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

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have a certain sympathy for the Minister. These are very difficult judgments. Within a global pandemic, there are no silver bullets, and I do not doubt that Ministers have done their best. However, in my view they have made a very grave misjudgment—here, I disagree totally with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes—in ignoring the SAGE advice of 21 September. They did not just ignore it; they failed to explain at the time why they were ignoring it, and this is bound to further undermine trust.

In the chaos of crisis, stuff happens and things go wrong, but a wilful decision to ignore the best available scientific advice without explanation at the time is a very serious criticism. That is a pity, because I think that the three-tier system is in principle a good idea. A differentiated approach with an emphasis on local action is right. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to the House as a fellow enthusiast for local government, if not a fellow enthusiast for our membership of the EU. The Government should have put more emphasis on remedying the obvious failings in their track, test and trace system; they should have pursued stronger integration of the national and local systems; and they need to give decent resources to councils, as well as proper compensation to businesses and employees.

We have lost a lot of ground in the last month, and I believe that Keir Starmer’s proposal for a circuit break is all that we have left in the present situation.