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

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to make three points. The first is that these measures were made on 12 May; there was a debate in this House on 12 May on the first set of measures, which the Minister referred to, but not in the context of measures brought before Parliament to offer scrutiny, but of reflecting what the Prime Minister had said in a Statement. Why the Government were not able to bring forward the measures which were made—and we were debating the original ones—is beyond me. I hope the Minister will be able to explain.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, my noble friend Lady Jolly, and others across the House, including myself, would have been alarmed to hear the Minister glorying in the flexibility of the British constitution to afford this Government the ability to, in effect, bypass proper parliamentary scrutiny. Parliament gave the Government considerable powers with this emergency legislation, and when Parliament does so, the Government should consider that gravely and afford much greater ability to Parliament to scrutinise those measures; they have not done so. I hope we will never again hear the Minister glory in the flexibility of the constitution to do that.

Secondly, in his speech on 12 May, the Minister said that

“the regulations reflect the strategy that we have agreed across the UK, which is led by the best scientific evidence”.—[Official Report, 12/5/20; col. 599.]

As I pointed out in last week’s debate on masks, there is growing inconsistency north and south of the border. For someone such as myself on the border and for the community I represented when I was elected, this is a major concern. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said—and I agree with him entirely—there is the limited explanation of what the law is; then there is the greater element of what ministerial guidance is; and you now have a third category of ministerial requests to be made regarding the action of the people. But there is a great deal of confusion. Today, if you cross the border into Scotland at Carter Bar on the A68, you will see a huge electronic neon screen saying: “Stay home. Save the NHS.”

This inconsistency brings me to my third point. People did trust their Government at times of crisis. But after the Dominic Cummings affair and confused messages from the Government, that trust has plummeted. It is vital that trust is maintained so that we avoid a second wave. The OECD has put in stark terms the economic dangers this country faces if we enter a second wave. We are already third behind Trump’s Administration and Bolsonaro’s Brazil. That is not a triumvirate I am proud of or that this country should be proud of. To avoid a second wave, trust must be regained, and this kind of activity from the Government with these kinds of measures is not conducive to rebuilding that trust.