Covid-19 Update

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we are taking a leadership role in COVAX, CEPI, ACT, Gavi and all the international, multilateral initiatives to roll out vaccine around the world. We are looking at what to do with our own stock of vaccines, and the Foreign Secretary has made it very clear that distribution of the vaccines we have bought is very much on the agenda. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being used as probably the default vaccine of choice around the world, as it is low- cost and easily distributed. Through our G7 chairmanship, we entirely support the agenda of preventing further pandemic by ensuring that vaccines are fairly and widely distributed around the world.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

I join others in congratulating my noble friend and his colleagues on the brilliant success of the vaccine programme. However, why is everyone in the United Kingdom, on receiving the vaccine, not being issued with a card to show that they have had it?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, they are issued with a certificate. It is a digital certificate that is put in their patient record. In the modern day, that is by far the most effective way to ensure that people know that they have had the vaccine. A physical card has the potential for fraud. We have looked that extremely carefully, but we think the digital approach is the right one. Most people will receive a small card with their second dose appointment on it, but if my noble friend did not get one, I am sorry about that.

Social Care Funding (EAC Report)

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Economic Affairs Committee Social care funding: time to end a national scandal (7th Report, Session 2017-19, HL Paper 392).

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to introduce the Economic Affairs Committee’s report, Social Care Funding: Time to End a National Scandal.

We published our report in July 2019, and yet, 18 months later, we still await the Government’s response. The Government are accountable directly to Parliament. They have a duty and a responsibility to reply to committee reports in a timely way, usually within two months. Some 18 months ago, we said:

“With each delay the level of unmet need in the system increases, the pressure on unpaid carers grows stronger, the supply of care providers diminishes and the strain on the care workforce continues.”


Just 20 days after our report was published, the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and said

“we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve.”

Now, more than ever, urgent government action is required.

Before I explain our conclusions, I would like to thank the committee staff who produced the report: Sam Newhouse, Luke Hussey, Michael Berry, Ben McNamee and Lucy Molloy. Especial thanks go to our special adviser Professor Richard Humphries, whose support was invaluable. I also thank my noble friend Lord Tugendhat, the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who leave the committee today under our rotation rules. All of them have made a huge contribution to our deliberations and participated in no fewer than nine inquiries.

I must begin by praising our care workers. They have been on the front line of the pandemic. They have put their own health and safety to one side to care for and protect the most vulnerable among us. Care workers have performed an immeasurable service for our country but clapping alone will not help put in place the major reform that the sector so desperately needs.

In May 2020, I wrote to the Chancellor to press the case that this report deserves renewed attention now that the needs of the sector, and the heroic service and sacrifice of its workforce, have come to the fore of the nation’s priorities. In response, the Chancellor said:

“The Government’s number one priority for adult social care is for everyone who relies on care to get the care they need throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.”


In July 2020, I exchanged letters with the Minister of State for Care in which she assured me that the Government were due to meet shortly to discuss our report and any further reflections on reform. Finally, in October 2020, the Minister, my noble friend Lord Bethell, said that the pandemic had delayed the Government’s work on designing a sustainable social care funding model—words, words, words and broken promises.

Let me be clear. It is quite wrong to suggest that the Government could not have, and cannot, bring forward a plan for social care reform because of the pandemic. The opposite is the case, and I hope my noble friend will not repeat this calumny when he reads out his departmental speech this afternoon. The pandemic has revealed the centrality of social care and the need for no more dithering, no more Green Papers, no more delays; major reform must take place now.

We held a private meeting with care workers, and the stories we heard were truly humbling. We heard of frustration at being described as “just a carer” and that the sector is no longer seen as attractive. We heard from burnt-out workers, who cannot afford to run a car, forced to take multiple train journeys to get to work, working 14- to 15-hour days with take-home pay less than can be obtained for stacking shelves in a supermarket. Social care workers deserve better than this. They should be rewarded and treated as a highly skilled and caring profession. We concluded that career structures, training and the establishment of a professional structure were urgently needed.

Social care is a job-rich sector at a time when, sadly, unemployment is soaring as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Resolution Foundation said that it would take an extra 180,000 care workers just to bring the ratio of carers to the over-70s population back to its 2014 peak. That is 180,000 just to get back to where we were in 2014. In our most recent report, on employment and Covid-19, we repeated that the Government should expand the number of care workers by increasing funding to the sector, with stipulations that it should be used to raise wages and improve training and conditions. It is time to turn our hands from applause to actions which give our social care workers the deal they deserve.

We have had enough of excuses for procrastination such as “The Government cannot bring forward plans for reform without cross-party consensus.” Everyone knows there is a consensus in Parliament and the country that we need to commit the resources that are desperately needed to support our most vulnerable citizens, young and old.

In May 2020, when our committee held its annual session with the Chancellor, we pressed him on the problems faced by the care sector. He said that the absence of a consensus over funding is a significant barrier to reform, along with its expense. That translates from Treasury speak to “I don’t want to spend the money.”

Since then, the Government have continued to kick the can down the road. More speeches have been given accepting the need for reform, yet cross-party talks have been delayed, and the proposals the Government have promised have been pushed back again. There was consensus in our cross-party report on a fully costed, long-term solution. The duty now falls upon the Government to bring forward a plan that reflects the cross-party consensus that does exist.

We drew attention to dwindling access to local authority funding, and the increasing pressures that result in the rationing of care to people who are in desperate need. Recent figures from the IFS show that between 2009-10 and 2017-18, per-person spending on social care for the over-65s fell by 31%. Significant investment is needed to buck that trend. We examined various options for how funding social care can be made sustainable. Having done so, we recommended that social care be funded largely from general taxation.

A central theme of our inquiry was the question of fairness. Our report identified three ways in which the present system is unfair: disparities between adult social care and the NHS, between those who fund their own care and those who receive local authority funding, and between different local authorities.

On the first of these, the UK has an ageing population, and many people have complex and difficult social care needs which they must fund themselves. The disparity with the NHS, which is free at the point of use, is striking. Why should support be free for cancer patients but not those suffering from motor neurone disease, for example?

Dementia was cited by several witnesses as an example of this disparity. The costs of caring for dementia can be long-lasting and, in some cases, catastrophic. The Alzheimer’s Society told us that the typical dementia care costs are £100,000, rising to £500,000 in some cases.

Secondly, care homes charge self-funders more in order to make up the inadequate amounts paid by local authorities. The Competition and Markets Authority estimated that self-funders paid 41% higher fees than the local authority rate. Witnesses said this amounted to a cross-subsidy that is unsustainable. We concluded that there is a real danger of a two-tier market emerging, in which care homes are driven to market to self-funders, reducing the availability of places for individuals sponsored by local authorities.

Thirdly, local authorities differ in respect of the cost pressures they face and their ability to raise funds. The result is that a postcode lottery has emerged. These disparities are growing with every day of government inaction. Reports suggest that the Government have been looking at private insurance as a way forward. I am grateful to the Association of British Insurers for the briefing that it sent to colleagues for this debate and which reflects the committee’s conclusions. No country relies primarily on private insurance to fund adult social care costs. It cannot provide the amount of funding required by the social care system, not least because roughly half of public social care funding is spent on people who are of working age; it is not just about the elderly.

Instead, we concluded that social care must be brought closer to the NHS by introducing free personal care. Personal care is about funding the basic activities of daily living: help with washing, bathing, dressing, mobility, eating and drinking. It does not include other, more expansive, activities, such as assistance with housework or shopping. Those in care homes would still pay for their accommodation and assistance with less critical needs. Those receiving care in their own homes would not have to pay accommodation costs, which may encourage care users to seek essential help with personal care early.

As the ABI says in its brief, a universal offer from the state would provide a clearer foundation on which people can plan and make their own provision where they need to top up. If personal care was free, individuals would likely be expected to top up their hotel costs with private funding. An insurance or asset-based top-up market could grow to support this. We concluded that the costs of care should be shared between individuals and the taxpayer. We were told that basic entitlement to publicly funded personal care would cost around £7 billion, if introduced in 2020-21.

We concluded that the Government should adopt a staged approach to providing the additional funding. We said that they should immediately invest in adult social care to restore quality and access to 2009-10 levels, estimated now to cost £10 billion. They should then introduce free personal care over the next five years.

In July 2018, the then Prime Minister announced that NHS funding would be increased by £34 billion over the next five years. This amounted to a spending increase in real terms of £20.5 billion. That increase alone is almost as much as the total spending on social care. It is time Cinderella was taken to the ball.

I have been a Conservative for nearly 50 years. I served in local government for five years, in both Houses of Parliament for 36 years and as a Minister for more than a decade. Of course, during that time, I have supported policies that I was uncomfortable with and promoted others that I regret, but I have never felt the sense of shame that I feel today at our failure to act on the funding of social care and to tackle, in the words of the title of our report, “a national scandal”. I beg to move.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this has been a brilliant debate and I thank everyone for taking part. I am slightly embarrassed by the tributes paid to me—I just chair the committee. It is a fantastic committee; we reached a consensus and we did so by listening to people and acting on the evidence before us. One thing I can guarantee is that this brilliant debate in the House of Lords will not even be acknowledged by our critics, who present us in a quite different light.

A number of key points have been made, drawn from the report, about the importance of raising the standing, status and training of care workers. The noble Baronesses, Lady Kingsmill and Lady Finlay, my noble friends Lady Fookes, Lord Lancaster, Lord Taylor, Lady Eaton and Lord Randall, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle all made these points. I must say to my noble friend the Minister that the answer is not to issue people with a badge, but to take direct action in order that people are properly rewarded in a proper career structure with proper training.

Points were made about the litany of reports and broken promises and the requirement for action this day by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley—who has been on to this, as she said, for years and has led the way, describing herself as something of a lone voice. She must be reinforced by the degree of consensus that she has heard today. My noble friend Lady Browning and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed to that.

I ask my noble friend the Minister: what did the Prime Minister mean when he said

“we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve”?

That was in 2019. This is 2021. Saying, “We will bring forward proposals this year”, when we are still in January is not really reassuring, given the urgency and the strength of feeling shown in this debate. I am also grateful that my noble friend Lady Pidding and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Brinton, all pointed out that this is not just about the elderly; it is about young people of working age, on whom half the budget is spent.

One point that has come out very strongly is that it will be necessary to spend this money. We all know that the reason why this has been delayed and we have had endless Green Papers and so on is that the Treasury simply does not want to spend the money—a point that my noble friend Lord Lansley underscored and which was also raised by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Truscott and Lord Campbell. The Minister surely can see that the overwhelming message from this Committee is: “No more delays”.

Something that I think is very important and which came out in our report is that many people are completely unaware of the services that will be available to them until the point that they themselves need care or a relative needs care—it comes as a profound shock. People across the country do not realise how limited the services are, which is one reason why politicians of all parties have been able to get away with not addressing this problem—a problem that hits people and causes enormous stress at the time that they are probably most vulnerable.

There has been a universal cry that local authorities are being asked to do the impossible and do not have the resources. I say to the Minister that sticking plasters brought in for particular situations do not deal with the systemic problem of funding and the pressure that local authorities are under. These points were made by the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Shipley.

I am grateful to my noble friend but he is pretty lucky that we are having to hold this debate virtually and are not able to intervene to challenge some of the points in his departmental speech. If he seeks consensus then he should look around him: there is consensus in this Committee; I have never known a debate where this was the case with almost every single speech. There were arguments about the odd detail here and there, but only one speech did not praise the report, which came from my noble friend Lord Sarfraz, who said that he was impressed with the proposals coming from the Government—I do not know whether he has inside information or has had a look at what lies ahead. The message from this debate is absolutely clear: no more delays, no more Green Papers, no more proposals. Let us have a White Paper and legislation, and let us move forward and say thank you to those people whom the Minister rightly praised but who need more than the recognition of a badge. They need to be given a proper career, and we need to attract people to that career, which offers prospects for many of our young people who face unemployment as a result of the impact of Covid-19.

Motion agreed.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has withdrawn. We are not sure whether we have the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. We do not. I now call the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, could my noble friend comment on reports in today’s press that four hospitals only, in the whole of England, are busier than last winter? Could he explain how on Saturday Michael Gove warned that, unless the latest regulations were implemented, every hospital in England risked being overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases? Before our debate tomorrow, could he publish the modelling on which this assertion was based?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I saw the press reports to which my noble friend refers. I remind him that their suggestion that we should be running our hospital system at 99% capacity during a pandemic is not reasonable. It would put our flexibility to deal with any increase in infections over the winter months in an incredibly precarious state. Running at around 88%, which is the current rate, is pragmatic. It would take very little for the 600,000-plus group of people who carry the Covid infection at the moment to have an impact on those bed numbers before the NHS was overwhelmed. That was the point that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made, and I thought he made it very well.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord that the 67 DPHs who are taking the tests in the first round are those who stepped forward. I believe that they include DPHs in Lancashire, but I shall be happy to confirm that. Regarding the Lonely and Left Behind report, the noble Lord put it extremely well. Of course those are the people who have been extremely hard hit by the pandemic. I hope he will acknowledge that we have put those who are older and vulnerable at the top of the prioritisation list—there has been no ambiguity about that. They will be vaccinated first and will therefore be freed from lockdown. When the vaccination is available, it will be a massive priority to get our society open again and to get the love, tenderness and support to the people whom he described—all things that are needed in order for them to have happy and fulfilled lives.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, why has my noble friend not answered my Written Questions on the following: on false-positive tests, which were due on 28 September; on the legality of using the Public Health Act for lockdown, which was due on 14 October; and, finally, on why those Questions have not been answered, which is also overdue?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I can only apologise to my noble friend for the slowness in replying to his Questions. It is not a reasonable excuse, but the Department of Health and Social Care has been overwhelmed by the pandemic. A large amount of our correspondence is behind schedule. I have worked hard to try to catch up on that, but I apologise to him sincerely for the delay. When I get back to the department tomorrow morning, I will chase it up and get him replies to his perfectly reasonable Questions.

Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, these regulations will bring misery to the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. We know now what lockdowns do from our experience in the spring and from that of other countries which took the same course.

Jobs are destroyed and perfectly good businesses are forced to close their doors for the last time. Anxiety, depression, mental illness, suicides and domestic abuse increase, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, pointed out. Lives are lost as screening programmes are disrupted and people are fearful of going to hospital. Young people’s education is disrupted, their employment prospects blighted and their career paths distorted. The elderly are separated from their families and grandchildren as they ponder their own mortality. There is a cruelty here too, in cutting off folk in nursing homes from family visits, banning weddings and denying people the comfort of religious observance and the chance to join immediate families to mourn the passing of friends and relatives.

Tax revenues evaporate, and we add to the burden of our children a legacy of eye-watering debt. The deficit is now heading to £400 billion and probably on to half a trillion. Parliamentary democracy is a casualty too, as most of us in this debate get three minutes to speak, late at night, on the merits of nothing less than the shutting down of the entire economy and these extraordinary assaults on our liberty and prosperity. Who would have thought Ministers and officials would start telling people whom they can sleep with? The decisions are taken by folk in secure public sector employment, with inflation-proof pensions and good salaries. The highest price is paid by the poorest and those whose livelihoods depend on enterprise and the ability to make a profit. Lockdowns are the midwives of inequality.

Occasionally you see signs in shops saying, “If you break it, you pay for it”. I believe this applies to the Government today. It is irresponsible to present these regulations to Parliament without having done any analysis of the costs and means for mitigating all the consequences of their actions. I am grateful to Julia Hartley-Brewer of talkRADIO for succeeding where I failed through parliamentary questions in getting an answer from my right honourable friend Robert Jenrick MP, who told her it was unfair to ask whether the Government had done a cost-benefit analysis of the consequences of lockdown. After very robust interrogation, he admitted that he had not seen one, because it did not exist.

Again and again, Ministers rightly say they have to balance lives against livelihoods, but to achieve balance you need to weigh both sides of the scale. We are told that the models say we have no alternative, as the NHS will be overwhelmed. We of course have a duty to take this very seriously, but the Explanatory Memorandum for these regulations says the Government are assuming an R rate of 1.1 to 1.3. Professor Tim Spector from King’s College has suggested that R is now one in England and the UK as a whole, and Professor Heneghan from Oxford University says the infection rate in Liverpool is falling from a run rate of 490 a day over seven days to 269 and the R value is well below one, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, may not have noticed. It seems the Government’s tiered approach is not only hurting but working.

The last financial crisis was caused by groupthink and people believing models which told them they could convert lead into gold at the expense of common sense. Then, the poorest paid the price, and those responsible became very rich. The fact that we were all scared by headlines over the weekend telling us that 4,000 people a day would die, and learned within hours that this came from a discredited model which predicted four times as many deaths as occurred in real life on 1 November, is worrying to say the least. With all models, the rule is very simple: garbage in, garbage out.

We also know that, once implemented, lockdowns are hard to exit. On Saturday the Prime Minister told us it would be for a strictly limited period, until 2 December. In less than 24 hours, Michael Gove was telling Andrew Marr it could be extended. When asked about this yesterday, Professor Whitty said:

“I think that the aim of this is to get the rates down far enough that it’s a realistic possibility to move into a different state of play at that point in time.”


What are people running businesses meant to do? Do they listen to the PM and take on more debt to survive another month if they can, or do they conclude, after listening to Mr Gove and Professor Whitty, that they should throw in the towel?

The Chancellor has done brilliantly, but he knows we are heading for Carey Street. What will this lockdown cost—perhaps £12.5 billion for furlough and the self-employed alone? He will need to extend the £20 a week standard allowance for universal credit from April. When folk who thought they were in secure jobs—say, on £25,000 a year—discover that they are not eligible for universal credit because they have savings or a working partner, his colleagues in the Commons with be inundated with constituents worried about how to pay their bills and feed their families. Where will he find the money for health, welfare and social care, and for the job creation initiatives that will be needed? To paraphrase Tacitus, we will have created a desert and called it protecting the health service.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

At end insert “but that this House regrets that no impact assessment has been published which sets out the (1) number of jobs lost, (2) businesses permanently destroyed, (3) costs to taxpayers, and (4) consequences for mental and physical health, of a national lockdown; and regrets that Her Majesty’s Government have not provided a strategy for the lifting of the restrictions put in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean’s amendment to the Motion not moved.

Social Care

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Talks are happening in the background in many ways. I cannot give the noble Baroness a precise date, because our focus is very much on managing Covid and learning its lessons, including from the CQC report that the noble Baroness rightly pointed out. But this is a massive priority both for the Government and for opposition parties, and I can reassure the noble Baroness that it will be taken on board at the soonest possible moment.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, further to the question from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, the Economic Affairs Committee of this House produced a report on social care that had all-party support and was universally welcomed across the House. That was in July 2019—14 months ago. There has been no proper government response and no opportunity to debate it. How much longer must people in desperate need have to wait for the Government to reach a conclusion? I say to my noble friend that Covid is not an excuse for procrastination but an imperative for urgent action.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, we all acknowledge the power and intellectual insight of the Economic Affairs Committee report, which was welcomed on the Floor of the House and speaks for itself in terms of its authority and insight. But my noble friend is, I am afraid, not being reasonable when he says that Covid is not an excuse for inaction. There is an enormous focus on the front line and by the management of the NHS and the DHSC on preparing the winter plan, which is ambitious but also extremely stretching. There simply is not the management or political capacity to take on a major generational reform of the entire industry in the midst of this massive epidemic.

Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, had to say about parliamentary involvement, but in defence of Cromwell, it was not Cromwell who abolished Christmas but the Parliament.

I asked my noble friend the Minister in the debate on Friday on the coronavirus regulations if he was confident that the Government were acting legally in using the public health Act to restrict the liberties of uninfected people and to close down uncontaminated businesses. I pointed out to him that I could not see powers in the public health Act to do so. I listened to him today and ask him: what happened to the assurances given by his department, the Department of Health, in 2008 to your Lordships’ Constitution Committee that these powers were exercisable only in relation to infected individuals and were intended to authorise only provisions which were

“urgent yet minor in scope and effect”?

I asked him why the Government were not using the Civil Contingencies Act, which, under Section 22(3), empowers Ministers to

“make provision of any kind that could be made by Act of Parliament”.

Examples given in the legislation include regulations which prohibit movement to or from a specific place, assemblies at specific places or times and travel at specific times. The difference is, of course, that the Civil Contingencies Act requires robust parliamentary scrutiny. Emergency regulations must be laid before Parliament in draft before they are made and will lapse unless they are approved by both Houses within seven days. They are subject to renewal every 30 days, and Parliament can amend them at any time.

I asked my noble friend if the motivation for resorting to the public health Act, which has no such protections, was to enable the Executive to avoid scrutiny and parliamentary debate. He did not reply, and, under the bizarre rules we have, I was unable to intervene. Regulations made under the public health Act do not require approval for 28 days, plus any recess period, and cannot be amended or, if approved, revoked. They remain in force for as long as Ministers like.

I am not a lawyer, so, over the weekend, I contacted Lord Sumption for his advice, and am very grateful to him for sending me a memorandum which sets out the position very clearly. I have his permission to share it. I am told I cannot place it in the Library unless the Minister agrees, but I would be happy to send it to anyone who would like to read it.

My noble friend Lord Bethell did tell me, as he has repeated today, that the Civil Contingencies Act is

“expressly concerned with threats that we could not have expected. Unfortunately, we are at a stage with this epidemic—indeed, even at the very beginning of the epidemic—where the lawyers have judged that this kind of regulation does not fit under that definition”.—[Official Report, 25/9/20; col. 2026.]

The Act applies to emergencies, which are defined as

“an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare”

in a place in the United Kingdom.

I say to my noble friend that he needs to get some better lawyers, and colleagues with more respect for Parliament. Under the CCA, which applies to the United Kingdom as a whole, he would have avoided different rules in different parts of the UK, and the First Minister of Scotland adding to public confusion.

Today, once again, we are not even being allowed a substantive vote. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Robathan for his Motion, which I will support, in protest at the cavalier way in which parliamentary democracy in our country is being suffocated. Our economy is being trashed; public expenditure, out of control; good businesses, destroyed; thousands of patients, denied life-saving treatment; disabled people, unsupported; our children’s future, mortgaged and damaged; the people’s mental health and welfare, put at risk; and this House and the other place remain marginalised and impotent. As Edmund Burke put it in 1780:

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions on Gatherings) (North of England) Regulations 2020

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this time last week when we were debating other regulations under this legislation, I talked about the strange death of parliamentary democracy in our country, and nothing that has happened since has done anything but reinforce my view. I heard on the radio this morning that students in Glasgow are being told that they have to self-isolate in their rooms, that they are not allowed to go home and that they may be there until Christmas. These powers are being exercised by regulations which are being made using the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act. This Act gives the Government power only to restrict the movements of people who are believed to be infectious and to close infected premises. As far as I can see, it does not provide the power to control people who are not infected or to close uncontaminated premises. If the Government want to exercise controls of this kind over people who are not infected, they have the power to do so using the Civil Contingencies Act. But, quite properly, that legislation requires that the consent of Parliament is obtained within seven days of any regulation and is renewed every 30 days.

Last week, my noble friend talked about being in a war-type situation where urgent action was required. That is exactly what the Civil Contingencies Act provides for. Have the Government used the public health Act improperly in order to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and created today’s farce where, as he has just indicated, we are debating regulations that were made seven weeks ago and which have already been superseded while being unable to control those that are in force now?

My noble friend apologised for cluttering up the Order Paper. Cluttering up the Order Paper is all that is happening here. There is no proper scrutiny. We cannot vote against these regulations and we have the farce of being asked to consider them after they have been superseded with only two minutes to do so.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 18th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we are witnessing the strange death of parliamentary democracy in this country. There is no other way to describe the charade in which we are involved today. Many of these regulations, as so many colleagues have pointed out, have long since taken effect. What are we meant to do? This is government by press release; in some cases, as pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the regulations had taken effect even before they were laid. Why are we not discussing the rule of six regulations today? That is the issue of the day—why are we not discussing it? Why do we not even know the date on which they will happen?

Why do we have a Minister who does not even have the courtesy to turn up to the House to deal with these important regulations and who does not answer questions? We had a Statement earlier this week; I asked why the rules were different in Scotland and in England and what it was about English children that made them more likely to be a risk. My noble friend the Minister said in his reply that

“we celebrate the differences between our two nations in this.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1006.]

I do not celebrate the differences which mean that I cannot visit my grandchildren in London, but they could get in a taxi, on the Tube, or on a plane or a train and come to Scotland perfectly legally. How do you explain that to people? What prevents the Government getting together the various Chief Medical Officers from the devolved regions, agreeing a common policy and implementing it, if it is all supposed to be based on scientific evidence?

Furthermore, when asked difficult questions such as the one from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who asked a very reasonable question about his family, the Minister replied:

“that is the pub-quiz question of all pub-quiz questions”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1004.]

and referred him to the regulations. There is no accountability for what the Government are doing. Parliament is being bypassed. We are not in a position to debate these regulations; we cannot intervene in speeches; it is absolutely unsatisfactory and needs to be put right.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the amount of testing we are doing is increasing enormously. Most people who book a test do get it locally, and that test is delivered quickly and on time. The result arrives within 24 hours and we are doing a million tests a week, which is well within the bounds of our business capacity.

The noble Lord is right that the system is under scrutiny and pressure. Not everyone is getting a test where and when they want it. However, overall, it is reasonable to ask people not to make frivolous demands upon the tests, and to ask that those who are asymptomatic wait until there is further test capacity before they step forward to ask for their test.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me what the Government have identified in English children under 12, including babies, that makes them, to use his phrase, “a vector of infection and a Covid hazard”, that does not apply to children in Scotland, who have been back at school for weeks? And on the subject of making things easier to understand—simplifying matters—why is it okay in England to meet one’s grandchildren in the pub but not in their family home if the household consists of six people?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, Scottish children are just the same as English children, but the Scottish Government have decided to take a different approach; we celebrate the differences between our two nations in this. With respect to meeting in the pub, you cannot meet more than six people in the pub and you cannot meet more than six people between two households. The arithmetic is reasonably straightforward.