Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Other Provisions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con) [V]]

My Lords, speaking from Cambridgeshire, like my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Blencathra I intend to support the Government’s regulations, but I do so with significant reservations. When we discussed the previous iteration of these regulations, I think my noble friend the Minister and I agreed that the time was fast approaching when we should move from legislation and enforcement to guidance. I think that moment is now very close.

Why have the Government decided to defer the date from 21 June? Looking at the four tests, it seems to me that they can have taken the decision only on the fourth; that is, if noble Lords recall, whether variants of concern have “fundamentally changed” their risk assessment. I do not think the data supports a fundamental change in the risk assessment, but Ministers quite understandably do not yet know why, for example, a Public Health Scotland study found that hospitalisations were at twice the levels of the alpha variant. I think they want to know why this is the case.

The observation from my noble friend the Minister that 1.2 million people over 50 or clinically extremely vulnerable have yet to receive their second vaccine dose is relevant but, at 175,000 second doses a day at present, there is no reason why in the week ahead—or a fortnight at most—those requiring a second dose who are most at risk should not all receive it.

This fortnight is about finding out whether the delta variant is a variant of concern or a variant of high consequence. It has not been designated as such by the WHO, the CDC or anyone else yet. It would be so designated only if it substantially reduced the effectiveness of vaccines against it. I do not think that has yet been proven, and I hope that Ministers will look at the data literally daily and, if it is obvious that the vaccine doses are effective against the delta variant, intervene and lift the remaining legal restrictions while keeping in place so many of the social distancing and other precautionary measures we should all take as matters of individual responsibility.