Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what a rare pleasure it is in such dark times to be able to join the welcome and congratulations to both new Lords—my noble friend Lady Clark of Kilwinning and my older but equally dear friend, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham.

I gave this legislation qualified and heavy-hearted support in the spring because of the urgent and drastic scale of the pandemic in which we were all engulfed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, said that we should have locked down earlier but that everyone would have been up in arms. I disagree with him there; I and others on this side of the House called for that lockdown to come earlier and harder. However, that is not a point for today.

The Minister said at the outset that he was checking in with your Lordships’ House—it is an interesting, casual and American phrase, but he had a point. One of the flaws in this legislation is that it is seemingly unamendable by either House and not even subject to renewal by your Lordships’ House. That is at the heart of the problem and of where we need to go beyond this legislation. The Government need to come forward with amending legislation to the framework so that these provisions are not just reviewed or “checked in” on at periodic intervals. Parliamentarians, particularly elected ones, need to be able to amend this vast, draconian scheme.

I fear that the Government have squandered a great deal of not just parliamentary good will but public support over the last six months with a clumsy and asymmetric authoritarianism. Powers to ban mass gatherings and break up picnics may well have been necessary, but where were the additional powers and resources to go into unsafe workplaces or requisition manufacturing plants or private healthcare facilities and labs to crack this test and trace problem which is still such a scandal?

The Minister referred to the easing of care provisions. This may have contributed to the untimely deaths of so many of our older people, who should not have been sacrificed to the virus. He did not mention Schedule 21, a draconian set of provisions that has allowed the police to detain people for no good reason. We have learned from the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the review of the prosecutions that 100% of prosecutions brought under Schedule 21 have been found unlawful. The Minister really should have spoken to us about that.

Today’s debate will not achieve this, and neither will these Motions, but this legislation must be subject to amendment. The Government must do the decent thing, in terms of Parliament and the rule of law, and ensure without delay that this legislation is subject to amendment.