Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his never-failing energy and courtesy at the virtual Dispatch Box, where he performs on a daily basis. I have a point about the latest guidance, which is not in these regulations. From today, everyone has to wear a face mask when travelling on public transport, except for the disabled. I am sorry, but exempting the majority of disabled people is fundamentally wrong, sends the wrong signal and will bring disabled people into disrepute.

Of course, there are disabled people with breathing difficulties or who need an inhaler, and there are autistic children and some others for whom a face mask may be frightening and therefore unwearable. However, for the vast majority of wheelchair users, the blind and the deaf, what is the problem? I am in a wheelchair, as many noble Lords will know, and when I eventually get out, I shall be wearing a mask, and I hope my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will approve. I shall wear it everywhere, including when I get back to the Chamber. So I ask the Minister to please look at this again, and make it clear that only disabled people with breathing difficulties or other select illnesses should not wear a mask.

As other noble Lords have said, these regulations are catching up on history, and while they are okay in themselves and I support them, they are now pretty pointless. Take Regulation 3, which allows people to visit a public open space either alone, with one or more members of their household or with one member of another household. However, for the past two weeks, we have seen mobs of tens of thousands packed together protesting, and the police incapable and unwilling to do anything about it. Indeed, some senior officers condoned mobs tearing down statues. Last weekend, 6,000 people were packed into a rave in Manchester, with stabbings and a rape. How can we expect the public to obey the new rules when they see mobs getting away with it?

Let us have no more hypocrisy from the Guardian and left-wing politicians and commentators, who were desperate to destroy—and are still mentioning—Dominic Cummings, who did not break the law or the guidelines, but are now praising demonstrators gathered in their thousands and breaking all our coronavirus laws. If coronavirus takes off again in these areas, we know who will be to blame, and it is not Dominic Cummings. I am not opposed to these regulations, but I regret that they will never be enforced.