Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Medium) (England) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-10-14
Topic: Health
Dorothea Glenys Thornton (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his explanation of this SI and indeed of the others. I compliment him, as other noble Lords have been doing, on—I do not know what the word is; "sturdiness" is not quite right—his resilience under fire, apart from anything else In many ways, this might be the most important SI before us today because it concerns the whole of the rest of the country, which is subject to restrictions that we are all very familiar with and know about. The success of combating the virus will depend in part on those restrictions being adhered to by the rest of the country, so that communities do not move into the next tier. As the Minister said, coronavirus cases are increasing at a terrifying rate I want to ask particularly about London. While it seemed that lockdowns were happening mostly in the north, it now seems that London might be heading towards one. Indeed the mayor, Sadiq Khan, has been pressing the Government to put in tougher restrictions in the capital for some time, such as a ban on households mixing. I echo what other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Andrews, have said: why are the Government hesitating All London’s 32 boroughs have been placed on the Government’s official watch list, which highlights that they are areas of concern, but some are more concerning than others. Eight London boroughs are above the infection rate threshold of 100 per 100,000. Ealing is 136.9; Richmond is 133.3; Redbridge is 124.5. Some of those rates are higher than those for boroughs and cities that are already included in the second tier. This is an important issue because London has very diverse communities and some very poor ones. One of London’s great strengths and, in these days of Covid, vulnerabilities, is how mixed it is and how large its BAME communities are. We have already lost too many BAME fellow citizens, particularly those who work for the NHS. London has not been spared any of that Compared to London, Doncaster has an infection rate of 136.9 per 100,000 and is currently in the high tier. Leicester went into lockdown on 30 June with an infection rate of 135 per 100,000. My honourable friend Jonathan Ashworth has asked why the city of Leicester is in tier 2 with restrictions, yet Charnwood—the constituency of Edward Argar MP—where the infection rate is 150 per 100,00, is not. Why are North East Derbyshire, where the rate is 164, or Barrow, where it is 277, not in that tier? There are questions about why other areas have not been included Sadiq Khan says that across our city "the average over the last 7 days is about 90 per 100,000. All the indicators that I have: hospital admissions, ICU occupancy, the numbers of older people with cases, the prevalence of the disease, the positivity, are all going in the wrong direction. Which means, I’m afraid it’s inevitable over the course of the next few days London will have passed a trigger point" Is that correct? When was the Mayor of London invited to a COBRA meeting? Have conversations happened at a senior level with the leading citizen of our capital city, as they should have As my noble friend Lady Donaghy said in her pertinent questions, we are very concerned about probity. At some point, there has to be a reckoning of the governance of the contracts that the Government have given during this pandemic. My noble friend Lord Robertson underlined that point, in relation to track and trace. My noble friend Lord Rooker also raised the issue, with his usual tenacity. My noble friend Lady Andrews asked the Minister the key question which has been asked all afternoon. I am not sure that I have heard an answer yet. Why did the Government ignore the advice they were given on 21 September On a lighter note, the Minister referred to "the rose garden". My noble friend Lady Donaghy asks whether he means the rose garden at the White House in Washington or the one that Dominic Cummings occupied in Downing Street?