Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Robathan]

Leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Regulations because no adequate impact analysis of the social, economic and health costs of the restrictions to address the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to the benefits of those restrictions, has been laid before Parliament.”

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, this is arguably the worst crisis—certainly the worst economic crisis—of my lifetime. Yesterday, as my noble friend referred to, we had, I am afraid, a totally inadequate government benefit analysis, belatedly produced at very short notice to persuade MPs to back these latest measures. It is a very poor document, and, if anyone does not believe me, they should read it.

However, there are some costs that we know about, and all these decisions regarding the crisis should be based on evidence and facts, not fear or conjecture. The costs were listed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week in an excellent speech, and I shall not repeat his detailed points. His main point was that the

“economic emergency has only just begun”

and that this will be

“the largest fall in output for more than 300 years”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/20; col. 827.]

since the Great Frost of 1709, which even I do not recall.

There are pubs and restaurants in particular, as well as innumerable other businesses, large and small, that are closed now and will never reopen. Unemployment will rocket and the young will find fewer vacancies and opportunities for employment. The economy may recover relatively quickly, but future generations—our children and grandchildren—will be saddled with huge debts for decades. In brief, that is the cost: billions and billions. The restrictions we are discussing today are really another lockdown in all but name, and, as Dr Nabarro of the WHO said, lockdowns make

“poor people an awful lot poorer”.

What about the benefits? On 1 October, the Health Secretary said that restrictions were necessary to prevent

“hundreds of thousands of deaths”—[Official Report, Commons, 1/10/20; col. 503.]

Some were sceptical. If it were true, it would be a ghastly scenario and a consequence of not locking down. Last year, there were 623,000 deaths in the UK—hundreds of thousands; on average, 1,700 deaths each day, each of which is tragic and causes immense pain to family and friends who remain. I suspect that most of us have suffered similar pain.

According to the NHS and ONS statistics, a total of 3,123 people under the age of 60 have died from coronavirus in English hospitals. Of these, 349 did not have known pre-existing conditions. Among the under-40s, a total of 247 people have died from the virus in English hospitals, of whom 46 had no known comorbidities. All these deaths are tragic but, every day, an average of 450 people in the UK die of cancer, approximately half of whom are under 75. Suicide is the biggest killer among men under 45. In England and Wales last year, 2,135 men of that cohort killed themselves. Admittedly, coronavirus has only been recognised for some nine months, but younger people under 40 or 45 seem more likely to die from suicide or cancer than from coronavirus. Indeed, the total deaths attributed to coronavirus are dwarfed by deaths from cancer. To make matters worse, cancer-screening and treatment have been curtailed, suicides appear to be on the rise because of isolation, and mental health problems are certainly an increasing concern. If we are destroying our economy to save lives, we should look at all these facts—not vague assertions—and note that the total deaths in England in October were only eight more than in October 2019, which statisticians would call negligible.

Do lockdowns work? Many people suggest not; I do not know. I would imagine that total isolation must surely stop the transmission of infection, but in Leicester, which has been under stringent restrictions similar to lockdown for about five months, it is only now that positive cases are dropping. Why is that? I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can enlighten me and the House. We were told that hospitals may be overwhelmed without these restrictions. Can the Minister tell us how many hospitals are completely full, and how many beds are occupied above the seasonal norm? Also, how many beds are occupied in the excellent Nightingale hospitals? I have been told that none are.

How many people have actually been infected? I would think that that is a critical statistic in determining policy to combat the virus. The Government’s figure for those who have tested positive is just over 1.6 million, but most people would accept that it must be a lot higher—what with Prince Charles, Prince William, the Prime Minister, half the Cabinet, both my children, et cetera, having had it. Can my noble friend give us any government estimate of the real numbers?

I saw media reports that the average age for Covid deaths in the UK was higher than average life expectancy. This had to be fake news, I thought, but I checked the ONS figures and, indeed, the average age for Covid deaths is 82.4, while average life expectancy is at 81.4. Can my noble friend confirm these figures, and that those dying from coronavirus will actually have lived longer on average than those dying for other reasons?

The Government are in a very difficult position. I understand. This unpleasant virus is highly contagious and killing many people prematurely. I am sorry to hear about my noble friend’s godfather. However, we do not know enough about the virus, so we have to go on the facts. I would be grateful for clear and prompt answers to my questions so that we can see whether there has been any weighing up of costs and benefits.

In the debate on 4 November, it was said that some Peers were putting down amendments to double their speaking times, which seemed “a bit iffy”. It was suggested that some were playing games. I was accused of “having form” in that regard and of disregarding the science. Those of us who really care about our country’s future are not playing games and resent such insulting accusations. Long-standing Members of this House tell me that we should be courteous to each other even when we disagree, so I avoid personal attacks. I just counsel the Member concerned that I have experience of robust comments and can give every bit as good as I get.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we must learn to live with the virus and not fear it. My young female dentist, who I saw in early November, described the second lockdown as “nuts”. I will listen to the Minister’s response, but currently I intend to divide the House, since it seems to me that there has been no adequate analysis of the costs and benefits of this policy.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

I should inform the House that, if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call any of the other amendments by reason of pre-emption. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Perhaps I may say how pleased I was to see the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in the Chamber today, joining in our debates.

I thank the Minister for introducing these very important regulations to the House. I hope that he, like me, does not feel too second division, as the debate in the other place was opened by the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, but I am sure that he and I can probably do more than justice to this subject. I think that his right honourable friend the Prime Minister might be feeling just a little worried at the moment because I gather that he had 56 rebels on the vote that has just taken place in the Commons.

This statutory instrument sets out that the Secretary of State must review whether each area that is part of tier 2 or tier 3 should continue to be part of those tiers at least once every 14 days, with the first review to be carried out by 16 December 2020, and review the need for each of the tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 restrictions at least once every 28 days. The first review is to be carried out by 30 December 2020, so I hope that the Minister will have some Christmas. The shame of the statutory instrument is that it offers a binary choice. If this were primary legislation, we could really test the legitimate concerns in a way that we are not able to do this evening. The regulations will expire on 2 February 2021. I urge the Government to think very carefully about how the discussion on renewal, or whatever happens next, takes place. We are many months into this regulatory review; I think it is time that it ended and we had proper primary legislation.

The allocation of the areas of the revised tiers was announced on 26 November. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said in her very wise contribution, it has cemented the deep sense of divisiveness in the nation. The Government have published information alongside a Written Statement which sets out the rationale behind the allocations. Many noble Lords have already criticised that, so I will not go into detail on it. However, it means that tier 1, which had 23.5 million people in it pre-lockdown, now has 713,000 people, and tier 2 now covers 32 million people whereas it previously covered 24 million. So it is not surprising that people are concerned about where they have been put.

The new map of the three-tier system in England looks very much like a depiction of the north-south divide, and as Danny Dorling, the Oxford Professor of Human Geography, said on Saturday:

“What’s certain is that the key to understanding the map is the underlying social and economic geography of England. To understand the changing medical geography of this pandemic, you must first understand how the country lives and works”.


There is the rub. If the Government do not have a real understanding of how people live their lives, the conditions under which they work, the security or otherwise of their jobs, the adequacy of their homes, the transport they rely on, their relationship with schools and local facilities and their reliance on informal support networks, it is difficult to see how the current proposals and the ones that have gone before can work effectively.

The combination of vaccines, mass-scale rapid turnaround testing and therapeutic advances offers a way out of the current Covid-19 challenges in the spring and early summer, but in the meantime, restricting social contact is the only way of reducing the pandemic, protecting our National Health Service and allowing it to do its job, as my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, explained. We can see some success, and I applaud that, but the Minister needs to understand that many people believe that the success in getting the R rate down has been achieved despite the Government and not because of them. Why do we need to be still learning the lessons of being too slow?

It is of course welcome news that the R rate is below one, but today we learned what that means—and it does not mean that we can return to any sort of normal life. The news on the vaccines is of course tremendously good. Like others, I am allowing myself to hope that one day I will be able to see my sisters, nieces and nephews in Yorkshire and to hug people. I am also hoping not to have to queue for the supermarket, and maybe I will be able to sit at the same table as my noble friend Lady Wheeler in the Guest Dining Room, rather than sitting six feet apart at separate tables.

However, we have been here before: overpromising and underdelivering. As my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition said, we are now on plan 5. The slowness with which we have entered these different plans is the reason why the UK economy has been hit particularly hard. As the OBR reported, a sharp slowdown in activity meant that the UK experienced one of the larger falls and that activity was then slower to recover.

The shame of this is that the Government learned none of the lessons from the first wave of the crisis and failed to listen to SAGE—or to Labour, when we argued for a two to three-week circuit-break to coincide with half term. Instead, we have had a longer national lockdown and the economy has taken a bigger hit.

It is therefore vital that the tiers work, and that the relaxation of Christmas does not lead to a further spike and lockdown in the new year. How could that be done? We have a few ideas. We need to end the topdown, centralised model of testing, tracing, isolating and supporting. Local teams with local knowledge must be put in charge, and they must be given the resources to do the job. We need to get rid of Serco and give the testing, tracing, isolating and supporting to our local teams. Frankly, if the Government have spent £22 billion on this and it is still not working, there has to be an alternative.

We need to ensure routine testing for all high-risk workplaces and high transmission areas for NHS and care staff, of course, but those in retail, hospitality and transport, teachers and pupils in secondary schools should also have access to tests whenever they need them.

Furthermore we need to overhaul the failing support for self-isolation, for both businesses and individuals. We need to support our businesses. The Government’s approach to supporting areas under local restrictions is fundamentally unfair and risks a gulf in support opening up across the country. The idea that the Isle of Wight should receive the same amount of support as Manchester is patently unfair.

Businesses are in the dark about the future of the furlough scheme, which is up for review in January. What will happen next? The Chancellor is still refusing to help millions of people excluded from his support schemes for the self-employed, despite having had months to plug those gaps.

What about our students? What will be the impact of their return home before Christmas? What is the Government’s assessment of the risk of students contracting the virus between having the test—which I hope will be available in the universities—and returning home? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that transport capacity is not overwhelmed by the numbers of non-socially-distanced travellers next week? It is completely irresponsible for the Government to leave tier 3 areas across the north and the Midlands in the lurch again.

What about Christmas? What is the scientific assessment of the risk that five days of relaxation will entail? I raised this matter yesterday with the Minister, and I am still seeking an answer. Covid-19 cases have spiked across Canada in the past month, since Thanksgiving and Halloween. On 12 October, Canada had 185,000 Covid cases. Only six weeks later that number has nearly doubled. Canadians and Americans alike are saying that the surge is proof that nothing is worth the risk. I would, therefore, like the Minister to address this issue: what will the cost of Christmas be in infections?

Does the Minister believe that the three-tier system provides for the necessary post-Christmas restrictions, or is a third lockdown inevitable? Given the prediction that cases will increase after Christmas, what plans are in place to prepare the NHS and safeguard services in the coming months, until a vaccine allows life to return to normal? Front-line resilience is already at a premium and will be critical over the next weeks and months, particularly after Christmas, especially if we do not wish to look back on those activities with very deep regret.

With regard to the amendments to these Motions proposed by the gaggle of Conservatives, I sort of feel sorry for the Minister. It is noticeable that yet again the Government find themselves under fire from their own side. As I have said at least twice to the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, he has form in being a Covid restriction objector and seems prepared to risk people’s lives instead of supporting them to do the right thing. This is my view of the noble Lord’s—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

It is wrong.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Well, that is my view; I think it is right. I think that is what will happen if he gets his way. The noble Lord does not seem to understand that, until his Government actually manage to build and support the systems that will contain the virus, particularly in deprived communities, his proposal would only cost lives—and they will be the lives in our poorest communities, the BAME and the vulnerable.

I believe the other two are legitimate regrets and at least show consistency from the movers. However, as we have in the past, we on these Benches will abstain if any of the movers choose to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has been a bit on his own this evening—actually, he has been entirely on his own—but I will say that he has made a pretty good fist of defending these regulations. However, when he says that 78 people voting against the Government in the Commons is an emphatic victory, as a former Whip there, I would say that since most of them are Conservative Back-Benchers, the Whips’ Office will be pretty worried.

I said earlier that this is the worst economic crisis of my life, and possibly the worst crisis of my lifetime. I think the nation is engaged in a most extraordinary act of self-harm. However, we need to look at this in the round. Before I sit down, I just say to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that I think it is unworthy of her to say of me that I wish to see people die, because that is not the case. I thought about giving my view of her—I will, if she wishes—but I thought it would be unworthy and I shall show some restraint.

I have been listening to wiser counsel than my own, and there is not an appetite to force my fatal amendment to a Division. I think it might undermine the better vote we have had in the House of Commons of those who are unhappy with the way government policy is going. I am used to putting my money where my mouth is; however, on this occasion I will not divide the House and I will please the House, and especially the Chief Whip, by saying that I have made my point and I am unlikely—although it is not impossible—to table another fatal amendment. I think he knows what I think.

Lord Robathan’s amendment to the Motion withdrawn.

Tabled by

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

At end insert “but that this House regrets that the restrictions being introduced to address the COVID-19 pandemic do not adequately consider the impact of such restrictions on the (1) number of jobs lost, (2) businesses permanently destroyed, (3) costs to taxpayers, and (4) consequences for mental and physical health, and regrets that Her Majesty’s Government have not provided a strategy for the lifting of the restrictions put in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean’s amendment to the Motion not moved.