Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I would like to make a few comments about the mask-wearing regulations, which I strongly support while feeling that wearing masks should never have been abandoned in England. It is with great sadness that I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, that at exactly this time last year I attended the funeral of a friend of mine, the exact same age as me, who died from Covid. I wonder what the families of the over 1,000 people dying from Covid each week would think if they were listening to our debate now.

The questions I would like to ask the Minister are primarily about compliance and enforcement. When I got on the Tube yesterday, it was clear to me that the message had not got across to quite a few people. I was concerned that there was no one standing at the Tube station to point out to people that it was now a legal requirement and that there were no notices making it clear that that was so, rather than a condition of passage. Those things are different. Can the Minister please explain the responsibilities for enforcement, particularly on public transport, as between, for example, Transport for London staff and the police or transport police?

It is going to be hard to get the messaging back on track after people have been told that they did not need to wear masks; now they are being told they need to again. There is a good reason for it but the bit I have not heard so far in the debate today is that mask-wearing is primarily about protecting other people. Yes, I believe scientific evidence says that it confers a degree of protection on the wearer but it is primarily about protecting others—and we do not know the medical vulnerabilities and risks of the people we sit next to, be it in this Chamber or on public transport. That is the main reason I feel mask-wearing should never have been abandoned.

I also want to ask the Minister about people who genuinely have medical exemptions. Clearly, there are people who do. Yesterday on the Tube, I was standing next to a lady who was wearing a green lanyard and a badge; personally, I found that very helpful. She was making it clear that she was exempt. To help with the compliance issue at the moment, what plans might the Government have to encourage people who are genuinely medically exempt to have badges, lanyards or exemption cards, or something like that? However, it was clear to me that a number of people not wearing masks on the Tube, yesterday and today, were certainly not genuinely exempt.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly. I do not like retrospective legislation, and even though these regulations have been introduced much more quickly than some previous ones, we should have brought them in a couple of days ago. Parliament should approve regulations before they are issued. I do not take exactly the same line as my noble friend Lady Altmann, although I generally find myself in great sympathy and agreement with her, because I think we are all tackling the unknown. Nobody knows just how severe this new variant is or how effective the vaccines—I am triple-jabbed—will be. We must bear that in mind.

I make a suggestion which I made a year or more ago, which I think has some merit. Your Lordships’ House and the other place have found our agenda dominated to a large degree by Covid and the various regulations that have been brought in to try to deal with it. I suggested then, and repeat now, that we must accept that we will be living with Covid for a very long time. I have accepted it by coming to your Lordships’ House in person almost throughout the whole pandemic, partly because I hate dealing with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, but also because I like the human contact here. I also believe that, if we are Members, we have a certain duty to be here.

It would help enormously if we could have a Joint Committee of both Houses sitting in almost continuous session, where we could discuss proposals, assess evidence and not disrupt the ordinary and important business of the House. There is a parallel, in a way, with how waiting lists have been added to in the National Health Service and people have been put under enormous strain because of Covid. We would be well advised to try to have continuous parliamentary supervision and monitoring of what the Government propose in the light of all developments. I put that suggestion forward once again.

I have another specific question which I would be grateful if my noble friend would answer. I was contacted a few days ago by someone living in south-west London who is unable to have a vaccine for medical reasons. There are such people. He went to inquire of his general practitioner about the medicine that is now being developed—I am terribly sorry; I am having a senior moment and its name escapes me as I stand before your Lordships. My noble friend referred to it and will know what I am talking about. The general practitioner in question had no knowledge of it, or of where my friend could get it.

I would like an assurance from my noble friend that there is a proper dissemination of information so that doctors who are approached by those who cannot have the vaccine for genuine medical reasons can be informed. I mean genuine medical reasons, as I was one of those, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, knows, who called time and again for compulsory vaccination of those working in care homes. She is kindly nodding approval. I felt the same about those working in the National Health Service. Those who are in contact with the most vulnerable should be obliged to have protection.