My Lords, it is a pleasure and a surprise, as we are discussing an SI, to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton. Although I do not agree with much, I do agree that it is very helpful that we are discussing these SIs so quickly, so I thank my noble friend the Minister. I also agree that we must not put retail workers at risk, as we are in the process of discussing in our debates on the police Bill, and that air filtration systems can be valuable in many settings.
The background to this debate is that we have taken major steps to limit the impact of Covid-19, with 115 million vaccine doses now injected in arms across the country. The more vulnerable and elderly have received boosters now totalling over 18 million, and the race is on to double this quickly. This has been well done and we must all be grateful.
We now face the challenge of the omicron—I am told that is stressed like omega, if you studied Greek, which I did not—and I rise to offer modest support for, but also some concerns about, the new regulations on masks. In particular, I agree that it is right to limit their compulsory scope to transport, shops and services such as hairdressers and banks. I am less happy with the regulation on self-isolation, which is potentially much more onerous and lasts, as we have heard, not for three weeks but until 24 March. I have some questions for my noble friend the Minister.
First, how will all this end? What virulence criteria in relation to omicron will lead to the removal of the restrictions? Can this be done at speed like their imposition or, as we have seen before, will such regulations linger on?
Second—and I have a family interest here—can there be an opt-out from travel quarantine testing for those who have recently recovered from Covid and registered as such? This is very important for children at school, where the virus continues to spread fast. I know that the travel PCR requirements are not covered in these regulations, but I hope that the Minister will answer anyway and make sure that further regulations are clear. There is so much confusion.
I would like to record my belief that both sets of regulatory proposals have a serious defect: we do not have the benefit of an impact assessment or anything like it. It may be technically true that there is an exemption for rules lasting less than a year, but it is a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs. An assessment of the cost and economic impact of such measures is essential to good government and the future well-being of our country, and should inform all decisions such as these. Take the first instrument on masks; the analysis in Paragraph 12 of the Explanatory Memorandum is embarrassingly inadequate and does not even mention small business. What studies have the Government conducted into children wearing masks, the negative and the positive? What is the evidence that they will help with the infectious omicron variant?
Let us consider the second set of regulations. The new self-isolation controls will have a huge impact on work, schools, health, social care and other services, as case numbers rise and the “pingdemic” of last summer
returns. They also deal a body blow to the already struggling transport industry, with billions wiped off its value since last week. Do the Government prepare proper assessments to inform their actions? I hope they do; they should summarise or publish them for debates such as these. Doing so would serve to limit overreaction. The last couple of days have been full of rumours of possible overreactions, such as masks being required in theatres and restaurants, and school plays and Christmas parties cancelled. Government spokesmen should be calming matters, not encouraging people to close things down.
We have been partly saved by vaccination, but we have encountered needless damage across the economy and society over the last two years, because of our lack of attention to economics. Saturday’s BBC coverage helped me to understand why. At his press conference, the Prime Minister was sensible and serious, but the lead commentary afterwards came from a member of one of the SAGE committees, Susan Michie. She is a professor of health psychology at UCL and a well-known communist, and she wanted to go much further. Why are there a number of psychologists on SAGE and not economists—although I think there is a leading statistician? Indeed, you might ask why communists are involved at all.
On my final point, perhaps my noble friend could say whether he and the Secretary of State, both of whom are more aware than their predecessors of the importance of growth and economics to the well-being of everyone in the country, might look at the composition of SAGE and add an economist or two, now it looks as though, sadly, Covid is continuing to be more extensive than we all hoped.