Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Judge Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords—[Inaudible]. Going back to last March, I do not think that any of us, unless we have remarkable gifts of foresight, ever really envisaged the crisis which is beginning to unfold and bury us. We are not being honest with ourselves. There is a tension between national health and national wealth; there is a tension between isolationism—to preserve health—and productivity. By “wealth”, I mean jobs, I mean the economy and I mean the funds which will one day be needed to deal with the great needs of the National Health Service as well as all the other services which are provided from public funds. By “health”, I mean not just coronavirus; I mean the unfortunate individuals suffering from life-threatening and painful illnesses who are not receiving the treatment or the attention that they in their condition require. Until we are honest about this difficulty and this conflict—a conflict of interest—we will not address this problem at all.

My concern with the Coronavirus Act is simple. Now that we have had six months of it and are having our first debate, it would be diabolical if our next debate on this issue was postponed until March next year. It simply cannot be right.



I do not take much comfort, although I do mean no discourtesy to the Minister, and share in all the compliments that he has received, in two-monthly reports. What I find most depressing of all is that all these provisions that we have been discussing—the good, bad, indifferent and ugly—are all dealt with through secondary legislation without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is at the heart of my complaint. I wish the Coronavirus Act to be amended so that more debates are provided in this House and, more importantly, in the Commons. It is the Commons to which we should turn, not the media platforms or the endless conferences being held, where the Minister is asked a question by one television reporter, then another and another. They should be here and they should be there, down at the other end.

I cannot see a clock that tells me how much longer I have to go. Oh, there it is—I have a little longer. May I suggest to noble Lords the sort of things that should be discussed in the Commons? The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, referred to one: the Home Secretary says, “Let’s have snitching.” That may be a good idea, a bad idea or a rotten idea—I am not commenting. But surely that is the place for discussion about whether this is a social advantage. The Prime Minister says in the House that we will have military help for the police. Fine—we all want the military to help in an emergency. But to act as back-up police officers—is this what we want to see on our streets? I make no comment, but there really should be a debate about it.

I have one more example. Can we remember the saying that an Englishman and Englishwoman’s home is their castle? There are two aspects to that: no one should come in unless you want them to come in, but you can invite in whom you like. We forget that part of it. Parents are going to be telling their children that the law prohibits their coming home at the end of this university term. Is not that something that should be debated, and frequently debated? My plea to the Minister is that he should please take away, if the House agrees, the need for amendment so that we have proper debates and, in particular, that these issues of great societal importance are talked about—at any rate, so that government can be influenced by what the Government hear.