That, for the purposes of section 99 of the Coronavirus Act 2020, this House takes note of the One year report on the status of the non-devolved provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020, published on 22 March 2021.
My Lords, it has been a year since the House passed the Coronavirus Act, and this anniversary gives us a moment to reflect. Despite the remarkable challenges of the past year, the spirit of co-operation and consensus that epitomised the passage of that Bill at that time of national crisis stands firm today. Now, a whole year later, it seems that our legislative approach has stood the test of time.
Our response required using the tools that were already available, such as the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, and at the same time rapidly developing new tools such as the Coronavirus Act. This dual approach has enabled us not only to tackle the public health threat but to underpin our public health response with a broader package of civic and financial support.
At the time we looked very closely at the Civil Contingencies Act, and I know many noble Lords feel we missed an opportunity there, not least because it might have meant that we engaged more fully with Parliament, but also because it would have taken us down an all-UK approach that would have perhaps somehow have spared the pressure on the union. However, the truth is that that choice was never possible. The Civil Contingencies Act is a provision of the last resort and its use is subject to very strict triple-lock criteria. A change to the CCA would have been necessary for it to have been usable. Instead, we used the Public Health Act 1984 to enact most of our public health legislative responses to the virus. It is an unloved Act, and many suggest we stretched it beyond its intended purpose. That is not true. We used it for what it was designed to do: to protect the population from communicable diseases of pandemic proportions. Indeed, the Act had been enhanced after the swine flu pandemic in 2008 with amendments specifically to enable a rapid response to a pandemic. Further, we chose to use the 1984 Act because it was and remains preferable to use existing powers. It was and is the right way to respond.
The 1984 Act provided us with many of the tools to respond to the public health risk, but it did not give us everything we needed. We needed to support our people: individuals, businesses and the economy; to shore up the capacity and resilience of our health and care systems; and we needed the continued delivery of essential public services. These are the three reasons we introduced the Coronavirus Act and, one year later, they are the reasons why we still need it. Yes, vaccines are happening at breakneck speed, but we are not out of the woods yet. We all need the continuation of this support and, while it is still required, it is our duty to provide it. The continued need for this dual legislative approach does not mean that we should remain static. A key feature of our response has been our ability to adapt and to respond to a changing set of circumstances, and this is precisely what the road map and today’s legislation are about: taking cautious steps towards ending public health restrictions and getting back to normal.
My Lords, on Tuesday, we marked the sad milestone of the anniversary of the first lockdown by remembering all those who have died from Covid in the United Kingdom. We know that the shocking number of 126,000 is an underestimate, given that the count is of those who tested positive in the previous 28 days, and there are many who died beyond that period. But even with that, we are top of the world league in deaths per million at 1,859. To every family and friend of those who have died we send our deepest sympathies.
Before I come to why we have tabled this regret Motion, it is important to note the things that have gone well, such as the commitment of so many people in key roles across the country—in the NHS and social care, and our scientists and technicians in laboratories. Especial thanks go to those in our universities and research organisations who have found treatments and, most importantly, vaccines. We thank all those who have ensured that the vaccine pipeline has worked so well so far. Despite bumps on the road, it is impressive.
We also want to thank the teams in the Civil Service, local government and communities which have stepped up to the plate to ensure that core services and voluntary community groups remained working. One year on, they are all exhausted. We thank Ministers too; we understand the pressure that Ministers face every day. Sometimes, we have to hold them to account, and I know that can be hard. We thank them all.
We on these Benches have not tabled this regret Motion lightly, but from a growing frustration that the Government are still behaving as if we were in the early days of this pandemic and have not learned the lessons of what went wrong earlier on. Monday’s BBC “Panorama” programme interviewed the President of South Korea and asked him why the UK had done so badly, despite all the evidence from those countries that had been affected by SARS locking down early. His answer was telling. He said that each country in Europe appeared to have to go through its own crisis to understand the strong, clear actions it should have taken right at the outset, then repeatedly to prevent the virus escalating or re-entering the country. The UK death toll is, sadly, the evidence that the Government have got it wrong.
My Lords, I first thank the Minister for his speech, and also for his very hard work over the past 12 months, which has been much appreciated. I thought that his speech was noticeable for what it did not say as much as for what he included. Of course he was right to praise the work on vaccines; I salute the brilliance of the scientists, the scale and diversity of the UK vaccine procurement, and the magnificent effort of the NHS in vaccinating so many people. I also pay tribute to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which has taken tough decisions, held its nerve and got it right.
However, in the words of my noble friend Lady Thornton’s Motion to Regret, the Government’s handling of the pandemic has resulted in
“one of the highest death tolls in the world and the worst economic crisis of any major economy”.
This has been compounded by the fact that the most vulnerable in this country have been the hardest hit. We should not overlook the Government’s slow and uncertain response. Their record has been one of delay, indecision and vacillation. The failure to lock down early enough last spring, despite clear evidence of the need to do so, was compounded, as the Resolution Foundation points out, by being repeated in September and then in December. Many Conservative MPs wish to do the same today by opposing the continuation of the provisions in the Act.
On this country’s high death rate, we should never forget the inexcusable 20,000 Covid deaths in English care homes in 2020 or the fact that mortality rates in the most deprived areas have been almost twice those in the least deprived.
The review that accompanies these regulations speaks of the Government’s commitment to protecting people’s jobs and livelihoods. There is much to commend but there have been some real problems too. Many of the self-employed fell through the net. Some 2 million low earners are excluded from receiving sick pay; when they are asked to isolate at home without any protection of their employment, many have felt unable to do so. That contributed to the weakness of the test and trace system, which has been unable to provide an alternative to lockdowns.
My Lords, Covid-19 was an unpredictable and unprecedented crisis—a health crisis, an economic crisis, a supply shock, a demand shock—reverberating across the globe. It came out of the blue. How you deal with, respond to and adapt to crises is what matters. The Covid-19 crisis has brought huge emotional tragedy, with sad deaths and a social and economic toll. It has forced us to reckon with the things that mattered most to us as a society and instilled a deep-rooted desire to build back better, looking ahead.
Also, the crisis has seen the best of what business can do in the service of the nation. I declare my interest as president of the CBI. Our UK economy has so many strengths. We have just 1% of the world’s population but six of the world’s 30 best universities, 12% of Nobel Prizes, and 16% of the highest-rated research papers. We are recognised globally as a magnet for international students, start-ups, and entrepreneurs and inward investment. The World Bank consistently rates us as one of the best places in the world to do business Now we need to harness that expertise and ambition as we build back from the crisis, creating jobs, opportunities and shared prosperity across the UK. This year, 2021, is a golden opportunity for the UK to redefine its position in the world.
Right now, businesses are focused on Covid and keeping employees, customers and communities safe. We need to look ahead to the next quarter, the next year, the next decade. At the CBI, we have worked closely with the Government and are grateful for the huge rescue packages, including the furlough scheme, which have saved millions of jobs and businesses. The Budget was a seminal moment and, overall, it succeeded strongly in protecting the economy now and helping to kick-start recovery. The Chancellor has spent more than £400 billion. He has also set out a longer-term economic vision and a further boost to investment. We at the CBI will soon come out with our economic vision for Britain over the next decade to 2030.
It is some time since I have spoken in a coronavirus debate in your Lordships’ House but my issues with the Government’s policies are fundamentally unchanged. The Government continue to make policy in a coronavirus vacuum as if the only thing that matters is the virus and its impact on the NHS. There are clear non-Covid health harms, which are almost too many to mention. The physical health harms include mistreatment, misdiagnosis and elevated non-Covid deaths. There is a huge backlog of NHS work. Mental health issues include 80% of teenagers suffering a mental health symptom, with a disproportionate impact on those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. We will be living with—and dying from—the impact of these health harms for a generation.
Similarly, our economy will pay a heavy price for many years, with public sector net debt over 100% of GDP and the threat of higher taxes to pay for that. Unemployment data are being dampened down by the various financial support schemes, but we will inevitably see further business failures and job losses when that support ceases. It is already having a big impact on younger employees, and those entering the job market face an uncertain future.
In policy terms, getting the balance right is inevitably a highly complex judgment. However, it should not be the preserve of a few in Whitehall. The Government have not had a grown-up conversation with the country about trade-offs and priorities; nor have they put any meaningful data and analysis in the public domain. I have often wondered whether the Government have the analysis and have suppressed it or there is wilful blindness at work. We probably will not know until there is a full inquiry in due course.
The non-Covid health harms and excessive economic damage are bad enough but I have been shocked at the loss of civil liberties, coupled with heavy-handed and insensitive policing. The sad thing is that too many seem to enjoy these new powers over ordinary people. I never thought I would live in a country where a police officer intervenes because two old women are having a cup of socially distanced tea, or because sitting on a park bench to rest was not permitted. Although I completely understand the need to be able to place restrictions on those entering the UK in case they are carrying the virus—especially new variants of it—I completely reject the notion that the Government should stop its citizens leaving the UK and fine them if they try to do so. Whoever thought that up should be sacked. It is just not British. We have travelled too far into totalitarianism.
My Lords, a year ago, when little was known about the virus, the Government, through the legislation whose renewal we are debating today, assumed unto themselves unprecedented powers, with little accountability or scrutiny. One year on, when much more is known about the virus, the Government are at it again in the renewal of this legislation.
A year ago, we on these Benches said three things. First, the way to minimise the impact of this virus would be through local public services, with professionals, such as environmental health officers knowledgeable and skilled at managing public health emergencies, and trading standards officers accustomed to managing premises and businesses from a health point of view. We also pointed out that local authorities’ budgets had been hollowed out by 40%. Since 2012, the public health budget has had £800 million removed from it. We called for the resources to be put into locally led Covid responses, supported by national initiatives, and the Government completely ignored that. They set up centralised systems that were vastly expensive and did not work.
A year on, the Government have finally got the message. I understand that the track-and-trace system will now be turned over to local authorities. I specifically ask the Minister this: of the £37 billion that was allocated to track and trace, how much is left at the moment and how much will be given to people in local government who, for years, will be picking up the pieces from the impact of this on local communities?
The second thing we said was that the Government’s key responsibility in the pandemic was to be open with people about the basis upon which they would legislate to restrict people’s liberty. We said that clear communication would be essential to ensure compliance and trust, as was an understanding that the rules would be applied fairly to everybody. For months, they were not because of two words: Barnard Castle.
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I will take a moment to reflect on a few of the benefits and achievements of the Act. It enabled the temporary registration of over 15,000 nurses, midwives and nursing associates, as well as over 21,000 temporary paramedics, practitioners, radiographers and other professionals. It has eased the burden on front-line staff by reducing administrative tasks, so that their time can be focused on where they are most needed. It has facilitated innovation, with comprehensive indemnity arrangements that give clinical staff the confidence to treat their patients to the best of their ability. The Act has allowed us to provide key financial support and resilience to individuals and businesses impacted by Covid-19 through schemes such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme.
The Act has preserved access to justice by enabling 750,000 hearings to take place through remote technology. Section 78 of the Act has enabled local authority meetings to take place either remotely or in hybrid form. Death rates are now coming down, but it is worth remembering that we used the Act to guarantee the continuation of death management services, easing the administrative burden at a time when funeral services were struggling and the nation’s morgues were almost overwhelmed. Section 18 of the Act modified death and stillbirth registration; since the provisions came into force, nearly 95% of death registrations in England and Wales have been completed by telephone.
I completely acknowledge that some aspects of the Act cause noble Lords concern. We did not take the measures lightly and we do not use them freely. However, it remains vital to have the ability to take appropriate action for our response to be effective. These key functions that I have just described illustrate why we seek Parliament’s approval today to keep the powers in place.
When we introduced the Coronavirus Act a year ago, we were clear that this was only a temporary measure. We made a promise to Parliament that we would not keep any provision in place for longer than was necessary, and we have made good on that promise. In line with the spirit of the Act, we are dropping every single additional provision possible. Today we are announcing the expiration of 12 provisions, which represent nearly 25% of non-devolved powers. Recommending the expiry of so many provisions is a clear demonstration of our commitment to balancing the ability on the one hand to respond effectively and on the other to ensure that only those provisions deemed necessary and proportionate are kept in place.
We note our thanks to our colleagues in all devolved Administrations for their collaboration in working to expire so many provisions. In addition, we are also suspending a further three provisions; the full one-year status report outlining the outcome of this review was laid before Parliament earlier this week. The temporary modification of mental health and mental capacity legislation is one example of a provision which we had already expired on 10 December 2020. We identified that these provisions were no longer required due to the commitment and resilience of NHS staff—and there is a long list of other provisions we have retired.
Over the course of the pandemic there have been all manner of unexpected twists and turns; just as the virus has evolved over time, our response has had to evolve. We worked hard to get the tiering system right, because we wanted a system that worked for the whole country. The differential approach we took last summer yielded significant results, for instance in Leicester, where the incidence rate decreased from 135 per 100,000 to below 40 by the end of August 2020. However, it also had its downsides: it led to more legislation and some confusion. The tier system was intended to bring consistency, but we have since realised that simplicity and clarity are absolutely paramount. The emergence of the Kent variant showed us the value of a national approach. Our learning from the tiers has also enhanced what we have been able to do in the road map.
I know that lots of noble Lords feel frustrated and like they have not been heard, but I want to reiterate that they have been heard, and we have been listening. We are sensitive to feedback, as demonstrated by some of the adjustments we have made. We have introduced support bubbles to enable people at risk of isolation to access their informal support networks. We have changed the rules on places of worship, keeping churches, mosques, synagogues and other holy places open for communal worship throughout the last lockdown. Today we are making an amendment to the self-isolation regulations to include additional exemptions to allow people to self-isolate to support a pregnant person as a birthing partner. We introduced shielding to protect those most at risk of the virus. We know, however, that shielding has been hard, and we listen to feedback and modify guidance wherever possible.
Noble Lords also asked for local authorities to be brought in, and they have, through the contain framework. Contain works closely with local authorities to understand the challenges they are facing and to help ensure that national responses provide the support local areas need. The challenge provided by parliamentary scrutiny over the past year has enabled us to make our approach more sophisticated, and the road map, with its emphasis on simplicity and clarity, has benefited greatly from these challenges and improvements.
We cannot stop now. There is more to do. That is why I am setting out the eagerly awaited sequence of steps to ease restrictions and lead us towards lifting limits on social contact by 21 June. We could not have reached this point in this journey were it not for the provisions and achievements of the Coronavirus Act, our world-leading vaccination programme and the perseverance and commitment of the British public. There are four clear steps which rely on four clear tests, each of which is underpinned by the scientific evidence. Opening too early or too quickly risks a further lockdown. Therefore, our approach focuses on data, not dates, which I know will be well supported here.
As long as we see no significant regional disparity, the steps for easing restrictions will be taken at the same time across England in a national approach. The first measures of step 1 took place on 8 March, with an amendment to the all-tiers regulation. As promised, we prioritised education, and all school and college pupils have now returned to face-to-face education. Alongside the pre-existing exercise provision, the regulations allow outdoor recreation with your household or one other person and make provision for the gradual reopening of care homes for visits. On 22 March, we laid the steps regulation, which enables us to move forward to the next stage of the road map and puts the remaining steps of the road map into law.
Today marks the start of a new chapter, one of progress and happier times to come, but it is only the start of the journey. We need to be cautious and not put the significant progress we have achieved so far at risk. I thank noble Lords for their continued, constructive challenge and all those who worked so hard on this cross- government, cross-public service movement to fight this horrible disease. I pay particular tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton, who have made sure that their challenges have been heard and reflected on. Our approach has been better for it. It is not possible to namecheck everyone, but I single out thanks for all those NHS and social care staff, volunteers, returned healthcare staff, and the Army, who were involved in the deployment of the vaccine. Lastly, I extend an enormous thank you to the general public for continuing to follow the lockdown rules. The attitude of the public remains resolute. These measures are doing the lion’s share of the work in protecting everybody’s families and loved ones. I commend these regulations to the House.
One year on, this has changed from a public health emergency to a civil liberties emergency, where women at a vigil for a murdered young woman are held to the ground by police with their knees on their backs. One year on, the Coronavirus Act has an unprecedented 100% unlawful prosecution rate. The CPS has identified at least 250 people being wrongfully charged. It is still causing enormous confusion among police and prosecutors, which is not their fault. It is not fit for purpose, but it cannot be amended today because we have a “take it or leave it” take-note Motion.
One year on, all people want are hugs and holidays with their families and friends, but the messages from Government are at odds with their own experts on how we make sure that mixing together and beginning to travel again are safe. Only on Monday, the Government published the annual review of the Coronavirus Act for the debate today. That report typifies much of the frustration we have with the Government’s overall performance.
Last March, my noble friends Lord Newby, Lord Scriven and Lady Barker all pushed Ministers to ensure that there was information publicly available on the government website about powers in SIs being turned on and off. We were concerned that many regulations would be made under the Public Health Act, not the Coronavirus Act, which the Minister has referred to, and this has proved to be true. My noble friend Lord Newby asked the noble Earl, Lord Howe:
“At Second Reading yesterday, my noble friend Lady Barker suggested that the Government should produce a grid to explain which clauses of the Bill have been implemented, and exactly how. That is a very good idea and I hope the Government can accept it, but could they go slightly further by having, as part of that grid, a list of all the other provisions introduced to deal with the coronavirus, but not necessarily under this Bill? I cite, for example, the power to close restaurants and all other places where people congregate, which was introduced under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That would be helpful not only for specialists, as it were, like us, but for those who want to find and then look at the legislative basis for decisions.”—[Official Report, 25/3/20; col. 1765.]
The noble Earl replied to your Lordships’ House:
“The noble Lord, Lord Newby, proposed that the website report should be comprehensive. I believe I can give him that reassurance.”—[Official Report, 25/3/20; col. 1772.]
But that has not happened. Only the SIs in relation to this Act have been covered. It is not fit for purpose.
The Hansard Society’s excellent SI dashboard tells us that last year, more than 400 SIs were published relating to powers in an astonishing 118 Acts of Parliament, five orders and five EU Acts, which are now held in UK law since 31 January.
On accountability, Ministers repeatedly said during the passage of the Bill a year ago that there would be special efforts to remain transparent and accountable to Parliament and the public. Too often, Ministers have not answered questions put to them in Parliament, nor written to answer them afterwards. FoIs are often answered late and without real information. Details of dodgy contracts are not published, nor are the arrangements for the so-called VIP channel that gave fast-track access to many Tory donors and friends. The Liberal Democrats will not give a blank cheque for this cynical bypassing of the long-established and respected transparency and accountability of Ministers and Government to Parliament. It is not fit for purpose.
The Act sets in place the arrangements for furlough, the self-employed, those self-isolating and those shielding if they work in non-Covid safe spaces. But millions of the self-employed have fallen through this safety net. Thousands who needed support to self-isolate found that they were turned down because the rules were too tight, and those shielding will have their benefits turned off from next week but are still told that they must not mix with people in non Covid-safe workplaces. This Act is not fit for purpose.
The SIs in front of us continue to typify some of those contradictory issues. On international travel, there will now be a £5,000 fine for someone going on a package holiday to Greece. But the Prime Minister’s father is allowed to go to Greece to deal with his property there—the Stanley Johnson special treatment clause.
SAGE advised the Government on 21 January this year that
“No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully prevent the importation of cases or new variants.”
We agree with SAGE. Until we take every step to ensure that new variants of coronavirus cannot be brought back into the country, it cannot be allowed to run rife in our communities because we lock down too late. When we will learn from South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand that the only way to save the economy is to fight this virus hard and not create special rules or confusing laws? This Act is not fit for purpose.
I move on briefly to the arrangements for international travel covered in the SI on the steps to unlocking. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there was no need to test haulage drivers as they arrived in the UK, despite the fact that those leaving the UK have to be tested. At the Liaison Committee he was clear on this matter. Everyone accepts that drivers of haulage vehicles must be on the excepted occupation lists; we understand why it is difficult to make them quarantine. The government website lists such drivers and the specific arrangements for each of the excepted occupations. I was shocked to see that, unlike virtually all the other excepted occupations, drivers arriving from non-red countries do not need to take any tests at all, not even on days two and eight, as most others do. We accept the argument for some excepted occupations but a system under which drivers have no testing requirements at all is not fit for purpose.
In recent weeks Public Health England was trying to trace an unknown individual who had brought the Brazil variant into the country. New international travel regulations had already come into force, three weeks before, but it beggared belief that there was no link between testing and people quarantining—or worse, that there was no system to ensure that anyone taking a test could be tracked back to where the tests were sent. That is not fit for purpose.
Today’s new issue is about the use of vaccine passports in England for access to pubs and other venues as lockdown is lifted. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said at the Liaison Committee that he saw a role for domestic vaccine passports. Today, sensible people such as Jonathan Neame of Shepherd Neame pubs explained why that is complex and asked rightly who will police it and make decisions about those who cannot or have not been called for their vaccines. Will it be a young member of bar staff? Surely not.
One year on, there is no recovery plan looking forward, just crisis regulations being created and statements made that are then contradicted or discovered to be only half what was needed to prevent more cases. Where is the plan that will demonstrate that the Government are moving out of crisis mode and are prepared to remove all those regulations that we no longer need, and which put constraints on people’s lives?
Last week, the National Audit Office said that many of the Covid contracts relating to PPE and testing were not value for money and, worse, not transparent. We agree. Last June, Ed Davey MP asked the Prime Minister to agree to an independent public inquiry. He did agree, but there is still no information about what or when. Worse, there was not even an interim review last summer to learn the lessons from lockdown one, which might well have helped reduce the slow lock- down before Christmas that caused many thousands of unnecessary deaths.
I have read with interest the Motion to Regret in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I hope that she and her colleagues can support ours. Her frustration with the Government’s management of the pandemic is evident, too.
In conclusion, we stand at a crossroads. We are no longer in the emergency phase that we were in a year ago. Parts of the legislation are now either out of date or unworkable and that needs to be remedied. The Government must show Parliament that they can put the recovery first. They should follow the advice of their experts, bring a plan to Parliament and the people, and deliver it.
I will be calling for a vote on my Motion in order to test the opinion of the House.
An excellent analysis this week by the British Academy points to the many impacts that flowed from lockdowns, including people being unable to see family and friends, travel or take part in leisure activities. These impacts should of course ease quickly as lockdown comes to an end, but there is a set of deeper impacts on health and well-being, on communities and cohesion, and on skills, employment and the economy, that will have profound effects upon the UK for many years to come.
The worsening economic situation has exacerbated existing inequalities. Vulnerable people are more likely to be made redundant; women are more likely to bear economic and caring burdens; and private renters are more likely to have lost income than homeowners. There is a significant risk that an ongoing economic crisis could further exacerbate existing racial inequalities and deepen long-term scarring for younger people. If levelling up is to mean anything, it must lead to a determination to mitigate those significant impacts on generational inequalities, as the ripple effects are seen in housing, security, health, employment, social opportunities and relationships.
I ask the Minister: when do the Government intend to set up an inquiry into the handling of the pandemic? I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, had to say on that. It should be soon. Earlier this week, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, wrote, in relation to the huge scale of deaths in the UK, that some very big questions needed to be asked. Were we adequately prepared? Did the lockdowns come soon enough? Why was the handling of care homes so seriously misjudged? Could more have been done to protect those from BAME backgrounds? We also need an inquiry, because we must be better prepared for next time. Unfortunately, it may be all too likely that there is a next time.
I conclude by saluting all those who have made such a success of our vaccination programme and all the other work that has been done in the past year. But the repeated failure to act speedily to prevent the spread of the virus has not only cost thousands of lives but served as a warning that we can never be complacent. Never should we lower our guard and we should, without question, ensure that the essential provisions in the Act are retained.
To improve business confidence, companies would welcome greater clarity about the evidence base for why the working from home message is not evolving with restrictions, alongside guidance about what companies can and cannot instruct their employees to do in certain situations. The potential availability of home testing is increasingly seen as a crucial enabler for employers. We welcome long-term clarity about workplace testing because businesses see the vital role that testing can play in combating Covid-19 and reopening the economy. Through workplace testing, many have noted the benefits of being able to detect asymptomatic cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
The CBI has also submitted evidence to the Global Travel Taskforce, calling for
“A risk-based roadmap for re-opening … A platform for UK leadership in reopening global traffic, supporting, amongst others, the country’s world-leading aerospace, international high-speed rail and maritime sectors.”
Full credit needs to go to Kate Bingham, who headed the Vaccine Taskforce. She was appointed on 18 May last year. Less than seven months later, on 8 December—V-day—we saw the first inoculation. An amazing three and a half months later, almost 30 million people have been inoculated. Full credit also to Nadhim Zahawi, our Vaccinations Minister. I predicted that we would be able to do 1 million vaccines a day; we did more than 800,000 and, if the supplies are there, we should be able to.
However, we should note what one leading vaccine manufacturer said:
“Our vaccine contains 280 different components that are manufactured in 86 different sites across 19 different countries.”
Any disruption to this supply chain would affect supply. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was developed with AstraZeneca headquartered in Cambridge in partnership with the Serum Institute of India, with 1 billion doses contracted. Wow—it is phenomenal. We have 400 million doses, three approved vaccines and two more coming down the line. The Prime Minister has already said that we will share our surplus vaccines with the rest of the world. Vaccines, mass testing, a travel protocol and a reopening road map will help tourism and business travel and the hospitality sector, which suffered so much. Can the Minister confirm that, if the numbers of sad deaths and hospital admissions go down to zero before the dates, including 21 June, the economy can reopen sooner, safely?
Finally, what about therapeutics? We are not talking about them enough. Can the Minister tell us about them? They could be a game-changer. Dexamethasone was one. There is Regeneron in the States. Nature published an article on EIDD-2801. There is Ivermectin, a cheap, off-patent, anti-parasitic drug; Oxford University has already started trials. Israel has invented an inhaler that it claims cures Covid-19 in just five days.
One year on and three lockdowns later, the pandemic has seen uncertainty, ambiguity, tragedy, bravery, resilience and adaptability at speed, with government, universities, businesses and citizens all collaborating and working together in a caring, compassionate and empathetic way, which makes me so proud of our great country.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thornton, have tabled Motions that compete to name the most politically motivated regrets. I will support neither of them. However, I agree on the 252 cases of wrongful prosecution. It is shameful that the Government are not removing Schedule 21 to the Coronavirus Act today; as we have already heard, it has led to a 100% unlawful prosecution rate. It must be a modern-day record for bad legislation.
I regret that the road-map regulations are based on dates, not data, and seem to be immovable by data. They ignore, or largely ignore, the impact of the vaccination programme on those who are the most vulnerable to Covid-19. We should have been completely unshackling the population by now. Instead, the token freedoms offered in April are an insult. I predict that they will be increasingly ignored; I shall not condemn people for doing so.
Today, the Government should not be renewing the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act, as the other place is being asked to do. It would not, as the Government have misleadingly suggested, strike down the coronavirus support schemes, because they do not rely on one of the temporary provisions, nor would it affect the main regulations before us today, which are made under public health legislation. It is time for the Government to get out of how we live our lives. We have to learn to live with the virus, which means that individuals have to be trusted to make their own risk assessments and take responsibility. That is the only route back to the country that I thought I lived in.
The same is being done again with this legislation. As my noble friend Lady Brinton pointed out, it is not legal for somebody to go abroad to tend to a sick or dying relative, but it is legal for them to attend to a holiday home. That is unacceptable, as is the extension of the existing legislation that enables police forces to determine which, if any, protests they will permit and police. That is not the way to maintain the confidence of the public, who have been remarkably forbearing and compliant in this last year. We need people to continue to have faith in the public health messages that they are being given, because this is not over and will not be for several years.
A year ago, we said that the renewal of this legislation should not be on a “take it or leave it” basis. We said that some government forecasts would inevitably be accurate, and some would not. Therefore, we would need to be prepared for what happens. A year ago, we said that having an effective vaccine would be a game-changer and that a lot of the legislation would no longer be necessary. It stands to reason that renewing the draconian powers to detain people is not necessary now.
The country now needs a legislative framework that is based on the lessons that have been learned over the last 12 months, which assumes that there will be localised outbreaks and recurrences of the virus, because that is what the epidemiologists tell us will happen. We need to equip local authorities to manage them to safeguard the health and well-being of communities and businesses, as they come out of this.
Finally, the treatment of care homes and those who live and work in them is the most shameful aspect of this pandemic. At the moment, the Government appear hesitant to say that there should be a requirement for people who either work in or are resident in care homes to be vaccinated. Yesterday, I listened with great care to the spokesperson for Barchester Healthcare, one of the biggest providers of care homes in the country, who basically said that businesses are implementing policies because both their customers and their staff want them to. I suggest to the noble Lord that it should not henceforth be permissible for companies or providers of care home services to require new staff to be vaccinated. The Government should work with providers of residential care, particularly that which is publicly funded, to ensure an increased uptake by staff over the next year, so that we make sure that the people who continue to need care can do so safely.