Covid-19: Road Map

Debate between Lord Farmer and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I can certainly say to my noble friend that we will continue to work with the Places of Worship Taskforce to ensure that advice is available for religious communities and faith leaders so we can enable the safe opening of places of worship as we move forward through the steps in the road map.

[Lord Farmer (Con) [V]]

My Lords, our internationally harsh lockdown is driving mental ill health and unravelling our social fabric. Accordingly, should not parity of esteem between physical and mental health dictate that more than two SAGE advisers are mental health experts? Also, will the Government persist with the dispiriting law of the Medes and Persians, which permits the goalposts to be moved only in a more restrictive direction, even if the four indicators drop off a metaphorical cliff?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend on his last point, but I certainly I agree with him on the importance of support for mental health, and he will know that expert participation in SAGE changes for each meeting. What I hope will reassure him is that in March, we will be publishing our cross-government action plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to the impact of Covid on mental health and well-being. We have already announced that the NHS will receive an extra £500 million to address waiting times and enhance support for mental health services. During the pandemic, we rolled out 24/7, all-age urgent mental care helplines across the country, provided more than £100 million to the voluntary sector and, recently, appointed a youth mental health ambassador to build on our support for young people. I hope this range of investment and initiatives shows the noble Lord how important we consider this issue.

Covid 19: Winter Plan

Debate between Lord Farmer and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

What I can say is that this is one of the areas in which the mass testing programme rollout can be used. For instance, local authority directors of public health may wish to roll out one of their programmes to higher-risk industries, for instance. Those are exactly the kinds of situations where local authorities may wish to use this programme to deal with the very issues that the noble Baroness set out.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, at great personal cost, as well as social and financial cost to the country, millions have now had Covid and therefore have antibodies. I am indeed one of them. Significant savings can be made by excluding anyone who has contracted the disease in, say, the last six months, from needlessly being traced, tested or required to isolate, including after returning from abroad. So what has been decided about such people and where they should come in the pecking order for vaccination?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

In relation to the pecking order, as my noble friend said, for the vaccination, it will be for the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to advise the Government on which vaccine should be used and what the priority groups are—and the committee has indeed issued some interim advice on this already.

Another initiative that we are launching which will, to a degree, help to address my noble friend’s points going forward, is the plan to introduce frequent testing as an alternative to the need to self-isolate for people who have had close contact with someone who has had Covid. The contacts would have regular tests during an isolation period and would have to self-isolate only if they tested positive.