to our NHS proposed in the Health and Care Bill.

I begin by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and doing some violence to his division of governance, management and administration, by simply classifying three things into those groups. First, if we look at administration as being about the fabric of this place, we see that there are clearly issues. I am not terribly interested in them, because I think this place should be turned into what it clearly is—a museum—and we could get a new, modern, functional institution; Birmingham would be the obvious place.

On management, if we think about staff, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and say how wonderful I have found the staff in the Bill Office, the Table Office, the Library—I do not want to miss anyone out here—and the canteen, and the doorkeepers. So many staff are absolutely brilliant. Like the noble Lord, Lord Davies, I want to think about the unions, and I worry about how some of the staff are treated sometimes; I hope that the unions stand up for them.

That brings me to the third category, which is governance. I will focus on what are generally referred to as the usual channels, on which there was a short paragraph or two in the Library briefing. Given that we have quite some time, I thought I would step back and take a very long view that reflects my current reading: David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. It focuses particularly on the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, with a reminder that people tens of thousands of years ago were just as intelligent and creative as we are today—they were biologically identical—and arguably more so, given that they did not have the foundation of the centuries of development on which we build. I do not fully have time to explore this fascinating issue—I definitely recommend a read—but the point I want to draw from it for our subject is that humans have created many different ways of getting together and making decisions. The authors, and many modern archaeologists, posit that we do not require hierarchical, rigid structures, or monarchs or aristocrats, to operate societies, just people gathering together and deciding new ways of doing things.

It is interesting that many have referred to your Lordships’ House being self-governing. That might, at least in theory, be what you would describe as an anarchist collective. In that frame, I will explore some possibilities for governance of your Lordships’ House, particularly regarding what is done by the usual channels. It struck me that we have structures very like those with which many nations and groups are now successfully experimenting: citizen’s or people’s assemblies—representative groups that seek to arrive at consensus decision-making, as has been done in the UK and France with the climate assemblies, in Ireland on the difficult issues of abortion and equal marriage, and in some local contexts in the UK, some organised by the Government. These are forms of deliberative democracy. They sound a little like the townhall meetings that the Senior Deputy Speaker proposed. I suggest that these are structures rather like our Select Committees: groups that hear expert evidence, carefully weigh and examine it, and arrive at conclusions.

The way that the usual channels make decisions is utterly opaque and utterly unknown, as many noble Lords pointed out. What if it was replaced with a representative committee that operated openly and made decisions based on evidence and testimony expressed as the will of the House? I have previously raised issues about Select Committees, notably the fact that membership is decided on the basis of allocation by four groups, effectively excluding a large and increasing part of the House’s membership. But they are broadly representative —far more so than the usual channels—and from everything I hear, not having had the opportunity to participate myself, they operate in a broadly collegiate and constructive way. My suggestion is that that is how we reorganise the decisions made by the usual channels.

I started by saying that some might view all this as navel-gazing, but the fact is that what happens in your Lordships’ House is astonishingly important in our current circumstances; we are far more representative of the country than the elected other place, where 44% of the votes in 2019 got Boris Johnson 100% of the power. Looking at the fact that our Cross Benches have the balance of power in your Lordships’ House, they are quite a representative group, a little like a citizen’s assembly or perhaps the kind of structures the noble Lord, Lord Wei, suggested.

I have looked at the big scale, but I want to pick up on a couple of small and immediate points. The first is the disappointment that I know is shared by many Peers about our return to a free-for-all at Oral Questions; here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach. We know that there is a gender discrimination aspect to that, although that is not the only discrimination. It benefits the loud, the pushy and the experienced—and yes, I know which of those categories I might belong in.

The second point I wish to raise specifically is about the current deeply uncertain situation concerning Covid-19—indeed, I believe announcements are being made as I speak. Media reports suggest that the Government are about to announce a work from home directive. I do not expect the Senior Deputy Speaker to comment on that, or indeed on the procedures of the House right at this moment, but I very strongly propose that we should hear tomorrow about what will happen in your Lordships’ House in light of the Covid situation. I expect that we will see significant changes. On this point, I will finish by coming back to and reflecting on the unsuitability of the fabric of this place. I really hate to think what a carbon dioxide monitor would show in this Room at this moment because I do not think that it is anything resembling Covid-secure.

COP 26

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. The UK presidency marked Ocean Action Day at COP, championing a call for action to protect and restore ocean health and resilience. For instance, more than 100 countries have now signed up to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030. My noble friend Lord Goldsmith is obviously very heavily involved in this work and will continue to lead international action in this area.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I was surprised that the Prime Minister rather bravely referred to Aristotelian virtue in the Statement. Four essential characteristics of virtue, according to Aristotle, are prudence, temperance, courage and justice. There is no provision in the Glasgow agreement for loss and damage payments—reparations for the fact that the global south is already suffering deadly horrendous damage because of the emissions of the global north. The Statement says that Alok Sharma will push countries to go further. Will the UK lead in putting in funds for loss and damage, as Scotland has already done, reflecting the fact that the most vulnerable nations made it very clear at COP that they expect this to be fully sorted out at Sharm el-Sheikh?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am surprised that the noble Baroness did not realise that this was, in fact, the first COP decision that included a position on loss and damage, which is a recognition of how seriously developed countries are taking their obligations. The Glasgow dialogue was launched better to co-ordinate financial support for extreme impacts, and it agreed that there would be a dialogue between parties, relevant organisations and stakeholders to discuss the arrangements for funding activities to avert, minimise and address loss and damage. We also established the functions of the Santiago network, which will provide technical assistance to developing countries to address loss and damage. So progress was most certainly made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Viscount. That is why we were so pleased, for instance, with the 140 leaders representing over 90% of the world’s forests pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. We also had 45 nations pledge action and investment to protect nature and to shift to more sustainable ways of farming and, as I mentioned earlier, there was action on the global ocean. The noble Viscount is absolutely right, and that is why we put this front and centre and included it in COP in a way that had not happened before. My colleague, my noble friend Lord Goldsmith, is leading this: he is passionate about it and will continue to talk to global colleagues in order to keep this agenda going forward.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement says that we have seen countries that really should know better dragging their heels on their Paris commitments. The Minister will be aware that the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance has launched, led by Denmark and Costa Rica and also involving the states of California and Quebec. Given that we are committed to 1.5 and one of the commitments of the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance is 1.5, meeting Paris commitments, are we not dragging our heels by not signing up to this alliance?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

No. We have been central to action in this area. For instance, we were central to setting up the Powering Past Coal Alliance which now has 165 members, including national and subnational Governments, businesses and organisations. We will obviously continue to look at this area but we are certainly leading the way. In fact, the transition is already under way. In OECD countries, the share of coal in power generation has fallen from a peak of 40% in 1990 to a low of 23% in 2019. As we have said, although perhaps we had watered-down language, as we have all accepted, the end of coal is in sight, and that is what we want to continue to work to.

Afghanistan

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow—unexpectedly—the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already focused on our essential responsibility to provide refuge for the people who served us and to whom we promised safety. In the other place, Caroline Lucas highlighted how the Government’s planned Nationality and Borders Bill would criminalise

“a woman fleeing the Taliban with her children”—

an intention the Home Secretary has reportedly confirmed since my Green colleague spoke.

In my brief time, I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in looking at the bigger picture, given that we now have to make an urgent root-and-branch review of our nation’s place in the world. Of immediate import is to end exercises in US-inspired sabre rattling, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. As the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said, the integrated review of security, published just in April, is already hopelessly outdated.

The tragic events in Afghanistan are a powerful indicator of the post-hegemon world in which we live. We must never again see the UK blindly following the US, particularly into war, but also into other dangerous international policies. The UK should be working through international institutions, within the rule of international law, and with likeminded nations to strengthen and support these mechanisms. That can start by working to rally the international community to present a common front to the Taliban, demanding respect for human rights and democracy.

Next, the UK needs to stop pumping out weapons into a world awash with them. The Taliban is now extraordinarily well armed. Of the $83 billion the US spent on Afghanistan’s army and police, a very large percentage was on weapons, now largely in Taliban hands. In the past decade, the UK has licensed the sale of £16.8 billion-worth of arms to countries classified as “not free”. The standout, obvious disaster is Saudi Arabia. Since the war in Yemen started, the UK has licensed the sale of £20 billion-worth of arms to it. The uses to which our weapons are now being put by Saudi Arabia are indefensible, but, when regimes such as this fall, as such regimes always fall, where will those weapons end up? They will likely be in hands such as the Taliban’s. We must stop being arms pushers.

Finally, there are our nuclear weapons, which were acquired in the Cold War, now a long-gone era. I can only assume that, when the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton of Richmond, referred to

“totemic platforms of a bygone age”,

he had those weapons in mind. They are of course irrelevant in the Afghan crisis. They keep us in the club of nations that have hideous weapons of mass destruction, while their use is unthinkable. We could take a major positive step towards a new geopolitical order by joining the majority of the world’s nations in backing a ban on nuclear weapons. More modestly, we could join the pushers for no first use, and to end the sole authority for use, which left so many terrified in the last days of the Trump presidency.

On a final note, coming back home, what extra help are the Government going to provide to veterans who served in Afghanistan, and those still serving, to deal with the shock of this month’s events? This is a huge issue, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, highlighted.

Official Development Assistance

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for securing this debate. I commend particularly the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who has shown her absolute commitment to those in need of our aid.

Let us run through where some of these cuts are falling and how we have found out about them. It is thanks to the UN Population Fund—UNFPA—that we know the UK Government are cutting their funding for its programmes by 85%, down from $211 million to $32 million. The UK Government are that organisation’s largest donor, a major supplier of contraceptives, other sexual and reproductive health products and some maternal and newborn health supplies. We provide contraceptives to about a third of users in some of the poorest countries.

We have learned about another cut from the World Health Organization. We will see millions of people at risk of dying from neglected tropical diseases—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, just referred. These diseases mostly affect people in the poorest countries. This is a particularly disgraceful, disgusting waste: some 280 million tablets are likely to expire and have to be incinerated because of the withdrawal of this money.

From the World Food Programme, we learn that in Yemen, considered to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, will see a cut of nearly 60% in UK aid. Nearly half the population—13.5 million people—is already struggling to get enough food, and that is expected to rise by 3 million by the end of this month.

So what gender assessment have the Government carried out of their decisions? Will they publish a gender assessment? Will it publish a poverty assessment? How is it that this seems to be hitting what is perhaps the 1% of the world’s poorest people? Has it actually been targeted at women and the poorest?

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the richly evidenced contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his contribution to it, which has given me something to react against.

I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, however, that perspectives on the issues of the functioning of the House may be influenced by our personal experience. To declare mine, I spent about five months in what the noble Lord calls “normal” and have subsequently been a very regular—I know the Government sometimes think too regular—contributor remotely. I admit that I have found it easier than many; I am not quite a digital native, but I did learn to programme in BASIC in 1987. That gives me a particular perspective on the tremendous innovation and patience of all the staff who have transformed this House; I thank them all. This House has done brilliantly in adapting to circumstances, to general acclaim—and to the envy of MPs; we have done considerably better than the other place, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, noted.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, suggested that there was a risk of the continuation of the current arrangements making the House increasingly irrelevant. My conclusion is the opposite. If we continue to vote more efficiently and allow more open participation for Members than the other place, it highlights the fact that this House is, under our undemocratic electoral system, more representative of the views of voters than the other place. My five months of so-called normal is, I believe, sufficient experience to make a critical judgment on the perspective of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, regarding the suggestion that repetition in speeches and reading out contributions that make no reference to what came before them is more common now. I strongly disagree with any suggestion that Ministers more often provided effective answers to questions in 2019 than they do now. Like the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, I do not believe in some past golden age.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already addressed the issue of equality, particularly for our disabled Members and those with caring responsibilities, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, provided personal testimony. To exclude those Members from contributing to the full as we go back to a “normal” that forces them to experience extraordinary practical difficulties getting into and around the House would be unconscionable. In an age of the expectation of equality, it would be damaging to the reputation of the House, as would be not considering the environmental impacts of our decision, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said.

It is the same with voting. To insist that Members be in the House is to exclude the views of many—and not just those affected by personal circumstances. Those who seek to maintain the union might like to consider how excluding Members based in nations other than England from exercising their vote appears.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke slightingly of the “ease of contributing remotely”. I call that “efficiency”. I nipped out of this debate for a meeting on animal sentience with the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, joining a Teams meeting in seconds. That might not be great for my step count, but it was a lot more efficient than a forced speed-walk through the winding corridors of Westminster. Of course, that is of considerable importance to our small Green group—the two of us trying to represent the 1.25 million people who have just voted for our party in the local elections alone—but it is surely of great relevance too to the many in your Lordships’ House who combine membership with continuing professional or voluntary activities to, sometimes at least, the benefit of the nation.

There is efficiency too in being able to fully share the work of your Lordships’ House through social media. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham commented that, for many:

“If you’re not on Instagram, you don’t exist.”


That is something that Members of your Lordships’ House might want to contemplate in considering their social media presence and how the rest of the nation views us.

Which brings me to the word “normal”. There was little in the procedures of your Lordships’ House of October 2019 that looked normal to the outside world—and I am not talking just about mink and maces. Standing up and seeing who can shout loudest, muscling out others in Oral Questions, is behaviour that is not regarded as normal in preschool, and is clearly discriminatory. Having opaque procedures controlled by the usual channels meets no definition of a democratic normal. That those usual channels exclude several hundred Members of the Chamber is clearly not normal. The phrase “usual channels” is so normalised as to be part of the furniture but, I suggest that, in thinking about further changes, that furniture should go.

Finally, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, spoke about

“a temporary solution to a temporary problem”.

But we are in an age of shocks. We have had massive pandemic threats once every 10 years over the past few decades and, as many Peers have noted, SARS-CoV-2 is far from under control. We have a climate emergency, a dangerously unstable financial system, and a building in the same condition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said.

In the always useful Cross-Bench meeting, our new Clerk of the Parliaments spoke of the need, whatever decisions we arrive at after this debate, to maintain the ability to return in an emergency to arrangements such as those we have now. How much easier it will be to do that if the systems are kept functioning rather than being mothballed. We have to think about resilience in everything that we do in the future, in this House and in this country.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. We are obviously aware of the concerns raised about the challenge of securing indemnity for live events. Reopening when we are confident it is safe to do so will reduce the chance of cancellations and interruption, which is why the rollout of the vaccination programme is so critical. We also want to be sure that any investment or intervention would lead to an increase in activity. At the moment, for instance, we understand that social distancing remains one of the key barriers to activity. I can certainly reassure my noble friend that DCMS officials are working across government and with the affected sectors to understand the challenges and are keeping the situation under review to determine the most appropriate and effective response.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, in light of the difficulties Australia and New Zealand, with their excellent Covid control track records, have had in preventing breakouts of infection from quarantine facilities, can the Leader of the House tell me how many cases of infection have been traced to English quarantine facilities, an issue of particular importance given concern about the B16172 variant? If she is unable to answer this now, could she perhaps write to me later?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I will write to the noble Baroness.