Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Greencore) Regulations 2020

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I welcome the noble Baroness to the wonderful world of statutory instruments: this is new to her. Noble Lords may forgive me for putting them through yet another Groundhog Day, but it would be remiss of me not to highlight that these regulations came into force on 29 August, yet we are able to debate their merits only today. The Greencore workers have self-isolated, as per the regulations—or some of them may not have done—and have returned to work and, although the regulations remain on the statute book, they are no longer relevant and are due to expire shortly.

The delay in laying these regulations is concerning, given that they were introduced in response to a significant Covid-19 outbreak at Greencore that was confirmed by the Health Secretary over a week earlier, on 21 August. So can the Minister explain why there was a delay, and does she share my concern that it appears that opportunities might have been missed in that week?

The Minister said that, following the initial identification of cases, the factory layout was amended to make it more Covid-secure than before, which seems an odd turn of phrase. Surely workplaces should have been Covid-secure, and are either Covid-secure or they are not. Perhaps she could elaborate on the point made on Tuesday, when the PM announced that there would be a legal obligation for businesses in retail, tourism and leisure to follow Covid-secure guidelines.

As far back as March, Greencore workers were challenging the adequacy of Covid-19 protections, including concerns about staff, access to risk assessment, social distancing and the availability of PPE and temperature checks. In May, they also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the company’s contact tracing process after it had taken 48 hours following a member of staff notifying the company that they had tested positive to inform six other staff members that they needed to self-isolate. This is completely inadequate.

Then, when 287 cases of Covid-19 were identified between 10 August and 12 August, those who tested positive and their households were told to self-isolate and did so, but the factory remained open. It was not until 21 August, following pressure from the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, which I congratulate for its role in this, that Greencore announced that it would immediately cease production at its Northampton site in order to allow staff to self-isolate for 14 days.

With hindsight, does the Minister believe that the delay impacted on the spread of the virus? Does she share my concern that the Government may not have learned lessons from the decision to delay the lockdown? They delayed it in March and they seem to have delayed it here. I understand that requiring household members of Greencore workers to self-isolate actually went further than the government guidance, so can the Minister explain why and how? I echo my noble friend Lady Donaghy’s questions about the conduct of Greencore’s management and the inequalities that this episode has revealed. However, it did close and clean, and that means the factory has now reopened.

As with national regulations, these regulations provide powers for an authorised person such as a police officer to enforce compliance with self-isolation and create summary-only criminal offences for contravening requirements to self-isolate or, without reasonable excuse, a fixed penalty notice or fine following conviction. Can the Minister advise the House whether there were any confirmed breaches and whether any fixed penalty notices or fines were issued in this case?

The key point seems to be: what are the lessons learned here? Will the Government move more quickly in future with outbreaks in factories and other larger workplaces?