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

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be voting with the Government tonight, conscious of the many concerns expressed by noble Lords, not least those recently expressed by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lady Altmann about the complete absence of evidence that the Government can produce for the ban on collective worship. We are at a point where something must be done and this is the only option in front of us, but I will make two points.

First, this has now ceased to be a matter fit for legislation. If you want a law to close pubs or restaurants, that is fine; it is nice and simple. However, when you come to micromanaging the lives of individuals and families, as Part 2 seeks to do, with 10 principal exemptions and numerous sub-paragraphs, it is simply absurd. It will be incomprehensible to families, police and enforcement authorities alike.

Many of these exemptions are common sense, but you cannot legislate for common sense; you can only ask people to exercise it. If any of these measures are to be continued after 2 December, they cannot be in this form; they need to be based on trusting people. That sounds like Sweden—I have never been a vocal advocate, or any advocate at all, for Sweden or its approach, but that is clearly where these regulations are pointing.

My second point is that Covid is a medical problem, requiring medical solutions. However, we have made it the prisoner of statisticians and geeks with models. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, pointed out, they are geeks who cannot agree on anything significant, except that a line pointing upwards will continue to do so if nothing prevents it. We have no choice, in practice, but to rely on improvements in treatment and care to reduce mortality, as is already happening, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, pointed out.

We cannot rely on a silver bullet: a vaccine that may be only partially effective—who knows?—or a test, trace and isolate system, which, even if it tested and traced effectively, cannot persuade people to isolate. Today is the day, and November is a write-off, but we cannot find ourselves in this position again. I urge the Government to use this month to consider a reset in their approach and lead us forward on the basis of trusting people and improving treatment and care.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 5) Regulations 2020

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who brings to the House her experience of the European Parliament, where she represented the north-west of England. Like many of her constituents there, she is and has been a doughty defender of Brexit and taking back control of our laws. She also has the unique distinction of being the longest-serving panellist on the BBC’s programme “Moral Maze”, dispensing ethical guidance to the nation. I am sure that if noble Lords felt they would like some ethical guidance, she would be willing to offer an open ear. She is a defender of free speech, as we have heard—a cause that must commend itself to your Lordships’ House, which manages to combine freedom from legal limitation on what it says with courteous and quintessentially rational debate.

On the subject of the Motion, the acid test is not infections but deaths. While these have been rising, they have been rising much more slowly than infections. For example, in the Evening Standard yesterday we learned that deaths in London over the past seven days have been running at a rate 1/50th of the height of the pandemic. This is good news, and we owe a great deal of that to the skill, experience and intuition of medical professionals, who have learned as time has gone on how better to treat and to care for those suffering from this dreadful disease. We owe them a great debt, as so often in this pandemic.

Mortality rates in ICU have come down from 40% to 15%. This points the way to the future, because while we would all like a silver bullet that will put an end to this pandemic, in practice we are much more likely to have to live with it for many years and rely on advances in care and treatment to make it ever less fatal. My question to the Minister is simply: can he assure the House that the Government’s attention is on improving treatment and care as much as on apps and vaccines?

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Local COVID-19 Alert Level) (Very High) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, since being introduced to your Lordships’ House last week I have been treated with generosity and kindness by noble Lords on all sides of the House. I am particularly indebted to my two supporters, the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, and my noble friend Lord Borwick, and to all the staff who have been so helpful since I appeared here—not least, and in fact especially, the doorkeepers.

Many people can point to a career that is a sort of linear progression, whereas mine has been more a series of happy stumbles. At the core of it is 28 years spent in local government—something that I stumbled into in 1990, becoming a councillor at that stage. That gave me the opportunity to have an insight into much of the hidden infrastructure, the amenities that make our civilised life possible—everything from waste disposal and parks management to roads, railways and aviation, all of them important to us and all fascinating operating businesses in their own right.

In 2008 the Conservative candidate was elected Mayor of London and he asked me to be the deputy chairman of Transport for London. There was a great deal to learn there as well, not only about the operation of railways but about tunnelling, construction and, most painful of all, automatic signalling. Meanwhile, back at my local authority I was writing a local plan and promoting development and new housing.

Now I have stumbled into your Lordships’ House, and I hope while I am here to be able to draw on my experience to give support to the Government as they pursue an ambitious and very necessary infrastructure strategy for the country. I will also be very keen to support them as they manage our exit from the European Union in such a way as to make us a properly self-governing country.

I turn to the matter in hand. Many noble Lords have spoken wisely. It is a matter of immense difficulty and delicacy for the Government at this stage to deal with this pandemic. At some point they will need to stand back and tell us that we can make our own decisions again. That moment is not now, but we must hope that it is not delayed for too long, or beyond the point that is good for us. For now, however, I am content to support this measure.