My Lords, we are here to debate the SIs putting restrictions on the north of England in August and September. Before we start the debate, I note that there was some confusion yesterday about a bundle of the regulations that we were debating. I express regret for this confusion and thank all noble Lords concerned for their patience. I also express reassurances to the House that resources have been put in place to ensure that this does not happen again.
The regulations we are discussing today first came into force on 4 August to tackle the outbreak of coronavirus in parts of the north of England. They are therefore part of a suite of regulations that constitute a dynamic response to local outbreaks of coronavirus. They deliver on the ground a carefully targeted suite of interventions that have helped our partners in local government and in the health and care systems succeed in reducing the severity of this pandemic in each of the flare-up areas. Because of this, we developed legislative solutions as quickly as we could. A consequence of this is, of course, that the regulations are being debated long after they came into force, and it is true that they have been changed since. However, I hope that your Lordships will acknowledge that a system of local actions that is both clinically effective and sensitive to local circumstances will produce a series of regulations such as the ones we are debating today.
I apologise for taking up so much of the Order Paper with this business, but also reassure the House that I hope to mitigate this through transparency about our intentions, our actions and their results. However, I will not apologise for introducing the regulations at all because they have done so much good in supporting our colleagues in these areas in their efforts to tackle the epidemic.
I turn to a brief history of the local lockdowns in these areas. Actions had already taken place to protect the people living in the affected areas in the north of England in the weeks before these regulations came into force, such as increased testing and public health support. We also gave additional funding to all upper-tier local authorities. For example, Manchester City Council received £40,840,915 and Kirklees Metropolitan Council more than £28 million. This enabled them to enhance the various local interventions and support measures put into place.
We hoped that these interventions and the work of the local public health teams would get infection rates down without us having to take more drastic action. However, by the end of July it was clear that the rates of infection were continuing to increase to unacceptable levels. Epidemiological surveillance data had been showing high transmission rates across Greater Manchester and in areas of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. When the regulations came into force, the incidence rates in almost all these geographic areas were significantly above the national average. Pendle, for instance, had the highest incidence rate in England between 31 July and 6 August at 89.7 per 100,000 people. Oldham had the second highest rate of 82.3, and nine other local authorities in the north had rates exceeding 30 per 100,000.