Covid-19: One Year Report

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a fascinating debate that has highlighted the price we have all paid for this year of Covid. I will speak to the Motion in my name on the Order Paper, which is the same as the amendment being moved in the Commons by my right honourable friend Jonathan Ashworth. I will also address the statutory instruments.

I have recorded many times from these Benches our huge gratitude to all those who have kept us going throughout this year. I attended the reflection ceremony at the Whittington Hospital on Tuesday where I am a non-executive director. It was held outdoors in the grounds and was attended by many of the individuals in that excellent hospital, particularly the ITU staff who had nursed, saved and been at the side of many local people with Covid. One of those staff is a nephew of mine, who is a junior doctor there. The midwives and nurses were there who had ensured that babies were born safely, with every mother having the birth companion of her choice with her throughout. The children’s accident and emergency and ward staff were also there. They have been safely working with parents and children to make sure that they were still being treated for the serious, and sometimes not so serious, illnesses and accidents that children can have. The porters and the cleaners were there. They do the unseen but vital work. The volunteers and the donors of food and treats were there to demonstrate how much we all appreciate the work, as were the leaders of Whittington Hospital, who have worked tirelessly to organise, deliver and support all of their community so they could do the job they needed to do. They are now exhausted and they definitely deserve a better pay offer. They symbolise for me the way that society at its best has coped throughout this awful year.

I am sure that the Minister has, like me, been looking at the record of our debates on this day a year ago as we ploughed a somewhat lonely furrow here in Chamber with a few of us remaining after the country had gone into lockdown two days before, so that the emergency legislation might be put on to the statute book. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, went down with the virus the day after we rose, and I am happy to say he made a complete recovery. However, those of us who had been around with him for those few days did wonder for a week or so whether we would go down with it too. We kept texting each other asking, “Are you all right?”, but we all seemed to escape it at that point.

At the time, the Prime Minister said that it would last for 12 weeks, and here in the Lords a year ago the Minister claimed that

“Fundamentally, this Bill is about buying time.”—[Official Report, 24/3/20; col. 1649.]


Indeed, the whole country united in supporting that and in delivering the lockdown, providing essential public services and ensuring the protection of our NHS and social care services.

I hope the Minister is not going to say again that the renewal of this legislation is about buying time. The Government have had time, and the sacrifice of the people of the UK has now demonstrated that their sacrifice was worth while through the recovery, and we have to rebuild better. We already know that the number of deaths was more than was necessary and that this was almost certainly due to the delays in decision-making. Each delay cost lives. When we eventually have a proper inquiry, it will spell out the cost of the dithering and delay, and we owe it to the grieving families of those who have lost their lives to get on with it. We also know that the years of cuts to vital services such as public health meant that we were ill-prepared at this time last year. The years of austerity made for a population that was less healthy and resilient when the virus struck. Cuts have consequences and those lessons need to be learned again. The inequalities which have resulted from that were described eloquently by my noble friend Lord Davies just now.

What we need to hear from the Minister today is that the Government have learned the lessons of their handling of the pandemic in the last year. I have much sympathy with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, that the Government have squandered cross-party unity sometimes during the pandemic, which was apparent this time last year and has not been built on by this Government during the course of this year.

We know that the Government will have to account for taxpayers’ money that has been spent, misspent or wasted in the last year. That reckoning is to come. We know that the billions spent on test and trace will have to be accounted for, and lessons will have to be learned, so graphically described by my noble friend Lord Haskel in his remarks. The news today does not bode well, when we learn from HuffPost:

“Private firm Deloitte is receiving taxpayer cash to help ministers to draft parliamentary answers and media ‘lines to take’ to defend the Test and Trace”.


That raises two questions. I always thought that it was at the heart of an official’s job to help Ministers to be accountable to Parliament in a truthful manner. Is it not like marking your own homework if Deloitte is receiving taxpayers’ money to answer those questions? The truth about value for money will emerge through the diligence of the NAO, the PAC and the Select Committees, including those in your Lordships’ House—and I pay tribute to the organs that we already have—and, in time, the Covid inquiry.

At Second Reading a year ago, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said:

“Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition support this Bill. In normal times, it would be utterly unacceptable, but these are not normal times. As long as the emergency lasts and these powers are necessary, they should be available to the Government”.—[Official Report, 24/3/20; col. 1653.]


He was followed by almost every speaker across the House a year ago saying that this legislation was inconceivable except at a time of national emergency. Speaker after speaker expressed anxiety that the powers which Parliament was ceding to the Government were huge and accountability for their use must be assured.

So, what happened? As my noble friends Lord Foulkes and Lord Liddle, and other noble Lords have said, Parliament has been marginalised. In this coming year and in future we have to go back to having proper accountability. I decided that, if we were grading the Government on accountability to Parliament, I might be generous and say C plus—the plus being recognition that the Minister has been present on an almost daily basis to account to the House, to answer questions, to take statements and to deal with dozens of statutory instruments, for which we are all grateful. But he has also had to apologise to the House on several occasions for the lack of prior accountability for regulations that should have been debated before they were enacted, and for the number of times we have debated restrictions on our fellow citizens weeks after they have come into play. This is not accountability, and it is not the accountability that the Minister promised a year ago. So perhaps the end of term report might also say “Must do better”—which is what our regret Motion seeks to achieve.

We supported the Coronavirus Act in 2020, and again at the renewal of the Act six months later, and we will support another six months’ renewal of these powers, but we have to say that the Government are absolutely on notice that this is not acceptable any longer. We have to go back to proper accountability. The Act gave Ministers sweeping powers, many of which have yet to be used. We have strongly argued that certain provisions in the Act should be turned off when no longer needed. We accept that some parts of the Act may still be needed; in practice, the health protection regulations contain many of the legal rules around restrictions and mass gatherings, so turning off sections of the Act that are not needed is a most appropriate step and is welcome. Many noble Lords have raised the question of whether it is time for a different kind of legislation. These questions were asked a year ago—the legislation already exists to take emergency powers, so do we not need to go back to using just that?

We will not be standing in the way of legislation, however, that extends the ban on people being evicted and puts statutory sick pay from day one into law. Nobody wants these regulations in place any longer than they are needed, but we must make sure that this is the last lockdown, and that means being cautious.

I turn to the regulations. I understand that the Government intend to continue the provisions in the Act in respect of the power to amend the requirements of the Children and Families Act 2014 relating to education, health and care. According to status reports, these easements have not been officially used by the authorities since July 2020, so will the Minister explain why these provisions have not been removed so that disabled children and young people are able to access the support they need for their education? That is the main point of those. We will support the renewal of the Act today.

On the statutory instruments and the 29 March changes by which six people in two households can meet, can the Minister explain why these regulations expressly exempt protest, picketing and gatherings organised by charities and political groups? This provision is most welcome, but the Minister is aware of the deeply disturbing police response to the vigil for Sarah Everard in Clapham. The Minister needs to explain what the regulations mean by

“any guidance issued by the government which is relevant to the gathering.”

Why was it not possible to make that a Covid-secure gathering at the time? The noble Lord knows that there is great disquiet about this.

Other noble Lords have raised the issue about travel. I think the Minister needs to explain what has become known as the “Stanley Johnson exemption” for travel. I think also, in terms of pubs and beer gardens, the Minister needs to clarify the Prime Minister’s intention on whether people will need vaccine passports to go to their local pub, or even to work in their local pub. This is a good example of ambiguity, and ambiguity feeds the pandemic, as we already know.

In conclusion, we on these Benches continue to support, with a heavy heart, the Government’s effort to deal with the pandemic, as we did a year ago. We are disappointed about many of the issues that were raised in this debate and we want the Government to do better, be more accountable and work towards lifting lockdown, restoring our economy and moving forwards, not backwards. We do not want to go back to business as usual. We need to look forward to building a more equal society. That is our aspiration and our objective. We will continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire on every occasion. I will not be moving our regret Motion, partly because I think the Government absolutely understand the concerns of these Benches and of the House, and what needs to happen. If the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, chooses to move the Motion in her name, I will be abstaining and asking my colleagues and the House to do the same.