Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Baroness Noakes Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard two excellent maiden speeches so far, and I look forward to that of my noble friend Lady Morrissey. I particularly welcome my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham to your Lordships’ House. Some 20 years ago, my noble and learned friend sent me a very nice letter on my appointment to your Lordships’ House, but he said that, while an honourable exception could be made for me, he did not approve of an appointed House of Lords. So I was just a bit surprised to find that he had accepted his own appointment—but I am sure that the whole House will be very glad that my noble and learned friend has allowed himself an honourable exception. We will certainly benefit from his considerable wit and wisdom in the work of our House.

Turning to today’s debate, I barely know where to begin. The Coronavirus Act has allowed the Government to set us on a path to a totalitarian regime, with a constantly shifting and confusing patchwork of rules and guidance. Some, such as the rule of six, lack any scientific basis. They are backed up by fines and penalties, busybody marshals, and police diverted from their core tasks of tackling serious crime.

I particularly grieve for young people. Some are even imprisoned in solitary confinement in universities. Most are facing an uncertain future, with job losses falling heavily on the young. They are the group least likely to be affected by the virus, even if infected, yet they are the worst hit now and will be in the future, when they will have to pay for the accumulating public debt burden that is coming.

The needs of non-Covid patients in the NHS have been deprioritised. Waiting lists for both diagnostics and treatment are massive. Many have died or will die for lack of proper and timely treatment, but, unless they have also tested positive for Covid-19, their deaths will be an unremarked statistic. As other noble Lords have said, the mental health impacts of lockdown are likely to be huge but are barely discussed.

Our economy has suffered major damage. The virus did not crash our GDP; as my noble friend Lord Lamont pointed out, the lockdown policies did that, and they are continuing to have a negative effect. I admire the economic support orchestrated by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I am far from convinced that we needed to hit the economy so hard in the first place.

Notions of personal responsibility and responsible citizenship have just disappeared. Instead, we have an increasingly bossy Government telling people what to do and what not to do. Group think has overtaken decision-making. There is an obsession with rising so-called case numbers, even though those cases are based on the problematic PCR tests, rather than medical diagnosis. False positives, which are extremely significant when a disease has very low prevalence, as Covid-19 has, are ignored. Hospital admissions and deaths remain subdued, yet apocalyptic modelling of them is driving policy.

Worst of all, as we have heard, Parliament has been sidelined. Multiple overlapping statutory instruments, under cover of the Coronavirus Act, have imposed increasingly draconian laws without a minute of parliamentary scrutiny. We have been given neither impact assessments nor analysis of alternatives. We need a proper debate on the balance being struck between the economic, societal and health impacts of the Government’s policies. It pains me that I shall be voting with my noble friend Lord Robathan if he decides to test the opinion of the House.