Covid-19

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will speak remotely and I invite her to speak now.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Leader of the House just said that there is no advice for people who were formerly shielding, the clinically extremely vulnerable, but there is; the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, confirmed this to me last night. It says that this group should still consider meeting people only 14 days after they have been fully vaccinated, social distancing, asking friends and family to have rapid lateral flow antigen tests, asking any visitors to their homes to wear face coverings and not going into enclosed crowded spaces. Putting this guidance on a website is not the same as telling this group of people, or the wider public, especially their employers, directly that this group still need to take care. Will the Leader take this back and ensure that communications go to this vulnerable group of just under 4 million people?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness and will certainly take that back to government colleagues. I recognise what she says.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely, and I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking in support of the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, starting with Amendment 46. After many helpful discussions both today and earlier on in Committee looking at membership, structures and representations of ICBs, these amendments take us back to the first principles and ask your Lordships’ House to look at what should be in scope for the provision of NHS services. This is a really valid question.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, referred to maternity services, but if I were to pick one of the services listed in Amendment 169, it would be dental services. There are millions of people in the country who cannot access an NHS dentist. The result is a worsening of dental health, which is especially worrying for children and young people. I am sorry to say that, over the years, Ministers have ignored the wider needs of the public regarding dental services. I think the point about specifying the provision of services such as this puts a very particular duty on the Secretary of State to force Ministers to make sure that they are also holding other parts of the health service to account.

The amendments turn our focus on to whether we still have an NHS that is a public health system or one that perhaps is paid for mainly by the public but run by a disparate number of bodies, including unaccountable private companies increasingly not based in the UK. They are particularly important in light of the report today in the press that the Secretary of State is planning to create the equivalent of school academies for failing hospitals and says that there will be a White Paper in due course. Just as an aside, do we need yet more reforms? Surely it would have been better to have a full range of Green Papers with an overarching vision of what the NHS in the 21st century should look like and how the structures should work. We are now waiting for two White Papers, while the passage of this Bill is irrevocably changing the structures of our NHS system.

Today’s announcement rings a number of alarm bells because there is an analogy with the education sector that is quite helpful. I remember that, in the 1990s, academies were going to be free from local authority control and that that, on its own, would inevitably make them improve—but that has not been the case. Various reports over the last 20 years have shown that a number of failing schools taken into multi-academy trusts and free schools have remained low performing. Structures on their own do not necessarily resolve this. Indeed, some multi-academy trusts have failed in their entirety, and one of their issues is the lack of public accountability—because Ministers have direct responsibility in the public realm for academies, and I worry that the Secretary of State may be proposing the same. If I was a senior leader in NHS England, I would be very concerned about that.

I am grateful for the earlier comments of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on the need for Ministers to have the ability to appoint and, presumably, remove senior personnel on ICBs. But would the Secretary of State have responsibility for these academy equivalents and give them the right to access separate funding for capital expenditure and special projects? I raise this because part of the problem that we have at the moment is a diversity of funding mechanisms, structures and strands, which often take the eye of a leader—whether a Minister or one in the NHS—away from the provision of services.

The foundation of a public system was essentially removed by the 2012 Act, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, the Constitution Committee suggested that there needed to be an interim remedy. It is important that we have reassurance that this Bill will not weaken it any further at all. I hope that the Minister can reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government want to protect the provision of NHS services, as part of a truly public health service.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for moving her amendment and other noble Lords for their contributions, particularly on the specific points about particular services, such as dentistry. All three amendments look back to the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the National Health Service Act 2006 on the powers and duties of the Secretary of State in relation to the NHS and the services that it provides, restoring certain provisions in the 2006 Act.

Under the Bill, the ICBs and NHS England will have the duties to secure the provision of the services that make up the comprehensive NHS. There are probably noble Lords here today who were Members of your Lordships’ House in 2006. I came in in 2010, just as the equally marathon Health and Social Care Act from the coalition Government got under way, when the whole issue of the Secretary of State’s powers and duties came to the fore. As explained at the time, the aim was to separate the political from the operational responsibility and to better align the language to the reality of the purpose of the NHS, in “securing the provision of services”.

The arguments in 2010 and 2011 were fierce and passionate, centred around the subtle changes in the way that the duties were defined, as compared to the words in Sections 1 and 3 of the 2006 Act. They caused suspicion, confusion and fears that the NHS would be changed forever. These arguments remain a bit of a blur in my memory, but I recall the overwhelming view among leading experts on NHS law that the changes were technical and did not involve any substantial change in practice. We know that, in respect of this role, no change has happened.

I also recall the 2012 consideration of the issue by our Constitution Committee and the compromise recommendation subsequently adopted in the 2012 Bill of what became Section 1(3) of the 2006 Act, as amended:

“The Secretary of State retains ministerial responsibility to Parliament for the provision of the health service in England.”


No matter what is in any Act, this is and will always be the political reality.

Currently, the law places the duty on the Secretary of State to

“continue the promotion in England of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement … in the physical and mental health of the people of England, and … in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental illness”—

very much in the spirit of the NHS’s founding 1946 Act.

Amendments 46 and 168 seek to continue the 2006/2012 debate. It was claimed about the 2012 Act, and now about this Bill, that the change in wording implies that people will be denied access to treatment from the NHS because, for example, a particular ICB decides to exclude a service and because there is no duty on the Secretary of State to prevent this happening. However, there is no evidence that anyone has ever been denied access to an NHS service or that any service has been refused in general simply because of the change in the wording of the responsibilities of the Secretary of State. Amendment 169 returns to the same point, seeking to place a duty on the Secretary of State to “provide” a list of services, with some general headings such as ambulance services. But the reality is that this is not how the NHS functions or indeed ever has.

I endorse many of the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about today’s announcement of yet another restructuring on the academy front, but, again, that is a debate for another day.

We could go back on the Secretary of State issue to the 2012 arguments and spend a lot of time on it. While we fully understand the concerns and fears that the current wording could engender among those who suspect a deeper reason for the changes in language, continuing to argue over this issue would not be very productive or get us anywhere. We need to get on with scrutinising the sweeping delegated and Henry VIII powers later in the Bill that our current Constitution Committee and Delegated Powers Committees have expressed such deep concern about.

COP 26

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, in line with the arrangements, the Statement made in the Commons yesterday is not repeated by the Leader, but I think most Members will have heard what the Prime Minister had to say in his enthusiasm for the agreement.

The world came together in Glasgow for what was the most important summit the UK has ever hosted. Future generations will look back on COP 26 as a time when we either met the moment or missed the opportunity. We add our thanks to all those involved in the organisation and planning of the summit—and to the residents of Glasgow, who, despite the disruption, welcomed visitors from all over the world into their city and their homes.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

Can you hear me?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

There seems to be some disruption; I do not know whether we are being haunted. If the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, could mute, that might be helpful—just on this occasion, I hasten to add.

This is the decisive decade for tackling the climate emergency. Although we better understand the seriousness of the issue, the real threat to progress is no longer denial but delay.

For film fans—bear with me on this—when Rick said the immortal words to Ilsa in “Casablanca”, “We’ll always have Paris”, he could not have imagined how apt they would be, 80 years later. The Paris summit in 2015 built an international alliance to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. The Prime Minister says in the Statement that COP 26 succeeded not just in keeping that 1.5 degrees target alive but in going further. I hope and want his optimism to be justified, but it feels more like the 1.5 degrees target is on life support. Meeting it would mean halving global emissions by 2030. The challenge for COP 26—so that we would always have Paris—was to close the gap between that aspiration and the reality of the pledges made. If Rick and Ilsa could do it, so can we. But did we?

We have to be honest about what has been achieved. Progress has been modest. We saw encouraging agreements on methane, deforestation, and the sales of petrol and diesel cars. Too often, however, the real delivery that will make a difference will come too late. According to the Climate Action Tracker, the pledges made at Glasgow for 2030, even if fully implemented, represent less than 25% of the ambition required. Rather than limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, we are now on track for a devastating 2.4 degrees rise. That is not just a number: it really matters. It could lead to billions of people facing extreme heatwaves, millions forced to leave their homes, and increased threats to both the natural wonders of the world and overall security. The Prime Minister kicked off the conference by saying that it was “one minute to midnight” on the doomsday clock. Can the Leader tell the House what time it is now, and whether we will still have Paris?

For years, coal has been the elephant in the room at these summits, so having an explicit reference in the agreement for the first time is really important. Who could not have been moved by Alok Sharma’s emotional reaction to that last-minute change to “phase down”? That really illustrates that hopes were cruelly dashed, despite the Prime Minister’s approval in the Statement. The raw emotion that we saw from Alok Sharma was also palpable among the Pacific Islanders. For many, climate change is genuinely existential, so even the announcement that 190 countries and organisations had agreed a timetable to end the use of coal does not bear scrutiny. Of those 190, only 46 were actually countries, of which 23 were new signatories and 10 do not even use coal. It is a coalition that includes NatWest and the national grid but not China, the United States or India.

There then came climate finance. It is a moral plight on developing nations that the 2009 commitment to provide $100 billion a year to emerging economies still has not been delivered; it will not be until 2023. That failure to deliver is self-defeating because it damages trust and prevents a high-ambition international coalition being built.

With his now typical overexuberance, the Prime Minister lauded the net-zero commitments made. Yet Saudi Arabia, for example, is still increasing oil production, despite its 2060 net-zero claim, and Australia will not even legislate for its 2050 net-zero target. We all know the importance of trade deals, but will the Leader explain why the Government dropped the Paris temperature commitment from the trade deal that we now have with Australia?

I had hoped that the Statement would refer to Thérèse Coffey’s welcome boast at the summit of the UK being

“the first country to legally require pension trustees to assess and publish the financial risks from climate change”.

I am sorry that it was not in the Statement, but the Leader of the House may recall that it was a Labour-led amendment in your Lordships’ House, supported across this House, that secured that historic commitment. We are pleased that we were able to be helpful, so that the Government could boast about that achievement at COP.

For the next 12 months, we have the COP presidency, and that gives us a key leadership responsibility. But the Government’s ability to step up and deliver is called into question by the Climate Change Committee’s recent report to Parliament, which said that the Government had been

“too slow to follow its climate promises with delivery”.

We cannot just put climate policy in a separate box: all government policies need to be linked to climate commitments, including trade deals. Yet Rishi Sunak’s Budget failed to mention climate change; it did not secure the necessary green investment, but it did give a tax break for domestic flights. That we were the only G7 country to cut overseas aid when seeking international co-operation on climate clearly damaged trust at COP.

When we wanted to focus on the summit issues and the climate emergency, many of us found it very difficult to watch the Prime Minister seeking to assure the world’s media that the UK was not corrupt, following his political shenanigans away from the summit. It was not exactly Mr Johnson’s finest hour.

Looking forward, I hope that the Leader is able to update us today on how Ministers can get a grip, reorder their priorities and invest in the green recovery. Can she give us an assurance that the net-zero test will be applied to all future decisions? Given what was said at COP 26, what is the Government’s renewed plan for phasing out fossil fuels, including rewriting the planning framework to rule out coal and say no to the Cambo oil field?

In conclusion, there was some welcome progress at COP 26 but it could have, and should have, achieved far more. Real action, not more rhetoric, must now follow, because the world just cannot wait any longer.

Tributes: Sir David Amess MP

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, I will call three remote contributions before opening up to the rest of the House.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Jones of Cheltenham cannot be in his place today but has asked me to start by saying something on his behalf about Sir David Amess. As noble Lords have already heard, my noble friend Lord Jones was himself attacked, and his aide and friend, Councillor Andy Pennington, was killed, at a constituency surgery in 2000.

My noble friend wants me to say on his behalf:

“To learn David’s life has been taken is the most unimaginable shock. I simply can’t believe this has happened again, and to the kindest, most decent of men.


He was a mate, David. We were on opposite sides of every debate, he voted the wrong way on most things and disagreed with me on just about everything. We were in different parties but always got on well. He was a wonderful personality and worked exceptionally hard for his constituents.


He was a proper parliamentarian, a dedicated public servant and a lovely man. If he bumped into me when he had visitors to the House, he’d say, ‘Oh and this is my friend Nigel, he was attacked, you know? Do you remember, he was on the television?’ I’m appalled that he has suffered like this.


David, like my friend Andy Pennington and I, was just trying to do the job to the best of his ability. Our democracy relies on an open channel between those in power and the people who we represent. It’s vital to be able to meet people face-to-face so they can feel we are here and working for them.”


Turning to my own tribute, I first got to know Sir David when I joined your Lordships’ House a decade ago and he quickly nobbled me—there is no other word—to join the all-party group for fire safety and rescue, which he chaired; I really did not have a choice. He had been a friend of my father, Tim Brinton, having met when they were MPs together, and David knew that my stepmother, Jeanne, had been a Conservative chairman of the Kent fire safety committee and that I had campaigned actively for sprinklers in schools. But that was David: every argument well researched, compliments paid and, before I knew it, I was even an officer of the all-party group too. To the utter bemusement of the much younger members of the all-party group and visiting experts, he usually introduced me as Tim Brinton’s daughter, which always made me very proud. Their friendship was based on rejecting preferment but loving the core job of being an MP, both in the constituency and in the House.

Over the decade that followed, I saw David’s campaigning zeal through the work of the all-party group, holding Ministers and sector professionals to account. Schools Fire Minister after Schools Fire Minister and Building Planning Minister after Building Planning Minister were truly held to account in David’s inimitable style. Of course, our work became even more important after the tragedy of the Grenfell fire and still is not over. We will carry it on in his memory.

Many have spoken since Friday of David’s kindness, decency, courtesy and humour. I have seen all in plenty. I was unwell for a large part of last year, and he rang me regularly to check on my progress. I want to send my deepest sympathy to Julia, their children, his wider family and all his staff and colleagues.

In this day and age of daily abuse—online and in person—death threats, attacks and even murders, David stood as an oasis of reasonable behaviour and genuine affection for all those who crossed his path. In 2017, Christians in Politics ran a campaign for learning to disagree well. I cannot think of a better example than David of always disagreeing well. In political terms, we were polar opposites, but, with him, that was never a barrier: he always found what we had in common, and we could stand together. His faith was intrinsic to every action, every word he uttered and every passing smile to faces that he recognised. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Health and Social Care

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely and I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. My noble friend Lord Newby asked, but the noble Baroness did not answer, so I ask again whether she will give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box to guarantee that social care will receive the bulk of the revenue raised by the levy, in the medium term, regardless of whether the NHS has completed the backlog of waiting lists. Otherwise, this is no reform to social care at all, however delayed.

These proposals do nothing to help the current problems in the social care sector. The noble Baroness referred to the extra £1 billion to local government, but all the experts say a minimum of £4 billion a year is needed to help solve them. Can the Minister confirm that, given the current severe crisis in staffing and funding in our care homes, there will be funding on top of that £1 billion at least to start to remedy the problems in social care?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said in my opening remarks, we are committed to spending an additional £5.4 billion across the next three years. This will end the risk of unpredictable care costs and include at least £500 million to support the social care workforce.

Afghanistan

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I want to start with our moral duty as a country to the locally employed staff—interpreters, embassy staff and others—and their families. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, made the point of principle about extracting them from Afghanistan as soon as possible. I also echo my noble friend Lord Purvis’s comments on the Afghanistan resettlement plan. However, I see from the ARAP notice last month that these key people are to be given only five years’ leave to remain. That is completely unacceptable. There is no likely return for years, if ever, so resettlement should be made permanent from the start.

I also understand from the Local Government Association that around 2,000 have already arrived in recent weeks. Does this mean that the UK is taking only 3,000 more this calendar year? It is apparent that these numbers are woefully inadequate. Does the Minister agree that the Government must increase them in light of the current emergency?

For those who do arrive, there are many practical problems, so the principles of the military covenant should be provided for those in the ARAP scheme, many of whom will have lived through the same as, and worse than, our wonderful service men and women. I am hearing that GPs in some of the receiving areas are already full and not taking new patients. Access to urgent health services, especially mental health services, is vital for new arrivals.

While the Home Office is paying for hotel accommodation for quarantine and beyond until permanent housing can be found, can the Minister say what financial support will be given to local authorities, which are being asked at very short notice to find permanent housing for families when there is already a national shortage? Many local authorities are accepting their responsibilities and stepping up to help, but the cuts that local government has faced in recent years, as well as pandemic pressures, mean that resources to help these families, which are vital if they are to settle swiftly, will be difficult to find. One council leader told me of problems in their area in finding any school places, because all their schools are already full. It is vital that these children start school with everyone else. Using the principles of the military covenant means that local solutions absolutely must be found, and children deserve that support.

Finally, I completely agree with my leader, my noble friend Lord Newby, about the effect of this debacle on service personnel who were deployed in Afghanistan, especially those injured and those who lost loved ones, and their family and friends. Having talked in the last few days to UK service personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan, I am hearing that many, whether still serving or veterans, are having difficult memories reawakened and worse. Some are having flashbacks and their PTSD is triggered. The MoD is ensuring that current service men and women are being signposted to help, but can the Minister say whether there is specific signposting for veterans no longer in the services so that they can get any urgent help that they need?

Procedure and Privileges

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, for the last year your Lordships’ House has moved forward in its processes and has even joined the 21st century by using Zoom, Teams and electronic voting, in the Chamber and remotely. The decision to move to hybrid working was necessary and it is important to say a big “thank you” to all those who have made it possible. So I echo the thanks of the previous speakers, but I want to mention the commission, the clerks, all the Whips’ offices and the myriad invisible staff who have come to our aid to make it work. I especially thank the broadcasting teams, who onboard us with patience and courtesy, and help problem-solve when things do not quite work. Above all, I thank everybody who has made this work across the House.

We have to learn the lessons of what worked well for us and what we can change to improve our future ways of working, and this report proposes some of those. I think that retaining the extended time for Questions, and, indeed, speakers’ lists, are sensible. For those such as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who want us to return to bobbing, I say that there are some who always find it difficult to get in over noisy colleagues, and for those of us who cannot stand there is immense frustration that we are invisible to the rest of your Lordships at Question Time and too often spoken over. The proposals of the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Balfe, do not quite address the problem that we wheelchair users face.

On voting, keeping the principle of electronic voting is good, but forcing Members on to the main Parliamentary Estate to use it seems somewhat short-sighted. As a disabled Peer, I know that the most suitable offices for wheelchairs are in Millbank, but it is not possible to reliably get out of the building, across the road and into Parliament in time to vote. The reality is that people just do not see wheelchairs. They do not give way in lifts; cars do not give way on crossings; and at bottlenecks coming into Parliament, wheelchairs always seem to be pushed to the back. That means we have to stay in the main building, often in offices unsuitable for wheelchair users. Having these stands to tap in would be very helpful.

My main focus today is to thank the commission, its sub-committee and especially the Lord Speaker for listening to the disabled Members of your Lordships’ House. To say we were distressed by some of the comments from the Benches opposite during the previous debate in May is an understatement. We felt devalued and excluded by other noble Lords, to be told that if we could not physically come in, we did not deserve our place in your Lordships’ House. Some Members opposite even suggested that we should retire because we were “frail and elderly”. We are not; we are disabled, and, under the law of this land, all organisations are required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people to help them overcome the barriers they face. These proposals are a start and, I believe, a trailblazer for disabled parliamentarians in Westminster. I hope that the commission will keep the practical working of these proposals under review. As an opposition Front-Bencher, I am not quite sure how some of these proposals will work in the heat of debate on a Bill, but I believe that the House authorities are prepared to help Members like me give it a go.

I would like to restate something I said in the previous debate: I am desperate to return to the Chamber, and I will as soon as it is safe for me to do so. But, as I mentioned in that debate, there are some other Members of your Lordships’ House who are excluded from these proposals but who cannot come to Parliament for the foreseeable future. I refer to the clinically extremely vulnerable, who were told yesterday by the Government in revised formal guidance that, from next Monday, because all other restrictions will be lifted and because of the large surge in Covid cases, they must keep themselves safe and not meet people inside, not come into contact with unvaccinated people, and ensure that they keep socially distant from others, whether inside or outside. I believe that this makes it impossible for them to resume their seats in the physical Chamber. Some of these clinically extremely vulnerable people are disabled, but not long-term. Others may not define themselves as disabled, and they are not the “frail elderly” referred to by noble Lords opposite in our previous debate. But, under these arrangements, they are to be excluded from your Lordships’ House, despite Ministers and these people’s hospital consultants saying that they should not come to London and to Parliament because it is not safe for them. I do hope that the commission will reconsider this small group of people.

Finally, can the Leader of the House say what will happen if further restrictions need to be imposed in the future? Can hybrid facilities be reinstated if necessary? I hope, with every single other Member of this House, that it will absolutely not be necessary—but, as Israel and the Netherlands have recently discovered, the virus and its variants may have further shocks for us all.

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I echo the thanks to all the staff who managed to adapt our proceedings, especially the technical team and clerks for making the actual proceedings run so smoothly, and all beyond that who have had to change the way they work over these last 15 months. I thank them, and the commission for doing its best to respond to the unprecedented circumstances of Covid-19 and the need to find alternative ways of working, and to change those as circumstances in the country changed too.

The Constitution Committee’s very helpful report and the contribution from my leader and noble friend Lord Newby set out the difficulties of the hybrid system, with which I agree, and possible routes back that do not set hard dates, way ahead of our knowledge of the spread of coronavirus. I also echo the comments of many speakers that a way of electronic voting in the future, even if on the parliamentary estate, seems sensible. We waste hours of our time in Divisions, queuing in the Lobbies.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, spoke of Parliament being to “parley”, to come together. He is half-right. The word “parliament” comes from the Old French verb “parler”, in its indicative form: “parlement”, or speaking. I assert that the one achievement of the last year is that we have all been speaking, but using the technology of the 21st century. All the other details of how we work, spoken of by many so far, especially the Constitution Committee, have suffered. Despite what I will say next, I welcome the return, in due course, of the entire business of the House being physically in the Chamber. Stronger than that, I long to be there and part of it.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, that we have achieved real progress with Bills during this year. Things may not have been perfect, but the contributions, scrutiny and challenge during the Domestic Abuse Bill have shown that it can work. It is not perfect, but it can work.

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, talked about “a temporary solution to a temporary problem”, but are the Government, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and his supporters, confident that that temporary problem is at an end? The Prime Minister, Ministers and SAGE do not yet agree. We have all been told to expect more different variants that will get round large numbers of people having been vaccinated. The World Health Organization and Ministers say that we are not safe until everyone is safe and we are reaping the lessons, at the moment, of moving India to the red list too late. Although there are hopes that it will not affect those already vaccinated, it is certainly infecting younger people. With the higher level of transmissibility, cases are increasing in more than 100 different areas. We have been warned to expect more variants to do this in the next few months.

I declare my interest in this matter. I am one of those irritating people who are classified as clinically extremely vulnerable; there are a number in your Lordships’ House. That is not because I am sick at the moment, but because of the immunosuppressant drugs that I need to take to manage the autoimmune disease that has left me disabled. On 1 May this year, the Government reiterated their advice to the clinically vulnerable: always socially distance; remove yourself from any environment where social distancing is breached by others; work from home, if at all possible and, if not, ensure that your employer makes your workplace safe for you. I am not one of those lucky grandparents who have been able to hug their grandchildren or children, for 15 months now.

We do not yet know how quickly Covid antibodies will dissipate after two vaccinations other than for the clinically vulnerable, for whom they believe that protection will not be reliable. Yesterday, the Government invested £90 million in booster vaccine research, ready to go again with more doses in the autumn, hence the advice of caution, caution, caution. This is a warning word, as caution must be everything to all of us, not just those who think they are covered because they have had two doses of the vaccine.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke of remote working as a “comfortable way forward”. It is not comfortable for those of us who are ordered not to be with noble Lords. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman: I too am unashamedly sentimentalist about Parliament and want us to return to as much in-person contribution as possible. I am not alone in being desperate to rejoin a physical Lordships’ House, but I cannot.

The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, made an important point about the duties of an organisation in regard to disability discrimination, which I am sure that the commission and House authorities have heard, even if the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, dismisses us for being of unsound body or mind and, therefore, not worthy of a place in your Lordships’ House. I am grateful to those who seek to enable some way for us to contribute. Without it, the words of the Queen at the introduction of a Peer become somewhat meaningless.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I set out in my response to the noble Baroness, there are a number of factors in why we believe that spring 2022 is the right time to start this inquiry. I gave them earlier. Of course the noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to tackle the worrying backlog of people needing care from the NHS, which is why we have committed billions of pounds to doing so, including £1 billion to tackle waiting lists by providing up to 1 million extra checks, scans and additional operations. We will continue to prioritise urgent and cancer care, as well as the recovery of non-urgent diagnostics and treatment so that patients receive the best healthcare as quickly as possible. That is an absolute priority.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

The noble Baroness the Leader of the House did not respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about the publication of interim reports from reviews and inquiries. The Hackitt review on the Grenfell fire and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse also produced interim reports in order to save lives and protect people. The Leader of the House has admitted that we know that the pandemic is by no means over. Surely an inquiry into the pandemic should also publish interim lessons learned to save lives and protect people. Can she make sure that that happens?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that, when a chair takes their place, views like that will certainly be put to them and it will be up to them to decide.

Covid-19: Road Map

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, whom I now call.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I return to my noble friend Lord Newby’s question about self-isolation. Australia and New Zealand give a straight- forward grant, set at minimum wage, for those self-isolating and quarantining, with no means testing. Their results have been outstanding, with a very high compliance level; people do not have to choose between putting food on their tables and isolating. Given our low levels of compliance, should not the Government move to a non-means-tested grant, as a tool to succeed in lifting lockdown, as a matter of urgency?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I said, the £500 support payment has been extended, so parents of children who are isolating are now eligible for it. In addition to that, we are increasing, to £20 million a month, the funding available to local authorities to make discretionary payments, and that money is intended to support those who fall outside the scope of the main payment but still face hardship. As I have said, obviously we have the Budget next week, where there will be further detail in the round about the economic support we will provide going forward.