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

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, debating these regulations, which came into effect on 13 May, does seem a little academic because further easements have already been brought in, with more on the way, as the Minister has kindly explained. One can only wish that we could see that as part of a coherent strategy, but the contrast between the opening of shops and zoos today and the scaling back of school opening before the summer holidays, along with the introduction of a 14-day quarantine period for all new arrivals, is striking and difficult to fathom.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the 14-day quarantine policy, which was described in the Sunday Times on 7 June as

“one of the most economically damaging policies the Government has yet unveiled. It cuts the travel industry off at the knees and makes the country look isolationist and ridiculous.”

As Professor Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health and adviser to the New Zealand Government has said,

“The UK’s new 14-day quarantine rule only makes sense if you go for elimination of the virus as your goal”,


and all the necessary measures are in place. But the Government are now removing many of those measures.

The confusion is being compounded by the continuing failure of the Government to publish the evidence to justify their decisions. All we have been promised in relation to the 14 days is a summary at some point in the future. As Sir Paul Nurse and the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, said last week,

“Trust has to be earned if the public are to have confidence in their political leaders and the scientists advising them. Trust is only possible if the scientific advice given is open, transparent and properly communicated.”


Unfortunately, much government activity is more about managing the media, polling and focus groups than anything else.

The so-called review of the two-metre rule announced yesterday is a case in point, since it appears to be a softening-up process designed to legitimise a decision which has already been made. As the respected Professor Sir Chris Ham, the former director of the King’s Fund, wrote this morning,

“Boris Johnson was complacently late to grasp the gravity of the crisis and then animated by a panic-driven urge to try and impress the public by throwing out pledges he could not deliver.”


That typifies the Government’s whole approach: slow into lockdown; the sacrificing of the care sector; the shortages of PPE; the dubious testing targets and the world-beating app that never quite appears. When will the Government get a grip?