My Lords, six months feels like about the right time to check in on the workings of this important piece of legislation. The check-in points on the legislation were built into the legislation itself, alongside the requirement to report every two months on the status of each provision of the Act. It is also an opportunity to remind ourselves of the work this House came together to legislate in a spirit of remarkable cross-party collaboration six months ago. It was a time of intense pressure and uncertainty, when we were just starting to understand the scale of measures needed to contain the disease and how our ways of working needed to adapt to create a Covid-secure workplace. The degree of co-operation and collegiality displayed then showed Parliament at its best, and I hope that today we can debate the future of this Act in the same spirit.
Your Lordships will recall that, during the debates on the passage of this Act in March, we devoted significant time to consideration of the necessary safeguards around the use of the powers. The Government listened to concerns and, in response, built new measures into the Act. Although we have recently been debating the local and national lockdown regulations, it is worth stating two obvious points. First the Coronavirus Act is not in itself the repository of powers to tackle the actual disease—that is the role of the Public Health Act 1984. The use of the “made affirmative” procedure” is exactly what one would expect for public health legislation designed to manage a live incident. It gives us powers to vary interventions in a way that responds dynamically to the incident, but also to take account of local sensitivities of geography and local ethos and return these emergency regulations to Parliament for scrutiny within 28 days.
Secondly, we cannot use the Civil Contingencies Act, as was raised in the original debate. That Act and the emergency powers it contains are tools to prevent, control or mitigate an aspect or effect of an emergency that it has not been possible to anticipate or plan for. The triple lock of urgency, necessity and proportionality ensures that the CCA is used only when there is no other option.
So why did we need the Coronavirus Act at all? The Act provides public agencies across the UK with new powers, almost all strictly time-limited, and enables them to mount an effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic. I shall run through a few. First, on the return of public sector workers, some of the provisions in the Act ensure that there are enough workers in the health and social care sector to continue to provide key services. This includes allowing the emergency registration of certain health professionals and students and supporting recently retired NHS staff and local workers in returning to work without any negative repercussions for their pensions. These measures to support volunteers ease pressure on front-line NHS staff and social care staff. The measures had great impact. They enabled the NHS Bring Back Staff scheme, which attracted 65,000 registrations from former professionals and, as at 31 July 2020, 2,140 returning staff in England were redeployed in front-line positions or used in remote roles such as NHS 111 and test and trace.
My Lords, I first pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bethell and, indeed, give him my sincere sympathy. I think he was appointed to be a Health Minister at the beginning of this year, and, in his worst nightmares, he could never have imagined that he would be here every day repeating Statements, defending regulations and whatever else. I give my sympathy and best wishes—even when I do not agree with him.
Paragraph 7 of the Government’s Coronavirus Act analysis, which was sent to us all last week, states that, in a “proportionate response”,
“A balance has had to be struck”.
Paragraph 20 states:
“The government’s objective is to delay and flatten the peak of the pandemic … so that we minimise suffering and save lives.”
However, the next paragraph states an intention to
“minimise disruption to everyday life”.
In this regard, it especially mentions education and the progression to employment of the young. All of these are laudable intentions.
The original Motion that I put down last week was somewhat more forthright than today’s, but wiser counsel from friends prevailed. Therefore, my Motion today is very close to the Brady amendment that will be put to the Commons on Wednesday. I will pursue two arguments. The first is that government policy has been inconsistent, incoherent, confusing and entirely disproportionate: a public health crisis has been turned into a catastrophe. The second—which may find more sympathy in this Chamber—is that our cherished and accountable democratic process has been replaced by authoritarian rule by diktat.
Six months ago, there was a lack of knowledge and a real concern about coronavirus, so the imposition of emergency measures was perhaps understandable. We now know—as we knew then—that the virus is unpleasant, virulent, highly contagious and dangerous. We now have six months of evidence to study, but we still do not know everything. Indeed, we know remarkably little about this virus. Although confirmed cases stand at approximately 435,000, there have of course been many, many more.
My Lords, I remind noble Lords of the time-limited nature of this debate. The time limit for Back-Bench speakers is four minutes, to allow for a full response by the Minister at the end.
My Lords, I shall do my best to adhere to the stricture about four minutes. I reiterate the accolades placed on the shoulders of the Minister on Friday; he has an impossible task.
On 24 March, I was surprised to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, at Second Reading of the emergency Bill—it was probably as surprising to him as it was to me. For once in my life, I advocated caution and proportionality, and expressed concern not just about the nature of the emergency Bill but about the increasing use of the public health Act of 1984 to which the Minister referred. It is the two Acts together that I want in my short time to deal with, and the use by fiat and diktat of the 1984 Act—which was obviously intended to provide powers to tackle the pandemic and the control of diseases—without recourse to democratic accountability and the ability to hold the Government properly to account. It is not the individual measures that I want to deal with but the overall direction.
We need confidence, clarity and consistency. We are lacking in confidence, which is undermined almost daily, particularly by the broadcast media and some irresponsible people on social media. We have a total lack of clarity about exactly what works, when it works and how it should work, and we have been completely lacking in consistency.
On what the Minister said about the Act, it is commendable that more than 60,000 people were brought back into the health service and many reregistered, but we have a 30% shortfall in the use of capacity in the NHS, because following the decanting of people from beds and the clearing of facilities we have got nowhere near back to normal. As a consequence, diagnoses are delayed, treatment is deferred and people who should not be dying are dying of serious illnesses. Where are the 60,000-odd people to ensure that that can be dealt with, either through primary care or the reopening of wards?
These are crucial questions that need to be answered, but I have one final point to make to the Minister. Can we persuade the Government to reshape and refresh the scientific advisory group on the emergency? Many of them have done a fantastic job, but they are tired. They reinforce one another, and we have silly statements coming from some people who ought to know better about locking down the over-45s. It is time to let students get on with learning and to stop pretending that universities can provide both research and teaching without the money to do so. It is time to ensure that young people can get on with their lives. While the rest of us should take greater measures to protect ourselves, we as a nation need to ensure that we protect our democratic procedures, our legitimacy and consent within government. We have the power to ask the difficult questions that other people would rather not hear.
My Lords, when this legislation first came to your Lordships’ House, all Benches worked constructively to support the Government and give them whatever powers they needed to control the virus. Our Benches joined others in supporting the legislation, but because of the extent to which the powers impinged on people’s well-being, rights and freedoms, we wanted it reviewed every three months. We landed up with six months, and here we are today, better able to judge how the Government have used their powers. Frankly, in some respects, we are not impressed.
While many measures, such as emergency registration of nurses and allowing people to receive statutory sick pay from day one, were necessary and successful, our right honourable friends in another place will be attempting to remove or change some of the measures. It is wrong for the Government to force the House of Commons simply to approve full renewal or, on the contrary, full expiry and give this House no say at all.
It is not as if we have not tried to engage with the Government to discuss what needs to change. The leader of my party, Sir Edward Davey MP, has asked the Prime Minister to work with us to agree new legislation: to keep the necessary measures, get rid of harmful or redundant ones, add new measures, and return the role of Parliament to approving regulations before they take effect instead of weeks later—on that, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. Disappointingly, the Government refused to engage, so they will be faced with a series of amendments from all parties on Wednesday.
One measure that must go is the Care Act easements. They are unnecessary and, although they were used by some local authorities at the beginning, are no longer used. Three-quarters of families with disabled children had their care stopped altogether during lockdown, but they still need proper assessment. A legal analysis by the Disability Law Service shows that the Government’s reduction of disabled people’s rights without consultation breaches international law under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—but then, breaking international law is getting to be a habit with this Government. The continued presence of these easements in the Act presents real risk to the rights and well-being of elderly, disabled and vulnerable people. They must go.
3:17 pm
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords—[Inaudible]. Going back to last March, I do not think that any of us, unless we have remarkable gifts of foresight, ever really envisaged the crisis which is beginning to unfold and bury us. We are not being honest with ourselves. There is a tension between national health and national wealth; there is a tension between isolationism—to preserve health—and productivity. By “wealth”, I mean jobs, I mean the economy and I mean the funds which will one day be needed to deal with the great needs of the National Health Service as well as all the other services which are provided from public funds. By “health”, I mean not just coronavirus; I mean the unfortunate individuals suffering from life-threatening and painful illnesses who are not receiving the treatment or the attention that they in their condition require. Until we are honest about this difficulty and this conflict—a conflict of interest—we will not address this problem at all.
My concern with the Coronavirus Act is simple. Now that we have had six months of it and are having our first debate, it would be diabolical if our next debate on this issue was postponed until March next year. It simply cannot be right.
I do not take much comfort, although I do mean no discourtesy to the Minister, and share in all the compliments that he has received, in two-monthly reports. What I find most depressing of all is that all these provisions that we have been discussing—the good, bad, indifferent and ugly—are all dealt with through secondary legislation without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is at the heart of my complaint. I wish the Coronavirus Act to be amended so that more debates are provided in this House and, more importantly, in the Commons. It is the Commons to which we should turn, not the media platforms or the endless conferences being held, where the Minister is asked a question by one television reporter, then another and another. They should be here and they should be there, down at the other end.
I cannot see a clock that tells me how much longer I have to go. Oh, there it is—I have a little longer. May I suggest to noble Lords the sort of things that should be discussed in the Commons? The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, referred to one: the Home Secretary says, “Let’s have snitching.” That may be a good idea, a bad idea or a rotten idea—I am not commenting. But surely that is the place for discussion about whether this is a social advantage. The Prime Minister says in the House that we will have military help for the police. Fine—we all want the military to help in an emergency. But to act as back-up police officers—is this what we want to see on our streets? I make no comment, but there really should be a debate about it.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, although in this instance I have to disagree with him that we must face up to a conflict of interest between national wealth and national health in any simple sense. The relationship between the measures that we take in response to this crisis and the impact on our economy is very complex, and it may well be that we can find our way to reconcile the two. I point out that back in August Ministers were encouraging people to go back to work. In my experience, many people who had been so encouraged chose not to do so but stayed and worked at home. As it happens, it took only three weeks for Ministers then to agree with them. What that demonstrates is that we are beginning collectively, not just as a Government but as a people, to understand the nature of this virus and how we need to respond to it.
I am looking forward to all three maiden speeches, not least that of my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, whose presence here brings another joy to me, which is that it has restored to eight the number of my former bosses in this House.
I cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Robathan in his Motion of Regret. I think we need these powers and the speed of response necessary is such that it would be inappropriate for us to require parliamentary approval before the exercise of such powers. However, I share with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the view that we ought to be debating more frequently. That is something which, if in no other way, the usual channels might be able to engineer.
One of the main reasons I support the Act’s provisions is not only the ability to bring people who have recently retired into the NHS and return them to practice; I also hope that, in the time available, we will think that this is not simply a temporary provision but may need to be something that we have in place for some considerable time. I have said before and will say again that we may need something similar to the Reserve Forces for the benefit of the NHS, if we are to recover in the next few years the position that we have lost over the many treatments that have not been able to be undertaken these last six months. We are going to need a lot of help to make that happen.
3:26 pm
The Lord Bishop of Rochester
My Lords, I too was pleased to take part in the debate in March and recall noble Lords arguing points that they might not normally argue in that debate. Already in this debate we have heard some interesting contributions. I, too, look forward to the three maiden speeches that we are to hear.
I sense that, with regard to restrictions on people and communities, the next six months may be rather more difficult than the last six months. At the outset there was some sense of shared responsibility, and a deep anxiety about the virulence of the virus led to a high degree of willingness to accept restrictions, even when the messaging about them was, shall we say, less than clear. In my own world, congregations have very largely and willingly sought to order their lives within the various guidelines, and some relished the challenge of going online and got very creative—but there have been costs.
For me, one of the greatest costs is the constraint placed on our living as social beings. Our relating to one another in myriad settings is part of who we are as human beings, and doing so from behind a mask and without proximity or touch is a diminishing of our humanity, not least—as already mentioned—in relation to those in care homes and other such settings. Social distancing may offer a degree of protection from physical ill health, but it is not conducive to human flourishing and well-being in a broader sense. The longer these relational privations last, the more difficult it will become, in all sorts of ways.
Therefore, if restrictions are to continue or even, sadly, to be extended, it is essential that decisions about them be, in the first place, transparent. That includes effective parliamentary scrutiny and other elements of transparency. To echo the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, they need to be clear, not just in content but in rationale, if they are to be defensible and consistent, as many have said. If that is not the case, we risk a gradual falling away of willingness to live within the constraints—and we see that beginning, in various settings. We have seen comments from some of the students who have been interviewed, and so forth. Even in normally docile Church of England congregations, who socially distance happily during worship, I note that as they go out the door they are rather more nonconformist in their behaviour. I suspect that may be true in many other settings.
On the importance of relationships, I am very concerned—to change tack a little—about our prisons. I have some role and responsibility as bishop to Her Majesty’s prisons. Staff, including chaplains and many others, have been working heroically in all sorts of difficulties to maintain contact—that is, relationships—with those in prison. However, when work, education, rehabilitative programmes, religious worship, association and social visits are restricted, problems are being stored up, not least for mental well-being. That is not just for those in prison but also for their parents, partners, children and others. I think we will see some real difficulties emerging in future. I suggest strongly that, in that setting especially, serious and creative attention should be given to ways in which relationships can be sustained, not least because, as we all know, relationships are key to tackling reoffending.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to speak for the first time in this House and to thank noble Lords on all sides for their courtesy and assistance during my first few days here. In particular, I would like to put on record my gratitude to all the House staff for their professionalism and for the risks they are taking in these difficult times. I thank my noble friend Lady Healy, whom I have only met in the last few days but who is now my mentor and has shown me great kindness over that time.
I also thank my two sponsors, whom I have known for a considerably longer period of time. My noble friend Lord Foulkes met me when I was a young child and, as I like to remind him, he has now known five generations of my family, including my grandmother, Agnes Davies, who was chair of his constituency Labour Party when he was the Member of Parliament for South Ayrshire. I met my other sponsor, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, in 2005 when I was first elected as the Member of Parliament for North Ayrshire and Arran and she was lobbying and advising on civil liberties aspects of legislation going through the other place. I suspect that her skills will be of great use in today’s debate.
My election as the Member of Parliament for North Ayrshire and Arran was the biggest honour of my life. It is a beautiful and diverse constituency. I come from Ayrshire, so I am well aware of many of the challenges that Ayrshire, and indeed the whole of the west of Scotland, faces due to deindustrialisation and a lack of investment over many years. I hope to have the opportunity to speak about some of those issues in this House. The advice that I got from the clerks was to make an uncontroversial maiden speech. Given the nature of some of the legislation coming before the House, that has been very difficult to do.
My first employment was in the Scottish legal profession, where I took civil actions based on human rights breaches. I then went on to work as a criminal defence agent and was an executive member of the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties before I headed up a legal unit for the trade union UNISON. All my instincts would normally be to strongly oppose legislation with some of the draconian provisions included in the Act which is before the House today.
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Secondly, and very importantly, the financial support provisions provide direct support for those in economic need caused by the virus because they are shielding, isolating or otherwise prevented from working. This includes hugely important financial measures touching millions of lives called for during the Second Reading of the Bill that became before this Act by noble Lords from all Benches. These include halting the eviction of tenants, making it easier to claim statutory sick pay and increasing working tax credits. Again, these have had great impact. To date, statutory sick pay has been extended to individuals displaying the symptoms of Covid, individuals required to shield, individuals asked to isolate following a test-and-trace notification or members of their household. A range of support is in place under the Act for those who do not receive statutory sick pay: we increased the standard rate of universal credit, meaning that claimants will be £1,040 better off each year, and we have a wide range of measures to support businesses and individuals, including the job retention scheme, the Self-employment Income Support Scheme and an enormous £330 billion worth of guaranteed loans to support businesses in accessing the finances they need.
Thirdly, there are provisions to lighten burdens on front-line staff. Some provisions enable vital services to carry on by temporarily easing some of the burdens on front-line staff. Good examples are making better use of video links in the court services; enabling the Government to order ports to close if there are insufficient customs and immigration staff; and reducing the regulatory burden in death management. These have had impact. At present 60% to 65% of hearings each day include one or two parties joining remotely. As a result, we are investing £142 million to upgrade our technology. Soon all courts will be digitally enabled, and they will never look back.
Fourthly, there are the containment provisions. Some provisions are designed to reduce the risk of spread. A couple of examples are postponing this year’s elections and taking the power to ban mass gatherings and powers for public health officers to quarantine the symptomatic and non-compliant. These provisions have been used judiciously. For instance, we have largely found that engagement is sufficiently persuasive—most people want to do the right thing—but interventions have sometimes been necessary and, as of 31 July, public health officers have used their powers fewer than 10 times.
I have heard it said that we should be using the Civil Contingencies Act instead as Ministers could have the same powers but with the additional safeguard of requiring periodic parliamentary renewal. Even if true, that simply would not do. The Civil Contingencies Act is a provision of last resort. It contains strict tests to ensure that it is used only when there are no other legislative options. In this case there were legislative options so it was not necessary or appropriate. Although the measures in the Coronavirus Act were urgent on this occasion, there was time to pass conventional legislation.
The Coronavirus Act deserves an assessment. Our assessment is that it has meant an enormous amount to the lives of people. It has meant that they have known where their next meal was coming from, thanks to the furlough scheme and the easement around the claiming of benefits that the Act has facilitated. It has encouraged a feeling of security in their own home, thanks to the additional protection from eviction that the Act has created; a feeling of more confidence that their job will exist, thanks to the support for industry and business that the Act has allowed the Government to set up; a feeling of knowing that there is access to justice, the bedrock of freedom under the law, because the Act has enabled courts to operate remotely; and a feeling of safety from harm, knowing that the NHS and social care workforce can maintain capacity thanks to the registration, indemnity and pension changes that the Act enabled the Government to put in place.
There have also been some perhaps less obvious benefits that are none the less essential to the workings of government—for example, the continuation of local democracy, allowing councils to meet virtually; the continuation of death management services by easing the burdens on providers; the continuation of judicial oversight of interception warrants; and the enabling of biometrics held for national security purposes to be retained for an additional period due to the effects of coronavirus on the police.
I do not want the current debate on lockdown legislation to distract from the achievement of the Coronavirus Act. It was a Bill born of an emergency but shaped by Parliament, and Parliament should be justifiably proud of that achievement. None the less I completely acknowledge that aspects of the Act will rightly trigger concern, and I am sure they will be raised in the debate ahead. For instance, it allows one rather than two doctors to detain a patient under the Mental Health Act. That provision has not been commenced but I recognise that it remains one of the most sensitive potential powers in the Act. The Act allows the easing of local authorities’ Care Act responsibilities. These provisions were used in some parts of the country but those eight local authorities had all ceased doing so by the end of June.
The Act allows the power to close ports, including our major airports. That power has never been used, thank goodness. The power to require non-compliant infectious people to self-isolate, or to attend for screening or assessment, has been used fewer than 10 times. Lastly, the police and crime commissioner elections, local elections and by-elections planned for this year were, sadly, postponed, but we hope for normal service to be resumed next May.
The Government have used these powers only when necessary, and we have not used them at all when we have been able to avoid doing so. We have kept Parliament and the public fully informed via our two-monthly reports. The Coronavirus Act is not directly a response to an emergency; it is instead the mechanism to support our response. For that reason, emergency powers are not suitable nor, given the necessarily temporary nature of those powers, would they give people the long-term certainty that they need.
The wording of the Motion is to encourage the continuation of the
“temporary provisions of the … Act”.
What are the non-temporary provisions? They are just ones that cannot be temporary if they are to work. For instance, the indemnity provisions cannot be temporary, although the period in which they can be incurred will be. Cremation certificates under the Act will be permanent, although disapplying the requirement for a confirmatory certificate will be temporary.
However, I cannot offer your Lordships any reliable estimate of when the crisis will be over. It will, as we recognised six months ago, ebb and flow. That is why we took the facility to suspend live provisions if and when they are no longer needed and the facility to revive them as the course of the pandemic dictates. The Act will expire after two years unless renewed by Parliament. We all hope that we can dispense with it long before then, but we can be optimistic in our aspiration as long as we are realistic in our planning.
Therefore, can we permanently sunset the unused provision? No, we cannot. The response evolves over time as the course of the disease changes, but the need to be able to deploy support mechanisms remains constant. Of course, we keep the situation under review, and the built-in review mechanisms do provide opportunities to test whether any or all of the provisions are still needed. The people of this country have made great sacrifices in the struggle against this virus. They deserve the support and protection that the Coronavirus Act provides. I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ contributions in the course of this debate, and I hope to be able to respond to any concerns raised. I beg to move.
My unscientific and anecdotal view is that the virus swept through the population in the first few months of this year, killing the most vulnerable and infecting many, many millions. However, nobody really knows. I am not a scientist; I do not know much about T cells or whether the common cold—apparently caused by another coronavirus—can give some resistance to the virus. I do not know much about vitamin D—except that you need sunlight—or the Gompertz curve. However, I can see that the graphs of fatalities in past epidemics tend to follow a similar pattern, and those in Europe seem to be doing so now.
We do not even know very much about the symptoms of coronavirus infection: they keep expanding. My son was sent home from his college on 12 March with a high fever and persistent cough; he recovered quickly—he is young and healthy—but he had no sense of smell or taste. Of course, in March that was entirely irrelevant because it did not become a symptom until late May. Scientific advice, models and predictions have varied widely—from the apocalyptic half a million deaths mentioned by the discredited Neil Ferguson in March to contradictory scenarios. The international scene remains very concerning and, of course, reasonable precautions should be taken, especially by the elderly and vulnerable.
Unfortunately, many in the media seize upon unsubstantiated scare stories, and I particularly mention the BBC, which spreads fear and despair and treats the opinions of the discredited Professor Ferguson as gospel. These fears are amplified by some politicians: Sadiq Khan, Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford. However, my unscientific view remains that neither they nor anybody else really knows. Government policy has reflected that, as advice has changed weekly, if not daily. It is not that many weeks since we were told that wearing a face mask was unnecessary and possibly even increased the viral load if one was already infected. Therefore, please let us not suspend our critical faculties; let us look at the evidence.
First, although infection rates are important, we have been exhorted throughout this crisis that this is about saving lives, so it is deaths and very serious illness or hospital admissions that should be our focus. The data is certainly not perfect, but we do know—from Cancer Research UK, for instance—that 450 people die from cancer every day. Coronavirus restrictions have caused a backlog in referrals for treatment, which is probably leading to unnecessary deaths from cancer. We do know that restrictions are having a very bad effect on mental health, particularly depression, and that domestic abuse and violence has increased. It seems that suicides may have increased. We know that elderly people are dying alone, feeling deserted and surrounded by strangers in blue plastic sheets.
We know that government figures put the number of deaths from coronavirus of those under 65 at about 6,000 over the last six months. Most of these individuals had comorbidities such as diabetes or obesity. We also know that the chances of dying from coronavirus are minimal if one is under the age of 25.
We know that our children’s education is being dreadfully harmed and their future mortgaged—as is our country’s future prosperity—and that our economy is being trashed and livelihoods and lives destroyed. We know that these tragic deaths from coronavirus—which are overwhelmingly among the elderly, frail and those with comorbidities—currently account for approximately 2% of deaths in this country, where 623,000 people died last year, which averages 1,700 a day or 11,000 a week. Therefore, are these restrictions meeting the objective of saving lives?
This is not the Black Death, nor is it the great plague, the Spanish flu or a war. My right honourable friend Rishi Sunak said of the virus on Thursday in the House of Commons that
“we must learn to live with it, and live without fear.” —[Official Report, Commons, 24/9/20; cols. 1155.]
I entirely agree; we need a proportionate response and courageous leadership.
I accept that many of your Lordships will not agree with my views on government policy or on the restrictions imposed on our liberty. However, I hope that you may support my second point and the focus of the Motion: we need proper accountability to our national Parliament, which has been totally bypassed over the last six months. We have seen no cost-benefit analyses, detailed impact assessments or proper risk assessments. Let the Government put the evidence before Parliament, which can then decide whether government policies are appropriate and proportionate and, indeed, whether the deaths from coronavirus are not outweighed by the enormous harm caused to life by the restrictions.
Currently, we have students locked into halls of residence, sporting fixtures for the young cancelled, holidays ruined, theatres closed, and bars and restaurants closing down because they are unviable. Christmas is being cancelled and some elderly people, who fear this may be their last Christmas, will be unable to see their families. A Cabinet Minister has called on neighbours to ring the police if there are seven people in the house next door. There is a national curfew at 10 pm, the first ever in peacetime, I believe, and the rule of six is based on—what exactly? All this without any proper scrutiny.
Our free society is being turned into something that I do not recognise, as these illogical and draconian measures restrict the liberty of our people. This is rule by decree, something more usually associated with authoritarian Governments. This unaccountable and rather unusual assembly where we sit is not the place to hold the Government to account. That is the role of the elected representatives of the people: Members of the House of Commons, who will have to answer to their constituents.
However, we can ask questions. This afternoon, we can show that we support the amendment tabled by my honourable friend Sir Graham Brady and apparently supported by the Opposition, which will be put down on Wednesday. I hope all Peers will support my Motion in order to allow this House to express its opinion on the way the Government are currently acting—in, frankly, a cavalier manner without any accountability. I intend to divide the House, and I hope others feel as strongly as I do on this matter.
A major feature since the lifting of the national lockdown has been the imposition of local lockdowns where infections are rising. While these may be necessary, the combination of different rules in different places has caused confusion not only among the public but for the police. I accept that correct enforcement is necessary, but according to a review by the prosecution service 121 people have been wrongfully charged under the Act. The powers under Section 23, extending the time limits for urgent warrants, Section 51 and Schedule 21, giving extra powers for police and immigration officers to detain people, and Section 52 and Schedule 22, giving power to restrict or ban events and gatherings, must be clarified or removed. I would add to that guidance for the police on how to use the recent enforcement fines for failing to isolate.
There appears to be little logic in the way in which some powers are being used. Indoor pubs are allowed to open, but despite several successful pilots, sports clubs are not allowed to play matches to reduced-sized live audiences in their enormous outdoor stadia, perhaps with staggered arrivals to avoid crowds. Why not? Then there is the plight of university students, which time does not allow me to go into. The answer to much of this is a genuinely world-beating test, trace and isolate system, instead of the shambles that we have got.
I have one more example. Can we remember the saying that an Englishman and Englishwoman’s home is their castle? There are two aspects to that: no one should come in unless you want them to come in, but you can invite in whom you like. We forget that part of it. Parents are going to be telling their children that the law prohibits their coming home at the end of this university term. Is not that something that should be debated, and frequently debated? My plea to the Minister is that he should please take away, if the House agrees, the need for amendment so that we have proper debates and, in particular, that these issues of great societal importance are talked about—at any rate, so that government can be influenced by what the Government hear.
I want to say three things about further restrictions. First, it is time for those who have been shielded—the vulnerable groups—to have renewed and updated guidance. I was somebody the NHS regarded as shielding because of my past cancer treatment, but I have had no communication about the resources that might be available to those who have shielded since early July, even if I can work it out for myself.
Secondly, my noble friend on the Front Bench knows that I did not think the rule of six was scientific, and he more or less confirmed that. It is rather absurd when you have Ministers debating whether it should be a rule of six or a rule of eight; I wonder why they did not decide on a rule of seven. The point is that it is not rational, as such, but simple. What is rational, and a necessary adjunct to it, is to avoid the mixing of households in circumstances where the most vulnerable people are present in those households.
My third and final point is one I made to my noble friend weeks ago. Universities should be in a position to test students before they return home from university. That will mean a lot of additional testing being available in December.
A sense of tiredness is settling in. In many places, people initially engaged with a degree of energy and were trying to get things working well. We need to be wary of this tiredness, as well as the areas of more overt frustration in some people and places. Significant effort will be needed to get through these next six months in as good a way as possible. I go back to my trio, which is slightly different to that of the noble Lord, of transparency, clarity and consistency.
However, as has been pointed out, we live in unprecedented times and the pandemic we are faced with means we have to look at the legislation in that context. The legislation is very wide-ranging—it is 360 pages of legislation, including schedules—ranging from making it easier to force compulsory treatment on individuals under the Mental Health Act to postponing elections and provisions relating to potentially infectious persons.
In the short time available, I am going to focus on only one aspect, which is statutory sick pay. Approximately 2 million people in this country are excluded from statutory sick pay. They are mainly women, but those on zero-hours contracts and the self-employed are particularly affected. The TUC says that, in this country, statutory sick pay is the equivalent of only 29% of average pay, compared with, for example, 100% in Germany and 93% in Belgium. I suggest to the Minister that, given that the state is requiring people to self-isolate and asking them to shield, perhaps this is something that we can look at again. We need to make sure that we put people in a financial position where they are able to comply, to keep all of us safe.