Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Medium) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in the time available, I want to ask the Minister a number of questions about this SI and the decision to leave so much of the country designated as “medium” level, but I join other noble Lords in saying how much we appreciate the Minister’s very hard work, stamina and patience on this series of SIs.

It seems that the “medium” level areas are precisely those where there is still a marginal chance that lessons can be learned, and early and swift action can be taken to prevent escalation. One of the most perverse and unwelcome outcomes of how this disease has developed is that, as the WHO said recently, it thrives on poverty and poor housing, and “exasperates inequalities”. One of the very worst things that could happen would be for this already divided country to be driven further apart because those traditional post-industrial communities of the north and west, the Midlands, south Wales and Scotland were to suffer disproportionately. We are certainly not all in this together at the moment, but I sense that it is only a matter of time before we are. Large areas of the country designated at the lowest tier also contain large poor urban communities, where the pandemic takes a fierce hold.

That is why I say, “Thank God for the leadership of the local authorities.” They have stepped up magnificently to protect and provide for their local communities. The most effective thing that the Government could do is to listen more closely and act more swiftly on the advice they are getting from local authorities. They are still not in the driving seat when it comes to NHS Test and Trace, but they need to be. London is the outstanding case in point. Infections are now rising above 100 in 100,000 in several boroughs. The Mayor of London is urging the Government not to wait four weeks, until London has caught up with the worst scenario in the north, but to act now to break the circuit of infection. What is the Government’s response to this? Is the Prime Minister talking to the mayor? Why delay when, as surely as night follows day, and as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer has said, the evidence is that there will be a predictable exponential increase in infection and eventually in hospitalisations. What is the Government’s strategy to deal with London in all its diversity?

Turning to more general questions about the decisions to leave most of the country designated as “medium” level, how is risk defined in those areas so designated? Is there any differentiation within these areas? What are the ranges of the R number? What modelling is being done by SAGE or other groups, and at what level, to establish transmission routes or speed of transmission from areas of high infection to areas of low infection? What advice are the Government giving public health leaders in the south-eastern region, for example, about what they might expect and what they should be preparing for? Given that there are many universities in the south-east, what assessment have the Government made of likely sites for the spread of infection? What advice is now being given to universities across those areas, especially on testing? What precise trigger point would escalate the decision to move regions to tier 2? Which pillars of the Covid-testing strategy are informing these decisions? Given that SAGE has confirmed that the NHS Test and Trace system is having a marginal effect on areas with the highest rates of infection, what evidence is there that it is having a more effective impact, in terms of contact tracing, on areas of medium risk? Have the Government assessed the relative advantages of a Serco track and trace system over those of local authorities?

We are all shocked by the resistance that the Government showed to SAGE advice three weeks ago. Now we are told that the Government might be considering a circuit-breaker. I beg of them not to dither any more, because I predict that we will be here in a few weeks’ time debating a temporary lockdown. The tragedy is that we will have wasted weeks, when we could have saved lives in the process.