Victoria appears to be close to getting a grip on the so-called second wave. I will get to businesses in a second.
If the Minister is not, I suggest he reads an account of the outbreak at the Butcher Club in Chadstone shopping centre; it is of particular relevance to today’s debate in that the businesses in the case seem to have done everything right, yet they were still at the centre of contagion. In the accounts, it is almost possible to trace every step of the virus around the shopping centre and across the streets. My understanding is that some of the scores of local test and trace units around the country could operate in such a way, but it is clear that our national, privatised, chaotic system cannot. What justification do the Government have for continuing with the failing system, as a number of other noble Lords have asked?
We hope to see soon, as the amendment calls for, extra support for businesses—and, I would add, individuals. The Victoria outbreak was traced to a cleaner in a business who went to work ill out of economic necessity. We hope that such things do not happen in the UK, but the Government are not doing anything like enough to save people from that extremely difficult position.
11.48 am