My Lords, in my four minutes I want to thank the Government for their tireless work to keep the people of this nation safe, add my support for the legislation that was needed when it was introduced, and make a plea for a clearer strategy going forward.
My thanks go to the Government for all their work steering a balanced course through incredibly difficult waters. This was not the 2020 that anyone envisaged. If one looks back to the December election, the challenge ahead of us was Brexit. Most thought that was a pretty tall order, even the greatest challenge of this generation, but little did we know that a greater challenge lay around the corner. We must ensure that in this debate we focus clearly on the virus as our enemy and not the Government, who have had a herculean task to balance many competing voices, contradictory advice and demanding dynamics. We are grateful for all their hard work.
I add my support to the Government as we approach the six-month review of the Coronavirus Act. When it was passed on 25 March, it was against a backdrop of people quite literally dying on the streets of Wuhan and on hospital floors in Italy. We knew that we needed to move fast and that we would need the flexibility of the legislation. The Government have, for the most part, used it appropriately and in as limited a form as possible, to secure and ensure our safety, as was intended.
My concern does not lie so much with this Act as with the Public Health Act, and with actions that the Government have taken that people believe are within the powers of this Act, but which are not. I call on the Government to clarify their strategy going forward. They must be clear on what instructions have the weight of the law behind them and what instructions
are guidance only, and, when they issue guidance, what the intention is. Most members of the public are not skilled in government speak.
Let us take the last round of announcements on Tuesday. There were new, legally enforceable changes made concerning restaurants and pubs. However, in the same breath there was an update to guidance asking office workers to work from home. The way that this announcement was made left most office workers with the distinct impression that the Government had given them a legal instruction to work from home. Many have taken steps to comply. However, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said it differently:
“We are stressing that if it is safe to work in your workplace, if you are in a Covid-secure workplace, then you should be there if your job requires it. But if you can work from home”.
The Prime Minister said that we were once again asking office workers to work from home where possible but stressed that this was
“by no means a return to the full lockdown”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/9/20; col. 798].
Government guidance was equally confusing, saying that:
“To help contain the virus, office workers who can work effectively from home should do so over the winter. Where an employer, in consultation with their employee, judges an employee can carry out their normal duties from home they should do so. Anyone else who cannot work from home should go to their place of work.”
As an ex-special adviser, I hear what the Government are saying: if you are a driver of your project or need to work collaboratively with others, then the Government do not want the effectiveness of your work damaged, but rather that your focus is on ensuring a Covid-secure environment. However, the Government are focused on risk reduction. Therefore, if the tasks that you undertake are less collaborative in nature and do not have numbers of interrelated dependencies, and if your employer is content with this, then we would want your employer to enable you to work from home.
Yet up and down the country this is not how people have interpreted it, and at a time when the Government are seeking to balance people’s health with maintaining an effective business drive so that we emerge Brexit ready, ready with momentum for growth, this needs to be said. I therefore thank the Minister for all his hard work. I will support the Government today but ask him to clarify their intent in his closing remarks.
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