HANSARD
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Obligations of Hospitality Undertakings) (England) Regulations 2020
- Motion to Approve
- 11:08 am
- That the Regulations laid before the House on 17 September be approved.Relevant documents: 27th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
- My Lords, before we discuss these regulations, it is important to set their context and say why they are being brought in now.In May, to help businesses operate and reopen safely during Covid-19, we produced guidance, broken down by workplace area. There are now 14 separate pieces of guidance, including five covering DCMS areas. These guides were not written in a Whitehall vacuum but co-created with business and with key safety stakeholders, such as unions, Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive. Our collaborative engagement throughout this process was robust. Alongside seven round tables chaired by the Secretary of State, there were 900 responses to our consultations on the guidance, and the BEIS ministerial team held extensive meetings with stakeholders. Nearly 500 Covid-focused meetings took place from March to June. This constant dialogue with business produced guidance that enabled many businesses to reopen safely during the national lockdown.BEIS also led two of the five ministerial task forces to shape additional guidance as the economy began to unlock and formerly closed businesses, such as those in the hospitality sector, were able to reopen safely. Those businesses have been following it: over 2 million copies of the guides have been viewed and I thank businesses for the great efforts they have made to adapt and work safely. It is also important to highlight how the guidance operates under our existing health and safety framework. The guidance forms part of employers’ normal health and safety practice. Employers are legally responsible under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for the health and safety of their employees and others affected by their business, with a duty to make their premises safe and prevent risks to health, including from Covid-19.Having outlined the policy background, I shall set the context by saying a few words about the current pandemic to convey the gravity of the situation. As we all know from the Prime Minister’s announcement on 22 September, the pandemic has moved into a new phase. Indeed, the significant rise of Covid-19 in recent weeks has been widely reported. The Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser have set out that what we are seeing in the data is clearly very worrying. Regrettably, infections are rising rapidly across the United Kingdom. On 7 October, 14,612 cases were recorded, and we have also had a tragic increase in the number of daily deaths. The Prime Minister informed the nation on 30 September that we face the sad reality that, on these figures, we can expect many more daily deaths.
- Moved by
- At end insert “but that this House regrets that the Regulations include further restrictions for the hospitality sector without introducing the additional measures which are needed to ensure (1) financial support for the businesses, and (2) the retention of the jobs of employees affected by the restrictions”.
- My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to these SIs and for going over the background and the rationale for their introduction.Local communities are centred on their local hospitality providers. When weddings and events are postponed, cinemas, theatres, churches and sports grounds are shut, exercise facilities are curtailed and local and overseas tourism disappears, the hospitality sector feels the strain. Unfortunately, it is these businesses that are most affected by the new measures to combat Covid-19. With the ending of the furlough, the growing number of cases and the tightening of restrictions, this sector faces even tougher times ahead. Only this week, UKHospitality predicted 560,000 extra redundancies in the sector by the end of the year.Today’s first set of regulations introduces the rule of six for pubs, restaurants, cafes and other businesses, clearly placing responsibility on them to ensure that parties of more than six may not book or gain entry. This was noted by the SLSC, and we do not object to it. The second set of regulations amends the first to get businesses to take all reasonable steps to stop singing, dancing and event music, to deal with noise levels and to introduce new signage for face coverings. They also rack up the penalties—I suspect that that will give rise to further discussion this morning.Labour supports public health measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19, but I argue in this amendment that these further restrictions on the hospitality sector should be introduced alongside additional financial support for the businesses affected and effective incentives to retain jobs affected by these new measures. In passing, I note that there are reports in today’s papers of a local furlough to be introduced for businesses forced to close because of Covid-19 regulations. Can the Minister give us any further details about that, because it clearly has a bearing on what we are talking about this morning?
- 11:23 am
- My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who was a model of lucidity, as always. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his clear exposition of these rules; nobody can doubt his commitment and effort in the task of tackling this dreadful virus.In principle, I support these regulations, designed as they are to protect the public and keep businesses open. However, I suggest to my noble friend that it would be helpful if the Government published evidence of the transmission rate at hospitality venues. I am sure we all read statistics in the media. Sometimes, it seems that as many as 40% to 50% of the areas where there is transmission are hospitality venues. It would reassure the public if the Government published the evidence. It would show the public and those who run hospitality venues that this is the right move.I take my noble friend up on one point. He said that we all want to avoid a second lockdown. We should not forget that, for a massive part of our country, there is a second lockdown. We should look for consistency in how we implement these regulations, which areas go into lockdown and the reasons for it. Again, the Government should publish the evidence for this.I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, about businesses that are affected and need assistance, but there is also the question of extra costs for the police and local authorities in enforcing these regulations. As I say, one can laugh at the Cromwellian-seeming restrictions on singing and dancing, but if the evidence shows that we should avoid this because there is a danger of transmission, people would understand.In conclusion, what evidence is there on mingling—people from different tables of six meeting in such venues—and how will that be tackled? I hope this will be dealt with with common sense. With those considerations and provisos, I support these regulations.
- 11:25 am
- My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its 29th report said:“We are concerned about the growing complexity of the rules, and in particular about how this complexity may affect the public’s understanding of what is required and people’s willingness to follow new restrictions.”Is the Minister not concerned about that? During the national lockdown there was a very high level of compliance. People understood what they had to do and why, so they did it. But now it is total chaos: local lockdowns all have their own set of rules, and the regular changes to the national legal requirements mean that people have lost track. They have also lost trust in the legitimacy of the regulations because in some cases they appear to be totally stupid.For example, in today’s regulations, dancing is forbidden in pubs and restaurants, with some exceptions, and the poor, pressured landlord has the job of enforcing it under pain of fines. At a wedding, only the couple can dance at their reception, of only 15 people, but the couple’s parents cannot dance together even if they live in the same household—this is silly. Who is going to enforce this, because the police certainly cannot?In pubs, people can sing in groups of six. Indeed, there could be six groups of six if they do not mingle—but you cannot have seven people singing in a great big church. And then, some bright spark in the department has decided this is a great opportunity to ban loud music. I am no fan of loud music, but regulations to protect public health are no place to start banning it. This might have been reasonable if they had said, “outdoors in a residential area”, but they do not. Such things would have been simplified and clarified if there had been proper consultation with local government. Will the Minister promise the House that that will change?
- 11:28 am
- My Lords, there is a cartoon with a Sikh commenting on the rule of six, saying, “It is time Sikhs were in charge”. More seriously, while I support these regulations, it is important to note that areas of concern in the north-west, north-east and West Midlands contain sizeable numbers of new arrivals from the subcontinent.I am daily reminded by my own contact with different faith communities that the message about the need for caution and care is often still failing to get through. Will the Minister consider a specifically targeted advertising campaign to create awareness of the risk to life for a group that is genetically and culturally more at risk, with vulnerable grandparents often in the same house?
- 11:29 am
- My Lords, every day when I travel to and from your Lordships’ House, I use a black cab. I am a great believer in black cabs. I am also a considerable believer in the sagacity of black cab drivers. They see it all. I have been told a number of times in the past few weeks of the chaos at 10’clock at night, of people milling around parts of London and cab drivers asking, “What are you really doing in that building of yours?”The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, gave some amusing examples—or they would be amusing if they were not so fatuous and serious at one and the same time—such as the dancing of the bride and groom but not of the parents. It is really absurd. I say to my noble friend, for whom I have considerable affection and regard, that we need clarity. We need consistency. We need proper co-ordination and co-operation. In doing that, we need to bring people together to discuss these things. We need to have proper debate, not—I have said this before—a series of two-minute statements. I hope we can have a Joint Committee of both Houses looking at this. I hope that the leader of the Opposition, who is a lawyer of considerable qualities, can be brought into consultations at an official level, because the country has got to be united. If it is not, we will drift from chaos to more chaos. I beg my noble friend to convey those messages to his ministerial colleagues.
- 11:31 am
- The Lord Bishop of BlackburnMy Lords, I am very exercised, as I imagine we all are, with the challenge of not just restrictions but possible shutdown and closure of different industries. Hospitality is but one: there are also entertainment and cinema, theatre, concerts and opera, aviation and travel, to name but a few. Those closures and threat of closures and the way they have been communicated are bringing grief, anxiety, debt and mental health issues to many lives and families, especially, I would say, in the north.It is said that there is no solution to resolving the competing priorities of health and wealth, but I do not believe in no solutions. In recent years, a whole new way of living has evolved which is quite different from how it was even just a few years ago. I remember the time when if you wanted a coffee, you went back home; you did not go out. But not now. We have got used to going out for meals and coffee, used to the freedom of travel and foreign holidays and the pleasures of our entertainment industry. From a consumer’s point of view, none of these is essential. We can eat and make coffee at home and take sandwiches with us. We do not have to fly for a holiday. But these things have become normal.May I take my life in my hands and propose an unpopular solution? A lot of talk of “the new normal” is going around—that life will not and cannot be as it was—yet that is what everybody seems to want: a return to how it was in early 2020. But how it was then was not as good as we try to make it out to be: our planet, facing increasing global warming; human well-being, facing problems of obesity and diet, and addiction to drugs and alcohol; huge inequality between rich and poor; growing dependence on food banks; and serious increases in mental health issues—noting that tomorrow is World Mental Health Day.Covid has clouded our memories of how it was before. It could have been much better. We have a unique opportunity in this country and the world more widely to reset the priorities in our society to make it better for everyone. It is not going back to how it was but rebooting: putting our economy on a sounder footing; helping businesses to transition to the new; redeploying and retraining the workforce for jobs that are essential, such as social housebuilding and renewable energy projects; staffing our schools, boosting the farming industry and improving staffing levels in our NHS and care homes. In the challenge in front of us now, with the R rate over 1, let us resist the temptation to think that going back to how it was is the solution. Let us think of and deliver new ways that will be better for all.
- 11:33 am
- Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]My Lords, this instrument provides for enabling measures to reduce the public health risk caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is most important that regulations on face masks, hand washing and self-distancing in public places such as bars and restaurants be observed; it is common sense.Covid is a deadly virus that is airborne and very contagious. We have all seen the sudden spikes in Birmingham and other regions and towns. Science informs us that a second wave of the disease is imminent, as seen in other EU countries. Lives can be lost—we have seen this in the USA—if the citizens of England do not comply with the regulations. The new rule of six has had to be introduced to avoid the spread of the virus. The regulations also require that singing in bars and restaurants be stopped and only recorded music be played. The regulations have introduced fines of £10,000 for those who receive a fourth or subsequent fixed penalty notice.It is the duty of the Government to protect our citizens from such deadly diseases as Covid-19. The relevant Minister, in consultation with local authorities, must have the power to introduce closures and lockdowns wherever there are pockets of coronavirus cases. Hospitality industry businesses will be hit hard because of the lockdowns. People will lose jobs, which will lead to homelessness because of their inability to pay rent. This is a vicious spiral that will create poverty and mental diseases. The only way to reduce this hardship is for citizens to follow the rules.