Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I formally offer the Green group’s support for these provisions, and strongly oppose the fatal Motion.

I speak on the day when a good friend lost her father to Covid. The horrific figures, to which that is one sad addition, are a measure of the failure of our provisions and our governance. My sympathy goes to everyone affected and everyone living in fear. In March we were facing a suddenly arising, little-understood threat. We should have been better prepared for a pandemic, but some of the mistakes made then were made because the detail of the threat was, unavoidably, not clearly understood. We do not have the same excuse now. We allowed the virus to run wild again through bad decisions, and through our failure to support the vulnerable and deal with the vulnerabilities in our society.

However, I want to look forward and ask the Government about their plans for the next month—or however long this lockdown needs to last—for to justify the economic, social and medical costs, we must use this time to genuinely control the virus. The disastrous failures of test and trace have been covered by other Peers, although on “trace” we seem finally to be heading somewhat in the right direction in local public provision. I want to focus on the final two elements of what is needed to bring down infection rates: isolate and support. Without the latter, the “isolate” part is not working and cannot work, not because of individual choice but because of system failure.

There must be real, effective, genuine support for everyone asked to self-isolate who needs it. If you are a young adult in a shared household, a parent in a multigenerational one with child and elderly care responsibilities, or a teenager who shares a bedroom with a sibling as a result of the disastrous bedroom tax, isolation is incredibly difficult. There are a lot of empty hotels in this country. Why are people not being offered a free, supported option to isolate when it would be very difficult, or impossible, at home?

The £500 payment must be extended to everyone who needs it. Currently, only one in eight workers is eligible. Everybody needs enough money each day, including the self-employed, the casually employed and those who have fallen through the gaping holes in the Government’s financial safety nets. If you have been penniless for months, have secured a job starting today and then start to show symptoms, what are you going to do?

Poverty, inequality and insecurity are gaping wounds through which the virus can readily enter. There must be support for people effectively returning to shielding—£14 per person for councils is clearly not enough—people in their 60s with chronic health conditions and workers left with desperately difficult decisions to make. We also must address transmission in workplaces and schools. “Covid-safe” is a nice phrase, but it is clearly not the reality for lots of workers. Universities and schools, particularly secondary schools, attended by pupils vulnerable to catching and spreading the virus are another systemic vulnerability. They cannot continue as now.