Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) Regulations 2020

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 29th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we have all watched the progress in Leicester with the lockdown and I very much agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, when he emphasised the point about learning lessons. I feel that we probably have, because I perceive an evolution of approach. We have seen a different approach in Bradford, and in Oldham, again, there is more finessing—and I learned only today that the next borough in the north-west likely to suffer these problems is Stockport.

This raises an issue, because these are local authorities in their own right. But what will the Government do with problems that run across local authority boundaries? I have bored the House ad nauseam by talking about the Lake District National Park, where 40,000 of us residents welcome 19 million visitors a year, which puts immense strain on our already poor local health service. But the three authorities covered by the Morecambe Bay health authority have among the highest rates of infection across the UK. If we have a gross influx of visitors from the affected areas, which now seem to be around Manchester, will the Government, if there is a spike, take urgent action to stop the staycation happening in the Lake District National Park?