Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2021

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, may I first—unusually—pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister? At the weekend we had what I thought was a rather unpleasant article in the Sunday Times about hereditary Peers. Well, he is without doubt one of the most industrious and diligent Ministers in place and I think he justifies the presence of at least one hereditary Peer in this Chamber. Also, we agree entirely on the need for healthier lifestyles—referred to at the end of the previous business—and tackling obesity, which is closely linked with death rates in this pandemic.

I do not enjoy agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton—she probably does not much enjoy me agreeing with her—but the lack of parliamentary scrutiny and the use of emergency procedures to bring in these draconian measures are frankly not acceptable in a democracy. It is a year since this started and we really should have sorted this out by now. Furthermore, perhaps I might say to my noble friend the Minister—in less congratulatory tones, although it is not necessarily his fault—that there is terrible confusion and inconsistency in these regulations. Can anybody be surprised that the public are confused? I am confused, and I think that Ministers are confused. Nobody is really sure about what country is on what list, and what countries they are allowed to visit.

I certainly regret these regulations, although I am not going to vote for the regret Motion. Furthermore, like my noble friend Lady Altmann, I fear that they are unlikely to make much difference to the spread of the virus.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Empey.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I offer a very warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, and hope to work with her cross-party. I suspect that we will hear a lot more about Darlington than we ever have before.

I wholeheartedly support the regret Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton; I only wish we could do something stronger. A year into the pandemic, it is only now that the Government have started implementing any kind of rigorous quarantine measures for international travellers. It is a little over a year since Boris Johnson was boasting of shaking hands with everybody and of how Britain would be open for business. How things have changed, yet the Government have been consistent in their failure to restrict the international spread of the virus. First, restrictions were called ineffective and unnecessary, then the Government advised against unnecessary international travel because of the risk of other countries implementing travel restrictions while abroad. After that, of course, it was too late as the virus was already running rampant.

What has most annoyed me is that all this seems to stem from a wider obsession with unfettered international air travel. We have gone in such a short time from air travel being an almost unaffordable luxury to it becoming so embedded in our way of life that we allow air passengers to spread the virus all around the world and trash our climate at the same time. It is about time the Government took a deep look at their obsession with air travel and realised just how much harm it is causing to the planet and to the future of humanity.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.