Covid-19 Update

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the case of the SNP MP has shocked the nation. I do not want to comment on it in detail. I do not have the details of what after all is a private matter. That is for the police and the House authorities to examine.

However, the principle to which my noble friend refers is very clear and simple. If you are positive, you isolate. If you are contacted by the contact-tracing system, you discuss your recent contacts with the contact tracers, who will coach you and rehearse with you fully the length and proximity of those contacts and will give a thoughtful clinical judgment on which ones need to be subjected to further contact and isolation procedures.

This is absolutely essential to breaking the chains of transmission. It has a huge amount of support among the public and a tremendous amount of compliance, and we are building on the existing compliance with the enforcement regime that we brought in recently. I call upon all members of the public to support this important approach.

[Baroness Clark of Kilwinning (Lab)]

The Minister will appreciate that the 10 pm curfew, the restrictions already in place in many parts of the country and, indeed, the likely further restrictions that will be brought in, given the levels of Covid, will have a big impact on employment. Other countries are continuing with their furlough scheme, but the scheme that we are introducing to replace it is not as generous. Will the Minister not accept that unless the Government put significant further financial support in place, we will face huge levels of unemployment in this country, with millions of people out of work, an increase in poverty and probably the worst recession that any of us have ever known?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the impact of all the restrictions, on the hospitality sector in particular, are particularly acute. I completely recognise the noble Baroness’s point that this touches on the lives of many hard-working people from low-income backgrounds who have casual labour arrangements with the hospitality sector. There are millions of people involved, and this epidemic has hit them particularly hard. That is why we put schemes in place like the furlough scheme.

The Chancellor spoke very movingly this morning on the “Today” programme about his intentions and his determination to ensure that people are protected from the worst outrages of Covid. We are also putting in economic measures to avoid the kind of recession which the noble Baroness describes. The honest truth is that other parts of the economy are doing extremely well. It is an awful shame and sadness that, once again, Covid is hitting the most vulnerable the hardest, and the noble Baroness is quite right to identify the people she does.