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

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for not getting to his briefing meeting on 12 June, but I have no wi-fi or telephone at home at the moment. I also express some disappointment that he is not able to be with us in the Chamber this evening.

I will ask a series of questions arising from the SI, starting on page 3. Regulation 2(4) is about increased fines. I am not quite sure why fines are being changed at this stage. Is it because people are just paying no attention to the fine, or for some other reason? It would be helpful to the House and others if we knew how many fines have been issued and the geographical spread of those fines.

I note that, under Regulation 2(5)(b), new paragraph 43 is entitled “Garden centres”. I express my disappointment that they were excluded right from the start. They were the ideal place to go to get flowers, vegetables, et cetera. Later on, we read that there has been no consultation with the public, but if anybody had asked anybody, garden centres—albeit that you would have had to close the cafés—would have been the first thing on the list to be opened. At the moment, the media is full of the idea of pub gardens. I say to my noble friend the Minister that there is no hope of opening a pub garden if the pub itself cannot be open. The economics just do not work.

Turning over the page, I express some disappointment that, according to paragraph 3.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum, it has been a month before we—and some of us have considerable experience in these areas—could debate the regulations.

Page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum talks about collecting

“goods from any business which have been purchased in advance by phone”,

blah blah blah. The point of buying online is that it is delivered to your home, not that you have to go out and collect it from somewhere; really, that is no different from the retail trade. All you are doing is undermining the retail trade, which does not seem sensible.

On the same page, paragraph b mentions “open space”. I am afraid that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act does not cover the seashore, so there is an omission there. As far I know, you can go to the seashore.

Under “Consultation”, the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“There has been no public consultation”.


However, for consultation you do not have to go out and tell people; you can do it through all sorts of research organisations. But if it is left to government departments or SAGE, you can see why mistakes are made.

On “Monitoring & review”, I will make one point to my noble friend. I do not want to hear any more about one metre until there are some real plans for it to come in, giving people in the hospitality industry adequate time to do it. It has to happen—and soon.