Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend for all his dedicated work.

I recognise that information about this virus is incomplete. I sympathise with the Government, who cannot be expected to get the responses right all the time. However, sitting here today, do we have sufficient evidence to justify these extraordinary ongoing— seemingly never-ending—repressive restrictions on basic freedoms, family life and our parliamentary democracy? Parliament is expected to rubber-stamp measures with comprehensive evidence and impact assessments not having been presented even weeks after the regulations have already been imposed.

My noble friend talks of a crisis level of infection. What does that mean? When will Parliament be presented with a balanced, comprehensive analysis and data to identify, for example, the most recent correlations between infection with Covid, admission to hospital due to Covid and deaths from Covid-19 relative to deaths due to the effects of lockdowns and ongoing Covid restrictions?

The Government say they hope to ease the measures when infection or transmission falls. What constitutes success here? What is the endgame? Will we continue to lock people down, rejoice at reducing infections, relax draconian restrictions and, though I can hardly believe I am saying this, allow people to see their friends and loved ones again without risking arrest? Then what? The virus will not have disappeared. Does this whack-a-mole strategy just start again?

Parliament should be able to judge the data. What is the risk to life of a Covid infection relative to the risk to life of missed cancer treatments, mental breakdown, stroke and heart failure, all of which lockdown worsens? Indeed, do we know to what extent the increased testing rates in the areas of the restrictions that we are debating today, which my noble friend mentioned, contributed to the rise in reported infection rates that led to these measures?