Covid-19 Update

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]]

I thank the Minister for this Statement, which was made yesterday in the Commons, and for the one made on Thursday in the Commons. It seems like a good idea to take them both together, since the news about the unreported and untracked positive tests needs urgent scrutiny, and the Minister does not have to suffer double the pain of explaining the very real problems we face with the winter and the second spike.

For example, today, we see another increase in positive tests—14,522 cases reported, with two-thirds of those in the north and north-west. To summarise, we have had people being told to travel hundreds of miles for a test; hundreds of children out of school unable to get a test; tracers sitting idle, watching Netflix; care home tests taking days to be processed; the Minister’s hyperbole, saying this could be a moment of national pride, like the Olympics; and a Prime Minister in a complete muddle over the rules. The Prime Minister seems to be able to learn large chunks of Greek by heart, so why, when he does regional media, could he not at least learn which lockdown rules apply where? It is not much to ask.

The questions from my honourable friends Jonathan Ashworth and Stella Creasy in the Commons yesterday were very pertinent. The reason why they needed to ask what the contractual teams were for the contracts supplying test and trace is that they are not working well and a large amount of public money is being spent on them. Is it not sensible to ask if there is a break clause if goods being purchased with public money are faulty or not working properly, given that they have been sold to us as world-class and planet-beating? What did the Secretary of State say to these questions? Unfortunately, he reverted to the government line of blaming Public Health England. Can we see the terms and conditions and profit margins on all these contracts? Is it true that there is no break clause addressing whether these contracts do what they are supposed to? As the former chair for a few years of the procurement committee of a local CCG, at a very lowly level in the NHS, I can tell the Minister that these are vital questions which have to be asked—questions for which I would expect to be held to account.

Does the Minister agree that transparency would ensure proper governance and accountability for those charged with the stewardship and responsibility of spending public money? Let us examine this for a moment. Is it true that Public Health England’s older version of Excel has a 65,536-row limit, meaning that, in the data transfer from the big CSV file, rows were chopped off? Can the Minister confirm that the data could not be handed over to Public Health England due to the size of the Excel spreadsheet files? Why are critical databases in a national pandemic being hosted on Excel spreadsheets? Is it true that the upgrade to a later version of Excel, which copes with just over 1,000,000 rows, costs about £100? Is this an issue with one particular lighthouse lab or across all the lighthouse labs? Public Health England’s sources say that they report the data when they get it from NHS Test and Trace, so if the information is coming in incomplete, they cannot do their job.

We know that the budget for test and trace is in the region of £10 billion to £12 billion, and it seems to me that an IT audit might have been a good place to start. Was there one? What did it say? We know it is true—so, presumably, does the Secretary of State, who is ultimately responsible for Public Health England—that Public Health England’s budgets were cut by 40%. So, is it the case that Public Health England had no IT upgrades of any kind recently? Given what we know, is it legitimate to ask where all that money has gone?

Why in October, after all the promises of the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, are we now facing the possibility of 60,000 people unknowingly spreading Covid in their homes and communities, which might account for some of the sudden increases seen today? Have all those people been contacted, traced and isolated?

These are not irrelevant, disloyal or silly questions: they are vital if these matters are to be remedied. They are vital if the Government are to dispel what communities are feeling, described on Sunday by the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, as

“This deep sense of despondence, anxiety. And actually, what they want is hope.”


We on these Benches want the Government to do that: to give hope. Assuring us that they have everything under control will, however, not work anymore, because it is clearly not true.

Surely, what is needed is transparency and a strategy, expressed with clarity, that everybody understands and supports. It is, furthermore, urgent. Tonight, a group of leaders of the largest councils in the north—Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool—has written to the Prime Minister asking for, among other things, significant local control and support. I beg the Minister not to chant the mantra that test and trace are working closely at local level, because clearly they do not believe that it is. Again, it does not seem to be true. I hope that the Government will respond positively to these councillors.

Yesterday, Jeremy Hunt asked whether responsibility for NHS and care home staff testing should be moved to hospitals and laboratories, and that idea was repeated by the Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, of the Crick Institute, on the radio this morning. The fundamental problem is that there is no strategy: there is a vacuum. That is because there is division in the Cabinet over which strategy should be followed. This needs to be remedied and a clear way forward explained.

Finally, with regard to the part of the Statement concerning treatment: will the Minister clarify whether the establishment of Orbis will be in co-operation and collaboration with EU medicine protocols or in competition with them? Will Parliament scrutinise Orbis, and when?

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

I thank the Minister for yet again turning up at the crease to defend what is becoming increasingly indefensible: the poor performance of the NHS Track and Trace system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was right to note the admission in this Statement that 16,000 positive results had not been uploaded, and that by yesterday only 51% of those people had been contacted, despite the injection of resources into NHS Track and Trace over the weekend to try to make up the deficit. Given that we know that each person who tests positive is likely to report between four and five contacts, that is potentially 60,000 people who last week were walking around, not self-isolating and possibly infecting others. It is not their fault—they did not know. It is a really significant breach of trust.

In the part of the Statement that I find most curious, the Secretary of State said that the Chief Medical Officer’s analysis of the Government’s assessment of the disease as a result of the new data was that

“its impact has not substantially changed.”

Can the Minister give us further detail about that? The omission of 60,000 people not having any impact does not add up at all. The Secretary of State went on to say that the Joint Biosecurity Centre had confirmed that

“it has not impacted the basis on which decisions about local action were taken last week”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/10/20; cols. 625-6.]

When will that data come through and when will we be able to see the impact on local areas? As these statements make clear, the virus is beginning to have different impacts in different places. Can the Minister say at what point directors of public health were informed about this breach? Six months in, it is clear that, when local authorities are properly resourced and given correct and timely information, the virus is managed and contained. The major problems come about when decisions are made centrally, poorly communicated and badly executed.

Time and again, it comes back to track and trace, whether it is about a lack of skills and capacity or a lack of foresight. Who could not have foreseen the impact that hundreds of housefuls of students moving around the country in September would have on transmission?

Yesterday when this Statement was debated in another place, speaker after speaker, mostly from the Conservative Benches, got up to complain about the effect of the 10 pm arbitrary cut-off. They explained how well-run businesses, especially in the hospitality sector, will be going to the wall because of continued use of blunt instruments designed nationally and applied over wide geographical areas. How long will it be before the Government realise that local people—local professionals, directors of public health and environmental health officers—have detailed knowledge about businesses in their area, their hygiene ratings, their previous breaches of licensing conditions and where crowds congregate? When we can get decision making to a more local and granular level, we will be better able to protect good businesses without jeopardising public health.

I welcome the announcement of hospital funding for upgrades to A&E departments. We need a greater capacity for A&E. However, could the Minister give the House the definition currently used by this Government of what constitutes a new hospital?

On the Orbis project, we go into this having left a safe and highly effective system of medicines regulation, one where patient safety is paramount. How does the Government propose to withstand the commercial imperatives of American pharmaceutical companies in these circumstances?

The public are getting very worried about the extent to which the Government continue to wing it. It is time for them to bear down on the fundamental flaw in their strategy—thinking that they know best in the centre, above people who are professionals at a local level.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]]

I start by asking the Minister a procedural question, as other noble Lords have. Will we in this House get to discuss the statutory instruments following the debate on the renewal of emergency legislation in the Commons? We know that the Commons will be able to vote. My understanding of what the Minister has said is that we will not get to see these statutory instruments in advance. I had been rather optimistic and excited, because I thought we might see an end to the dozens of pointless, time-expired statutory instruments that we have had to endure for the last few weeks and months—and indeed can look forward to between now and Christmas.

I fully understand why the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, is frustrated by the rule of six and has asked many pertinent questions. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Liddle, Lord Lipsey and Lord Wood, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy, Lady Massey and Lady Mallalieu, for making strong, sensible and quite often witty remarks today—which is quite hard when you are discussing statutory instruments that have already been in place a couple of weeks. The theme running through their remarks, and those of other noble Lords today, is that we are all fed up with these unsatisfactory legislative and accountability decisions.

I have a few questions of my own. As we know, it is now illegal for groups of more than six to meet. That is simple and clear, we are told by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister. The law applies to all parts of England, except of course places with local lockdown rules, where the rules may be tighter. It is therefore clear, as long as you know the rules and the lockdown situation in your area. We are told that the reason for this restriction is the rise in coronavirus cases in England. The Government have decided to lower the number of people allowed to socialise at any one time to help keep people safe. Scotland took similar steps, cutting the number of people who can meet but excluding children under 12. Wales too has its own rule of six, which came into force on the same day, but it does not apply to children under 11 and covers only indoor meetings. Northern Ireland has stopped people meeting indoors completely, but allows six people to meet in the garden and up to 15 in a public area.

Can the Minister please point me to the science that has led to all these different decisions? His explanations did not provide that, and I dispute the idea of this being at all simple. We did not see an impact assessment. Would it be possible to see one? When is the effectiveness of the rule of six to be reviewed? When will there be an assessment of its impact on the young? The Children’s Commissioner has asked for children to be excluded from the rule in England, and I agree with that.

Last week, when she responded to the Prime Minister’s Statement, my noble friend Lady Smith pointed out that she could have breakfast with one group from this House and lunch with a different group—I think she even invited some of us to join her for a curry in the evening. This was to demonstrate the fact that the rule is flexible and probably rather unclear. I think that she is right, and I am looking forward to having a curry with my noble friend.

These rules will work only if people comply. While the police have powers to fine people who break the rule of six, forces in England and Wales have said that they will do so only as a last resort. I do not understand how that works, because people will be in a group of six or more only for a very short time. How on earth will the police issue warnings to all those people and then watch them to see whether they get themselves into another group of more than six? Can the Minister confirm how many fines have been issued for breaking the rule of six and their value? The penalty for failing to wear a mask or breaking the rule of six has now doubled to £200 for a first offence. I would like to hear from the Minister whether that is working as a deterrent.

The Metropolitan Police also said that officers will not generally pursue people retrospectively—whether famous or otherwise—if photographs or video footage emerge of them breaking these rules, including the rule of six. Does the Minister agree with that approach? Does he share my concern that people flouting the rules and getting away with breaches undermines public faith in their effectiveness? Perhaps that could act as a deterrent.

On the other hand, does enforcement of the rule of six rely on people grassing up their neighbours? Can the Minister confirm how these regulations will be enforced in public spaces? For example, if an employer suspects that two or more groups of six in his pub are actually together, and in breach of the rules, what enforcement action are they required to take?

One of the more controversial exemptions from the rule of six is for those involved in certain sports, including shooting and hunting. Will that also be reviewed? Does the Minister accept that these are often social occasions and that, if we follow his line of thought on pub curfews, people will be less likely to observe social distancing guidance across the piece?

In other words, it is a very confusing framework and the rule of six is very far from being simple.

Covid-19: Adult Social Care Complaints

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

Baroness Warsi? We will move on to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, given the pattern and themes of complaints emerging during Covid, what will the role of the Health and Social Care Ombudsman be in the forthcoming inquiry into the pandemic? Will the Minister give a guarantee of full involvement of that ombudsman, given the evidence it can bring to the table?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the nature of any future inquiry has not yet been defined. However, all parties will be taking learnings from Covid and bringing forward their lessons-learned experience. As the major regulator, the CQC will play a leading role in bringing together the data and information from the front line but, as the complainant of last resort, the ombudsman will also play an important role in that process by bringing insight from patients and those who have made complaints.

Covid-19: People with Learning Difficulties and Autism

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

We are seeking to extend asymptomatic testing as widely as we possibly can and as soon as we possibly can. At the moment, our focus for testing is on residential social care, where we have committed to 100,000 tests a day. That is where the greatest threat comes from. But as the number and range of tests increase, we hope to be able to roll out asymptomatic testing to a much broader set of user cases, and the kind of care centres that she describes will surely be near the top of the list.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, figures from the CQC show that there has been a 175% increase in unexpected deaths among learning disabled and autistic people during the pandemic. The Cabinet Office’s disability unit, which is charged with developing the national strategy for disabled people, has been silent so far. Does the Minister agree that, rather than Covid-19 necessitating delays for a national disability strategy, the impact of the crisis on disabled people makes its publication all the more vital? When will the national disability strategy be published?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, let me clarify with an update on the numbers. As of 25 September 2020, 690 deaths from Covid of people with learning disabilities have been reported to the leader programme since 16 March. We have commissioned Public Health England to carry out additional analysis of the existing data, which will be published as soon as it is completed. We are not trying to hide from this issue. Covid has raised very serious questions about the impact of a pandemic on those with learning difficulties, who are often more susceptible to disease and mortality than others. We absolutely accept the challenge of figuring out how to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Therefore, we will embrace the opportunity to take these learnings and put them into a disability report at some point in the future.

Hospitals and Nursing Homes: Do Not Resuscitate Notices

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The department is aware of the Queen’s Nursing Institute report on training and, although the majority of responses were positive, it raised questions about the training of, in particular, care home staff on the instruction to change resuscitation orders for patients without discussion. We are looking at that report very carefully. We cannot comment on individual cases but the report raises important questions. In the meantime, the General Medical Council is providing additional support and guidance to clinicians and the Resuscitation Council is creating a large range of resources for clinicians to help guide them and provide training.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]]

I am pleased that the Minister has recognised that, although DNR is a medical decision and not something that requires a patient’s consent, not consulting with the patient and their family is an unlawful breach of human rights. We should be grateful that the scandal was exposed by Turning Point and other charities during the pandemic. Does the Minister have plans to review the DNR decisions that were made during the pandemic and does he know, or perhaps he can find out, how many DNRs were issued in excess of what one might have expected during the pandemic?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, NHSE&I is currently engaged with stakeholders, including people with lived experience, to develop better information for patients and to understand whether procedures need to be changed. I reassure the noble Baroness that DNRs are not issued, they are agreed with families and relevant loved ones. On no account should DNRs be unilaterally issued. They are for a joint decision; that kind of blanket application is something that we are extremely concerned about and seeking to avoid.

Covid-19: Tracking

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I reassure the noble Baroness that the use of non-official QR codes is rejected by the app. I have had personal experience of this. We have had downloaded 600,000 of the official QR codes—an astonishing figure. The use of those codes seems to have been embraced and adopted. I have one at my office and it works extremely well.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I confess that I am very confused by the answer given by the Minister to my noble friend Lord Foulkes about older phones. I have a friend who was excited about being able to download the app; her phone is only two or three years old but it was too old to download the app. I have to say that I am sceptical of the figures that the noble Lord has given us. Certainly, some who may or may not be in the lower income bracket, may be older, or may just be careful and have phones bought in 2015, seem unable to download the app at all. Did the noble Lord say there were two apps? This is confusing and I am not sure that it will help.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely understand the concerns of those who may be struggling to download the app but I reassure the noble Baroness that the current app is supported by iOS versions 13.5 and higher, and by Android Marshmallow version 6.0. That covers by far the vast majority of phones. As I said, 89% of phones should support the app. They include, for instance, Apple iPhone 6S and above—a huge proportion of phones. We are debating a new initiative by Apple to bring in their own protocol that is particularly directed at developing countries which may not be able to support their own app. That initiative is not targeted at the UK. We believe that it may have some relevance in supporting downloads of the NHS app because the alerts created can perhaps be directed to the download site on the iPhone store to encourage those in the UK who have not yet downloaded the NHS app. The Apple initiative is a positive development that will be particularly well used in developing countries.

Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, what great maiden speeches from the two contrasting clerks—my noble friend Lady Clark and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke—and from the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey. I congratulate all of them and join the chorus of welcome across the House. I know that all three will bring different qualities and great wealth. I am particularly pleased to see my noble friend Lady Clark here. I also say to my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Hain and my noble and learned friend Lord Morris, all of whom made great, salient points, how much I value the experience and wisdom of my colleagues on this side of the House.

The debate today is significant because it is the first time this House has had the opportunity to discuss whether the emergency legislation which Parliament adopted in March has worked and is working, and to discuss how it might be allowed to roll forward and whether it should roll forward as it is for the next six months. I think the Minister will have gathered, from all parts of the House, that none of us thinks that is a good idea; all of us think that things have to change, one way or the other.

I thank the Minister for the analysis and the letter he sent us, and indeed for his speech. I have to say I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about the analysis and the letter: it was not an analysis; it was a list. In the end, I greeted it with the same scepticism as my noble friend Lord Rooker did. The first thing that struck me when I looked at the grid that the Government have produced is how many of the powers they took that have not been used. The first thing I need to ask the Minister is whether those powers will be removed from the Act, because they have not been needed in the six months of the serious emergency we were facing in March. We are moving forward into a different place now, and I cannot see why those powers would need to be kept on the statute book.

I need to ask one question which has not been mentioned today, and I am doing it because I am a humanist. The regulations we discussed last week appear to limit humanist weddings to gatherings of just six, when religious and civil marriages can have up to 15. I ask the Minister whether that is the case or not, because that would seem to me to be absurd and very unfair for those of us who take part in these ceremonies.

In March, the Minister said:

“This is an extraordinary Bill for an extraordinary moment in the history of our country”,


and that the Bill was about “buying time”, as other noble Lords have said, to save the NHS from being overwhelmed and so that the science could be better understood. When we discussed this Act in March, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said:

“In normal times, it would be utterly unacceptable, but these are not normal times.”—[Official Report, 24/3/20; cols. 1652-53.]


We on these Benches supported the Bill, and the powers it gave the Government, because we recognised the need of the emergency.

The question we have before us, which—more importantly—the Commons must address later this week and which the Government must answer is whether that time was bought, and at what cost. Has the science and our understanding of the virus advanced? Is it necessary to have the full panoply of those powers still? Are the Government examining them with a view to modification, as noble Lords, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said? It certainly is not acceptable to wait another six months to discuss these matters again.

As my noble friend Lord Hunt said—absolutely hitting the nail on the head, as he very often does—this Act and the Public Health Act are a lethal combination. Indeed, at the time, in March, we suggested that the Government already had enough powers and did not need this Act; I want to know whether that situation has been discussed at all. We know that six months is a significant time because the Prime Minister has said that it is likely we will be fighting the virus for at least another six months, and perhaps longer until we have a vaccine or cure.

The decisions which the Government have made—significant as much for the measures which have not been adopted as those which have—have been given effect by legislation, but it is all secondary legislation, adopted on the basis that there is an emergency and therefore that it does not need immediate parliamentary approval. That is the nub of the problem that many of us face and the frustration that we face.

Where the Government are taking huge coercive powers to fight the virus, it is fundamental to our constitution that Parliament must agree. In the early days of this emergency, it might have been legitimated to have no proper legislative process, but I do not think that is the case anymore—certainly not when it is painfully clear the emergency is going to last for at least another six months, maybe longer. It is an emergency, but our Parliament can surely adapt to ensure that key decisions about the increased powers the Government may well need should be taken by Parliament, not by an ever-decreasing clique of unaccountable chums within the Executive.

The requirement for Parliament to agree means that if the Government are faced with any rebellion on their own side, they must deal with it by making concessions or forming a majority which depends on the support of the Opposition. We need a dynamic, fundamental shift from the secret debate involving very few people, with most decision-makers in the group being hand-picked by the Prime Minister for their reliability and the only true outsiders being the CMO and the CSA. Civil servant advisers must be cowed by the fate of the Cabinet Secretary, the Treasury solicitor and the Permanent Secretaries at education, the Home Office, Foreign Office and justice. In other words, “If you are not one of us, you get the chop”. This must change.

It also seems that the CMO and CSA’s advice is being overridden. It is impossible to believe that the only possible response to the contents of their briefing last Monday was to require a curfew of 10 pm for the hospitality sector plus the reinforcement of existing guidance, except on work, where the message—not the law—is changed to “Go to work only if you have to”, rather than “Go to work if your place of work is Covid-secure”. Is that confusing or what? If that is the appropriate response, the country needs to see the evidence that backed it up. For very many people, a 10 pm curfew will simply mean going out earlier. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, long drinking sessions into the night over the weekend, in clubs which now have to close at 10 pm, will be a casualty. Are they significant drivers of the virus? Maybe they contribute but what is the evidence?

The UK’s response to the virus is flawed, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes said. We are not handling it well and it is getting worse because decision-makers are shrinking into themselves. Parliament needs to assert its normal role. Having to explain, justify and then persuade is time-consuming for politicians, but it makes for better decision-making and will hugely improve our response. That has been repeated by noble Lords across this House.

We read that the suite of measures the Government have adopted, or more significantly not adopted, are largely driven by a pro-economy group in the Government persuading the Prime Minister to override the pressure from the public health group led by the CMO and CSA, represented by Matt Hancock. That is the widespread view in the media.

The renewal of this emergency Act requires the Government to take decisions now which will determine within the next few weeks whether people live or die, whether they get exam grades that will allow them to have the future they want, whether they will have a job, whether they can go home for Christmas, whether they will have to depend on universal credit, whether they will be evicted and whether their businesses will go bankrupt. These decisions will affect the lives of millions of people profoundly and immediately.

I turn to other important measures in the Act on its six-month review. It is now time to recognise the devastating impact the exercise of these powers has had and to restore the legal rights of disabled people, and those affected by the Mental Health Act and the Children and Families Act. We believe that amendments are necessary to remove these provisions from the Coronavirus Act 2020. Alternatively, the Government could confirm that: social care easements will be switched off by the Department of Health and Social Care; easements affecting the rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act will not be implemented by that department; and easements related to the Children and Families Act will not be implemented by the Department for Education.

Many of us were very concerned in March about the detrimental impact these easements would have. Even though only eight local authorities have officially operated the Care Act easements, many have unofficially done this. We can see that disabled children and young people’s rights to education were affected with severe detriment by the Act. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on people with learning disabilities. This is due to a combination of factors, including vulnerability to Covid-19 itself and the Government’s response. As we move into a difficult winter period, more must be done to ensure that people with learning disabilities and their loved ones receive the support they need to maintain a healthy, social and physically active life.

We on these Benches will not be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, in Motion. The noble Lord knows that the lack of accountability in the setting of restrictions in SIs has become increasingly unacceptable and I have expressed that view from these Benches on many occasions. But he has form, I am afraid. He says that because Covid-19 is not the great plague or the early 20th-century flu, these measures are disproportionate, oppressive and draconian. He said this at a time when the country was facing an NHS which might have been overwhelmed and risking huge death tolls. We on these Benches remain critical of the Government’s handling of the crisis and we believe that an earlier lockdown would have saved lives. We are bitterly disappointed by the failures of test, trace and isolate. We could do better in almost every single area. We are also very critical of the lack of scrutiny of the restrictions by this Parliament.

The Minister must have realised that there is an overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction, but that does not mean that we wish to rescind the Act at this stage. We will leave the Minister to deal with his noble friend’s amendment, but if the noble Lord calls a Division, Members on these Benches will abstain.

Covid-19: Medical and Funeral Expenses

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

It is true that there is a correlation between the mortality of this disease and poverty. That is why we have enhanced the funeral expenses payments by increasing the additional costs by £300. We are also supporting public health funerals by issuing new guidance to local authorities to support this important measure which brings a degree of quiet to those who die in poverty.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Does the Minister share my concern that older people and their families are picking up the tab, with many being forced to pay a steep and unexpected coronavirus bill by their care providers? Some care home residents are being asked to pay more than £100 a week on top of their usual care home fees as PPE and the cost of covering staff absences push the finances of some care homes into the red and threaten their sustainability? What consideration have the Government given to outlawing or capping such charges, as called for by Age UK? With a second peak under way and care homes under acute financial pressure, will the Minister commit to making sure that the Government’s emergency funding is directed to them?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to say that there are costs related to PPE for social care homes. That is why we have put together a winter plan for social care that envisages a massive investment in Covid-compliant PPE for care homes providing both adult care and child care. It will be free of charge for those homes. The money that we are supporting through the DWP funeral expenses payment and through the public health funerals programme has been enhanced. In 2018, £6.3 million was spent on public health funerals by local authorities and further sums have been allocated to support this important payment.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I first thank my noble friend Lady Donaghy for her very kind remarks to me, and indeed to the Minister. I also thank the Minister for the regrets he expressed at the beginning of his remarks when he introduced these regulations.

While we are all too familiar with the unfortunate practice of debating regulations that have already been in place for some time, and even amended by subsequent regulations, we charted new territory yesterday, it has to be said, when the House debated and approved regulations that have already been revoked. I look forward to seeing what comes in front of the Chamber in those circumstances. I felt that it was mitigated for me personally, because I am always happy to have the opportunity to talk about my beloved Bradford and discuss the steps that we have been taking in relation to the spike in infections. I am pleased to learn that we will not see redundant debates timetabled in this manner in future.

Similarly, today, we are tasked with debating and approving regulations that amend and refer to revoked instruments. Thirteen instruments have been revoked since 1 July—“convoluted” is the word that I think we can all agree on here. If the department is struggling to make sense of this system, what hope is there for the rest of us—the public health authorities, the police and the public? The Government need to take a step back and think about how to simplify this process and how to make these regulations more accessible. This is an appropriate time to do that.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Beith, made some interesting remarks that we will probably need to address on Monday when we look at how the future will unfold in terms of regulations and so on. I thank my noble friend Lady Andrews, who was absolutely correct about the issues she raised regarding care homes and testing.

The Government first imposed lockdown measures on parts of northern England in July. All regulations in this group were laid under the affirmative procedure, so while we broadly support these measures and understand the urgency, the Minister is well aware of the concern expressed by the House on many occasions that what we are discussing now comes long after the fact, when the situation has changed considerably. Other regulations have come into force before being revoked and Parliament has therefore never had the opportunity to discuss their merits. Regulation 4 of the first set of regulations requires a review at least once every 14 days, so there must have been three since they came into effect. Can the Minister commit to routinely publishing these reviews in future for accountability and transparency? That would help us to evaluate their effectiveness.

The Minister said that the decision to act on each occasion was not driven by numbers alone, it was a judgment about the overall situation—as indeed it should be—taking into consideration not only the epidemiological evidence but local insights and views. This is perhaps a generous spin, given the well-publicised tensions between the Government and local leaders in many of these areas. For example, council leaders and the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, were dismayed by the decision to lift Bolton and Trafford out of local lockdown restrictions against their and the borough councils’ wishes. They warned the Government that is was too early and urged them to wait for more evidence of a sustained downward trend in positive cases, but were overruled. My understanding is that Conservative MPs in the area were consulted on the lockdown decisions by the Health Secretary and many pushed for the restrictions to be lifted. At the time, I asked the Minister about that and expressed my concern that the process seemed to have been politicised. It was only at the 11th hour that the Government finally began to listen and made yet another U-turn—the right U-turn, as it happened.

This brings to mind what my noble friend Lady Lawrence said; she was quite correct about the need for clarity. If urgent decisions need to be taken quickly, people need to understand why and what motivates them. I hope the Minister can assure the House that the Government will now listen to local leaders and local expertise from the start. While the onus is on the Government to take these decisions, they should not be seen to be overruling councils. Does the Minister believe that the decision-making process and pandemic response would definitely be improved if there were greater regional representation at COBRA and other meetings where these decisions are being taken? It would improve dialogue with government and speed up decision-making.

I underline what a noble Lord said about these decisions not being politically driven, so let us show that they are not politically driven. Regardless of the political control of the councils involved in this, let them be involved in these decisions and bring to bear their local knowledge. It is clear to me—I agree with the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham—that we cannot carry on like this. He said:

“There has to be a reset moment here in the way the government is making these announcements, because the government is losing the public. We can’t afford to lose the public going into such a challenging autumn and winter.”


He is absolutely right.

The local leaders in the north of England have also called for more resource to support contact tracing, which clearly is not properly. What consideration have the Government given to utilising the police and fire services, which have indicated their willingness to put forward front-line staff to help get in touch with local people who need to isolate? We clearly need to bring to bear all the resources of these local communities where they are willing.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the very complex statutory instruments that we have before us—although actually, we are quite clear what is before us today—which constitute the end of a long series of revocations. I was reflecting on whether I could remember if we have actually discussed any of these, but frankly, I cannot.

I start by thanking the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for all its hard work in keeping Parliament up to speed with scrutinising these regulations. It is worth reflecting on the summary of the 27th report, which arrived with us today, on the regulations in this batch and the ones we are discussing next and tomorrow. Noble Lords on that committee must be sitting in almost permanent session at the moment, and they deserve our gratitude.

In that report, the committee quoted from the Explanatory Memorandum:

“The number of positive Covid-19 cases has continued to decline in Leicester”—


and, indeed, in Blackburn, Darwen and the north of England, with the exception of Bolton.

“As a result, this instrument will apply easements made elsewhere in England on 25 July to the areas covered by the Blackburn and Bradford Regulations and Leicester Regulations. In addition, the instrument will apply the easements made elsewhere in England on 15 August to the areas covered by the Blackburn and Bradford Regulations and North of England Regulations, apart from the area of Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council.”


The point about this is that no clear reference is given to which instruments of 25 July and 15 August are intended or to what business may now operate, as different restrictions are eased in each area. The Committee said that it found the original Explanatory Memorandum vague and inadequate, and requested the Department of Health and Social Care to revise it to include a much more specific explanation of the changes to the law that it made. It went on:

“When law is imposed with immediate effect in this way it is even more important that the explanatory material provided is clear and fit for purpose.”


I hope that the Minister and his colleagues have taken that on board.

The Government were criticised for the way they introduced and subsequently made changes to the local lockdown in Leicester. During a debate in the House of Lords on the original lockdown regulations— I know that we have discussed this at least once, on 29 July, just before the recess—I pointed out that the media knew about the lockdown before the council, the local police or the NHS. I hope that is one of the lessons the Government have learned in this process.

We need to recognise that the people of Leicester have not experienced being out of lockdown since the initial measures were imposed in March. That has been taking its toll on all the communities in Leicester. It is true that the mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, suggested that government data should have been shared much sooner. Again, I hope that is a lesson learned. Jonathan Ashworth MP, one of the local MPs, said that the lack of clarity from the Government had left the people of Leicester feeling really anxious, especially those who had been shielding. Local Leicester businesses are campaigning for judicial review of the Government’s handling of the local lockdown. The Chancellor said that he would do “whatever it takes” when the lockdown was announced, and they believe that specific economic relief should have been provided in the areas affected by local lockdown.

In recent weeks, some restrictions have been lifted, particularly those relating to the commercial sector. In spite of figures improving as a result of the local lockdown, repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted in line with the rest of the country seem not to have been considered. Will the Minister tell us whether that is the case? My understanding is that Leicester is now 24th on the list of local authorities of interest, so unless there has been a spike that I do not know about in the last week or so, some consideration should be given to that.

We need to place on record credit for the pioneering approach in response to the local lockdown as part of the review recently carried out by Dame Mary Ney. Local interventions around targeting and testing, community engagement, the work in engaging businesses and carrying out enforcement, as well as local contact tracing, are key to the fact that, although cases in Leicester have started to rise, it has not been at the exponential rate seen elsewhere. If anything, they have stabilised around the current level.

As winter approaches, it will become more difficult for people in Leicester, as elsewhere, to meet their relatives and friends outdoors, which will impact in particular on the elderly. There is no doubt that people’s mental health will suffer—particularly that of young people, especially young women—and months will pass with grandparents being unable to play with their grandchildren in their gardens, while households in places with similar infection rates will have been able to mix. Some, of course, have had a summer in which they could mix with their families, as I did myself with my family in Bradford. I know that I can no longer see them, of course, but we will be talking about Bradford next.

The mayor has said that it does not feel fair. Does the Minister believe that Leicester is being treated fairly? I know that money has been given to the council to commission its own contact tracing, and that the local authority will have the insights, cultural connections and sensitivities for that kind of work.

I have two final questions for the Minister, about testing in care homes and schools. The Government promised weekly testing in care homes. In Leicester, where this is an absolute priority because it is a high-risk area, there are real problems about getting test results back, with some people having to wait seven days. That means that the next test happens before the previous test result is returned. Schools in Leicester are reporting serious issues with testing, particularly of children. The Minister is aware that there are no available appointments to book; pupils must remain at home in self-isolation, missing out on yet more time in the classroom. This is despite all the talk of prioritising these local areas during Covid spikes.

These are serious issues that need airing. They are probably not confined to Leicester, but because Leicester was the first, it is the most important.