Lord Rooker
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(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank my noble friend. While I entirely agree with him about professional sport returning, as Norwich City fan the return of the Premier League has not been a happy experience so far, but let us hope a corner has been turned. My noble friend is right. It is great news. It is welcome that parts of the economy that we want to see unlocked are doing so. Of course, 1.1 million employers have used the job retention scheme, which has protected 9.2 million jobs. That has been an extremely important help. From the start of August workers will be able to return to work part-time, and as we slowly unlock the economy and open up key elements of hospitality and other sectors, we want to see that people can start to get to back to their working life and people can enjoy the services that they provide.
Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I count about eight major changes in the Statement, all of which are worth while. However, they all take place on the same date, so how will the Government monitor the effect of each on the virus situation? As an aside, will the Leader of the House be kind enough to answer one of the questions from my honourable friend on the Front Bench in the Commons, Peter Kyle? What happens when people order drinks at beach bars, in terms of giving information? It was quite a legitimate question, bearing in mind the weather and what is going to happen.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I welcome the noble Lord back; it is good to see him on the screen. In relation to bars, one of the key things is that we urge everyone buying drinks to abide by the guidance and to stick to either two metres or one metre-plus. That is how we can start to make sure that, when hospitality opens, everyone remains safe. There are obviously other mitigating factors around sanitisation, hand washing and being sensible—there are all those issues. We will be asking businesses to provide details of customers if possible, but it probably will not be in all circumstances—for instance, in the example he cited.