Coronavirus Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, what extraordinary times we live in. Those who have followed Sheffield politics will know that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I tend to disagree quite a lot on things, but on this occasion, I agree with quite a lot of what he had to say.

This Bill has jaw-dropping and eye-popping powers, which, if we were to have them explained to us in the normal run of the mill, would lead us to think that a military dictatorship had just come in and was trying to get control. However, we are not in normal circumstances when it comes to some of the powers needed to deal with this public health crisis—that is what we need to call it; let us stop using the words of war and talk about the battle to keep people alive and safe. We are in a public health crisis and some of the powers will be needed.

The role of this Parliament and this House over the next two days will be to try to improve the Bill wherever we can and, I hope, to persuade the Government to accept some of the suggestions that will come from around this Chamber. Our role is also to make sure that the powers that the Government and individual Ministers wish to take are reasonable and proportionate to the public health crisis that we face. Some of them will be tough measures, and we understand why, but we will also have to make sure that the Bill’s powers are for the minimum length of time possible and are to deal only with the coronavirus.

A number of provisions in the Bill, particularly those to do with local elections and their suspension, do not refer to coronavirus—in the clauses or the schedules. I understand that the Bill may have been written in haste, but we need to be clear. Every clause and every schedule needs to refer to coronavirus. The power in the Bill for Ministers to extend, for two years, also had no reference to extending purely because of coronavirus.

I would like to explore this issue with the Minister: why six months? If the powers are so broad, why does Parliament and this House not get a say every three months, not just to debate the issue but to get a vote on some of the issues? The powers are so wide and have such effects on individual lives that such a vote is needed.

The social care provisions will mean that the lives of some of the most vulnerable people will become intolerable. If the pressure on local authorities means that they cannot make such provision, which they have to legally, individual lives and families could be shattered. These powers are so wide, with their effects on individuals and families, that three months is long enough. What, in dealing with this public health crisis, would prevent a review at three months?

I declare my interests in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and, like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, a former leader of Sheffield City Council. Those of us who have been council leaders will know that many issues arise in a local community in the normal run of things, and local government does not always have the power to deal with them, even though communities look to local government to do so. In fact, local government is probably best placed to make clever, local interventions to deal with the problems that people face. Local government will have to deal with many issues that are not in the Bill. What if the vast majority of refuse collectors get the virus? How will the refuse be collected? If it is not, it will lead to another public health issue, for environmental health officers.

It would be wise to give local authorities a general power of direction on burials and on death so that, if they give an instruction, bodies in their jurisdiction have to act. It will go much wider than death; there will be many things that great planners and people who work in Whitehall have not thought of because the consequences are probably unintended or have not been thought through, but it will be down to somebody in each local area to make significant decisions about what is needed. If we are to help local communities to survive as best they can and deal with the issues that no one has thought of, we will have to give somebody—I suggest that it should be a local authority—a general power of direction. I urge the Minister to look at that carefully.

Finally, I thank the many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individuals up and down this country who are volunteering and supporting their local community in trying to get through this, especially the great people on the front line of our NHS and the people who are keeping our shelves stocked. Those local efforts and individual interventions will help communities to get through this.