Covid-19 Update

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I am grateful to him for alerting me to this question in advance. We take the contribution of pharmacists to the battle against Covid extremely seriously. I am not sure, right now, why pharmacists have been taken off the list and I would be glad to look into the matter and respond to him shortly.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, turning to the new proposals affecting people advised to self-isolate, on the one hand, an isolation payment of £500 is being offered, which is an incentive; on the other, there is a new legal duty, the enforcement of which could result in some quite swingeing fines if people do not do it. It is a two-sided thing. I have two questions about this. First, what involvement will local authorities have in this process? Will it all be done centrally or locally—like the payments in the pilot areas—or will it be both together? Secondly, there is obviously a lot of scope for disputes about this—about individuals and how they are treated and so on. What documentation will be involved? It is rather more than simply getting a telephone call and being asked to do something. It is an offer of quite a bit of money, and it is an instruction to do things. Will they be sent pieces of paper or will it be done by email or whatever? Will there be documentation to back all this up?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, implementation of both the payment and the legal sanctions will run their course through exactly the same channels as any other social care payment or the implementation of any other social duty. That will be led by local authorities, as it would be with any other social penalty. The police will be involved. The courts will be involved. Appeal processes will be involved. We hope that there will not be many sanctions, and that the payments will make a big difference to isolation protocols.