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

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the mantra goes that “We are all in this together”. If Covid has shown us anything, it is that indeed we are all in this, but in no sense together. As one small example, at the beginning of the outbreak, after an extraordinary personal and affecting message from one of our front-line health workers, the supermarkets put on an hour of shopping for NHS front-line workers. For weeks now, these one-hour sessions have been abused by people who have nothing whatever to do with the NHS. Will my noble friend state firmly and clearly from the Dispatch Box that, where supermarkets have laid on an hour of shopping for our hard-working front-line NHS workers, everybody else should just wait until the end of that hour and leave it to them?

Will my noble friend also confirm that, after the review on 28 June, the 14-day quarantine will be dropped next week? Finally, echoing the words perfectly put by my excellent and noble friend Lord Blencathra, does he agree that “At a metre, wear a mask”? We need to get back to work. It is a tragedy that we have mortgaged our children’s future and are decimating so much of their education. Private schools have not missed one lesson; many in comprehensives and first or infant schools have had precious little education, despite the great work of our teachers. Does he agree that we need to get back to work, get our children back to school and do it all under the clear mantra, “At a metre, wear a mask”?