Coronavirus Act 2020

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am married to a doctor, a former GP who ran a big practice in Biggleswade.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I am sorry, there is a speakers’ list. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is next.

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[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I certainly do not oppose these measures since I believe them to be going the right way. I am pleased with that.

I want to concentrate on face masks. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, mentioned them quite a lot because he believes that everybody wearing them would save lives; they were mentioned in the Minister’s final words as well. They have become a bit of a totem for both sides of the argument on coronavirus restrictions. They divide society, actually. On the one hand—I find myself on this side—I do not believe them to be effective so I do not wear one. It is an act of individuality, if you like; you might even call it an act of rebellion against being told what to do. On the other side of the argument, where the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is, believers in further restrictions believe that wearing a mask shows virtue and solidarity and provides reassurance to others. That is a perfectly reasonable position, I suppose.

Whatever the opinion polls say, I reckon that about 40% of people on the Tube do not wear a mask now—not 13%, as the noble Lord suggested. That 40% has given up, basically. Children are not required to wear them, of course, but they obviously cannot pass on the virus; I will come back to that later.

In the Chamber of the House of Commons, there is a great political divide between the Government on the one hand, wearing hardly any face masks, and the Opposition on the other, where practically everyone wears one. Last month, I went to a packed memorial service in the Brompton Oratory. It is a huge church—perhaps not the biggest Catholic church in London, but huge. One person was wearing a face mask. None of the clergy was. However, last week, I went to David Amess’s memorial service, where probably about 20 masks were being worn in the congregation. All the bishops and clergy, as they processed behind the unmasked choir, were wearing them. We almost have a Reformation divide now, with Catholics versus Anglicans.

My question for the Minister is simple. Are masks effective? We have, I fear, had some mixed messaging from the Government over the past 18 months. Either masks work or they do not. I am certainly not an expert; I do not pretend that they will or will not do good because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, I do not know whether they work.

However, full surgical masks worn in operations presumably work. All the doctors and nurses wear them and have done so for some time—but they are proper surgical masks. Flimsy paper masks are being worn by several people in this Committee, and by the general public. I do not know whether those masks do any good, but I suspect that they do not. What I do know is that Jenny Harries, who is now the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency and was the Deputy CMO previously, said in March last year that it was “not a good idea” for the general public to wear them. She also said that they “trap the virus” and cause people to start breathing it in.

I have a series of quotes, if the Committee will bear with me, that show the confusion in this matter. I am not saying that I am right. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who noble Lords will know, said on April 4 last year that the wearing of face masks by those who are not sick was not recommended by the British Government. He said that there was

“no evidence that the general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society.”

That is his view—or it was in April last year. I do not know. Sir Patrick Vallance, who, again, we have got to know well over the past 18 months and is the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, told MPs last May:

“The situation with masks … is that the data and the evidence are not straightforward”.


In this House, the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said on 21 April last year that

“the British Government have been sceptical about the efficacy of face masks. We do not want to be in a position of misleading or providing false reassurance for the public when there is not sufficient scientific evidence for the relevance of face masks.”—[Official Report, 21/4/20; col. 22.]

The following month, on 19 May, he said:

“There is an instinctive human belief that face masks make a difference, but the scientific proof that they do so is not crystal clear.”—[Official Report, 19/5/20; col. 1096.]


Then on 11 June he quoted the World Health Organization and said that

“‘the widespread use of masks by healthy people … is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence’”.—[Official Report, 11/6/20; col. 1908.]

On 22 June, 11 days later, he said that the mandatory of wearing of face masks was not recommended by the Government.

Now I genuinely do not know, but the situation is certainly confusing; I think everybody can agree on that. I am willing to accept that I am a bit confused. At the Labour Party conference, everybody wore face masks in the hall—we saw them all on television—but they did not wear them at the karaoke parties or receptions. The Liberal Democrat conference was of course virtual, so that was fine. However, they would not have had to wear them because it would not have been very crowded.

So what is the evidence now? Can the Government publish the evidence that made them change their position of last year, with the quotes I have given, to encouraging people to wear face masks? Perhaps there are studies. If they are conclusive, I will wear a mask. That is a promise—but I warn the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who has just spoken, that one should not rely and base one’s policies on opinion polls.

All the calls that we hear for a return to restrictions should, again, be based on evidence. Are things getting worse? The vaccines certainly seem to work. Indeed, I had a message today to get my booster jab. Deaths are actually right down on what they were a year ago. Can the Minister tell us the percentage of deaths from the virus among those who are over 85? I understand that the average age of death is 85, which is actually higher than average life expectancy.

The Office for National Statistics shows that about half of all new infections are among school-age children—in other words, the unvaccinated young—with few lasting ill-effects. Is that true? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on that. Is it the case that there are now studies predicting that cases are likely to fall sharply in the winter? That was in a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which was covered in the press yesterday. Is that the case?

We have now heard one or two doctors panicking about flu and calling for the wearing of face masks because there will be flu around. Wear face masks for ever. Every year, on average—it varies dramatically—about 11,000 people die from flu. That is about the same number who are dying every week. So will the Minister reassure me that the Government will not be panicked into reintroducing any dramatic restrictions, or plan B, without basing the decision on very serious evidence?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, is not with us, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.

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[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I start with a quote from the front page of the regulations which I find quite over the top:

“These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.


Presumably this threat arose in the week between Parliament rising for the Conference Recess—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn temporarily.

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[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I shall go back to the beginning because I cannot remember where I stopped.

I start with a quote from the regulations, which

“are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.

This could not have occurred in the week between the session we had in September and the Minister making this instrument on 22 September. The text carries on,

“the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”

The first thing I ask the Minister is to get an agreement to discontinue this way of making legislation. It may be some time before the Government repeal all the Acts but they could certainly give an undertaking. I realise that the Minister cannot do that today, because he has to consult the department, but the department could give an undertaking that future regulations will be made after consultation with Parliament.

This pandemic has shown me something. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, referred to her travels around the world. I have done a lot of lecturing on history, particularly the history of western Europe. I will not castigate any country in particular, but all countries have an undertow of authoritarianism in their public dimension. The pandemic has brought that out in this country. We have seen a level of authoritarianism in the way that people have used their power which is totally unacceptable. It can be seen in the way that the doctors have rewritten national health protocols, and the way that the police decided that they would or would not enforce parts of the law. Let me stress that “would not”; I sometimes wonder why we are here, when I look around and see how much of the law the police decide is not worth enforcing.

So we have an authoritarianism problem in this country but, as we move forward, we will have to learn to live with this. It will perhaps decline, as Spanish flu did in 1920-21, but it will not go away, and the possibility of further viral attacks is on the horizon. I echo the call made to the Minister that the Government should look at viral—and electronic—warfare and attacks as part of their defence capacity, because we could be liable to those sorts of attacks. It is important that we move forward from thinking that our defence consists of sailing a battleship round the Black Sea to a point where we accept that there is a much wider area in which public good can be interrupted for malicious reasons.

We have heard a fair bit about the number of people who have been vaccinated and the various plans that have come forward. I am an occasional subscriber to and regular reader of the Daily Sceptic, which I receive by email. It has put another view on some of the material that has been released about Covid. For instance, we hear very little about the Oxford group and a group of people who have looked carefully at all the evidence and concluded very similarly to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on matters such as face masks. Not all the evidence is being presented; indeed, some outlets take great pride in saying that they are Covid-friendly and, basically, supply you only with government propaganda.

So I welcome the new Minister and the new Secretary of State, because they have an opportunity to move us forward towards a better situation. I have mentioned the problem of GPs in the past, but that situation also covers the rest of the National Health Service. I live in Cambridge, which could probably claim to be the medical capital of Britain. I live in a street that is packed full of doctors, because only doctors and former MEPs can afford the houses there. Some of my best friends are doctors, as they say, and some of their stories about what has been going on are, shall we say, not in line with what we have been led to believe is going on. One of them said to me, “I don’t know what the GPs are doing. We haven’t seen any of them in our hospital, I can tell you that”.

So we must get the health service and private hospitals back to work. Our local private hospital was bought out by the NHS and basically stood empty for the best part of a year, with the consultants doing their consultations at home. It was absolutely ridiculous. The way to get a consultation with your specialist relied on knowing their home phone number and getting on to them and going to see them at home. So they were finding a way round the regulations, and the hospitals were closed but still earning large amounts of money from the NHS.

So the Minister is going to find that there are a lot of themes to unravel. On the subject of vaccination, I counsel the Government not to take on battles that they are probably going to lose. If they take on this battle of trying to get vaccination certificates and vaccination approvals before people can do certain things, they will end up in a morass of bureaucracy and in the end they will lose. Leave it to the market. If a venue wishes to say it requires proof of vaccination to enter—as, for instance, some restaurants in France require—let it administer it and look at the certificate. All I would do is say, “Please put a notice on the door”. Do not get involved in what could turn out to be a terribly authoritarian effort.

There is one question I would like to ask the Minister. We are constantly urged to get lateral flow tests. How much do these cost? I was asked to get a lateral flow test before I went to David Amess’s memorial service. Why? I also question whether they should be free and whether it is our priority as a health service to carry on spending this amount of money. How much does it cost and, more importantly, what plans does the Minister have to wind it down or at least make it a paid-for service, which seems a quite reasonable thing to do?

My final words are that I am pleased that we are moving forward. I hope this will be the last SI we have to debate that is laid in this way, and I hope we will move forward, end this image of a terrified country and continue getting back to normal, so that we can start to get back to where we were some years ago, as normal human beings in a normal society.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, joins us remotely, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will speak briefly in the gap.