Dr Zoe Harcombe – written evidence (CIC0058)

House of Lords Constitution Committee

Inquiry into the Constitutional Implications of COVID-19

Introduction

1. am an independent researcher. I work for myself. I am thus free to write as I find and not beholden to any paymaster (unlike the key members of SAGE).1 I have been researching Covid-19 and writing about it since early March 2020.2 I have analysed a number of academic papers that have been published on Covid-19 and published articles about these e.g. The Lancet paper on Social Distancing3 and the recent Lancet paper on the efficacy of global lockdown measures.4 I have written about test specificity and sensitivity,5 Covid-19 and vitamin D,6 excess deaths at home,7 excess deaths national and internationally, 8 and Covid-19 risk factors.9 During this time I have examined the data at least weekly (ONS, worldometer, etc) and ignored the hysteria that has emanated from main stream media.

Questions and answers

Does the Coronavirus Act 2020 strike the right balance between powers for the Executive and parliamentary oversight and approval?

2. No. The Coronavirus Act (348 pages with 102 sections and 29 schedules) was pushed through all its stages in a single day in each House as the lockdown was announced. It is impossible that this could have been given sufficient parliamentary oversight and yet it impacted every aspect of the Executive and the lives of every UK citizen.10

What existing powers (other than those in the Coronavirus Act 2020) might have been used to deliver the Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic? Was the Coronavirus Act 2020 necessary to implement the Government’s response to the pandemic?

3. The government needed to remember that it is elected by the public to serve the public and not to control the public or to turn the country into a dictatorship (when the government dictates everything from whom one can hug and when one can leave home, one lives in a dictatorship). No act was necessary. The government simply needed to share undramatised facts with citizens and then let them take the risk that they chose to take. Advice could be given (as it is with smoking, for example, but people are still free to smoke and smoking will kill far more citizens than Covid-19 ever will).

4. This year saw the insanity that I was essentially not allowed to leave my home, but had I been able to leave my home, I would have been allowed to take part in free climbing – which, for me, would have meant almost certain death. I could leave home to travel to Dignitas to kill myself, but I couldn’t visit my mother in hospital.

How have the measures taken by the Government to address the pandemic been implemented, i.e. which aspects of the lockdown were set out in legislation, regulations and guidance? What effect has this had on the clarity of the measures? 5. I don’t know. What I do know is that everything has been presented as if set in law when it hasn’t been. The government has deliberately misled people to imply that they had more powers than they did.

Has the use of emergency powers by the Government to address the pandemic been proportionate?

6. Absolutely not. We have had approximately 50,000 EXCESS deaths in recent bad flu seasons (and the population was lower then).11 We didn’t turn the UK into a dictatorship and panic buy toilet rolls.

Criminalisation and enforcement

What new criminal offences have been introduced as part of the Government’s response to the pandemic? Is criminalisation a proportionate, justified and appropriate response?

7. I don’t know all the criminal offences that have been introduced – I dread to think – but criminalisation is not proportionate, justified or appropriate. The fines have been absurd and obscene. Three students (who have nothing whatsoever to worry about with this virus) were fined £10,000 each for doing what students should be doing. 12 A gym owner was fined £67,000 for opening his gym – when we know that exercise can help immunity and mitigate metabolic syndrome – which would give someone a better outcome with Covid-19.13 Is this really happening in the UK?!

Have the new criminal offences introduced in response to the pandemic been sufficiently clear to: (a) members of the public and (b) the public authorities responsible for their interpretation and enforcement (including the police and the Crown Prosecution Service)?

8. Absolutely not. Not even the politicians14 or police chiefs15 know what the ‘rules’ are.

What factors led to wrongful arrests and convictions under the emergency powers and how might these have been avoided?

9. No comment.

Promulgation

To what extent have the legal requirements imposed on people during lockdown been clear and accessible to members of the public? How should the new measures introduced in response to the pandemic be communicated and explained to authorities (e.g. local government, police, border force, regulators), businesses and members of the public?

10. See above – the UK should not have been turned into a dictatorship/police state. When I first saw Wuhan in lockdown I honestly thought “Thank goodness I don’t live in a country that would ever do that.”

Devolved and local government What have been the consequences of legal divergence between the constituent parts of the in responding to the pandemic?

11. I live in Wales and I did not vote for devolution. I had no idea that Wales could imprison me differently to the rest of the UK until it happened. I am aghast at the powers that have been abused by politicians in all regions of the UK. There is no party I could vote for right now. I am disgusted by all of them, except the growing number of (Conservative) MPs who have woken up to what is happening to their masters – the voting public.

Have local authorities been granted adequate powers to respond to the pandemic in their local area? Have the emergency measures taken by the Government struck the right balance of power between national and local governments?

12. Don’t give anyone any more power – we’ve already had the most heinous demonstration as to how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

How well have intergovernmental relations worked during the crisis through established mechanisms and through the Civil Contingencies Committee (COBR)?

13. I don’t know. Nothing has worked well from what I’ve seen. The money that has been wasted on this entire fiasco is eye watering and unforgivable.

14. The 8th SAGE meeting (18 Feb) reported “9. When there is sustained transmission in the UK, contact tracing will no longer be useful.” 16 So why have we wasted so much money since on something the scientists knew to be pointless? Why are we wasting £ billions on when we know the PCR test is about as reliable as an actresses age?

Are there examples from other countries that are instructive as to the management of the virus between national and regional/state legislatures and executives?

15. Yes – Sweden of course – treat people like grown-ups, protect the vulnerable and let the population acquire natural immunity.

Parliamentary scrutiny

To what extent has Parliament been able effectively to scrutinise the statutory instruments related to the pandemic measures? What additional steps ought to be taken to ensure effective scrutiny of emergency statutory instruments in future?

16. See answer to Q1. Parliament has been treated with contempt. When I have watched some televised discussions, parliament has had a few tens of people in the chamber. This is not proper debate with all MPs, as has been the British way for centuries. It appears that four people – Johnson, Hancock, Gove and Sunak – have been running the UK as they like for the past several months.

To what extent are safeguards on emergency powers (such as provisions for 21-day reviews) undermined when Parliament is not sitting, or when sittings are restricted? How might the law and/or parliamentary procedure need to adapt to such circumstances? 17. The safeguards cannot be working or we would not still be living in a police state. The virus peaked around April 8th and has been following the normal virus trajectory (Gompertz curve) ever since.17 And yet there is now talk of nothing being normal ever again – or maybe by Christmas 2021 if we are good children. What is happening?

What processes are there for securing renewed Parliamentary oversight and control of the legislative agenda once the urgency of a given emergency has diminished? Are the sunset provisions and other safeguards provided for in the Coronavirus Act 2020 and associated regulations sufficient for this purpose?

18. I don’t know. I just know something isn’t working because the UK has turned into North Korea.

What lessons can be learned from the (1) Government’s preparation, and (2) Parliament’s constrained scrutiny of the fast-tracked Coronavirus Bill? What should be done differently the next time there's a need for substantial emergency legislation?

19. We must never, ever lock the country down again. Lockdowns achieve nothing in terms of the virus.18 (To be fair they weren’t intended to – lockdown was only intended to avoid any deaths because someone couldn’t be treated because the NHS was overwhelmed. The UK never came close to this capacity constraint). Lockdowns do, however, kill people from untreated non-communicable disease (heart disease, cancer diabetes, dementia) and they kill people from domestic violence and suicide, and they kill the spirit and will to live for the elderly. (I have lost one parent to lockdown and the other is well on the way, so yes, this is personal). Then there’s the economy – totally destroyed and completely unnecessarily – and the lives and livelihoods that will be destroyed with this.

How does and should the Sewel/Legislative Consent convention operate in relation to emergency legislation?

20. I don’t know.

Is there a case for reworking or consolidating emergency powers legislation? Should safeguards and scrutiny processes be standardised and, if so, how should they be designed to operate during a crisis?

21. I would support the introduction of any and all measures that will ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I wake each morning and I have to pinch myself that I’m a British citizen living in the UK. I cannot believe that a government could do this to its citizens – to terrify them for no good reason and to take away their humans rights and civil liberties. To legislate that people give birth and die alone. To mandate with whom we can have sex, when we can leave home and for what purpose, what items we can buy in a supermarket, and how far we can travel to go for a walk. PLEASE – you must stop this insanity happening and make sure that it never happens again.

22. At the 15th SAGE meeting on the 13th March, it was recorded “27. Greater transparency will help people understand personal risk and enable personal agency, send useful signals about risk in general and build public trust. Citizens should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.”19

17/11/2020 References

1 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/11/sage-conflicts-of-interest/ 2 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/03/coronavirus-covid-19-some-facts-figures/ 3 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/06/social-distancing-the-evidence/ 4 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/11/the-impact-of-lockdowns/ 5 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/04/covid-19-tests/ 6 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/05/covid-19-vitamin-d/ 7 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/10/uk-deaths-in-2020/ 8 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/06/covid-19-deaths-excess-deaths/ 9 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/04/covid-19-risk-factors/ and https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/05/fat-shaming-or-life-saving/ 10 https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/privatelaw/Freshfields_Lecture_2020_Government_by_Decree.pdf 11 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/high estnumberofexcesswinterdeathssince19992000/2015-11-25 12 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-54511643 13 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/14/london-gym-owner-fined-67000-for-refusing-to- close-during-lockdown 14 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-lockdown-boris-johnson-dominic-raab-downing- street-latest-a9507981.html 15 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-chief-leading-on-covid-doesn-t-know-if-households-can-mix- indoors-6c20p9pjp 16 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sage-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-18- february-2020 17 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/06/covid-19-deaths-excess-deaths/ 18 https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2020/11/the-impact-of-lockdowns/ 19 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sage-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-13-march- 2020 Lord Sumption also quoted this in his lecture of October 27th 2020 https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/privatelaw/Freshfields_Lecture_2020_Government_by_Decree.pdf