Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with those like the noble Lords, Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lord St John of Bletso, who feel that the cost of lockdown is simply too great or even that the road to herd immunity would be a preferable route. As someone with a financial toe in the hospitality arena—as declared in the register of interests—I also have great sympathy with those who are struggling; indeed, I worry too about the artists and freelance musicians who will once again be hit and may fall between the Government’s safety nets, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Clancarty.

But—and it is a big “but”—despite this, and despite the utter incompetence over testing, with all the Prime Minister’s Trump-like boasting about us being world-beaters, I feel that we simply cannot risk people’s lives. The NHS is adamant—adamant—that without a circuit breaker, this is what we would be doing. In fact, if the figures that we are being asked to swallow are correct, we should have locked down sooner and also used the natural break of the school half-term to widen that circuit breaker still further.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made some well-argued points about Wales. In my area of mid-Wales, we had virtually no cases at all until the last two weeks, when, suddenly, two groups of people contracted Covid. How? Both groups went to either a bar or a pub. Alcohol leads to loss of inhibition and lack of safe distancing. Since people are not prepared to play by the rules, the Government need to impose them so that we do not see hospitals having to close their doors. I am not prepared to take responsibility for having on our conscience the deaths of patients who cannot be looked after, not to mention the terrible stress on doctors, nurses and NHS staff.

I believe what the Minister said in his opening comments. Therefore, despite my love of tennis, I must support the Government in these regulations, though with some reservations.