Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I am by nature a libertarian, believing that individuals should, by and large, be responsible for their own behaviour. However, I fully support these regulations, and think that they do not go far enough given the current R rate and the Covid-19 challenges.

Nursing staff, of whom I am one, as your Lordships know, play an indispensable role in delivering health and social care services, and have gone far and beyond during this crisis. The challenges presented by Covid-19 have been exacerbated by existing and severe staffing shortages in our healthcare sector. We are now seeing the highest numbers of recorded cases of Covid-19 in the UK, with some trusts and areas reporting that they are at breaking point. With the added pressure of winter and unprecedented demand on the service, there are not enough healthcare staff to care for people across the system. These pressures not only exacerbate workforce issues but put patient safety at risk.

Having spoken to Dame Donna Kinnair, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, and having considered other briefings, including from the NHS Confederation, I believe that we need to introduce tomorrow night, as an emergency, some kind of curfew, so that people do not go out in pairs, meet others in pairs, or get alcohol from those off-licences that can open, in order to protect the few beds that we have available in the health service at the moment and ensure that we do not make things worse in the next 24 hours.