Covid-19

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I reassure the noble Lord that his friend’s notification came from a new feature of Apple phones called “Exposure Notifications Express”. This is something that we have worked hard to incorporate in the existing app. I slightly suspect that, if she has a new version of the NHS app, she will not receive these notifications any more. We are grateful to Apple for enabling its phones to work in developing countries, but there has been some turbulence with our own app, which we think we have resolved.

On quarantines, I say that, as a follower of these debates, the noble Lord will know that the CMO’s view is that testing on arrival will capture only 7% of infections, and it is very difficult to apply quarantines to get people to commit to staying longer. However, we are committed to running pilots to try to open the kinds of schemes that he describes, and I would be happy to report back on their development.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, at the beginning of this debate, the Minister gave a very spirited defence of the test and trace system. This morning, my daughter and her 15 month-old daughter were tested, and it was very efficiently done, but they were told that they should expect results in two to three days’ time. The Minister mentioned 24 hours; what timetable are the Government trying to operate on for test and trace because, clearly, if there are two days that are fallow, an awful lot of people risk being infected?

I will also address the issue of gyms. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, talked about the lack of clarity at the beginning of this debate. If people are to stick to the rules, they need clarity. I do not understand why gyms are open at all, quite honestly. It seems to me—as the Minister indicated—that they are potential hotbeds for coronavirus. However, we are told that discretion is given to local authorities to decide what they do and do not allow. I recall that Manchester was absolutely determined that it would like to stop alcohol sales at the same time that, if not sooner than, pubs were forced to close, but it was not given discretion over that. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain when local authorities do and do not have discretion.

I also wonder whether the Minister could tell the House the position on travel to work. Office workers are told to work from home if it is possible for them not to work from the office, but there does not seem to be a ruling that says, “Do not go to work in an office unless you absolutely have to”. What counts as essential? What instructions are the Government giving to civil servants about whether they should travel to work? We are told that gatherings that are “reasonably necessary” can take place in office environments with no limit on the numbers involved. In the circumstances, that seems crazy. If the Minister could clarify the position, I would be grateful.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I reassure the noble Baroness that 24 hours is our objective, and it is clear that a 24-hour target is right. Having swift turnaround is conducive to effectiveness, and that is what we are trying to do. There has been a very large increase in demand in the last 11 weeks, which has put pressure on our operations and pushed back some of our turnaround times. We are working extremely hard to address that; new capacity is coming on-stream all the time, and we are hopeful that that can be turned around very quickly.

The noble Baroness is entirely right to raise her point on clarity, which is very similar to those raised by others, including the right reverend Prelate. There is a really important balance that we have to get right here because to have communal buy-in to our measures, we need to somehow mobilise leaders that people trust, from their faith community, their local community or other leadership groups that they subscribe to.

However, to give people a role in the decision-making about what measures are to take place in one area or another, there will be an uneven application of regulations—what happens in one place will not be the same in another. We have made a commitment to a partnership between national and local government, and we are trying to manage that complex partnership at the moment. As noble Lords know from the discussions in the other place and our conversations with Manchester, this is an extremely bumpy affair and it does not always work out well.

However, we are committed to doing this precisely for the reasons the noble Baroness described: to have buy-in, we need to mobilise all the country and all the people who are respected by those who adhere to the rules. That is why we take the approach we do. It means that gyms will be open in Lancashire but not in Merseyside. It is argued that this is a complexity that the British public can handle. It also takes us into very public conversations about funding, the allocation of resources and the establishment of new testing facilities. We believe it is worth the administrative and political effort to try to do that. There are also delays to the implementation of some of the restrictions. The British public will form their own judgment on their politicians and whether that is worth their while. These are the prices and friction costs to the local/national partnership that we are committed to, which has been advocated on the Benches of this Chamber for many months.