Covid-19: Transport

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his thoughts on this issue. He has clearly described the challenge that we face in matching demand with the supply of public transport, in this case the trains. Obviously, the Government are encouraging everyone who can work from home to do so, and certainly from the conversations I have had so far regarding London a large number of companies are still encouraging their people to work from home. The second thing we are asking companies in London, and indeed beyond, to do is to spread the load a bit and flatten the peak as much as they can. We are asking companies to put in place staggered start times to ensure that not everyone arrives on the nine o’clock train. Rail services are gradually being increased, but we want to ensure that the safety of their front-line staff remains absolutely critical. The operational plans for services and for the infrastructure around rail travel are being put in place, and the chairman of Network Rail, Sir Peter Hendy, has been tasked by the Secretary of State for Transport to review all those operational plans to make sure that rail services are as good as we can get them, given the capacity constraints.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, my question is about masks, a subject I raised some 10 weeks ago in the Moses Room. Could not officials learn a lesson from the much-reported bus incident in Shenzhen in Hunan province in China, where nine passengers were infected by a single carrier? The virus was transmitted a distance far in excess of the two metres that we are following. It travelled up to four metres from the single original infected source. More significantly, those passengers who were wearing masks were not infected, so why not make the wearing of them mandatory on public transport, as has just been suggested? That is the case in Thailand, which has one of the lowest death rates from the virus in the world, as well as in nearly 50 other countries worldwide? Are they all wrong?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord has indeed raised this point before. I looked at that study. It is interesting, but obviously I am not a scientific expert. Therefore, I cannot comment on it in detail. We have asked our group of experts to look at what we should do about face coverings. They have said that we should advise people to wear face coverings in enclosed spaces and where they are likely to bump up against the two metres. There will have to be a change in culture among people travelling on our public transport. The Government will certainly support that change in culture through a very extensive communications campaign. As the amount of people on public transport builds up, we expect more people to wear face coverings because it is the right thing to do to protect others.