Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Local Authority Enforcement Powers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Bethell]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Steps and Local Authority Enforcement Powers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.

Relevant documents: 52nd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2019–21, and 48th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Session 2019–21 (special attention drawn to the instrument)

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

My Lords, we are here today to discuss the regulations allowing the move to step 2 of the coronavirus road map, a decision which not only allowed us to reclaim some normality in our lives but set the platform for today’s move to step 3. Getting to this point has taken remarkable perseverance and resolve; I am hugely grateful to everyone involved in getting us there. We are clearly not free of coronavirus yet and, while we have met the first four tests that have enabled the move to step 3, the disease still poses a clear and present threat.

The Prime Minister’s address last week clearly highlighted the threat from variants of concern and we must remain cautious and vigilant. We are putting in place measures to combat variants. The evidence so far suggests that the vaccine is effective. I am heartened to hear that teams deployed to Bolton over the weekend were well received and reported a positive atmosphere—a result of strong community engagement and an effective communications campaign conducted in the area. As the Prime Minister made clear on Friday, while we progress further along the road map today, we must continue to exercise caution and common sense because the choices we have to make in the coming days will have a profound effect on the road ahead.

It has been a year like no other but we are taking significant steps forward to regaining our freedom. It is this combination of the public’s dedication, our world-leading vaccine programme and the unrelenting hard work of our health and care workers that has allowed us cautiously to unlock the country.

The road map seeks a balance between our social and economic priorities and the need to save lives and avoid another surge in infections. The decisions to move to step 2 and 3 were both informed by the latest scientific evidence and based on the assessment that all four tests set out in the road map had been met.

The tests are as follows. First, the vaccine deployment must continue successfully. We continue to make great progress in vaccinating the most vulnerable, having offered a first dose to the nine priority cohorts, which included everyone aged over 50, front-line health and care staff, residents in care homes for the elderly and those deemed clinically vulnerable. As of 15 May, more than 36.5 million people have received their first dose of an approved vaccine and another 20.1 million have received their second dose. In total, a staggering 56.6 million Covid vaccine doses have now been administered in the UK.

On test 2, the evidence suggests that the vaccine continues to be effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths. Public Health England reports that the UK Covid-19 vaccination programme has so far prevented more than 12,000 deaths in those aged 60 and above. Furthermore, it is reported that 33,000 hospital admissions have been prevented in those aged 65 and older.

On test 3, we need to determine that infection rates do not risk a surge in hospital admissions, which could put undue pressure on the NHS. Currently, hospital admissions continue to fall and case rates among the over 60s are also declining. The NHS emergency alert level has been dropped from level 4 to level 3, mirroring how the NHS was operating in the summer of 2020.

On test 4, our assessment is that the risks have not fundamentally been changed by the variants of concern. We will continue to monitor variants closely as we ease restrictions and the Government will not hesitate to take firm action as necessary and where needed to protect lives and livelihoods. Having met these four tests on 12 April 2021, we were able to take the next cautious step in easing restrictions. Today we are debating this move to step 2, as set out in the regulations agreed by the House on 25 March. They were as follows.

The first was the reopening of non-essential retail, personal care and indoor leisure, including hairdressers and gyms, and additional outdoor settings, including the hospitality sector and attractions. Outdoor hospitality is no longer required to provide a substantial meal alongside the serving of alcohol, although there is the requirement for table service. As well as ordering via table service, if the venue sells alcohol, payment must be taken at the table or another outdoor location wherever possible. Further to this, the early closures imposed on pubs and restaurants were removed.

Step 2 also allowed the resumption of indoor childcare and supervised activities for children, provided they are not in private homes, and includes indoor sport, and parent and child groups of up to 15 people. It also allowed wedding ceremonies for up to 15 people, with wedding receptions permitted outdoors for up to 15 people in the form of a sit-down meal. This has changed again from today, with up to 30 people being able to attend weddings and other life events, and the capacity limit at funerals is removed. Furthermore, smaller outdoor events, such as fetes, literary fairs and fairgrounds can restart, as can the use of self-contained accommodation for single households or bubbles. Finally, social restrictions remain the same as those in place from 29 March, with the rule of six or two households allowed to mix outdoors only.

I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments for its crucial and tireless work in scrutinising all the secondary legislation that the Government bring forward, and I acknowledge the committee’s report on the wider steps regulations, which are amended by the regulations that we are debating today. I am pleased to say that we have already implemented responses to some of the issues the committee raises, through the regulations that we are debating today, and we have brought forward more amendments as part of the separate step 3 regulations.

It is unfortunate that there was a delay in debating these regulations. However, the content of each step received the prior approval of Parliament during the extensive debates on 25 March, and it was essential to bring these measures in quickly once it had been determined that the four tests had been met. As ever, no restrictions should be in place longer than is necessary, and it remains extremely important that decisions on the road map steps are informed by the latest evidence.

By way of closing, I just say this: as we journey through the road map we are making great progress but will maintain caution; we are not out of the woods yet. New variants are a risk—we remain in a global pandemic. Events in India show the heartbreaking and devastating impact this disease can cause. We must all remain vigilant; it is vital that people continue to follow the restrictions in place to minimise the risks to themselves and others—hands, face, space, fresh air and take up the offer of a vaccination as soon as it is offered.

We hope that the continued successes of the vaccination rollout, and our increased testing capabilities alongside falling infections and hospitalisations, will allow us to continue to lift restrictions. In light of the most recent data and advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre, we have not only moved to steps 2 and 3 but the UK Chief Medical Officers and the NHS England national medical director were recently able to announce that the UK alert level should move from level 4 to level 3. This is another positive sign on the road to recovery. We must continue the cautious approach and be guided by the latest data and scientific evidence before moving to step 4. However, considering all that we have achieved to bring us to this point today, there is reason for cautious optimism. I commend these regulations to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful, at times passionate, but at all moments detailed and challenging points. Rather than dwell on the regulations themselves, I will address the three key themes that have been raised in this important debate.

The first theme I will address is that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and others on the presentation of the regulations themselves. I completely acknowledge the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I fully acknowledge the power of scrutiny, the consideration that noble Lords give to legislation and the benefits of that scrutiny, but I do not accept the implication of the noble Lord’s comments that there has in some way been a grand injustice or that these regulations have in any way undermined the power of the policy behind them.

I gently remind noble Lords of the immense complexity of the policy we are trying to apply in these regulations. They are extremely legally delicate and subject to judicial review. It is therefore quite reasonable that legal colleagues wish to spend as long as they possibly can getting them right. The environment in which they are drafted has been fast changing, as this debate has very clearly illustrated. They often require a very large amount of cross-government consensus and collaboration, which in itself brings in delays and a certain amount of complexity.

Given all those considerations, I pay tribute to the officials, the clerks and the legal support, who have done a heroic job tabling these regulations. It is of course up to the House of Lords itself to determine the sequencing of House business. I am afraid it is above my pay grade to comment on that, but when the inquest is finally done I think that the regulations will be a huge testimony to the thoughtfulness and effectiveness of our democratic processes. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, that the regulations are tweaked at the last minute to accommodate the changes in the situation we face. That is why they are sometimes laid at the last minute. I remind noble Lords that the House of Lords Constitution Committee is looking at processes around emergency legislation. My noble friend Lord True and I have given evidence to that committee. I very much look forward to its recommendations.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, asked about learning on the job, as it were, and what we are putting in place today for our future pandemic preparedness and to prepare for any potential third wave. I assure her, my noble friend Lord Moynihan and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, that we are doing a huge amount to put in place new systems, institutions and practices. The launches of the UK Health Security Agency and the office of health promotion have been brought forward to ensure that we have the institutional resilience to meet any future pandemics, and to bring the learnings from the handling of this epidemic in real time. They are already making huge strides in the institution-building and management systems necessary to upgrade our arrangements.

The investment in diagnostics is remarkable. Last week, I visited Leamington Spa, where I stood by a machine that could do 13,000 tests in one go. It reminded me of the days last March when we were struggling to do 1,300 tests in a day. In terms of our outbreak management, we have learned a huge amount from the success of Project Eagle in containing both the South African and Manaus variants, although the escape of the Indian variant demonstrates how a highly transmissible variant is something that even the best systems cannot fight.

To the noble Lord who asked about the stay-at-home protocols, I clarify that the guidance as of today is that people should continue to work from home wherever possible, but we look forward to a moment when we can have a general return to the offices.

We are looking at ways of dealing with new variants by potentially introducing booster shots in the autumn, introducing VoC vaccines through other providers and investing in therapeutics and antivirals. A huge amount of work is going into every level of our pandemic preparedness.

Let me tackle head-on the key issue of the India variant and our travel arrangements, which several noble Lords raised. On 8 April, we had the benefit of more surveillance, more genomic sequencing and more analysis of the infection rates in the UK than any other country. It is easy to imagine that all that data, which is so impressive to look at in retrospect, somehow gave a clear projection of what was going to happen, but at that date the India 2 variant with which we have now become so familiar had not been ascribed as a variant of concern. There were in fact three variants in India, all of which were competing with each other, none of which we had here in the UK—we therefore could not analyse them hands-on—and the anecdotal evidence from India was extremely unclear, whereas we had a lot more information on the presence of the South Africa and Manaus variants in the other neighbouring countries.

At that time, it was right that we invested in our red-list capacity, and I pay huge tribute to the officials managing the managed quarantine system, the airports and transport partners running an extremely efficient travel system, and the hotel and transport partners doing so much to ensure that the system for both red and amber-list countries is as good as possible. The red-list system has been an incredibly impressive mechanism for containing variant spread. It has grown dramatically since launch to contain a very large number of travellers each day. No other similar country has quite such an effective system in place. It continues to be an effective way in which we can maintain flights in and out of the country—something we are extremely reluctant to turn our backs on.

On ongoing travel, to clarify for my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, it was not legal to travel until step 3 was brought in. It is now lawful, but it is not advised. Whatever was heard on the radio this morning, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that we are not in talks with airport operators—we have been in daily contact for many months, running a complex and detailed managed quarantine scheme, and I pay enormous tribute to both Heathrow and the Border Force for the incredibly impressive arrangements that they have in place. I say to my noble friend Lord Bourne that, yes, there are still direct flights to India and Pakistan. It is actually better to channel passengers from those countries in direct flights to avoid what has become known as the Maldives hop and to avoid mingling wherever possible.

My noble friend Lord Bourne asked about the VoC map, which is available on the department and the Sanger institute websites, and I would be glad to send a map.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I pay enormous tribute to those in Bolton who have done an enormous amount to upgrade the vaccination of local people there. I remind her that the priority is still very much to get the most vulnerable vaccinated—those who are older or with pre-existing morbidities. That is more important than getting young people, who are relatively low-risk with regard to the virus. The priority is to get those who have had a first jab and convert them into having a second jab, because it has emerged that, with the Indian variant, the second jab is all the more significant.

In conclusion, the good news is that the vaccine does seem to work. The Indian variant is highly transmissible, but the vaccine is protection for all people against severe illness and death. We should give thanks for that, but we are not counting our chickens quite yet and we remain extremely diligent and determined to contain any other variants that may come along. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.