Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 6) Regulations 2021

Debate between Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Baroness Hayman

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I envy the moral certainty of some of the loudest voices on both sides of this debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, just explained, it is bound to be an issue on which there is a range of strong opinions. The only opinion that I really discount is glibness, in particular a facile imputation of base motives to the other side. It is absurd to argue either that the proponents of these measures are engaged in some plot to create an authoritarian panopticon state or that their opponents are all lunatic conspiracy theorists. We are debating the most basic question of politics, going back to Aristotelian theory: how do people live together while preserving the freedom of the individual?

The answer must hinge on whether these measures are proportionate. I say that very seriously. My noble friend the Minister makes a good argument to the effect that these measures were judiciously chosen to disrupt as little as possible, in the face of an identified threat. It would be silly to dismiss the claim that we try to slow things up while increasing the opportunity for people to get a booster jab. But I keep coming back to one question: why would that logic not now apply to every future variant or, indeed, to every disease as yet unencountered by our doctors? Are we in danger of permanently tilting the balance, so that we have pre-emptive stay-at-home orders or other restrictions, on the off-chance, every time there is something that may or may not turn out to be a severe public health risk?

It is here that we have to make our stand. Over the last 18 months, what has most alarmed me is a reversal in the burden of proof. When proposing to take away people’s elemental freedoms, the onus must be on the proponents of change to prove their case. It is not for defenders of the status quo ante, defenders of our traditional freedoms, to show why restrictions are not necessary. I am not sure that has happened in this case. Even if it has, how are we not opening the door to the same reasoning in future, so that we have a see-saw of constant lockdowns or other bans and restrictions, every time something happens, just to be on the safe side? That would be a fundamental alteration in the relationship between state and citizen.

As my noble friend Lord Cormack said, this was largely a Conservative Party debate in the other place. I tuned in and watched it: I saw 17 successive Conservative speakers, and that was not for a want of people from the other side or a bias in the Chair. The debate was largely confined to the government Benches and I do not see that as a bad thing. I am proud to be a member of a party that takes questions of personal freedom seriously. That is why I finish by saying that, on this or other issues, we must not reverse the way in which we normally determine guilt or innocence. We usually have a very high burden of proof before we confine people to house arrest and we should not lower that, either in this or in more general cases. Freedom should always be our default.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I was interested in the comments we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, and slightly surprised at how much of his speech I agreed with—in the sense that there is a danger from a constant stream of new variants, each provoking tactical responses in our own country. Therefore, I repeat the point I made yesterday at Question Time: it is in our national self-interest to ensure not only that people in this country are protected by vaccination but that people across the world are protected, because that will protect us in the future. It will stop us having these debates every two months, six months or year, ad infinitum.

The other point I will make in response to what the noble Lord said is that he is correct that we should not make this a debate between extreme positions, where you are either 100% right or 100% wrong. I am not 100% in favour of the detail of everything that is in these three SIs—but I am 100% sure that I am going to vote for them if the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, decides to divide the House.

There is a process by which we reach compromises and balances: between the threat to health from the virus and that of not having an NHS functioning as it normally does; or between the threats to mental health from the fear of contracting the virus and those from isolation—not being able to participate and work, and all those things. How we draw those balances is a very delicate exercise and it starts, as others have said, with medical and scientific advice. That must be the rock and the foundation, but of course there is a political dimension—a value weighing-up and a judgment to be made about the comparative harms and how we get our best way through.

I will make one last point about the dangers of an extremist position—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, actually takes an extremist position. The danger comes when, after the advice, the Government’s view and their proposals, and then parliamentary scrutiny and challenge, to get it as right as we can on balance, there is a sense in the public that the political is playing too large a part; and that a Government—this Government—will actually be deterred from taking the action that they need, and are advised, to take, and which we need them to take to protect ourselves.

Other noble Lords will have seen the streams of responses to the email of the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, from people saying, “I’m sorry I can’t be there but I’m in bed with Covid”. On public confidence, let us face it: the current public adherence, on which we all depend, to the regulations before us will be damaged by the fear that they are not based fundamentally on the science but on fears of losing political support in the very narrow environment in which we operate. That would undermine public confidence. As others have said, it is absolutely vital that we go through this process with scientific advice, government recommendations and parliamentary scrutiny, and do the best that we can in those circumstances.