Coronavirus Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard - continued) & 2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, before I say anything else I would like to pay tribute to the Prime Minister and his team of two advisers who communicate almost daily with the British people. In my experience of 46 years across two Houses, that is unique. I pay tribute to that team and to all Ministers at every level, particularly my noble friend on the Front Bench, who was my excellent Whip until he was promoted.

I am here—as someone who is 83 I am not supposed to be here—because the Bill is very intrusive, but I recognise that the situation is so serious that it is appropriate. I see my role as one to ask questions. I have spent most of my 46 years here asking questions: on the Public Accounts Committee for 12 years; as Deputy Speaker; and then in this House.

I come from a medical community: my wife, to whom I have been married for 59 years now, is a full-time GP while my son is a doctor. Necessarily, as I and my wife have worked in the UK, India, Sri Lanka and other parts of south and south-east Asia, we understand the medical world at some length. I recognise that south Asia and south-east Asia had the SARS catastrophe, and as a result of that they are used to dealing with the great problem that we now face. They were prepared for pandemics, which the West was not and is not.

I have a question about the aims of the Bill. The summary of impacts says:

“The purpose of the Bill is to provide powers needed to respond to the current coronavirus epidemic. Powers are for use only if needed, judged on the basis of the clinical and scientific advice”—


or, as the Prime Minister says, action to save the NHS and to save lives. Is that the limit? Frankly, I do not think it is. I believe that there is another criterion. Are we to follow totally slavishly those two conditions, regardless of any impact on the economy? I venture to suggest that we should not.

A section of the NHS which I looked at closely over the weekend is the dental community. I had a telephone call on Sunday from a dental practitioner in Bedford, because Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire are where I know best. He raised with me the key point issued by the British Dental Association, and that is uncertainty. The BDA recommends that

“no aerosol generating procedures are undertaken on any patient without appropriately fitting FFP3 masks, other required protection equipment and protocols”.

That is pretty clear. It is backed up by this individual consultant, who then said to me in an email: “The situation is that the front-line ITU staff do not have FFP3 masks. We will not treat cancer cases until equipped. We will need to run some emergency clinics, but where are they to be?” Since nobody else has raised dental matters, I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I hope this can be looked into.

Secondly, I thought we were communicating with all the trade associations, but two days ago I read in the Telegraph that the CEO of the UK Chamber of Shipping in London makes the point that shipping is an absolutely vital industry. It has made contact with Her Majesty’s Government—that has been raised with the Transport Secretary—but has heard nothing. That is a problem, is it not?

What can be done? Since the Prime Minister is a great believer in Churchill, I suggest that he might think about having the equivalent of Lord Beaverbrook. On the television news last night or the night before, there was a shedload of these masks—a warehouse full —at Amazon. Why are those in the warehouse? They should be out with the front-line people waiting for them. It needs someone to get behind this and get those masks out and into the field. I suggest that this must be happening in many other areas as well.

I finish by saying a huge thank you again to the front-line NHS staff. I have lived with that community for years. It is doing more now than it has ever had to. I re-emphasise that we have to learn from what Korea and others did. The key word is “testing”. We need large-scale, readily available testing, combined with case isolation and contact tracing.

My last question to my noble friend is: where are we on testing? The WHO recommends: trace the contacts to trace infection; isolate to stop the spread; then test, test, test. If we do all that, we ought to, and might hopefully, get through the incredible challenge we face at the moment. I wish all those involved all possible success in their attempt to do so.