Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 6) Regulations 2021

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have three points. First, I was struck that the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, introduced his speech by referring to the scarifying effect of the debate in the Commons yesterday. Subsequently he went on—as have other speakers—to try to scare us about these regulations. It has been, to a large extent, a scare story about these proposed regulations. In truth, they are oh-so limited in their extent. It is quite possible that we might have to introduce stronger restrictions, so what we are being scared about is a slippery slope, that sooner or later these regulations will lead to an oppressive state. Well, they do not—they are just keeping us a little bit safer.

Secondly, on the idea that omicron is milder, we do not yet know that it is milder in the UK context. What we do know is that it is much more invasive. It will infect many more people. Even if it is milder—which we do not yet know—a milder effect on a much larger number may place a heavier burden on the health service. There is even the perverse, non-intuitive effect that a milder disease could place a heavier burden on the health service because, sad though it is to say, if people do not die so quickly of this disease, they will be in hospital for longer.

Thirdly, the debate on vaccine passports has been mentioned. I do not quite understand what people are saying, because I already have a vaccine passport—I guess that the great majority of people in this Chamber have one. I have used my vaccine passport. These regulations are saying that, in certain circumstances, that is one way of showing that there are good odds of you not being as infectious. I agree that there is a slippery slope here—I am totally against ID cards—but this information is already contained in the vaccine passports. The regulations are about how they should be used.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I am getting indications from the Chief Whip that we should move to the winding Front-Benchers. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be speaking remotely. I invite her to speak for the Liberal Democrats.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a chair of the All-Party Group on Coronavirus. I thank the Minister for his speech on the three SIs before your Lordships’ House today.

Plan B was published four months ago. It was absolutely evident, first from the Secretary of State for Health’s announcement on Friday and then from the Prime Minister’s speech on Sunday, that no real planning has been going on behind the scenes in the department. Before we get into the practical consequences of these regulations, from these Benches we want once again to join in the strongest objection to the slack way in which the regulations and the Explanatory Memoranda are written.

The right reverend Prelate was right to say that we accept that late legislation may need to be written at pace, but this is communication at its worst and, of course, it cannot go through the usual scrutiny from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and others. This goes hand in hand with Ministers’ messaging to the wider public, from the Prime Minister down. All because he is worried about certain parts of his party, he has once again announced mitigations too late, which inevitably result in further restrictions and in omicron being allowed to move really fast through our society.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannan, said that he worries this will be the case with every new variant we go through. That has not been the reality so far. What is different about omicron is how quickly transmission has doubled, which, by the way, without mitigations, will have an effect on the economy, because businesses are already seeing staff go off sick. If we have 2 million people with omicron by the end of the year, and that continues to increase at the same doubling rate every two days, we will find that the economy, schools, societies, our GP surgeries, ambulances and hospitals struggle even more than they are now. On Tuesday, at the All-Party Group on Coronavirus, one GP said to us that, on the previous day, every single doctor in her practice had tested positive. That meant that there were no doctors available to work, other than by Zoom.

We are learning about omicron because it is very new to us. The evidence of its exponential growth so far is concerning. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, said that not one patient in South Africa has had oxygen. This is not true. It is true that there are fewer people in hospital, but some have severe disease. The number of omicron critical care beds is going up. At the end of November, 291 people in hospital were on oxygen. Two weeks later, it is nearly 900. The numbers in ICU have also doubled. These figures are from the Covid dashboard on the Spectator website.

From all Benches, we have heard agreement with the Prime Minister’s confused lines in the sand—for example, face masks must be worn in shops, but not in pubs and restaurants. Even if omicron is less dangerous—by which I think the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, means that there are fewer people with severe disease—its key elements are higher transmission and the doubling of cases. If there are fewer hospital admissions per 100,000, the already beleaguered NHS will have to find many more hospital beds than were needed in January 2021. This is what the doctors are advising us.

The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, constantly repeats his mantra that the only deaths from Covid are in the over-80s or among those with underlying conditions. In a recent debate, he asked if anyone knew anyone under the age of 80 who had died. Last week, a dear friend died of Covid after just four days in hospital. She was much younger than I am. Another friend in his 40s, who had a lung transplant earlier this year, is back in ICU with Covid. He does not know where he caught it because he has been very careful. Is the noble Lord really saying that there should be no mitigations to keep the vulnerable safe? This is the consequence of removing all these mitigations.

My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford spoke movingly about his compromised immune system. I too am in this position, though for a different reason. My medical advice is not to come out at the moment.

The 800,000 clinically extremely vulnerable have not had one word of guidance in the last week. It is not good enough to say that shielding ended in July. This group is at high risk and needs advice. When will this be evidenced? I think that even the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, would recognise that some people are at high risk. Shame on the Government for not getting in touch with them at all.

Other noble Lords have spoken about those with long Covid, including children. On schools, we have been asking since last year for air filtration units in classrooms. This has only just happened in the last week. Until now, the Government have been talking about CO₂ monitors, but the public health need in our schools is for air filtration units.

The first regulation is about self-isolation and moving to a daily lateral flow test. If it is negative, you can leave your isolation. We say that test and trace must remain the key defence in fighting Covid—particularly omicron—not least because of the somewhat reduced vaccine efficacy with this variant. The level of transmission of omicron is so high that this is a public health precaution. We disagree, therefore, with the fatal amendment laid by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, which would remove this vital, basic, public health rule of self-isolation and testing.

The second SI on entry to venues and events creates a broader Covid pass, vaccine or test result, than the previously proposed vaccine pass. We have consistently opposed vaccine passports—first, for public health reasons. Importantly, vaccine passes give people a false sense of security, especially as it is possible to catch Covid and pass it on, even if you are double-jabbed. People cannot tell if their vaccine immunity is waning. We just do not like the reliance on that. We also do not want vaccine passports creeping in by the back door, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, outlined. Our principal concern with this SI is about public health. This hotch-potch Covid pass is a muddle.

We agree with the use of lateral flow tests. They are highly accurate. Researchers from University College London found that they are more than 80% effective at detecting any level of Covid-19 infection. They are likely to be more than 90% effective at detecting who is most infectious when they use the test. None of us wants lockdown, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, and his colleagues, but I struggle to understand why those who do not want lockdown will not accept lateral flow tests as a mechanism to help reduce transmission.

We cannot support the noble Lord’s fatal amendment on the issue of flow tests, but we are deeply unhappy that the Government are relying on the vaccine element of the Covid pass at a time when we need to reduce transmission by the tried and tested test, trace and isolate system. So, if a vote is called, we will not support the Government’s proposals for Covid passes—although for very different reasons from those of the noble Lord, Lord Robathan.