COVID-19 Variant: Travel Guidance for Local Authorities

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, guidance for people in Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen was published on Friday 14 May. It was then extended on 21 May to Bedford, Burnley, Hounslow, Leicester and North Tyneside. That guidance has now been fine-tuned, in response to feedback from the local directors of public health and, as the noble Baroness will know, the website has been updated. The chronology of that is relatively straightforward. It could have been done better—that I have made plain to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton—and we are with working directors of public health, local authorities and others to ensure that we get smoother systems for that kind of thing.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I share a lot of the concern in the House about the confusion that has been sown. I am somewhat shocked that the Government did not work closely with those who are dealing with Covid in the affected areas, who are at the sharp end: the mayors, public health officials and councils. They are the local experts, and I implore the Minister to work closely with them. Does he accept that what is really needed in the affected areas now is isolation support, enhanced contact tracing and the rollout of vaccine for everybody?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely object to the false premise of the question. I cannot tell you how hard we are working in collaboration with local authorities, directors of public health and the incredible rhythm of regional partnership teams, regional team updates and the huge amount of data and interaction between all parts of government. It is absolutely phenomenal, and the characterisation by the noble Baroness is just not right. Where I completely agree with her is that we are working as hard as we humanly can to get the vaccine out to everyone, we are doing absolutely all we can to spread testing to all areas where there are outbreaks and we are working extremely hard to improve all those systems.

Covid-19 Internal Review

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Merron]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish their internal review of the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, to the Bench; I am very much looking forward to working with her in the months ahead. The Prime Minister confirmed on 12 May that a public inquiry will be established on a statutory basis to consider the Covid-19 pandemic, including the Government’s handling of it. I can confirm that while DHSC officials carried out a routine internal ways-of-working review, this was absolutely for the purpose of providing advice to Ministers only.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, the National Audit Office report published yesterday both highlighted the need for the Government to learn lessons at speed and advocated greater transparency. Publishing an already completed internal review of the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis would support a plan to contain the threat of new variants, and I urge the Government to do so. I am interested to know whether the Minister can come to agree with me on this. With experts, including SAGE, warning that it is very much in the balance as to whether further restrictions will be lifted in June, given the dramatic rise in Indian Covid-19 variant cases, will the Government learn the lessons and urgently review travel and quarantine arrangements?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that we are at a pivotal moment in the pandemic; matters are on a knife-edge. There is so much good news about the effect of the vaccine that we should celebrate, but there is enormous jeopardy in the threat posed by variants. That is why we are very much focused on dealing with the pandemic before us. The inquiry promised by the Prime Minister is for spring next year, and until then we will continue to be focused on today’s pandemic.