My Lords, as has been said, even by recent standards the timing of this debate is particularly ironic. On the very day that we move to step 3 of the easing of lockdown restrictions, here we are debating the move to step 2, which happened five weeks ago. To make matters worse, given the much more transmissible Indian variant, which the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said at the weekend could “spread like wildfire”, this easing now feels fraught with risk. I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, just said about the need for us to scrutinise regulations in advance.
The Indian variant has caused great anxiety in recent days. For many people it feels as if, just when the sunlit uplands were coming into view, they are being snatched away by a new variant when more efforts could and should have been taken to avoid it. The Sunday Times
reported this weekend that at least 20,000 passengers who could have been infected with the new variant were allowed to enter the UK because the Prime Minister delayed imposing a travel ban from India. I add my voice to those of other noble Lords asking whether the Minister can explain why India was added to the red list only on 23 April, three weeks after the announcement of a ban on flights from Pakistan and Bangladesh, both of which had lower case rates than India.
The combination of moving up the steps and the Indian variant makes having an effective test, trace, isolate and support system ever more critical. I place particular emphasis on the last two words—isolate and support—which is where things are still breaking down. The major problem reported by local resilience forums is that people are still not self-isolating and will not until they get their income paid. It is those on zero-hours contracts, those doing jobs that you cannot do from home and families living in multigenerational households who need the support most. People do not want vouchers; they want their earnings reimbursed. Reimbursing earnings is substantially cheaper than running the test and trace functions and, if a serious case of Covid occurs, the cost to the NHS.
I end by asking what planning is under way for a third wave, especially for paediatric care, given that as more adults are vaccinated it is possible that a variant may affect much younger children than in previous waves. Both the USA and Canada are reporting much higher cases in children than before and are starting to vaccinate children in the 12 to 15 age range. What plans are being developed for vaccinating children in this country?
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