My Lords, I have been calling for the vaccination of care home workers for months and months. I believe that, when we have had to have so many restrictions imposed upon us—on the number of people we could have in our own homes, where we could go and what we could do—it is entirely reasonable to say that those who care for the most vulnerable members of society should be obliged to be vaccinated. I think that that is reasonable. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, indicated that that was the line that she took.
However, I have been doing this for month after month after month, going back to the very beginning of this year, if not before. I regret infinitely the way in which there has been prevarication. It seems to me so obvious that, if this had been said at the beginning of the year, proper legislation could have been produced.
My noble friend Lady Noakes talked about the contempt with which Parliament has been treated. I do not think that anyone since Cromwell has treated Parliament with greater contempt, over a whole range
of issues. We are a parliamentary democracy, and the Government are answerable and accountable to Parliament. We have been through an extraordinary series of emergencies, when it has been understandable that certain measures had to be taken, but there has been far too much retrospective legislation, far too much secondary legislation and far too many Henry VIII clauses. I beg the Government and my noble friend Lord Bethell—I am sorry that he is not here; he cannot be with us because he is in isolation. He has not treated your Lordships’ House with contempt—far from it—but there has been an arrogance that has not been attractive.
It is right that we proceed, but it would have been very much better to have primary rather than secondary legislation. Lessons should be learned. We have to come back—the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made this point in her speech—to the fact that a very large percentage of those who perished from Covid were in care homes. There were all sorts of factors such as the release of people from hospital to care homes. But the plain, blunt fact is that over one-third—probably 40%—of those who make up the frightening statistic of those who have died were in care homes. Those in care homes are, by very definition, not very mobile, particularly the elderly in care homes. They are fixed.
I first brought this to the attention of the House and Ministers because of a great friend of ours who had a mother who has since died. She was 99 when she died and she had a long life and a good life, until towards the end. Our friend used to say to us, “I have to dress up in all manner of accoutrements, I cannot hold my mother’s hand”—and she could not until just a week or two before she died—“and I cannot communicate with my deaf mother properly.” And yet, in the care home in which she was being well looked after, something like one-third of those looking after her most intimate needs were refusing to be vaccinated. That cannot be right.
Of course, I do not believe in compulsory vaccination regardless, but I do believe it is entirely reasonable to say that those in certain positions have an obligation to their vocation and those they are looking after to do so as safely as possible. We know the efficacy of vaccination; it is not perfect, but it gives a high degree of protection. It is therefore entirely reasonable that we ask those fulfilling those tasks to be vaccinated. But it could have been done in a much better way. The policy could and should have been announced at the beginning of the year because the facts have not changed. There would have been ample time then for primary legislation.
I will not, of course, support the amendment to the Motion moved very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, although I respect her very much. I shall vote for the Government; I will be voting with relief but, at the same time, with a heavy heart.
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