My Lords, it is good to be able to debate a piece of legislation that is quite technical but still quite important. The regulations themselves are entirely sensible as tidying-up legislation after the coronavirus pandemic, but they trigger a few points that are worth putting on the record and seeking a response from the Minister on.
The first is just to note that it is good that we are following the international standards on this. I am sure all noble Lords experienced that period during the pandemic when there was confusion around which countries accepted whose tests and it became blindingly obvious that we needed international recognition. It is pleasing that we are following a standard that, as the Minister said, 90 bodies are now signed up to. It is good to have the confidence that when we pay for tests here in the United Kingdom, there is a good chance that they will have that international recognition. Does the Minister have a sense of whether other countries are following a similar path, where they implemented a special regime during the pandemic that they are
now transitioning into a normal regime, just as we are doing today? Is the United Kingdom in step with other countries or are we ahead of or behind them? It would be interesting to know that; I assume the department has done some work around it.
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The second is on whether there has been any post hoc assessment of the special regime that we had in place for getting testing up and running—as the Minister said, we were trying to do that urgently. Were there any material differences in outcomes between that special regime and the business-as-usual regime? In other words, did we introduce any additional risk by having this faster-to-market process, and is any research going into understanding whether there was a material difference in the special regime?
The third is on whether there is now a plan in place for emergency testing regimes in future. Sadly, we have to anticipate that there will be other pandemics. I note that in the news today there is discussion of influenza transmitting; I think it is a swine-based influenza that seems to have been transmitted to humans. We are monitoring novel pathogens all the time and, unfortunately, in future they may replicate to some extent what occurred during the pandemic. It would be nice to know that there is a plan in place for what we might call a routine emergency. If we can predict the emergency, surely we can predict whether we will need another special authorisation testing regime. Perhaps we can get there quicker next time rather than having to make it up on the fly, as we had to this time because it was our first experience of it.
The fourth is on whether there are any implications in these regulations for other forms of private testing. For example, I know that the private sector may want to test employees for influenza and that there are private testing regimes available for other diseases, such as ordinary influenza. Does the regime that we are now implementing for Covid testing have any broader implications, or is it limited specifically to Covid testing and will other forms of disease testing be entirely unaffected by it?
The final point is to understand whether there has been any reaction from testing providers. How do they feel about this transition, in both senses—to the special regime and now out of it into a business-as-usual regime? It is interesting that we are told there is no need for an impact assessment of the regulations because it is too small now. The impact assessment process is useful and, if we do not do that process going into the special regime, because it is too urgent and there is no time to do it, and then do not do one coming out, because by that stage it is too small a market and we no longer think it valid, that raises an important question for our proceedings. At what point do we look at the financial impact of bringing in a regime like this and then moving out of it if, as I say, we are not testing on the way in or the way out?
We have no opposition to the regulations themselves. These questions were simply an opportunity to flesh out the learnings from what we all went through in the pandemic.