Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) Regulations 2020

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

That the Regulations laid before the House on 31 July be approved.

Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, it has always been clear that, once the country emerged from a national lockdown, there would be local outbreaks. Our strategy was to bear down heavily on these outbreaks, in line with best practice from around the world. The complex challenge for government has been to tackle these in a proportionate, locally engaged, evidence-based manner, recognising the impact of the virus on the vulnerable and the NHS while being sensitive to the impact of restrictions on local communities and the economy. An added complication in this instance was that we were looking at increasing infection rates in areas with substantial Muslim populations at the same time as the festival of Eid. This is not something we did lightly, and we were reluctant to disrupt this important moment—but action was imperative.

There were regulations predating these that imposed restrictions in Blackburn with Darwen—as well as Luton—that came into force on 24 July. These regulations restricted certain businesses in Blackburn with Darwen and large gatherings in both local authorities. The regulations we are discussing today replaced Luton with Bradford Metropolitan District Council. These regulations were reviewed regularly and came into force on 26 August, 2 September and 3 September. Essentially, each amendment reduced the protected area to focus our restrictions to the smallest reasonable area, which in practice meant specified wards only in Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, releasing wards where incidence rates were lower from local restrictions.

I should stress that the judgment about when to remove restrictions is driven by the evidence, but no single piece of data determines that decision. The infection rate per 100,000 of the population is important, but so is the test positivity rate, acceleration rates, intelligence from local infection teams, hospital data, international comparisons, the national picture, and the robustness of local plans to tackle outbreaks. So, for example, the infection rate in Blackburn with Darwen as of 1 August was over 70 per 100,000 people. By 26 August the rate had fallen to 52, and it fell again to 48 by 2 September. Similarly, at 1 August, the rates in Bradford were around 47 per 100,000, falling to 44 by 26 August and remaining at that level for the following week.

This was important data. But it is also important to understand the local context, particularly an assessment of how well the local communities were prepared to bear down on the outbreak, so we could judge where restrictions could be safely lifted. This is where the partnership between national and local government comes in. From the centre comes a range of support, including extra testing capacity and mobile testing teams, financial support for businesses and communities, and postcode-level data on cases enabling a more granular understanding of the progress of the virus.

Funding is essential to effective infection management to support the right behaviours. In Bradford, for example, central government funding was invested in supporting community-level assets, such as the Council for Mosques, voluntary and community networks that already engaged with a wide range of diverse groups, community wardens, youth ambassadors, and in services that already supported hard-to-reach groups in the community. The Council for Mosques led on development and communication of an Eid management plan.

Similarly, Blackburn with Darwen, responding to rising numbers of cases in July, developed a social movement of guidance, including face coverings in all public spaces and no hugs or handshakes. The local public health team, along with colleagues across Lancashire, has worked with local community leaders and faith networks to spread public health messages.

These examples demonstrate that successfully tackling Covid requires that partnership of central and local government. The Government have therefore consistently adopted the important principle that, wherever possible, decisions affecting local populations should be reached on a consensual basis and have put in the necessary bridge building to create that consensus. During this period, we began to have access to detailed data on infection rates down to ward level—data which we share with local teams. I note that the process of familiarisation with the new data sources, category terms and trends sometimes has a steep learning curve for all concerned.

In summary, I reassure noble Lords that the national teams at test and trace and Public Health England have worked incredibly energetically and swiftly to put in the decision-making connections, the financial resources and the data exchange necessary to implement a joint national-local approach. This has been a learning experience for all parties and agendas are not always perfectly aligned, but, during interventions such as this, there has been tremendous good will and lessons have been learned that inform our current system, which works much better. The Government are deeply grateful for the constructive way in which local leaders have engaged in this process, and I am sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the huge efforts of local leaders in the affected populations.

Since these regulations and their amendments have been implemented, the Government have continued to monitor and review the ongoing situation. The incidence rates in both local authority areas have, in fact, risen across most wards. The incidence rate for the seven days from 2 to 8 September in Blackburn with Darwen rose to 110.8 per 100,000 people, and during the same period it rose in Bradford to over 100. While we are only debating these four statutory instruments today, there have been regular reviews since they were made, considering the position in each local authority’s area, and we remain concerned by the continued high levels of the virus in both, driven primarily by community transmission.

In terms of next steps, we continue to learn from the local outbreaks and we will use the experience of these restrictions in Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford to inform and help us develop our responses to any future outbreaks. Furthermore, we will continue to offer transparency in our future reviews.

I am grateful to your Lordships for your continued engagement in this challenging process and for the scrutiny of these detailed regulations. I completely recognise that it is a frustrating process to be considering regulations such as these weeks or months after their implementation. I reassure the Chamber that this approach has given us a valuable legislative framework to react promptly to the fast-changing and sometimes unexpected twists and turns of this horrible disease, and that the scrutiny of sessions such as these, even if it is necessarily post hoc, has informed our decision-making on issues such as data sharing and engagement with local authorities.

Lastly, I thank the people in the protected areas in Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford who continue to respond to the measures put in place. It is unfortunate that the restrictions cannot be lifted at present, but, thanks to their continued efforts, it has not been necessary to impose further restrictions. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I start by acknowledging the touching comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about the pain of separation. These thoughts were absolutely on our mind when we brought in these regulations. They were done at a time when we were pleased to be lifting the national lockdown and when we all felt a huge sense of relief after everyone had spent long months cooped up. The relief was profound, and the idea of sending some households in some parts of the country back into lockdown was keenly felt. I completely acknowledge the fact that for some families this is extremely painful.

I also acknowledge the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on expectations management. It is true that the disease has bounced around. At moments, there have been false dawns when we thought we might have seen the back of it, and there have been dark moments when it has all seemed to be going wrong. Perhaps I may share with the noble Lord and the Chamber the view of the CMO—that, as the Prime Minister made really clear in his broadcast on Monday, we have six difficult months ahead of us. There is no beating around the bush and no easy way out of it. We have six long months ahead of us—but, at the end of that, there is the prospect that a vaccine and better therapeutics will give us medical alternatives to the disease, and that the innovations that can lead to the kind of mass testing that we are desperate to put in place now and are moving mountains to try to achieve will also give us the security to socialise in the way that we all want to.

Those are two grim notes to start my response with, but they answer in part the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt: why are these things not working? Well, they have worked in some respects. Since lockdown was lifted, we have seen prevalence levels across the country largely under control and we have had months of freedom. As the CMO could not have made more plain in his presentation with the Chief Scientific Adviser, infection rates are beginning to creep up, but this local-lockdown approach has been effective in some respects.

However, the thing that undermines it and that, more than anything, spreads the disease is socialising—sharing tight-knit space with people from outside your household, face to face in closed environments. That produces the aerosol effect that spreads the disease from one person to another, and that is why these measures target socialising as specifically as they do.

Perhaps I may quickly answer a couple of points that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about the importance of getting local authority leaders in front of statements. I reassure him that we have brought MPs into the decision-making process. We have sought to use MPs, with their representative qualities in the other House, as the liaison between local restrictions and the parliamentary process.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly talked about the importance of business support. In Blackburn, business support has risen to £10 million, and in Bradford to £36 million. Those kinds of numbers across the country have put an enormous investment in business support, so that people can take on board the restrictions that we have put in place and we can continue to support businesses.

My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft asked about the hospitality industry and why it seems that practice differs between venues. She is entirely right. Some pubs and clubs have socially distanced tables, well organised contact tracing on entry, table service and “bookings only”, but some have not, and they are the problem. The app which launched today will have a much easier to use QR code component, and the curfew will see the closure of pubs at 10 pm. Therefore drinking-up time will need to begin at around 9.30 pm. This will help address that disparity, but we will keep the situation under control.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked whether we had enough tests to go around and whether the testing system was under control. He is right that we are challenged, but we make no apology for the prioritisation we have put in place: clinical need, including for key workers, then social care, then surveillance and research, then the public. We are putting more and more resources into providing the tests that the public need and we are catching up with demand each day. There is a lot of commentary about whether the messaging around the epidemic is right—“This is said one day, this is said another day.” We all have views on whether every single message has been right, but it comes down to this very simple point. The message from day one has been clear: the way to beat this disease is through social distancing, hygiene and isolation. That has been our strategy from the beginning, and it remains our strategy. They are uncomfortable protocols which none of us like following, but there is no point in blaming the messaging. The country must stick with the basic protocols.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, spoke very movingly about the impact of these regulations on the Muslim community. As I said in my introductory comments, these regulations were brought in just before Eid. It was a tough decision. They were brought in at the last minute, partly because we were trying to avoid causing disruption. As part of their introduction, I had round-table conversations. Although I was not on the notorious Bradford telephone call, I was on similar engagements, and I have no illusions about the depth of feeling on this. I know all about the concerns about conspiracies—that some of these recommendations were brought in on ethnic lines.

I know all about the challenges of housing and poverty in some of these communities, and the noble Baroness is entirely right that this disease tracks down people in poverty, people who live in multigenerational households and people who live cheek-by-jowl with each other. It is one of the unfortunate facts of this disease that it goes after those in deprivation and who have the least advantage. We are extremely conscious of that. It is one of the reasons why we bear down on this disease in such a tough way in the very communities that are most vulnerable to it.

However, I reassure the Chamber that we are working extremely hard to build that trust. There is a phenomenal amount of engagement and we are thoughtful about how we engage with these key communities. We work our hardest to provide all the testing facilities via the kinds of people who will engage with the communities involved. We seek to be sensitive, we have put in the media partnerships and the community engagement proportionate and necessary to win over trust, and I believe that we are making progress.

The message has been received loud and clear that this is an uncomfortable and unhappy way to be regulating on lockdowns. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about whether there might be some way of formalising a weekly update, or some kind of weekly process. That is an extremely good idea, which I will take note of and take back home. We are seeking to develop a more thoughtful and predictable way of working through these regulations, and I look forward to updating the House on our progress on that. I also reassure the Chamber that the Coronavirus Act debate on Monday has been extended to four and a half hours, which will give us an excellent platform to discuss some of these themes in more detail. I commend these regulations to the House.

Motion agreed.