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

Lord Bishop of London Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the work that he and others are doing to make decisions at this very challenging time. The regulations we are debating relate to health protection restrictions and fines. However, I wonder whether our approach to public health protection and restrictions during the pandemic needs to pay more attention to a bottom-up approach of wisdom, rather than simply relying on top-down pragmatism and the push and pull of financial incentives. Last week, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester highlighted how policies, such as fines, are out of touch with many. It has led to frustration and resentment nationwide.

Our current crisis highlights the need for a whole-systems approach to public health. We need to reinvest in our public health practitioners on the ground, working in and with communities, such as public health nurses, who understand and work with their community to ensure that health and well-being are maintained. They can provide grass-roots insights, learning the needs of local people and business owners and, therefore, how to bring about change in behaviour. In this way, rules that come down from the top are informed by real experiences from those on the ground, from the bottom up—public health professionals, with their knowledge, skills and relationships, working with people and the population to promote well-being. This approach is often seen in those countries doing far better with Covid-19 than we are.

In times as fractured as these, we must extend trust and power to those most familiar with their situations and best equipped to bring about change and rely less on disengaged push-and-pull financial incentives to influence behavioural responses. What is being done to ensure that future restrictions are better informed by local wisdom as well as science?