Covid-19: Response

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I gave the Minister notice on Friday that, because we had not taken a Statement about Covid for three weeks, I will need to address the three Statements that are outstanding.

Parliament entrusted this Government with huge powers to deal with Covid-19 when we put the emergency powers on the statute book in March. Certainly, in this House, at the time of the passage of the emergency legislation we sought and received undertakings from the Minister and the Government about the need for effective scrutiny, timely debate, consultation and trust. So how will accountability be achieved during the Recess and the autumn in this fast-moving world? All three Statements raised vital issues that deserve more time and scrutiny than we were able to give them, and I am grateful for the extra time that the usual channels have found for Back-Bench colleagues.

Before I address these Statements, I want to ask Minister about the sudden announcement this weekend of quarantine measures for those returning from Spain. These Benches have made it clear that we support evidence-based protective measures at the border. We have long called for the scientific evidence to be made public and for track, trace and isolate systems to be in place, to avoid the need for the blunt tool of 14-day quarantine. Does the Minister agree that the latest decision-making process regarding Spain and the short notice for travellers have created a sense of panic and suggest a loss of control? Will he agree that proper contingency plans should be in place to support people coming home where there is no guarantee that their employers will allow them 14 days of work flexibility? Why do the measures apply to the whole of Spain? As my honourable friend Jon Ashworth MP said yesterday, “We’ve got an outbreak here in Leicester, but the whole of Leicestershire is not locked down and the whole of the East Midlands is not locked down, so why are the Balearics and the Canaries included when their infection rate is so low?”

On the announcement on 14 July about face masks and shopping—a month after it became mandatory to wear masks on public transport—why did it take so long and why was the messaging so confusing? We have long known about airborne transmission. The Secretary of State warned long ago about asymptomatic transmission. The Secretary of State’s own advice published on 11 May advised in favour of wearing face masks, so it is a shame that it took two months to make that advice mandatory; it came into force last Friday. How will it be enforced? As a former member of USDAW, I am very concerned for shop workers. USDAW says:

“We are also deeply concerned that enforcing the wearing of face coverings could present a further flashpoint for abuse against our retail members.”


It makes the point that full government guidance was released only hours before the changes came into effect, so how were employers to have adequate time to put the policy in place to support their staff during these changes?

On the Leicester lockdown announced on 16 July, the people of Leicester are now in the 17th week of lockdown. We will discuss that issue on Wednesday, but will the Minister confirm what lessons the Government have learned from what they did and did not do in Leicester, for when they face other local flare-ups? Will the Minister guarantee—I would like a yes or no answer—that local authorities will now get the specific data that can facilitate action, that it will be timely and in the form of person-identifiable data, not just postcodes, and that it will include not just positive but negative results so that they can understand the overall infection prevalence? Will they receive the contact tracing data so that they will know who has been asked to isolate by test and trace and can follow them up? Will they receive the data on a daily basis? Once a week is not good enough. The virus does not wait a week, so why should local directors of public health have to wait a week?

Moving on, the financial Statement said that £10 billion had been allocated to test and trace. It would be helpful if the Minister could itemise what that £10 billion has been spent on and with whom. A letter to me lodged in the Library would probably suffice for that question. On 20 July last week, the Secretary of State made a comprehensive Statement—a sort of end-of-term report; I can pick out only one or two important matters and hope that other noble Lords will cover the rest. The news about vaccine progress was very welcome and exciting, but will the Government ensure that there is equitable access to a vaccine when it is developed? The Minister knows that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government in taking on poisonous anti-vax propaganda. However, if a vaccine does not become available, what scenario planning is taking place right now, should we be confronted with that awful prospect? Will the Minister take this opportunity to update the House on R? Are we still below 1? Which parts of the country are not?

On social care, we welcome the fact that families are now able to visit their loved ones in care homes and we also welcome the extra funding for the NHS announced by the Prime Minister. But there was no extra funding for social care. Will social care get any more resources this winter? This is underlined by the Government’s failure to reimburse care homes properly for PPE and testing costs during the pandemic. They will actively have to meet the additional costs of ensuring that care homes stay safe for residents, staff and visitors. It must be cost-effective that they do so. The Local Government Association has today called for a social care reset after reflection on the Prime Minister’s pledge to fix social care a year ago. That representative body has urged the Government to publish their timetable for social care reform prior to Parliament’s return from the Summer Recess in September. Will the Minister tell the House whether that is possible?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, from these Liberal Democrat Benches, I thank and congratulate all the millions of people, whether paid staff or volunteers, who have worked tirelessly over the last five months to combat this pandemic, serving people and providing support during what is the most extraordinary health crisis in 100 years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, outlined, it is very disappointing that the Government Whips’ Office has resisted giving your Lordships’ House the opportunity to have a timely discussion on each of the three Covid Statements, on 14, 16 and 20 July. Each covered different, urgent and serious matters for our country that should be scrutinised by your Lordships’ House, so I too will use all three Statements as the basis for my questions to the Minister today.

First, given that the report of 20 July has a strategic and end-of-term report feel, we have an overarching concern about the Government’s repeated mantra in Statements about protecting the NHS at all costs, including the preparations for a second wave. Unfortunately, it appears that lessons have not been learned from the consequences of that single priority, not least those from throwing our care sector to the wolves without adequate testing, PPE or financial support for its massively increased costs. So I ask the Minister again: do all parts of the care sector now have repeat and regular testing, the PPE they need to practise new standards of infection control and continuing financial support for the consequences of both?

As I mentioned on Friday in the debate on the coronavirus regulations, a further group feel they have been left high and dry: people who shield, whether they are disabled, elderly or have serious underlying conditions. So I again ask: will the Minister explain why the letter to shielders dated 22 June insists that shielders lose all the support for shielding from 1 August? The letter instructs recipients to follow strict social distancing at all times and to stay at home where possible but, in complete contradiction to that, also instructs people to return to work if it is Covid-safe and removes access to furlough pay and sick pay, so if it is not safe to return to work and shielders cannot work from home, they are now at high risk of losing their jobs. Blood Cancer UK is extremely concerned about this risk for people who have been shielding as from August they will face an impossible choice between returning to work and risking their health or staying at home and risking unemployment. It asked the Government to extend the furlough scheme for the small number of people involved for up to three months or to provide alternative financial support to protect them from life-threatening ill health, and we agree. Will the Minister undertake to raise this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a matter of urgency and write to me?

Lifting the lockdown also brings into sharp relief how much real progress has been made by the Government on testing, tracing and isolating as a key tool to manage outbreaks. To that we must again add quarantine arrangements. On the news today, following the Spain quarantine regulations, we heard the Government say that they will not be monitoring any quarantine arrangements. They are still experimenting with temperature screening at airports and are not routinely testing people as they arrive in the country. If we are serious about having a proper system for people arriving in this country and quarantining safely, when will that be put in place?

We also hear that testing capacity will shortly reach 500,000 a day, which is welcome, but there seems to be no routine to test that capacity to the full. It is still not universal, despite repeated requests, regularly to test NHS and care staff to keep them safe. We hear that many local testing centres are closing down and that the test at home system is to stop. Can the Minister reassure your Lordships’ House that a full test, trace, isolate and quarantine policy is in operation, not least to test the larger-scale, effective system that we will need in the event of a second wave? How many people were tested on Friday?

Finally—the Minister can probably recite my next question as I have asked it so often, but I will be grateful if he could answer my actual question, not repeat the usual mantra because just saying that local authorities are being given more data at postcode level is not enough—when will all local authorities and directors of public health get the full data that they have requested and signed data protection releases for on a daily basis and at a more granular level than postcode, without which they cannot effectively tackle spikes in cases swiftly? The Minister saying that he is giving them more data is not enough. It must be the data that they need and for which they have already signed data protection releases.