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

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of this statutory instrument, which is the lowest level including the rule of six and the 10 pm curfew for bars and clubs. As I said earlier, as a former licensee, I understand the business reasons for opening, if only for a more limited period, but common sense says that it could be the worst of all worlds. This statutory instrument shows the stark divide between north and south on any Covid map. I appreciate the difficult job the Government have to do. I have been critical of the Government’s poor relationship with local government leaders. The Local Government Association’s reaction to the three-tier proposal has been fairly positive—I should declare, incidentally, that I am not a vice-president of the Local Government Association. It has said that the new system will make it easier to follow the rules. It also urges that the system allow local councillors and public health experts to respond to specific causes of spikes in infections in their area. It referred to the additional pressure on already overstretched council budgets. What assurances can the Minister give that local expertise will be used and that sufficient funding will be available for councils to carry out their vital tasks?

Reference has been made throughout today’s debates to the publication of the SAGE minutes of 20 September, which advised the Government to ban all contact within the home by members of other households, to close all bars, restaurants and other venues, and that all university and college teaching be online unless face-to-face teaching is absolutely necessary. The contrast between the advice of SAGE and the Government’s delayed reaction—22 days later—could not be greater. We have “very high”, “high” and “medium”. I am assuming the SAGE advice would be “sky high”. Those who say that a total lockdown would be a disaster miss the point. It is all disastrous. It is a question of disaster management and clear strategy.

Turning to the issue of probity, how can the Minister prove that the public money being spent on test and trace, IT systems, testing the provision of PPE and testing laboratories fulfils all the requirements of public procurement? In his answer, he referred to the huge amount of work being done on auditing, checking and supervising contracts. He said that the Cabinet Office provided a huge amount of analysis and challenge in checking against delivery of the products and services involved, yet we still get reports of companies being given contracts without proper tendering processes. What information can the Minister give us on the actual results of those Cabinet Office checks on the delivery of those products and services? It ought to be public knowledge.

I said in the past that I was uncomfortable dealing with retrospective and sometimes contradictory SIs—but, like most of us, I have gone along with it because it is important to try to work together. Now Labour’s previous support has been thrown in its face by the Prime Minister, who is saying that we are the ones doing the U-turns. I do not detect that kind of combative aggressiveness in the Minister, but I would appreciate his acknowledgement that Labour has up to today been as strong a supporter as he could ask for in supporting these statutory instruments.