Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) [V]]

My Lords, I appreciate that the powers under these regulations relate only to England, yet we from Northern Ireland stand firmly behind the underlying principle, which is to allow local authorities to make decisions based on the need of their respective communities in these challenging and unprecedented times. The reality is that the spread of this virus has affected different countries in different ways at different speeds. The same is true of different communities and populations right across our nation, who have experienced varying rates of—

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

We will try to find the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, again. I do not think that he was quite finished. However, we will move on to the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I hope I am not cut off like that, my Lords.

I certainly welcome the opportunity to debate these regulations, which show up the inadequacy of our procedures to scrutinise such instruments. Last night, the Minister, in the Second Reading of the medicines Bill, extolled the virtues of regulations. He said they come to Parliament and we can scrutinise them effectively, but this afternoon we can see how scanty that scrutiny actually is. These regulations came into force on 18 July. It has taken until today to have a debate on it. There are many more Covid regulations that we still have to debate, which are in power. As Big Brother Watch has pointed out, the regulations have a major impact on how people live their lives and they deserve much tougher parliamentary scrutiny. I would also remind the Minister that very few SIs have been defeated and, the last time the House defeated an SI, we were threatened with abolition by his own Government. Coming back to the medicines Bill, the idea that regulations provide a degree of parliamentary oversight and scrutiny is, I am afraid, very much mistaken.

The noble Lord who got cut off was talking about the importance of local authority leadership—I agree. The trouble is that Regulation 3 gives the Secretary of State power to override local councils. That might be justified if the intervention was based on science or some other rational explanation, whereas we have seen, in the north-west, that the decision of the Government was based on lobbying by Conservative MPs, which had to be reversed when the data came to light.

The noble Lord quoted Regulation 3. Can he explain to the House—so far today he has had two opportunities—what representations his department has received, in the last few weeks, from Conservative MPs in the north-west, to ease the lockdown? Did the Minister take account of the advice of the Chief Medical Officer or Deputy Chief Medical Officer?

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

The House will be pleased to know that we have managed to recover the noble Lord, Lord McCrea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have a brief question to put to my noble friend the Minister regarding the consultation on local lockdowns: how, in future, can we strive to avoid the tension that appears to have arisen in local cases, particularly in the north-west? I urge the Government, in the next campaign that I gather will be announced about face-based test and trace, to look to ensure, if possible, that young people are targeted in any campaign that we have.

In terms of the potential flu epidemic that might coincide with a national spike in Covid, can my noble friend assure the House today that his department has had contact with doctors and pharmacists to ensure that not just the over-65s will have sufficient access to vaccines and that, with the new demand, over-50s will also be able to be vaccinated and that there will be sufficient availability for both categories? My understanding is that flu vaccines are ordered months, if not a year, in advance and there may not be sufficient to cover both categories.

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

The noble Baroness has quite a fetching scarf. The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia.