Covid-19

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am extremely grateful for the noble Viscount’s kind remarks. They are rightly directed at those responsible for the deployment of the vaccine. The NHS itself has been a central player in all that, as have our academic colleagues, particularly at Oxford University but also Imperial, as well as others who have contributed. I will take his remarks back to the Department of Health and Social Care. It has been a very tough year, and I am extremely grateful for his remarks.

[Lord Beith (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister is right that there must be a penalty for lying about which countries you have been to in these circumstances, but I am surprised at how confident he is that the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 is a good tool for this purpose. Some offences under it do not attract a ten-year maximum but a two-year maximum, and it seems unlikely that a court would impose a substantial custodial sentence when comparing this with other offences. Does he not recognise that all the headlines about a 10-year prison sentence undermine credibility in the Government’s strategy at a time when we need to support and encourage it?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the noble Lord’s legal insight and will leave it to the courts to decide whether he is right or wrong.