Health Protection (Coronavirus, Collection of Contact Details etc and Related Requirements) Regulations 2020

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, with whom I find myself almost exclusively in agreement—that is sometimes a little worrying, and she may be worried as well. She has pointed out how confusing this package of regulations is, and not just these ones. I have been looking at them and I am pretty confused. They are profoundly antipathetic to traditional British civil liberties. They are also unworkable, as shown by the problems we have discovered with the test and trace system. Yesterday evening, I went to a restaurant with my wife. We were the only people there. The proprietor was beside himself. Before these and other regulations were laid last month, his business was picking up, but this package of regulations is destroying the hospitality industry. That is a huge cost to the economy and there will be escalating unemployment, so I have to say that I find this extraordinary.

Yesterday, I received a reply to a Parliamentary Question that I put down some time ago. In fact, it was given by Professor Sir Ian Diamond, of the UK Statistics Authority. The figures show that 14.4% of those aged under 65 without known comorbidities die from this virus, which makes for something in the region of 800 deaths since February. Some 450 people die from cancer every day. Every death is tragic, but the impact of these regulations is that in fact more people are dying from cancer than might be necessary because of the impact on the NHS.

The totality of these restrictions is causing untold harm and unnecessary deaths:

“Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”


That quote is from the Great Barrington Declaration, which noble Lords will find in the media at the moment. It is a petition started by leading epidemiologists and public health scientists. I urge the Government to show courageous leadership and ignore the hysterical media and focus groups and change tack, rather than double down on their policies. Allow the vulnerable to shield themselves and to take sensible precautions, and allow society to get on with life. The impact on our children’s future and the economy is already devastating, with no end in sight for the catastrophic social and economic damage being caused.