His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Fowler

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

To move that a Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows—

“Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to convey to Your Majesty the heartfelt sympathy of this House on the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Prince Philip gave selfless public service to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth for over seventy years. He will be remembered for His distinguished Naval service in the Second World War and, following marriage to Your Majesty, for His energy and commitment across so many areas of national life, including conservation, science and technology, design, sport and Your Armed Forces. His major achievement in creating the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme has transformed the lives of millions of young people around the world. Above all His role at the side of Your Majesty, supporting Your life of service as our Sovereign and encouraging the work of Your family, has been a steadfast presence for us all.

We assure Your Majesty that His memory will be held dear by those who knew Him and honoured in the history of our country. Our prayers join with those of the entire nation for His Royal Highness, and for Your Majesty and all the Royal Family at this sad time of loss and sorrow.”

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, it is right that we come together today, in person and virtually, to pay tribute to His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Our thoughts are first and foremost with Her Majesty the Queen, who has lost the person whom she described as her “strength and stay”. The humble Address rightly conveys the heartfelt sympathy of this House and assures Her Majesty and all the Royal Family of our prayers. Together with them, we mourn.

The nation and the whole Commonwealth has lost one of its greatest figures, but let us also remember that he was a Member of this House. He was introduced on 21 July 1948, just before Earl Mountbatten of Burma—someone who was supremely formative in his early life. Although he never spoke in this House, he attended countless times alongside Her Majesty the Queen for the State Opening of Parliament. The images of them walking through the Royal Gallery and seated on the Thrones behind me are some of the most iconic of our age.

Looking beyond the splendour and pageantry, however, it is an image that goes to the heart of their relationship. It speaks of patience, constancy and fidelity. The visible presence of Prince Philip alongside Her Majesty the Queen for over seven decades provides a glimpse into the unique role he played in private, supporting Her Majesty and serving the Crown humbly and selflessly. Today, we give thanks for the sacrifices he made and for the immeasurable good that he did. His legacy will live on, as will our sincere gratitude.

I now call on the Lord Privy Seal to move the Motion for the humble Address.

Business of the House

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Fowler

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Does anyone else wish to speak? No. I call the Lord Privy Seal.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their comments. I can confirm to the noble Baroness that we will be returning to the Trade Bill. I believe it is scheduled for the first week back, and it will be in Forthcoming Business when that is published either later today or tomorrow. I hope that that reassures her concerns.

As I said in my opening comments, I absolutely accept that this has been done at very short notice. I apologise to your Lordships’ House for that. I thank the usual channels for their co-operation in dealing with this, because we do need these clauses in place during this short period. At one point we were going to add these to the future relationship Bill, but obviously that has not come forward. To be honest, that is part of the reason why, I am afraid, they have come as a stand-alone Bill.

However, notwithstanding the comments of noble Lords, negotiations are ongoing, and I think we all believe that that is absolutely right. All efforts are being made to secure a deal, and I know that is what we are all hoping for. That is why, although we intend to break tomorrow, we all stand ready to do our duty, should we need to, over the course of Christmas, as the noble Baroness said. I am afraid I cannot say any more than that on timings or anything else, but we will of course keep noble Lords updated. I thank everybody for their patience, and once again wish them a happy Christmas.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Fowler

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments and questions. First, they are right to point out some of the statistics to highlight the situation we are in. As the noble Baroness rightly said, there are now more people in hospital with Covid than when we went into lockdown on 23 March, and the number of people testing positive for Covid has quadrupled in the last three weeks, so we are very cognisant, as I know we all are in this House, of the issues that face us.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness referenced the need for action in September. We did take robust and proportionate action when introducing measures in England, including the rule of six and the 10 pm curfew, which we discussed in this House, as well as advising people to work from home when they can. Each of those was carefully judged to protect lives and reduce transmission, while minimising the impact on people’s livelihoods.

So, we did take robust action, but with the step change in cases, more action is needed, which is why we made the decision to move to the tiered approach. The reason we have gone for the tiered approach rather than the circuit breaker is that, as the Prime Minister said to the leader of the Opposition at Prime Minister’s Question Time today, the disease is appearing more strongly in some areas and regions than others, which is a different situation from March. That is why we are introducing this approach, which can be tailored more effectively to local situations. However, having said that, we regularly, and will regularly, keep measures under review to ensure that we are always taking the best action we can.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness mentioned evidence. Evidence is considered by SAGE and its advice is published regularly online when it is no longer under live consideration for policy decisions. That is exactly what happened in this case. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we will continue to take advice from a wide range of scientific and medical experts, as we have done throughout the pandemic, to inform our decisions. We are, as the noble Baroness rightly said, constantly having to evaluate the balance between protecting the NHS, saving lives, keeping our economy moving and keeping our children in school. These are very difficult issues to balance and I think the tone of the noble Lord’s and the noble Baroness’s questions, which I very much welcome, expresses the gravity of the situation and the difficult decisions that are being made.

I can assure the noble Baroness that as a member of Cabinet I have regular briefings, along with my Cabinet colleagues, from the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser about the latest data. As I have said, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet have to take decisions based on the best available science, along with considerations of the economic, operational, social and policy implications that follow, and that is what we do.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness both reiterated criticisms of the test and trace system. I remind noble Lords that our daily capacity for testing is now around 340,000, with the aim of reaching more than 500,000 by the end of October. We increased capacity by around 30% in September alone. We are testing at a higher rate than other European countries and we have assembled the largest testing network in our history, including 96 NHS labs, 151 walk-in sites, 258 mobile testing sites and 77 regional sites. We are also looking to combine, as effectively as possible, the national framework and local expertise, which is why, since August, NHS test and trace has provided local authorities with dedicated teams of contact tracers to work alongside local public health officials to provide a more specialist service. We have provided more than £300 million to local authorities to help with this and, across the country now, we have 95 local authority contact tracing teams that are live, and more are coming online in the coming weeks. We have been very cognisant of some of the criticisms and are improving the situation on the ground. More than 700,000 people have been contacted and advised to isolate through the system and the latest figures show that more than 82% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate where contact details were provided.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about moving between tiers. Decisions on which areas are in which tier are made on a number of factors, including the rate of transmission, how quickly it is increasing and the effectiveness of current interventions, as well as hospitalisations and hospital capacity. Of course, all is also done in line with work and conversations with local leaders to discuss all their evidence and what they are seeing on the ground. It is a collaborative effort, but a range of factors is taken into account.

The noble Lord also asked about the Harrogate Nightingale Hospital. I am not sure whether he is aware, but it is currently being used. CT scanners have been made available to provide people with safer and faster access for a range of conditions, including cancer. As he will be aware, there are two hospitals providing that kind of support, Harrogate and Exeter, and another three Nightingale hospitals in some of the areas with the highest rates have been put on standby in order that they can play their part, along with the rest of our fantastic NHS, as we deal with this crisis.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.