Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, what a privilege it is to participate in a debate with three excellent maiden speeches. However, to be physically present in the Chamber to hear the absolutely stunning contribution from my noble friend Lady Morrissey is quite another experience. Clearly, it is “a good time to be a girl”. Before the hate mail comes in, that is the title of one of her books, not my sexist comment. I also look forward to her plans to “change the system”, a title of yet another of her books.

In politics, it is a nice and rare experience to look back at what one has said over the last six months and find out that one was right, or at least that the Government are doing what I was calling for all along—so we could both be utterly wrong. On 12 May, I said that everyone over 70 is not automatically vulnerable and should not be locked up as a unique group. Now, I read that the Prime Minister agrees, and we are not to be treated like lepers.

On 15 June, I complained that the police were failing to take action against demonstrations, raves and house parties, letting Covid-19 spread and bringing the law into disrepute. On 25 June, I said that face masks should be

“compulsory for everyone, no ifs or buts.”—[Official Report, 25/6/20; col. 396.]

On 24 July, I spoke again about

“illegal demonstrations and raves with people blatantly breaking the law”.—[Official Report, 24/7/20; col. 2478.]

I also spoke about the huge criminal scandals in Leicester. I ended by saying:

“I therefore urge my noble friend the Minister to tell the police … to get out there and enforce the law of the land, as they are paid to do.”—[Official Report, 24/7/20; col. 2478.]


On 3 September I said:

“We have spent four months locked away obeying the law, but what of many others? … every young person now knows that they can pack into pubs, houses, raves and planes not wearing a mask, and not a single thing will be done about it … We old gits will continue obeying the law and being put at risk every day by some people who do not give a damn and by a police force that is unwilling to enforce the law.”—[Official Report, 3/9/20; col. 474.]


On 18 September, I called on the Government to make shop assistants wear masks, but I also said:

“It is high time everyone in this country did the same every time they are outdoors or in public places”.—[Official Report, 18/9/20; col. 1578.]


That is what I have been saying over the last six months, and I am proud to have been ahead of government thinking—perhaps I may get a job in SAGE one of these days.

I welcome the new emphasis on enforcement. Whether or not these laws are right, sensible or the right thing to do is another argument, but, at the moment, they are the law of the land. If the law is not enforced in this area, all our laws are brought into disrepute. I do not recall any regulation or either of the Houses of Parliament authorising the police to adopt this lily-livered approach of “engage, explain, encourage” and only “enforce” as a last resort. It is difficult for the police to enforce when some police officers are down on one knee in the face of blatant law-breaking. We did not pass any law like that, and it is the duty of the police to enforce our laws and not make up their own cosy alternative versions. I understand that, on Saturday, 15,000 people broke the law in Trafalgar Square, and the police arrested 10 of them.

I hate these regulations and restrictions. Sweden may possibly be right—we do not yet know—but our hypocritical media would have crucified anyone in the Government if we had gone down that route six months ago. Of course, if the Swedish approach to herd immunity turns out to be right, then we will be condemned by the media for not doing it because it was the obvious thing to do, was it not?

All Governments are wrestling with a new disease for which there is no rulebook in existence. What I do know is that we cannot change the strategy half way through. We can amend and tweak the tactics—as the Government are doing, rightly—on a weekly basis as the impact of the virus changes on a weekly basis, but we need to see the current strategy through. I intensely dislike all the current restrictions and the severe damage to the economy, but abandoning the current approach may be just as dangerous.

Finally, I commend the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that this Act should not be renewed automatically by order; a new Bill that can receive full and proper parliamentary scrutiny should be introduced.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Friday 18th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support these regulations, but I urge my noble friend the Minister to go further and simplify the rules on wearing face masks.

First, I agree 100% with my former Cumbrian sparring partner, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. Yes, I know that there is often a huge sigh when he makes the same point over and again, but I think that he is absolutely right: face masks should be worn by everyone, every time and in every place, except when in one’s own home or when eating or drinking in a properly socially distanced establishment.

The government line is that there is no conclusive evidence that face masks work. However, if that is the case, why have all medical staff for the last six months made such a terrible fuss when they have not had enough of them? Every doctor and nurse wears a face mask, and, if they work for the medical profession, they can work for everyone else. There is good evidence that, even if they do not stop the inhalation of every droplet, nevertheless they reduce the overall load of infection inhaled. There is now cast-iron evidence that the initial intake of the virus is the crucial thing between a mild infection and a life-threatening one.

Just as I approve of simplifying all those bubble rules that we had into a rule of six, so I approve of simplifying all our face-mask-wearing rules. I ask my noble friend to tell the media to stop whingeing about not meeting granny at Christmas. Christmas is three months away and anything can happen in the meantime.

On a train, passengers and crew wear masks most of the time, but shop assistants are exempt, it seems. I was in a shop last week and every shopper was wearing a mask, but a guy filling the shelves had no mask and was coughing and wheezing like an old sheep with lungworm. How does that encourage others to obey the law? I am a libertarian and—the Lord Chairman would strongly disapprove of this—if someone kills themselves with 60 cigarettes a day, I do not mind so long as it does not affect others and I do not have to pay for it. That is why I deeply resent those who are guzzling themselves obese and expect NHS taxpayers to pay the bill for their diabetes treatment. So I do not care if people cram themselves into a ghastly Ryanair flight or pack a pub and get Covid-19—it serves them right—but I care very deeply indeed that they are infecting other innocent people, such as their more elderly relatives, their friends and their workmates.

For many years, we have seen oriental tourists in London warning masks. It is nothing to do with Covid-19, but out of courtesy because they have a cold and do not want to infect others. I commend that oriental courtesy and culture. It is high time everyone in this country did the same every time they are outdoors or in public places with no exemptions, except for a few medical exemptions, and no excuses. Report them instantly and hit them hard with penalties when they do not comply.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, that is the pub-quiz question of all pub-quiz questions. There are special provisions for families that are, like the noble Lord’s, separated or complex. Those guidelines have been published, I believe, and I would be glad to send him an email with a link to them.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

[Inaudible]—simple rule and the long overdue emphasis on better and stricter enforcement. Does my noble friend not agree that when a law is systematically and routinely broken and not enforced, it brings the rest of the law into disrepute? Therefore, will he encourage the police, in the strongest possible measures, to stop turning a blind eye to massive house parties, raves and woke demonstrations and tell them to get off their knees and enforce the law?

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, once again I congratulate the Minister on his sheer hard work, and on setting out so clearly the content of these regulations, which I support.

I want to focus again on the penalty and enforcement provisions in the regulations, which on paper are excellent. However, as we have seen time after time over the last few months, the police are simply not bothering to enforce them, and that is not the fault of the Minister or of the Department of Health and Social Care.

I am tempted to report every police force in this country as committing mass hate crimes against elderly and disabled people. We have spent four months locked away obeying the law, but what of many others? We saw mass demonstrations of Black Lives Matter and not a single person fined but the police bowing down to them. We saw mass lawbreaking of every sort in Leicester by Asian sweatshop owners, and again the police and authorities did nothing because they did not want to offend their communities. There have been hundreds of illegal raves all over the country and not a single person fined. I accept that where thousands turn up it is a problem, but the police have failed to break up and penalise small raves and house parties. Two days ago, a bunch of yobs roamed up and down a TUI flight dispensing Covid-19 to all and sundry. Not a single person has been fined or prosecuted. The police boast that they have spoken to tens of thousands of people and urged them to comply. What a joke; every young person now knows that they can pack into pubs, houses, raves and planes not wearing a mask, and not a single thing will be done about it. Fining Jeremy Corbyn’s brother £10,000 is no alternative to fining the other tens of thousands of lawbreakers.

We old gits will continue obeying the law and being put at risk every day by some people who do not give a damn and by a police force that is unwilling to enforce the law. I regret that I will not join those who say that the police are doing a wonderful job. They are not, and they should be ordered to enforce the law.

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, that Britain can and must become a world leader in medical innovation. I strongly supported the Saatchi Bill on medical innovation. I am currently trying out a couple of MS drugs and will volunteer for everything. Personally, I am not too worried about safety, but that is a unique viewpoint.

I begin by paying a warm tribute to my noble friend the Minister. He is one of the finest Ministers I have encountered in this House: intelligent, knowledgeable, on top of his brief, courteous and very hard-working. I am delighted that he is going to listen to the criticisms on delegated powers today. Thus it grieves me to say that the structure of the Bill is absolutely atrocious and an affront to parliamentary democracy. Of course, it is not unique; it is just one more Bill stuffed full of Henry VIII clauses but devoid of substantive content. It is the barest skeleton, all to be filled in with negative secondary legislation.

I am speaking in my capacity as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee. We considered the key clauses—Clauses 1, 8 and 12—and concluded that they contain inappropriate delegations of power. We say that

“the Government have failed to provide sufficient justification for … the Bill adopting a ‘skeleton bill’ approach, with Ministers given very wide powers to almost completely re-write the existing regulatory regimes”.

But of even greater concern are the powers in these clauses allowing Ministers to create completely new criminal offences by statutory instrument: see paragraphs 29, 30 and 31 of our report.

Then we come to the negative/affirmative procedure ploy. We say:

“We are wholly dissatisfied by departments repeatedly arguing for powers … to be subject to the negative procedure where there is a need to act quickly, and seeking to justify this without acknowledging the existence of the made affirmative procedure. Departments are very well aware of that procedure and we can only conclude that their failure to mention it is a device to try to minimise Parliamentary scrutiny. In future … we will expect them to explain why the made affirmative procedure should not apply.”


That is pretty hard-hitting, and I am sorry that my noble friend the Minister is bearing the brunt of this criticism when it applies equally to dozens of Bills across all government departments. It is simply that my committee is fed up with Bill after Bill drafted with the negative procedure, on the excuse that the only alternative is the affirmative procedure. This is simply not true. The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Cabinet Office are perpetuating a falsehood in their official guidance on drafting legislation, which completely, and I say deliberately, ignores the “made affirmative” procedure.

Then we come to the wonderful new term “protocols”, another ploy invented by draftsmen to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. We say:

“Allowing regulations to make … legislation subject to conditions set out in a ‘protocol’ is yet another example of ‘camouflaging legislation’ … those powers … should be set out in the regulations themselves and not in a ‘protocol’ which is not subject to Parliamentary scrutiny”.


The memorandum states on Clause 2 that the negative regulations will be made

“following extensive consideration and scrutiny by the relevant professional bodies”.

Jolly good for them—everyone is to be consulted except this Parliament.

Finally, we say in our conclusion:

“We are deeply concerned not only by the Government’s failure to provide sufficient justification for the adoption of a ‘skeleton bill’ approach—which would give Ministers sweeping powers to almost completely re-write the existing regulatory regimes … but also by their failure to acknowledge the breadth of the powers that the Bill would confer. In future, we will expect a more transparent approach in which a department acknowledges the breadth of the powers and seeks to fully justify it.”


Of course, Ministers must take responsibility for their legislation, but the root cause of this abuse of Parliament can be found in the Cabinet Office guidelines to departments on preparing legislation. The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel boasts on its website:

“We are committed to promoting good law—law that is: necessary, clear, coherent, effective, accessible.”


If the lawyers drafting our laws think this Bill is good law, God help us. Do they think good law includes skeleton bills, Henry VIII clauses, negative procedure everywhere, regulations masquerading as guidance and protocols, and criminal offences created with no parliamentary scrutiny at all? Parliament is effectively bypassed; that is a sick joke of good law.

I will return to this theme at a later date. I apologise again to my noble friend the Minister that he is on the receiving end of criticism that applies across the board.

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

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I wish to comment on the enforcement provisions set out in SI No. 684. Regulations 7 to 10 set out all the offences and penalties, and these are to be welcomed. However, I ask: will they ever be enforced? We have seen illegal demonstrations and raves with people blatantly breaking the law, Asian sweatshop owners in Leicester not just breaking Covid-19 laws, but those on the minimum wage, health and safety and human slavery. The police are saying that these abuses are too big to stop. The message we are getting from the police is: “Don’t commit a small crime because we’ll pursue you, but make it big enough and we’ll be scared to act.”

When we see people getting away with it and there is no enforcement, more and more people will break other laws as well, and that will destroy society. I therefore urge my noble friend the Minister to tell the police to stop wasting time chasing after people alleged to have insulted a transsexual on Twitter and to get out there and enforce the law of the land, as they are paid to do.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the changes announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, which render discussion of these regulations rather academic. I suggest one more essential tweak to what was said on Tuesday. We are told that the one-metre rule needs additional mitigating factors. That is unnecessary waffle. We should say that at one metre face masks are compulsory for everyone, no ifs or buts.

Today, I want to turn to the investigation of death anomalies and how that must be done carefully and thoroughly. As my noble friend knows, there is a huge industry out there ready to denounce everything about our country as institutionally racist. There is no coherent BAME community. It consists of black ethnicities, Asian ethnicities and all other minority groups who are not white. While their death rates are higher than whites’, there are wide variations between them, so the Government should report on the individual ethnic groups, not just this grouping called BAME.

We must also get to the bottom of why men are three times more likely to die than women, fat people twice as likely to die and people with diabetes—and possibly a lack of vitamin D—also twice as likely to die. None of these conditions is anything to do with racism, but the anomalies are just as great, so we need to know if underlying health conditions are the root cause of death variations. Perhaps they are or perhaps they are not, but we must have an authoritative and detailed analysis so that it is not exploited by those who wish to find institutional racism where none may exist.

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

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his never-failing energy and courtesy at the virtual Dispatch Box, where he performs on a daily basis. I have a point about the latest guidance, which is not in these regulations. From today, everyone has to wear a face mask when travelling on public transport, except for the disabled. I am sorry, but exempting the majority of disabled people is fundamentally wrong, sends the wrong signal and will bring disabled people into disrepute.

Of course, there are disabled people with breathing difficulties or who need an inhaler, and there are autistic children and some others for whom a face mask may be frightening and therefore unwearable. However, for the vast majority of wheelchair users, the blind and the deaf, what is the problem? I am in a wheelchair, as many noble Lords will know, and when I eventually get out, I shall be wearing a mask, and I hope my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will approve. I shall wear it everywhere, including when I get back to the Chamber. So I ask the Minister to please look at this again, and make it clear that only disabled people with breathing difficulties or other select illnesses should not wear a mask.

As other noble Lords have said, these regulations are catching up on history, and while they are okay in themselves and I support them, they are now pretty pointless. Take Regulation 3, which allows people to visit a public open space either alone, with one or more members of their household or with one member of another household. However, for the past two weeks, we have seen mobs of tens of thousands packed together protesting, and the police incapable and unwilling to do anything about it. Indeed, some senior officers condoned mobs tearing down statues. Last weekend, 6,000 people were packed into a rave in Manchester, with stabbings and a rape. How can we expect the public to obey the new rules when they see mobs getting away with it?

Let us have no more hypocrisy from the Guardian and left-wing politicians and commentators, who were desperate to destroy—and are still mentioning—Dominic Cummings, who did not break the law or the guidelines, but are now praising demonstrators gathered in their thousands and breaking all our coronavirus laws. If coronavirus takes off again in these areas, we know who will be to blame, and it is not Dominic Cummings. I am not opposed to these regulations, but I regret that they will never be enforced.

Covid-19: Masks

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it seems that there are two ways to protect oneself and others from the virus. One is distance and the other is face masks and hand washing. Face masks seem to give limited protection to the wearer of the mask from inhaling the virus from others, while giving much more protection to others who do not get exhaled upon. The further the distance the lower the risk, and that risk increases until one is up really close. If two metres is regarded as the safe distance without a mask—except in closely confined public transport—then it seems a no-brainer to reduce the distance to one metre and insist on face masks for all out in public, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said. This is a sensible compromise, giving as little risk as possible while opening up the economy. Therefore, we should reduce the distance to one metre and make it compulsory to wear a mask.

Covid-19: BAME NHS Staff

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I share the noble Baroness’s tribute to BAME staff in the NHS, who, as she rightly points out, are on the front line and putting themselves at risk. We should all, as a nation, be enormously grateful for their contribution. I also salute those in the NHS moving quickly to address the concerns and evidence that the disease itself is discriminatory. I would be glad to meet representatives, but I want to be clear that the processes in place in the NHS are reasonable, proportionate and will, I believe, deliver the needed results.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Will my noble friend the Minister please ensure that the inquiry carefully and thoroughly investigates all anomalies? While black Afro-Caribbeans have a much higher than death rate than white people, I understand that the rate is even higher for Filipinos and far lower for the Chinese. Will the inquiry also look at why 70% of those dying are men, which is nothing to do with race, and why obesity, diabetes, vitamin D and blood thinners all seem to be factors in this epidemic?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord is entirely right. This disease is racist, fatist and sexist. We need to understand why it is discriminatory in all these areas. I reassure the noble Lord that the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation have jointly called for research proposals to investigate emerging evidence of an association between ethnicity, behavioural and social factors, and the adverse health outcomes it is generating.