Hotel Quarantine for Travellers

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

The next speaker is the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. Is the noble Baroness with us? We will come back to the noble Baroness. Let us go to the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister said that he believed there was a basic right to travel. I put it to him that there is an even greater right to live, yet we have the highest death rate per head of the population of any country in the world. Should we not put the right to live at the top of our agenda?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I could not agree with the noble Lord more: the right to live trumps all other rights. It is a sad fact that, while we would normally do everything we could in a liberal democracy to protect rights such as the freedom to travel, under current circumstances these are trumped by the right to live, and that is why I call on all people to limit their travel wherever they humanly can. There is simply no excuse for going to Dubai, taking Instagram photographs of yourself and claiming that that is business travel. You are putting your friends and loved ones at risk, and this Government will not tolerate it.