Coronavirus Act 2020

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Pitkeathley

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I start with a quote from the front page of the regulations which I find quite over the top:

“These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.


Presumably this threat arose in the week between Parliament rising for the Conference Recess—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn temporarily.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I shall go back to the beginning because I cannot remember where I stopped.

I start with a quote from the regulations, which

“are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.

This could not have occurred in the week between the session we had in September and the Minister making this instrument on 22 September. The text carries on,

“the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

The first thing I ask the Minister is to get an agreement to discontinue this way of making legislation. It may be some time before the Government repeal all the Acts but they could certainly give an undertaking. I realise that the Minister cannot do that today, because he has to consult the department, but the department could give an undertaking that future regulations will be made after consultation with Parliament.

This pandemic has shown me something. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, referred to her travels around the world. I have done a lot of lecturing on history, particularly the history of western Europe. I will not castigate any country in particular, but all countries have an undertow of authoritarianism in their public dimension. The pandemic has brought that out in this country. We have seen a level of authoritarianism in the way that people have used their power which is totally unacceptable. It can be seen in the way that the doctors have rewritten national health protocols, and the way that the police decided that they would or would not enforce parts of the law. Let me stress that “would not”; I sometimes wonder why we are here, when I look around and see how much of the law the police decide is not worth enforcing.

So we have an authoritarianism problem in this country but, as we move forward, we will have to learn to live with this. It will perhaps decline, as Spanish flu did in 1920-21, but it will not go away, and the possibility of further viral attacks is on the horizon. I echo the call made to the Minister that the Government should look at viral—and electronic—warfare and attacks as part of their defence capacity, because we could be liable to those sorts of attacks. It is important that we move forward from thinking that our defence consists of sailing a battleship round the Black Sea to a point where we accept that there is a much wider area in which public good can be interrupted for malicious reasons.

We have heard a fair bit about the number of people who have been vaccinated and the various plans that have come forward. I am an occasional subscriber to and regular reader of the Daily Sceptic, which I receive by email. It has put another view on some of the material that has been released about Covid. For instance, we hear very little about the Oxford group and a group of people who have looked carefully at all the evidence and concluded very similarly to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on matters such as face masks. Not all the evidence is being presented; indeed, some outlets take great pride in saying that they are Covid-friendly and, basically, supply you only with government propaganda.

So I welcome the new Minister and the new Secretary of State, because they have an opportunity to move us forward towards a better situation. I have mentioned the problem of GPs in the past, but that situation also covers the rest of the National Health Service. I live in Cambridge, which could probably claim to be the medical capital of Britain. I live in a street that is packed full of doctors, because only doctors and former MEPs can afford the houses there. Some of my best friends are doctors, as they say, and some of their stories about what has been going on are, shall we say, not in line with what we have been led to believe is going on. One of them said to me, “I don’t know what the GPs are doing. We haven’t seen any of them in our hospital, I can tell you that”.

So we must get the health service and private hospitals back to work. Our local private hospital was bought out by the NHS and basically stood empty for the best part of a year, with the consultants doing their consultations at home. It was absolutely ridiculous. The way to get a consultation with your specialist relied on knowing their home phone number and getting on to them and going to see them at home. So they were finding a way round the regulations, and the hospitals were closed but still earning large amounts of money from the NHS.

So the Minister is going to find that there are a lot of themes to unravel. On the subject of vaccination, I counsel the Government not to take on battles that they are probably going to lose. If they take on this battle of trying to get vaccination certificates and vaccination approvals before people can do certain things, they will end up in a morass of bureaucracy and in the end they will lose. Leave it to the market. If a venue wishes to say it requires proof of vaccination to enter—as, for instance, some restaurants in France require—let it administer it and look at the certificate. All I would do is say, “Please put a notice on the door”. Do not get involved in what could turn out to be a terribly authoritarian effort.

There is one question I would like to ask the Minister. We are constantly urged to get lateral flow tests. How much do these cost? I was asked to get a lateral flow test before I went to David Amess’s memorial service. Why? I also question whether they should be free and whether it is our priority as a health service to carry on spending this amount of money. How much does it cost and, more importantly, what plans does the Minister have to wind it down or at least make it a paid-for service, which seems a quite reasonable thing to do?

My final words are that I am pleased that we are moving forward. I hope this will be the last SI we have to debate that is laid in this way, and I hope we will move forward, end this image of a terrified country and continue getting back to normal, so that we can start to get back to where we were some years ago, as normal human beings in a normal society.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, joins us remotely, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will speak briefly in the gap.