Coronavirus Act 2020

The recently published Canna model concluded that, between August 2020 and April 2021, we saw a reduction of between 10% and 28% in virus transmission as a result of test, trace and self-isolation, and that, at key periods, self-isolation made a significant contribution to bringing down the reproduction number of the virus, also known as the R number. The Canna model estimates that test, trace and self-isolation has prevented 1.2 million to 2 million secondary coronavirus cases.

The technical amendments to the self-isolation regulations that we are debating today mean that, if you are a close contact of a positive case who has received doses of two different types of vaccine in the UK, you are not required to self-isolate. This ensures that those who have received doses of two different vaccines are treated in the same way as those who have received a full course of a single vaccine. The amendments also clarify that if someone in your household tests positive, you do not need to self-isolate if you received your second dose of the vaccine more than 14 days before the positive case in your household first experienced symptoms or tested positive.

In addition, the amendments clarify the requirements for those taking part in workplace daily contact testing schemes. These schemes offer daily lateral flow testing as an alternative to self-isolation for unvaccinated close contacts. If a person on one of those schemes tests positive with an assisted lateral flow test, but subsequently receives a negative result from a confirmatory PCR test, they must continue with daily testing, or self-isolate for the remainder of their original self-isolation period. These amendments, and extending the self-isolation requirements to March next year, are important to protect the public from this virus.

The No. 3 regulations, which we are also discussing today, are another important tool for managing the virus and protecting the public. The regulations equip local authorities with the powers to respond swiftly to local outbreaks. Local authorities have powers through these regulations to restrict, prohibit and close individual premises and outdoor public spaces and cancel events where there is a serious and imminent threat to public health. The powers have been used 330 times since the regulations came into force in July 2020. Local authorities play a critical role in public health protection, emergency response and infectious disease control. Covid-19 has been no different, with local authorities leading the responses in their communities. Extending the No 3 regulations will help ensure they have the tools to do their job.

We are all aware of the monumental challenge that Covid-19 has posed over the last 18 months and more. It was clear at the beginning of the pandemic that additional tools and powers were needed to enable a full-scale and wide-reaching response to save lives and livelihoods. We acted decisively to put in place the legislation needed to achieve this.

As noble Lords are aware, the Coronavirus Act 2020 came into force by Royal Assent in March 2020. It has been critical to our country’s response to this awful and devastating virus, giving the Government powers to take the appropriate action to respond to the challenge. I acknowledge the many concerns about how some of the powers in the Act have been used and assure the Committee that the Government have sought to use them in an appropriate and proportionate way, with arrangements to ensure accountability to Parliament. These include two-monthly reports to Parliament and six-monthly reviews, combined with confirmatory votes, without which the temporary provisions cannot continue. On each occasion, the House of Commons has confirmed that it is content for certain provisions to continue. The Government have also committed to expire provisions as soon as they are no longer needed. I will go into more detail on this shortly.

The Act has given us the temporary powers to ensure that the NHS and social care services have had the capacity to deal with the peak of the virus by allowing the temporary registration of over 28,000 nurses and other healthcare professionals and social workers. It has protected critical societal functions and ensured that they were able to continue—for example, enabling courts to use video technology in a wider range of circumstances. It has helped provide support packages for people and businesses; this includes the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has protected more than 11.7 million unique jobs—equivalent to over a third of the entire workforce—and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme grants, which have supported nearly 3 million self-employed people throughout the pandemic.

The Act has also shone a light on where public services can be improved in the longer term, such as allowing more virtual court hearings, and the Government will aim to secure these useful powers in alternative primary legislation.

The course of the pandemic continues to change, partly because of the strong defences we have built. It is right that we again reassess the legislative powers that are in place to deal with this pandemic and support the country. The third six-month review of the Coronavirus Act, which scrutinised its remaining 27 non-devolved temporary provisions, was published on 22 September 2021.

We have identified a further seven provisions in the Act as suitable for full expiry. Once that happens, Parliament will have been able to expire half of the original 40 temporary, non-devolved powers ahead of schedule. This includes removing some of the more controversial sections of the Coronavirus Act, such as powers to detain infectious people under Schedule 21 and issuing directions in relation to events, gatherings and premises under Schedule 22. These powers were taken at a time when the course and severity of the virus were unclear; we now recognise that they are no longer needed and should be expired.

We also propose suspending the remaining powers in Section 58, which cover provisions to ensure that, in the event of a very significant number of deaths, we can continue to deal with the deceased in a respectful and dignified way. Suspension rather than expiry of these powers is seen to be part of sensible contingency planning, since it allows them to be revived quickly if the public health situation requires it.

We will lay regulations as soon as possible to expire these provisions. Once expired, 20 temporary provisions will remain in the Act, three of which will be suspended. There are good reasons for retaining each of them. They continue to support the NHS, individuals and businesses throughout the potentially challenging winter months by allowing the temporary registration of healthcare professionals and statutory sick pay to be claimed on day 1 of self-isolation, but we hope they will help protect the progress we have made so far in beginning to recover from this awful pandemic. The legislation and regulations we are debating today help ensure that we have proportionate powers to help protect our public services, individuals and businesses.

This virus has presented the greatest public health threat to the United Kingdom in recent history, requiring a heroic response from everyone across the country, including our doctors, nurses, carers and other healthcare staff but also other key workers including transport, postal and delivery workers, who delivered much-needed food and items during lockdown.

We owe it to every person and organisation that has made sacrifices to protect themselves and others during this difficult time not to allow ourselves to fall at the final hurdle and to ensure that we emerge in the spring with the worst of the pandemic well and truly behind us.

Lastly, please allow me to repeat and highlight the simple things each and every one of us can to do to help limit the spread of Covid-19. First and foremost, get vaccinated. There are still around 4.7 million unvaccinated adults in England, and I welcome the advice I have been given by noble Lords across the House about how we can target some of the demographics that have not come forward for vaccines in line with the rest of the population. Let us all urge everyone who can have the vaccine to come forward.

If it has been more than six months and one week since your second jab and your GP has not contacted you, you can register at the NHS booking service online or call 119 to book your booster. Some noble Lords have told me about problems in this area. I am assured that these have been resolved but, if you come across anyone who is still experiencing issues getting through to either of those, please let me know and I will forward it to the appropriate person and make sure that we can target and tackle this.

Let us also urge people to take a flu jab when offered it. Please self-isolate and get tested if you have symptoms of Covid-19. Anyone who is told by NHS Test and Trace that they have tested positive or been in close contact with someone who has tested positive should follow the public health advice and self-isolate where required. Even if we are well, we can wear face coverings, meet outdoors or in well-ventilated rooms indoors, regularly wash our hands, and, where possible, makerapid tests part of our weekly routine.

I look forward to noble Lords’ continued scrutiny and valuable contributions to this debate.

It is notable that, since we came back in September, there have been hardly any debates on Covid. Again, I find this very worrying, and I would like the Minister to tell me why there have been no Statements. I think the Statement last week was the first one we have had on Covid since we came back. This really is not satisfactory and hardly counts as parliamentary scrutiny.

I also ask the Minister what has happened to SAGE. There has apparently been a downscaling of SAGE’s role. It seems that it now meets only once a month. Can the Minister confirm that and tell me why it is? A government source has been quoted as saying that there is now a lessened demand for scientific advice. Well, I do question whether that is accurate. We are still in a difficult situation: Covid infections are rising and there is a real risk that the booster jab and school vaccinations are behind where they ought to be—hence the Minister’s comments at the end of his introductory speech. My concern is that the Government’s mistakes and, frankly, dubious exceptionalism at the beginning of Covid look like being repeated time and again.

There was another very good joint Select Committee report, from the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees, which was published on 12 October and looked at what has happened over the past 18 months. The report pointed out that the UK was not alone in having suffered badly because of Covid, but we did significantly worse in terms of deaths than many countries, particularly when compared to those in east Asia, even though they were much closer geographically to where the virus first appeared. The report said the UK’s pandemic planning was too narrow and effectively based on a flu model, which failed to learn the lessons from SARS, MERS and Ebola.

Particularly telling was the report’s comment that the Government’s desire to avoid a lockdown because of the harm to the economy that it would entail had a big impact. In the absence of other strategies such as rigorous case isolation, a meaningful test and trace operation and robust border controls, a full lockdown was inevitable and should have come sooner. We saw history repeat itself last autumn, when the Government’s decision not to have a circuit breaker did not follow the scientific advice and Ministers were clearly optimistic in their assumption that the worst was behind us during those summer months.

The question before us today is whether history is repeating itself. We know that our weekly death rate stands at three times the level of other major European nations. We know hospitalisations are rising, and they are certainly at a higher level than in many countries on the continent. The decision to end compulsory mask wearing and to pause plans for vaccine passports in England has made the Government an outlier in their management of the pandemic. By contrast, western European countries such as France, Italy, and in particular Spain, have brought down infection rates to their lowest level since the summer of 2020.

The Government have not been short of advice. When the latest October minutes from SAGE came out, they pointed to current population behaviours being estimated as being closer to pre-pandemic norms than at any point since March 2020—which I think means that people are not wearing masks very much and are not distancing themselves socially. SAGE pointed to early interventions that may reduce the need for more stringent, disruptive and longer-lasting measures to avoid an unacceptable level of hospitalisations.

We have also heard the NHS Confederation calling for not just plan B to be implemented but plan B-plus: calling on the public to mobilise around the NHS and do whatever they can to support front-line services this winter. On the other hand, it has been reported that modelling by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has suggested that cases will peak soon and fall away steeply in the winter months. So I ask the Minister to set out current ministerial thinking. I see the temptation to wait and see, in the light of the London School’s modelling. On the other hand, every time the Government have waited and seen, they have turned out to be wrong, so I think at the very least we ought to know today the hard thinking behind the Government’s position in relation to plan B.

I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, as set out in the register. The other part of this is about the powers to local authorities. I have believed right from beginning, as other noble Lords did, that local authorities should play a large part in this, rather than having national responses. Some national responses were needed, but so was a more local response.

Back in March 2020, I tabled an amendment to the original Bill with a power of general competence for local authorities to be able to act, which would be debated through normal legislation without statutory instruments having to keep coming with powers for local authorities. We were told that that was not required, so why do statutory instruments need to keep coming with powers for local authorities? Why did the department not listen at the time and grant a power of general competence in an amendment to the Bill, which could have been dealt with in the normal way rather than in emergency legislation? It has to stop. I want to talk about some interventions that might be required based on where we are at present as a nation.

I am clear that we will need interventions over and above those in place, but the Government are not listening to public health experts, people who work in the NHS or the epidemiologists who say that further action on Covid is required now, not just to deal with the potential crisis in the NHS but to stop future lockdowns that harm the economy and people’s livelihoods. They are saying it is a step to stop lockdowns, so I would like to understand from the Minister why that advice has not been taken. What assurance do the Government have that if action is not taken now and cases continue to rise, as well as the pressures on the NHS, either local or national lockdowns will not at some point be required? What modelling exists at present to prove that point?

I want to look at the rates per 1,000 population. On a seven-day rolling average from yesterday’s figures, the UK has 488.5 cases. France has 54.9 cases, Portugal has 51.9 and Spain has 28.3. Even taking into account testing variations, the UK is a significant outlier there. I know what the Minister will say: “Oh, there’s a lower death rate—that’s why. It’s not just cases. We have to look at the death rate”. Let us look at the death rates in those countries. On the rolling average for the last seven days, Spain has a death rate per million people from Covid-related disease of 2.87. Portugal has a death rate of 3.12 per million; France has a death rate of 1.88 per million; and the UK has one of 10.7 per million. In terms of both cases and deaths, the UK is an outlier.

I suggest that the reason why the UK is an outlier is that those other countries, rightly, are vaccinating—in some cases, they have now increased their vaccination rate above that of the UK—but have not put all their eggs in one basket. They are taking mitigation and vaccination as a way to deal with a public health crisis, because this is not a political or philosophical discussion. It is not an argument of libertarians versus those who believe in a more restrictive approach to the state. This is about public health and trying to keep people alive and healthy. It is about taking lessons from what is happening abroad and using them as good practice. If experts are not being listened to, I suggest that people look at what is happening abroad and learn the lessons there: mitigation and vaccination combined are a way of dealing with this. It is about having not draconian lockdowns but simple mitigations, so let us look at some of the issues within those mitigations.

Some politicians are worried that the public just will not buy some of the issues. A UK YouGov poll from today clearly shows that the public are becoming worried and starting to get ahead of the Government: 81% support having face coverings on public transport and 76% are for them in shops and restaurants. Meanwhile, 67% support social distancing in pubs and restaurants—but there is no majority for lockdowns. We have become a country obsessed with having plan A or plan B. It does not have to be such a binary choice. We could take steps to deal with the threat to public health as we come into winter. We could look at what happens abroad and bring about the use of mandatory face coverings, which have no economic impact. If you are a libertarian, their use restricts freedoms very little but helps reduce cases, along with other issues. We could ask for face coverings on public transport and in shops.

Some noble Lords opposite are shaking their heads. I am not basing my facts on some theoretical study; I am basing them on what is happening in France, Portugal and Spain. That is the evidence, not an academic study. Mitigation, along with vaccination, works. If not, noble Lords will have to explain when they get up why those countries have fewer cases and deaths. It is because they are not just jabbing but asking for face coverings.

Now, there are other, much wider things in plan B that I do not support. For example, I do not support the use of Covid vaccination certificates—not as a matter of political philosophy but because, although someone may have a certificate saying that they are double-jabbed, we know that 30% of people who are double-jabbed also get the virus and could be asymptomatic. It gives a false sense of security. That person may go out thinking, “I’m jabbed, I’m okay, I’ve got my vaccination certificate”, but they could be one of the 30% of people out there who are asymptomatic and helping to spread the virus. So, the reason why I believe that vaccination certification is not worth introducing is practical, not philosophical.

We are at a severe crossroads in this public health crisis. If we go one way, the country will go into lockdown and there will be harder economic and social consequences. That road means continuing as we are, putting all our eggs in the vaccination basket and not taking extra action now. Or there is another way we could turn: phasing in some simple mitigation requirements, such as face coverings and potentially looking at social distancing. These are not like the draconian “Stay at home to work” order or lockdowns.

I believe that we need to take a different course. To avoid lockdown and the harm we have seen, we need to do something extra beyond just talking about vaccinations. European countries that have taken those measures show that it can be done. They will not eradicate the virus, but they will mean we manage it better, helping the NHS and the economy and doing something that we need to do: take our advice and approach from public health, not political philosophy.

My question for the Minister is simple. Are masks effective? We have, I fear, had some mixed messaging from the Government over the past 18 months. Either masks work or they do not. I am certainly not an expert; I do not pretend that they will or will not do good because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, I do not know whether they work.

However, full surgical masks worn in operations presumably work. All the doctors and nurses wear them and have done so for some time—but they are proper surgical masks. Flimsy paper masks are being worn by several people in this Committee, and by the general public. I do not know whether those masks do any good, but I suspect that they do not. What I do know is that Jenny Harries, who is now the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency and was the Deputy CMO previously, said in March last year that it was “not a good idea” for the general public to wear them. She also said that they “trap the virus” and cause people to start breathing it in.

I have a series of quotes, if the Committee will bear with me, that show the confusion in this matter. I am not saying that I am right. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who noble Lords will know, said on April 4 last year that the wearing of face masks by those who are not sick was not recommended by the British Government. He said that there was

“no evidence that the general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society.”

That is his view—or it was in April last year. I do not know. Sir Patrick Vallance, who, again, we have got to know well over the past 18 months and is the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, told MPs last May:

“The situation with masks … is that the data and the evidence are not straightforward”.

In this House, the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said on 21 April last year that

“the British Government have been sceptical about the efficacy of face masks. We do not want to be in a position of misleading or providing false reassurance for the public when there is not sufficient scientific evidence for the relevance of face masks.”—[Official Report, 21/4/20; col. 22.]

The following month, on 19 May, he said:

“There is an instinctive human belief that face masks make a difference, but the scientific proof that they do so is not crystal clear.”—[Official Report, 19/5/20; col. 1096.]

Then on 11 June he quoted the World Health Organization and said that

“‘the widespread use of masks by healthy people … is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence’”.—[Official Report, 11/6/20; col. 1908.]

On 22 June, 11 days later, he said that the mandatory of wearing of face masks was not recommended by the Government.

Now I genuinely do not know, but the situation is certainly confusing; I think everybody can agree on that. I am willing to accept that I am a bit confused. At the Labour Party conference, everybody wore face masks in the hall—we saw them all on television—but they did not wear them at the karaoke parties or receptions. The Liberal Democrat conference was of course virtual, so that was fine. However, they would not have had to wear them because it would not have been very crowded.

So what is the evidence now? Can the Government publish the evidence that made them change their position of last year, with the quotes I have given, to encouraging people to wear face masks? Perhaps there are studies. If they are conclusive, I will wear a mask. That is a promise—but I warn the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who has just spoken, that one should not rely and base one’s policies on opinion polls.

All the calls that we hear for a return to restrictions should, again, be based on evidence. Are things getting worse? The vaccines certainly seem to work. Indeed, I had a message today to get my booster jab. Deaths are actually right down on what they were a year ago. Can the Minister tell us the percentage of deaths from the virus among those who are over 85? I understand that the average age of death is 85, which is actually higher than average life expectancy.

The Office for National Statistics shows that about half of all new infections are among school-age children—in other words, the unvaccinated young—with few lasting ill-effects. Is that true? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on that. Is it the case that there are now studies predicting that cases are likely to fall sharply in the winter? That was in a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which was covered in the press yesterday. Is that the case?

We have now heard one or two doctors panicking about flu and calling for the wearing of face masks because there will be flu around. Wear face masks for ever. Every year, on average—it varies dramatically—about 11,000 people die from flu. That is about the same number who are dying every week. So will the Minister reassure me that the Government will not be panicked into reintroducing any dramatic restrictions, or plan B, without basing the decision on very serious evidence?

Under the Act, citizens were arrested for sitting on a park bench. People were followed by drones just for going for a walk. Police were going into private premises to check whether people were there. And it got worse: locking up students on campus; closing schools and businesses across the UK; the Government telling people whom they could talk to and sleep with; and locked-away, vulnerable elderly people, many of whom never recovered. Daily mainstream media, particularly the BBC and Sky News, were always frightening the life out of most of us—and the £300 million budget will continue until next year.

So the vaccine was a godsend. They said once the over-50s were vaxed, we could open up—but it did not happen. We waited, with the population becoming more anxious and ill by the day. Yet, despite the success of the vaccine programme, the sword of Damocles still hangs over our heads. Some scientists, medics and politicians want to bring back restrictions now—which I vehemently oppose, along with any imposition of a domestic vaccine passport.

That brings me to the context. In 2020, according to the ONS, 680,000 people died in the UK. Approximately 70,000 had Covid on their death certificate. The average number of deaths ran at 1,800 a day. The major causes were dementia, cancer, heart disease, strokes et cetera. About 10% of those had Covid on their death certificates, and I understand that around 5% died directly from that awful virus. That averaged about 90 people a day—and that is 90 too many, because we want to eliminate this, hopefully, at some stage in the future. But it is not easy.

Fortunately, the vaccines are effective and the medicines now available are truly ground-breaking, with the majority fully recovering. Although the elderly are still at risk, the over-65s are now back to normal for this time of year. Positive tests are predominantly among older teenagers, who are not at risk. For those keen to impose plans B, C and anything else, the fact is that 200,000 teenagers have been referred for mental health treatment in the last three months—that does not even come into the elderly and the vulnerable—alongside the millions of patients waiting for diagnosis and treatment on the NHS. Front-line medics are waiting to operate but patients are not being referred, because of Covid restrictions, by GPs and others. Along with the Nightingales, the NHS spent £400 million a month requisitioning 8,000 private beds and 20,000 staff, and managed to refer eight patients a day.

That brings us to the true cost; this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Coronavirus Act 2020 is past its sell-by date. Notwithstanding the urgency to legislate speedily, it is blindingly obvious that the Act has major flaws. There was no parliamentary scrutiny, and even now it is a take-it-or-leave-it approach every six months. This legislation affects people’s everyday lives and criminalises ordinary behaviour. It continues to use delegated rather than primary legislation to implement changes in policy. New laws come into effect at very short notice; there are no impact assessments—or very few—and little debate. They continue to portray public health advice as having the force of law, which is wrong. This is unacceptable and highly dangerous, and results in police forces acting beyond their powers by enforcing government guidance rather than law.

I have outlined my thoughts on some of the actions taken so far. As mentioned, it has been difficult to debate, as anyone challenging the status quo is seen as some sort of anti-vaxxer or troublemaker. It is about listening to all sides of opinion, so I conclude by noting that many scientists and medics do not agree with some of the decisions that have been made. As mentioned, the mainstream media is still bringing messages of doom and gloom on a daily basis, nearly two years on. The time has come to manage where we are.

Other countries have been mentioned but let us look at Scandinavia. A month ago, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway lifted all restrictions. They stated that we need to get back to normal. I agree. Living in fear is not living at all. I therefore urge my noble friend to actively address the lack of scrutiny and parliamentary debate as we move forward.

For example, a meta-analysis commissioned by the WHO claimed that masks could lead to a reduction in the risk of infection, but the studies considered mainly N95 respirators in a hospital setting and not cloth masks in a community setting. Another study in the PNAS claimed that the correlation between declining infections and mask mandates was due to causation, ignoring similar declines elsewhere, and 40 scientists recommended that the study be withdrawn. Early in the pandemic, the advocacy group, #Masks4All, argued that Czechia had fewer infections thanks to the early use of masks. In reality, the pandemic simply had not reached eastern Europe by that stage. A few months later, Czechia had one of the highest infection rates in the world despite an early and strong mask mandate. A study in the US and another in Bangladesh were eventually withdrawn; a German study claiming to vindicate masks actually found no net change overall; a Canadian study claimed that countries with mandated masks had fewer deaths, but it compared very different countries and only the first few weeks of the pandemic. A review by Oxford University claimed that face masks are effective, but it looked at healthcare settings and not community settings—and so on and so on.

Meanwhile, the studies that are well designed and carefully executed have all reached the opposite conclusion: that they cannot find evidence that masks help. An April 2020 review by the University of Illinois, a May 2020 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, a May 2020 US CDC meta-study on pandemic influenza, a July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, an October 2020 randomised control trial with close to 8,000 participants, a November 2020 Danish randomised control trial with 6,000 participants, a November 2020 gold standard Cochrane review—sorry about this; I am nearly at the end—