Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I welcome the regulations as a step in the right direction, but I wonder about the logic that is driving the changes. For instance, Primark could open before zoos could. That seems strange.

There is a question that I have asked twice in the Chamber; on both occasions, I failed to get a response, so I will try one more time. I am sure that my noble friend Minister read at the weekend what the Sunday Times wrote about the vast polling operation that is going on and the focus groups that are being held every week to ask the public—Conservative voters in particular—what they think would be the right policy responses to the Covid crisis. I can only believe that that was why we got extraordinary quarantine regulations saying that people could fly into this country and travel on public transport before being quarantined for 14 days. Can the Minister tell me that focus groups and polling are not dictating the shape of government policy on Covid and that, as we have heard repeatedly, we are being led by the science?