Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Very High) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Hain Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with what my noble friend Lady Thornton said, as these regulations need to be seen in the context of a failed and still failing government policy. There is still no coherent government strategy. “Where is the plan?”, the Labour leader Keir Starmer rightly asked. The introduction of a mass-testing programme, checking everybody for the virus on a regular basis, would be one way to endure the crisis while minimising the damage to the economy and the risk to life, but there is still absolutely no sign of such a programme. When people are tested they have to wait ages to get their results, often making the tests out of date. In September, nine in 10 care home tests in England got back late.

The Government are pinning all their hopes on a vaccine but cannot say when there will be one. Nobody can; the answer cannot just be locking down continually, given the large economic and social cost this involves. A recent Lancet peer-reviewed paper identified three key elements essential for bringing the virus under control; none of them is really happening. As Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, has written:

“Most important is a robust system for testing, tracing and isolating, where test results are returned within 24 hours, at least 80% of people’s contacts are reached and there is high adherence to a rule of 14 days’ isolation for those exposed to the virus.”


We will otherwise be locking down, lifting and locking down continually, with massive economic and social costs. I fear that these regulations do not address that key question.