I agree with every word of what the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) said. She made the point that we took the Bill through the House in one day and it was in fact unnecessary because the power was already replicated in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That was not just my opinion on 23 March—it was also reiterated by the Speaker’s Counsel, who actually wrote the Civil Contingencies Act, so that makes the point in terms.
Some improvements have been made in the proposal before us today, and that is good. However, as the hon. Lady said, we had forced quarantine, effectively house arrest, for the whole population; schools shuttered; cancelled elections; lone doctors being allowed to section people, an astonishing removal of civil liberties; families being unable to hold the hands of their loved ones; dog walkers in Derbyshire being embarrassed; and people being stopped because they had coffee on a walk in the park. This is not the sort of thing that is policing by consent in the United Kingdom. As she said, of 292 cases brought by the police, not one stood up—not one. That is an astonishing statistic, and we should remind ourselves every day this Act is in place that that is the case.
The other point, which the hon. Lady did not make much of but I think is important, is that of accountability. The point of bringing the Government back here—any Government, by the way, not just this Government—is to improve decision making; to make them make the right decisions. We have just had an astonishingly thorough report from two Select Committees that has pointed out that the Government have made mistake after mistake after mistake—mistakes that cost thousands of lives.
The one that leaps out at me is the treatment of care homes, but that was only one part of it: there was also the triaging system. All of it led to thousands of lives being lost. Those mistakes might not have been made if the Government had to justify every element of their strategy throughout these past 575 days. What I said back on 23 March—that this was an unnecessary Bill—I believe still today. I agree that the way to do this is to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.
4.3 pm