Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, here we are again, discussing legislation that was presented to Parliament on 28 January and came into force the following day. Only a month later are we now debating it.

Given that the Government’s intention is to deter people from breaching self-isolation and increase compliance at a time when adherence to self-isolation is crucial, ensuring that infected individuals and their close contacts self-isolate has to be one of the most powerful tools for controlling transmission of Covid-19. If that is the case, can the Minister explain why the new £800 fines that were brought in a month ago are still not published on the Government’s guidance page under the section “if you break the rules”? How on earth can they be a good deterrent if people do not know about them? In short, these regulations are about compliance, enforcement and data sharing but frankly, it is all stick and no carrot.

The Liberal Democrats have been extremely concerned about the half-hearted nature of the approach the Government have taken to self-isolation and quarantine. As others have said, and we agree, we know that in general most people do comply and only very few deliberately choose not to. That is not the issue, as my noble friends Lord Scriven and Lady Tyler have said.

The role of the state is to encourage as well as to force compliance in public health emergencies such as this pandemic. We have repeatedly asked for these carrots to be created and made visible to the public. We know from those nations that run successful self-isolation and quarantine systems that telephone support, food and medicine deliveries and, most important, payment of the equivalent of a minimum wage are what makes them work—not, noble Lords should note, a one-off grant that is almost impossible to get, and sick pay at a level that is a joke and requires the poorest families to decide between isolation and putting food on their table. It is time the Chancellor responded to our calls, because the best way to support people and to help them follow the guidance is also the best way to keep everyone safe.

We note that the regulations increase data sharing for police, including contact details, how the individual was notified to self-isolate and the test result. Has the Department of Health and Social Care monitored whether data sharing has had an impact on people’s willingness to seek help and share their data? Can the Minister say how the data will be kept safe and secure?

May I repeat a question that I asked him 12 months ago, when we discussed the early regulations: what assurances can the Minister give your Lordships’ House that the data will only be used for the purposes of Covid regulations and that the police and any other authority will delete it as soon as it is no longer needed for Covid matters?

All of this is brought into sharp relief with the news headlines today about the travellers who arrived from Brazil last month, and the one whose test result form did not have contact details on it. Without knowing much more about that case, I ask the Minister some questions of first principle. Can a traveller evade registration or notice as they come into the country? Given the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that his forms on coming in were not checked, what guidance is given to border staff to check? Are any links made between the data collected from travellers quarantining at home and NHS Test and Trace, their GPs or local council via the director of public health, or are the two systems completely separate? If so, why are they not joined up? At what point do local councils and tracers become aware of someone coming in from a red country, whether directly or indirectly? Having that local contact could be vital, if a traveller were subsequently to alert key officials if they feel unwell and need a test. It makes the whole issue of support and further testing of contacts so much easier.

If the test form is not completed fully, as in today’s case, can it be checked back to the QR code for the test kit issued, either in a centre or by post, and then reverse-engineered back to small numbers of people and, hopefully, to the individual? Or is it true that it is possible to send it back without contact details and that the laboratory never checks back and queries it? If so, why is that the case? What lessons are being learned from this, very quickly, given that, once again, one of the key elements to managing this virus is putting the lifting of lockdown at risk?

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested that the social care sector had decided to introduce a “no jab, no job” policy, and he wondered whether the NHS might follow. I thought that it was the other way around: that the NHS has vaccine rules in its employment contracts with clinicians, but the care sector has not, in the past. The care sector is now applying them to new staff, but is unable to back-date this because of employment law. More importantly, can he say what plans there are to support and encourage social care staff to have their vaccinations, as the low numbers are very worrying? Is the refusal because staff are low-paid shift workers, often without the means to get to vaccine centres, or is it disinformation about the vaccine?

Finally, like the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, I hope that this is the last lockdown, but the end to lockdown is a partnership between the people and government. Compliance is part of it, but people want and need the tools to make it happen. Can the Minister tell us if government will now do that?