Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

Balderdash. Twaddle. Gobbledegook. Piffle. Oops, I am sorry, my Lords, I misspoke. I do not want to talk about the content of this order but about its communication, or rather non-communication, led by the Prime Minister.

Every time I speak to friends, I ask them this question: we all know that we are allowed to see only six people indoors at once, but can they be different people, or does it always have to be the same six? Of those who claim to know, a majority think that it is okay to host two guests or family members one night, and two different guests or family members another. But if we are to believe the noble Lord, Lord Bethell— I always believe him—they are wrong, as he said this afternoon and in a Written Answer to me on 10 September:

“Support bubbles should be exclusive. This means people should not … make connections with multiple households.”


I accept that communicating these rules is hard, especially since the utterly meaningless “Stay alert” was substituted in England for the clear, if unpalatable, “Stay at home”. It is particularly hard if, like me, you live in both Wales and England, or if you live in one of the local areas subject to stricter restrictions. It has been made immeasurably harder still when Ministers, from the Prime Minister down, are quite unable to spell out from day to day, even if they know, what the regulations they have flashed through Parliament with minimal scrutiny mean.