Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Haskel
Main Page: Lord Haskel (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Haskel's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as the Minister has noted, retaining public trust is key, especially if we want people to go along with incredibly draconian and invasive tools in terms of isolation. It feels as though this is a one-way street. The Government asked the public to trust the police and the authorities rather blindly and yet, they will not trust people to make the most basic decisions, such as allowing them to assess any level of risk or threat that they might face. They then use threats of criminal conviction far too readily.
As we have heard from noble Lords, there is a lack of imagination when it comes to offering a generous settlement that would allow people to isolate without causing them and their families great hardship. I know many people who cannot afford to isolate; that is the reality and we have to face up to it.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, I worry about signing up to data sharing, privacy issues, a likely form of ID cards and police access to our most intimate information. These are anathema to a free society. This emergency should not blind us to the dangers of a constant expansion of police powers. Over the weekend, I noted that the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister are looking to extend some of the emergency restrictions on the right to protest. I fear that, unless there is a full public debate about the consequences for freedom of association and redrawing the relationship between the state and the individual, it will, in the end, fuel distrust.
I have one chilling piece of data, as the Government are interested in data. As of 26 February, a few days ago, 356 coronavirus-justified statutory instruments had been made law, without a draft presented in advance to Parliament, and therefore without scrutiny of their justification or proportionality. I want the Minister to understand that if he wants trust, he needs to assure us that there will be an emergency stop on the road map of this kind of democratic government as soon as possible. I am afraid that I am nervous about the rules that they keep bringing in after the effect.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, is not available, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.