Covid-19: Masks

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his very cogent presentation. I have several questions for the Minister. The first relates to supply: do we have enough, and enough for venues other than transport? If it is right for transport, it is hard to see why it is not right for religious buildings, town centres, shops and so on. As others have said, surely that is the case. We need to make sure that masks are of an appropriate quality—is that being monitored? We need to make sure that appropriate publicity is given to this.

As a country, we seem to have been a bit too leaden- footed in our response to this. To get the R rate down, we clearly need face masks in all sorts of venues. I hope that the Government will proceed with this, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on those specific questions.