Coronavirus: New Cases

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We continue to monitor the situation. The Secretary of State and I have regular meetings with the UKHSA, which tells us about the various issues of concern. Noble Lords will know about the outbreak of monkeypox in certain communities and the discovery of the polio vaccine in sewage, though not leading to cases. Clearly, we constantly talk about Covid cases. We are monitoring numbers, and the UKHSA looks at the ONS numbers as well. We are planning for the autumn, but we also have plans should the number of infections start leading to hospitalisations and possibly deaths.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Merron is absolutely right: this appears to be creeping up on the Government unawares. The level is going up and is particularly high in Scotland. The last time around, there was a lot of confusion, because different reactions were evident in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. In order to deal with this quickly and in a co-ordinated way, can I ask the Minister to get together the Chief Medical Officers of all four countries as quickly as possible to come up with a plan?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that health policy is devolved. There are times when the devolved Administrations want to go their own way and not follow England—

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

That does not matter.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will have been in meetings with the devolved Administrations; sometimes they want to go their own way. For example, when we reduced some of the measures in England, the devolved Administrations were sceptical of what we had done. When the data showed that the measures left in place in Scotland were no more effective than us removing some of those restrictions, it demonstrated exactly why, although we talk to the devolved Administrations all the time, we also respect the devolved settlements. We have to agree to disagree at times.