"My Lords, I begin by thanking again the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for her excellent chairmanship of a challenging inquiry. I echo her thanks to the committee clerks and staff for their inspirational work in assembling pertinent witnesses and materials for the committee.
"My Lords, I thank the chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for her excellent introduction and the brilliant way in which she chairs the committee. I also thank her predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for her continued commitment to child social care. It is very rewarding to see.
"My Lords, I first apologise for not being present at Second Reading. It is unusual for me not to be there when a health Bill is being discussed, but I have had a lot of personal family problems.
"Does the Minister accept that for residents in Northern Ireland, including those travelling to England and Scotland but particularly those requiring regular travel in and out of the Republic, the situation at the moment is incredibly confusing and bureaucratic? What discussions have the Government had with Dublin, in addition to …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
"My Lords, could you imagine any employer, other than those of the sweatshops of the Far East, seeing their workers perform heroics to save the business and, in the process, the lives of millions of their clients, only to be rewarded by having their wages actually cut? Does the Minister …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
"My Lords, I will make a very brief reference to a group of NHS staff who have gone largely unnoticed during this pandemic and the debate but have been trailblazers and lifesavers in equal measure. I refer to the newest recruits in the registered healthcare workforce, nursing associates. The nursing …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
"My Lords, on 25 September last year I tabled a Question concerning deaths from Covid-19 in care homes. It was answered 131 days later, on 2 February. It revealed that in one six-week period some 11,155 elderly patients died, the equivalent of a small town such as Wetherby in Yorkshire. …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Bourne, for their very useful and sensible comments at the beginning of this debate. I also thank the Minister for his, as ever, very courteous and thorough explanation of the SI. It would …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
"My Lords, a key factor in controlling Covid-19, with or without a vaccine, is test, trace and isolation, and I fully support that. Yet the recent survey indicated that some 20% of those asked to isolate actually failed to do so, rendering the system far less effective than it should …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech
“a range of socio-economic and geographical factors”
are the principal causes of higher infection in ethnic minority groups was, quite frankly, blindingly obvious six months ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Singh, rightly said, and was entirely predictable. The real research …..." Lord Willis of Knaresborough - View Speech