Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2020

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

Well, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, puts this to the vote, so that I and, I hope, a large majority, can vote against her. The government proposals are sensible, measured and thought through. Where I live they will work, and where I stay in London they are working. I am hearing some nonsense in terms of the evidential base against it, and some statistical nonsense about how Covid spreads. Of course Covid spreads most within the house, as it might do in any other institution including, worst of all, a care home. But how it gets in is the question, and where it comes from. By definition there will be more inside the house, because people are living together within a household. The question for government and, therefore, for us, is how it gets in.

I have minor disagreements with government strategy, and I shall repeat them quickly again. It is a nonsense that a coachload of pensioners can jolly around this and every weekend as if there were no problem in doing so. That should be restricted. It is a nonsense that, successfully, league 7 and below football teams can have crowds—so in my area we can have crowds, because we have rather less successful football teams—but we are not doing what the Germans have done to allow in a safe way limited numbers of fans into the outdoors. It is also a nonsense that we are not using GP practices for the primary healthcare related to this; it needs to be the case when it comes to vaccinations that we use GP practices.

Other than that, I think that the Government are getting it generally right, and we should be backing government in this, because the people certainly do.