Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Medium) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

That the Regulations laid before the House on 12 October be approved.

Instrument not yet reported by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

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

My Lords, it is a disappointing fact that the rate of Covid-19 infections is rising rapidly across the UK. The ONS estimates that one in every 240 people in England had the virus between 25 September and 1 October and that the number of those who are infected is doubling every seven to 12 days. The scientific advice is clear that the disease is currently growing exponentially. To combat this, the new local Covid alert level framework standardises many of the restrictions that will be in place, making it easier for people to understand them and comply with them. As I have said throughout these debates, the new approach will be simple and constructive. I take this opportunity to thank local leaders who have engaged with the Government over the weeks and months as we have developed this system.

The Government will continue to work with local leaders to decide changes to alert levels. Decisions will be made based on a number of factors, including the rate of transmission, how quickly it is changing and the effectiveness of current interventions. The regulations we are discussing implement the restrictions known as local Covid alert level “medium”. They reflect the current national measures and are the minimum level of restrictions in place across England.

The restrictions on gatherings seek to slow down transmission by reducing social contact. They include the rule of six. This gathering limit, which includes numerous exemptions, strikes a balance between reducing social contact, allowing socialising to continue and minimising negative social and economic impacts. Additionally, a limit of six provides a clear message to the public to emphasise social distance. The rule of six means that, unless an exemption applies, nobody can gather in a group of more than six individuals, indoors or outdoors, unless everyone is from the same household or the group is made up of two households that are part of the same support bubble, or the individual is part of a smaller group attending a larger gathering being held in a public outdoor space. The organiser of the gathering must also have carried out a risk assessment and must take all reasonable measures to limit the risk of transmission of the coronavirus.

As I have described, there are exemptions from the rule of six. For instance, we are concerned about mental health, which is why we have legislated for support bubbles to help those most at risk of becoming isolated. There are also exemptions for work or voluntary purposes, education and training, formal childcare and providing care to vulnerable people, and there are exemptions for specific life events: weddings, civil partnerships, and funerals and commemorative events following a person’s death such as wakes, which are subject to a 15-person limit. As I explained earlier, allowing higher limits for these events balances the need of people to recognise significant life events while still minimising the spread of the virus.

The restrictions include measures for business. In the first debate, I outlined much of the evidence from SAGE, PHE and other studies which demonstrate that hospitality venues pose a high transmission risk. Therefore, these regulations require the closure of hospitality and some leisure venues, including takeaways, from 10 o’clock in the evening to 5 o’clock the following morning, except for delivery or collection during that period, as long as the order is placed remotely—for example, online or by phone. This, again, is to reduce the likelihood of people not adhering to social distancing rules, as compliance is often affected by alcohol consumption. The regulations also mandate table service if alcohol is served on the premises. Customers are required to be seated when they order their food and drink, which is then served to them. The business should take all reasonable steps to ensure that customers remain seated to consume it. If no alcohol is served, customers can order at a counter, but the business should take all reasonable steps to ensure that the customer remains seated while consuming the food or drink on the premises.

On business closures, the regulations close down nightclubs, dance halls, discos and other venues which open at night, have a dance floor or provide music, whether live or recorded, for dancing. This is because such businesses and services pose a much higher transmission risk and cannot currently be opened safely. We continue to work with representatives from these industries and business sectors to develop options to facilitate a safe way for them to reopen. The Government recognise the importance of these industries and have committed to a world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help them weather the impact of the pandemic.

The regulations create offences punishable by fines and provide for the issuing of fixed penalty notices. For individuals, the first offence carries a £200 penalty, which is halved if paid within 14 days, and the fine doubles for every subsequent offence up to a maximum of £6,400. For businesses and services, the first offence is £1,000, followed by £2,000, £4,000 and then £10,000 for every offence committed thereafter.

I reiterate that the Government express their profound thanks to the vast majority of people who have made huge sacrifices through this pandemic and will continue to do the right thing and follow the rules. However, to protect public health it is important that police have appropriate powers to deal with those who break the rules.

I once again express my thanks to noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate and the two earlier debates and for challenging us to do better in this vital area of public policy. I believe that we have met the bar set for us in these debates and that these regulations are proportionate and necessary to protect the public from the spread of coronavirus and to prevent a second national lockdown. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation of this SI and indeed of the others. I compliment him, as other noble Lords have been doing, on—I do not know what the word is; “sturdiness” is not quite right—his resilience under fire, apart from anything else.

In many ways, this might be the most important SI before us today because it concerns the whole of the rest of the country, which is subject to restrictions that we are all very familiar with and know about. The success of combating the virus will depend in part on those restrictions being adhered to by the rest of the country, so that communities do not move into the next tier. As the Minister said, coronavirus cases are increasing at a terrifying rate.

I want to ask particularly about London. While it seemed that lockdowns were happening mostly in the north, it now seems that London might be heading towards one. Indeed the mayor, Sadiq Khan, has been pressing the Government to put in tougher restrictions in the capital for some time, such as a ban on households mixing. I echo what other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Andrews, have said: why are the Government hesitating?

All London’s 32 boroughs have been placed on the Government’s official watch list, which highlights that they are areas of concern, but some are more concerning than others. Eight London boroughs are above the infection rate threshold of 100 per 100,000. Ealing is 136.9; Richmond is 133.3; Redbridge is 124.5. Some of those rates are higher than those for boroughs and cities that are already included in the second tier. This is an important issue because London has very diverse communities and some very poor ones. One of London’s great strengths and, in these days of Covid, vulnerabilities, is how mixed it is and how large its BAME communities are. We have already lost too many BAME fellow citizens, particularly those who work for the NHS. London has not been spared any of that.

Compared to London, Doncaster has an infection rate of 136.9 per 100,000 and is currently in the high tier. Leicester went into lockdown on 30 June with an infection rate of 135 per 100,000. My honourable friend Jonathan Ashworth has asked why the city of Leicester is in tier 2 with restrictions, yet Charnwood—the constituency of Edward Argar MP—where the infection rate is 150 per 100,00, is not. Why are North East Derbyshire, where the rate is 164, or Barrow, where it is 277, not in that tier? There are questions about why other areas have not been included.

Sadiq Khan says that across our city

“the average over the last 7 days is about 90 per 100,000. All the indicators that I have: hospital admissions, ICU occupancy, the numbers of older people with cases, the prevalence of the disease, the positivity, are all going in the wrong direction. Which means, I’m afraid it’s inevitable over the course of the next few days London will have passed a trigger point”.

Is that correct? When was the Mayor of London invited to a COBRA meeting? Have conversations happened at a senior level with the leading citizen of our capital city, as they should have?

As my noble friend Lady Donaghy said in her pertinent questions, we are very concerned about probity. At some point, there has to be a reckoning of the governance of the contracts that the Government have given during this pandemic. My noble friend Lord Robertson underlined that point, in relation to track and trace. My noble friend Lord Rooker also raised the issue, with his usual tenacity. My noble friend Lady Andrews asked the Minister the key question which has been asked all afternoon. I am not sure that I have heard an answer yet. Why did the Government ignore the advice they were given on 21 September?

On a lighter note, the Minister referred to “the rose garden”. My noble friend Lady Donaghy asks whether he means the rose garden at the White House in Washington or the one that Dominic Cummings occupied in Downing Street?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for a detailed and illuminating debate which focused, quite rightly, on the interplay between the local picture and the national one. If these restrictions are about one thing, they are about trying to make focused, local lockdown work, so that we can avoid another great, clunking, national lockdown, which would come at enormous social and economic cost. We have seen some incredibly impactful local lockdowns work in Swindon—it was an intervention there, rather than a lockdown—Luton, Leicester and other cities. We are determined to try to make these work.



Getting them to work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, rightly said, totally depends on getting the interplay between national and local government right. I am grateful to her for reminding us that the LGA has welcomed these restrictions and the spirit of partnership between local and national government.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, yes, we absolutely want to work with and deploy the expertise of local authorities. We also absolutely need to back major restrictions with the money to support those communities—the charities and civic institutions, the businesses that are hard hit and the individuals whose jobs are put at risk or who need to stand down. I reiterate the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who said we will end up more united than we have ever been. I would really like to dwell on that positive sentiment.

To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, environmental health officers have been part of our thinking from the very beginning, and reminding us of that has been central to these debates. We spoke about this in some detail in the debate on the “very high” restrictions so I will not repeat myself, but we have put in a huge quantity of resources. We now have 1,000 tier 1 central tracers and 90 contract tracing partnerships, and we have doubled the number of local protection teams. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, local partnerships are absolutely central to our response to Covid.

In response to the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Andrews, the situation in London is very much on our mind. We are in daily, if not more frequent, contact with Sadiq Khan, who has made his sentiments very clear. The encouraging thing is that with these restrictions, and the other investments we have made over the last months, we very much have a shared platform of data on which we can make joint decisions informed by the latest information—information which in no way existed in February, March and April. Talk of data in those days was wishful thinking rather than practical. With these restrictions we have a structure for applying local lockdowns, and we have a much stronger spirit of partnership between national and local government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, talked about exit strategies, which is a critical question. We have local Covid plans in place in every local authority, and these plans govern the response of the local authority and create a template for the response to the epidemic. These restrictions give a new poignancy to those plans and a new importance to the exit component. Only by working collaboratively with the communities in those local areas will the kind of behavioural changes and containment strategies that can lead to exit really work.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, asked about Scottish interoperability. I completely share his frustration, but it is an aspect of the mobile phone app phenomenon that they tend to interfere with each other. We are working with the Irish, Welsh and Scottish DAs to bring about the kind of interoperable nirvana of which he dreams. We hope to introduce a new version shortly.

I would be very glad to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, with the protocols for those caring for the vulnerable. Those protocols exist and I would be glad to share with her a link to them.

To answer the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, youth clubs are open. There are extremely detailed guidelines for making them Covid-safe; that is the only way in which young people can mix together in those youth clubs. Again, I would be very glad to share those guidelines with him if that would be helpful.

Towards the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, I feel a degree of resentment. I thought that I was the country’s leading evangelist and advocate for mass testing, the power of surveillance and innovative technologies such as LAMP and lateral flows, but it seems that the noble Lord has stolen my crown, because he is absolutely the No. 1 evangelist for them. I applaud wholeheartedly his sentiments on that matter.

I am genuinely touched by the kind comments that people have made about these debates and my contributions to them. They are really important; there is a huge amount of them—nor do I think they will stop any time soon. I am glad that this debate is happening on the day that these SIs have been brought into force, which brings a new relevancy to it. I extend my thanks to my opposite numbers: to the rota of spokespeople on the Lib Dem Bench and to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her enormous stamina. She has been in lock-step with me all the way, and I am grateful to her both for her insightfulness and for the collaborative way in which she has gone about these debates. I extend my thanks also to the Whip, my noble friend Lady Penn, who has been a huge support and demonstrated massive stamina.

My noble friend Lord Eccles asked about the relevancy of these debates. They are absolutely relevant. There are instances where what has been said in this Chamber has been carried into the decision-making and discussions of policy as it has happened. On masks and face coverings, on the importance of sharing data with local authorities, on issues around shielding and communications to the vulnerable, on the role of local infection control and the directors of public health, on the entire areas of social care and mental health and on the impact of restrictions on the economy, noble Lords have expressed clear, insightful and well-informed views and wisdom, and those views have been shared in the decision-making process. It has been a demonstration of this Chamber at its very best.

Motion agreed.