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

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendment to the Motion in my name. As far as I know, I have not had coronavirus. What I do know is that whether I live or die is neither here nor there. In the grand scheme of things, though, whether parliamentary democracy survives and thrives is an entirely different question. That does matter, not just to all of us privileged to serve in the mother of Parliaments. It also matters to a totalitarian regime whose evident aspirations for domination depend on democracy’s demise. The totalitarian regime to which I refer is, of course, that of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. For that regime’s value system to succeed, ours must fail.

As Lord Sumption and others have made clear, coronavirus has caused democracy to be placed under threat. The threat stems not just from the CCP’s military expansion and its aggression in, for example, Nepal and the South China Sea, nor in the corrosive cynicism of the retrospective application of new laws of repression in Hong Kong, but also from the growing popular disenchantment with the ability of democratic Governments to strike the right balance, to which my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean referred in his excellent speech, between saving lives and saving livelihoods during a pandemic which originated in Wuhan.

I do not intend to rehearse the points made so eloquently by my noble friends Lord Robathan, Lady Noakes and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, with which I agree. Naturally, most people are focused on the impact on their families and friends, but we can be sure that Big Brother is watching us. I do not mean our own state, although it is increasingly intruding on and controlling every aspect of our lives. I refer of course to Xi Jinping, the head of the CCP and of the world’s most repressive, surveillance-obsessed and threatening totalitarian regime. He may not be watching today’s debate in your Lordships’ House, but we can be sure that he will be watching and analysing the signals that we and the other place send. It is therefore worth reflecting on whether the messages that we are conveying highlight the strength of parliamentary democracy in the face of crisis or show panic, disarray and weakness.

I wish this were simply about tackling a dreadful, devastating and deadly virus. Unfortunately, what is at stake is so much more significant than any of our lives: it is the future of western democracy itself. That is why we cannot afford to signal that we are panicking or weak. Consider this: if one wanted cynically to expose the fault lines of western democracy, there could scarcely be a better way to do so than to allow a vicious virus to engulf the globe and plunge it into poverty. That is what we are facing.

We cannot afford to be in this situation again. We cannot afford, as Theresa May said in the other place only a few hours ago, for it to look as if the figures are chosen to support the policy rather than the policy being based on figures. That is the path to mistrust and cynicism. If we really want to save Christmas, we need to save people’s livelihoods. If we want to save the NHS, we need to ensure that we safeguard the tax revenues that are so crucial to funding it.

I am not saying this is necessarily the case, but I am saying it is essential that we entertain the awful possibility that a totalitarian regime capable of incarcerating in concentration camps millions of its Muslim Uighur population and harvesting their organs, capable of turning disputed rocky outcrops in the South China Sea into fortified islands and capable of turning the bastion of freedom that was Hong Kong into a police state is surely capable of allowing perhaps the most potent threat that western democracies have faced in the last 30 years to spread until it was too late.

The Government do not know best and noble Lords should resist any suggestion that they do, especially at a time of crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Shinkwin]

At end insert “but that this House regrets that a further national lockdown to address the COVID-19 pandemic signals to totalitarian regimes that Her Majesty’s Government have failed to address the pandemic effectively, and that the United Kingdom’s parliamentary democracy is weak.”

Lord Shinkwin’s amendment to the Motion not moved.