Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-09-24
Topic: Health
James Bethell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I start by acknowledging the touching comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, about the pain of separation. These thoughts were absolutely on our mind when we brought in these regulations. They were done at a time when we were pleased to be lifting the national lockdown and when we all felt a huge sense of relief after everyone had spent long months cooped up. The relief was profound, and the idea of sending some households in some parts of the country back into lockdown was keenly felt. I completely acknowledge the fact that for some families this is extremely painful I also acknowledge the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on expectations management. It is true that the disease has bounced around. At moments, there have been false dawns when we thought we might have seen the back of it, and there have been dark moments when it has all seemed to be going wrong. Perhaps I may share with the noble Lord and the Chamber the view of the CMO—that, as the Prime Minister made really clear in his broadcast on Monday, we have six difficult months ahead of us. There is no beating around the bush and no easy way out of it. We have six long months ahead of us—but, at the end of that, there is the prospect that a vaccine and better therapeutics will give us medical alternatives to the disease, and that the innovations that can lead to the kind of mass testing that we are desperate to put in place now and are moving mountains to try to achieve will also give us the security to socialise in the way that we all want to Those are two grim notes to start my response with, but they answer in part the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt: why are these things not working? Well, they have worked in some respects. Since lockdown was lifted, we have seen prevalence levels across the country largely under control and we have had months of freedom. As the CMO could not have made more plain in his presentation with the Chief Scientific Adviser, infection rates are beginning to creep up, but this local-lockdown approach has been effective in some respects However, the thing that undermines it and that, more than anything, spreads the disease is socialising—sharing tight-knit space with people from outside your household, face to face in closed environments. That produces the aerosol effect that spreads the disease from one person to another, and that is why these measures target socialising as specifically as they do Perhaps I may quickly answer a couple of points that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about the importance of getting local authority leaders in front of statements. I reassure him that we have brought MPs into the decision-making process. We have sought to use MPs, with their representative qualities in the other House, as the liaison between local restrictions and the parliamentary process. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly talked about the importance of business support. In Blackburn, business support has risen to £10 million, and in Bradford to £36 million. Those kinds of numbers across the country have put an enormous investment in business support, so that people can take on board the restrictions that we have put in place and we can continue to support businesses My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft asked about the hospitality industry and why it seems that practice differs between venues. She is entirely right. Some pubs and clubs have socially distanced tables, well organised contact tracing on entry, table service and "bookings only", but some have not, and they are the problem. The app which launched today will have a much easier to use QR code component, and the curfew will see the closure of pubs at 10 pm. Therefore drinking-up time will need to begin at around 9.30 pm. This will help address that disparity, but we will keep the situation under control The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked whether we had enough tests to go around and whether the testing system was under control. He is right that we are challenged, but we make no apology for the prioritisation we have put in place: clinical need, including for key workers, then social care, then surveillance and research, then the public. We are putting more and more resources into providing the tests that the public need and we are catching up with demand each day. There is a lot of commentary about whether the messaging around the epidemic is right—"This is said one day, this is said another day." We all have views on whether every single message has been right, but it comes down to this very simple point. The message from day one has been clear: the way to beat this disease is through social distancing, hygiene and isolation. That has been our strategy from the beginning, and it remains our strategy. They are uncomfortable protocols which none of us like following, but there is no point in blaming the messaging. The country must stick with the basic protocols The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, spoke very movingly about the impact of these regulations on the Muslim community. As I said in my introductory comments, these regulations were brought in just before Eid. It was a tough decision. They were brought in at the last minute, partly because we were trying to avoid causing disruption. As part of their introduction, I had round-table conversations. Although I was not on the notorious Bradford telephone call, I was on similar engagements, and I have no illusions about the depth of feeling on this. I know all about the concerns about conspiracies—that some of these recommendations were brought in on ethnic lines I know all about the challenges of housing and poverty in some of these communities, and the noble Baroness is entirely right that this disease tracks down people in poverty, people who live in multigenerational households and people who live cheek-by-jowl with each other. It is one of the unfortunate facts of this disease that it goes after those in deprivation and who have the least advantage. We are extremely conscious of that. It is one of the reasons why we bear down on this disease in such a tough way in the very communities that are most vulnerable to it. However, I reassure the Chamber that we are working extremely hard to build that trust. There is a phenomenal amount of engagement and we are thoughtful about how we engage with these key communities. We work our hardest to provide all the testing facilities via the kinds of people who will engage with the communities involved. We seek to be sensitive, we have put in the media partnerships and the community engagement proportionate and necessary to win over trust, and I believe that we are making progress The message has been received loud and clear that this is an uncomfortable and unhappy way to be regulating on lockdowns. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about whether there might be some way of formalising a weekly update, or some kind of weekly process. That is an extremely good idea, which I will take note of and take back home. We are seeking to develop a more thoughtful and predictable way of working through these regulations, and I look forward to updating the House on our progress on that. I also reassure the Chamber that the Coronavirus Act debate on Monday has been extended to four and a half hours, which will give us an excellent platform to discuss some of these themes in more detail. I commend these regulations to the House.