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

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will not divide the House, but I oppose these regulations. My noble friend said that it would be helpful to clarify the situation, but I regret that there is very little clarity. Having argued against the lockdown in March, I now see confusion. The most egregious example is face masks. We were told that they were ineffective, possibly dangerous. Now they are mandatory. We were told to go back to work, but it is too dangerous to go back without a face mask. Surely this is contradictory.

The truth is that nobody knows much about this virus still, but we do know that 45,000 deaths have been attributed to it. Possibly that number is too low, possibly too high. Nobody really knows. We do know that, on average, around 11,000 people die normally—if I may put it that way—each week. We have had four weeks of normal deaths attributed to coronavirus, every one a tragedy, in four months. They have mostly been elderly and frail, or with underlying health conditions. Those with risks such as these should shield themselves and take care. Perhaps we should all wear masks in public places, but lift all other restrictions, especially on the young—by which I mean the under-40s or under-50s—to get the country back to work, to education and to normality.